by Annie O'Neil
He hopped over to the press-up bench and strapped on his prosthesis. When he rose again, squaring himself off to her as he pulled on his long-sleeved T-shirt, about a million butterflies took off, teasing her body’s erogenous zones as if he were tracing his fingertips along the surface of her skin as his eyes drank her in.
“Well, then.” She gave her hands a brisk let’s-get-to-it rub. “If you’re up for it, let me add some notches to your bow.”
Finn stood absolutely still, his eyes cemented to hers. “I don’t think that’s what you meant to say.”
“Of course I—” Naomi stopped. Had she?
Sometimes, even though it had been over ten years, she still muddled up British expressions. Her eyes widened as she realized how the expression could have been taken. Sexually.
“Oh, I didn’t—”
Before she could form a coherent thought, Finn crossed to her and she was in his arms, his mouth descending on hers as if the world’s most powerful magnets had drawn them together. When he first came up for air he looked into her eyes as if this had been the moment he’d been waiting for. The moment when his life would change forever.
She recognized the fire, because she felt the very same heat incinerating her every intention to remain immune to him. To protect her heart.
Her hands flew to his face, the pads of her fingertips enjoying the contrast between the hot, needy demands of his mouth and the masculine prickle of his stubble.
There was not a single cell in her in body with the power to resist. Neither did she want to.
One of his hands slid round her waist and pulled her tight to him. As if she wasn’t already arching into the solid heat of his chest. No one needed to tell them her body had been designed for his.
Finn slid his free hand up the nape of her neck and pulled back for a moment, looked deep into her eyes then changed tack, descending once again, to taste her in slow, luxurious hits of teasing kisses. He threaded his fingers into her loosely woven solitary plait and tipped her head back, dropping heated kiss after kiss on her throat.
Staying silent wasn’t an option.
It was the first moan of pleasure she had ever heard roll from her throat.
These were no ordinary kisses. This was no ordinary connection.
Desire. Hunger. Need.
They were slaking all of them, their bodies and mouths moving intuitively as if the universe had aligned its entire history for this very moment.
In the center of her fiercely pounding heart Naomi knew this moment would be forever branded on her soul.
And she also knew it could never happen again.
Not unless she made peace with her past—and fifteen years on it still seemed an impossible task.
* * *
Finn sensed the change in Naomi’s body language before she pulled away. They were the matching pieces of the puzzle of his life. He knew that in the very marrow of his bones.
When she stepped back, he didn’t try to stop her. He couldn’t.
His entire body was jacked up on adrenaline and hormones and one single move toward her might betray just how powerfully—how intimately—she had touched him. Had touched his heart.
“Don’t let me keep you if you need to set up your equipment.”
Naomi shook her head as if he were speaking a foreign language.
“No. It’s fine. It can wait. I was just being hyper-prepared.”
“Avoiding your life, you mean?”
Her expression became shuttered, her eyes protectively dropping to half-mast.
“I do exactly the same thing, Naomi. Take every shift going. Work out here just in case my phone goes. Tell myself, Look. Someone needs me. I’m trying to find proof, I suppose.” He looked her straight in the eye. “Proof there’s a reason why I exist.”
She didn’t even bother to protest. Didn’t need to. He could see it in her eyes. She shared exactly the same fears he had.
A gut-clenching fear that he hadn’t done enough to be worthy of the life he had.
It was the most honest he’d been with anyone in years. And every word he’d uttered was nothing less than the plain truth.
Hard to confront. Abrasive even. But real.
The door swung open and Evie appeared with an elf’s hat on her head and a Christmas wreath dangling from her arm. She was all smiles these days and today was no different. “Hey, you two! Coming upstairs for the carol concert in the foyer? Free mince pies and mulled wine for the over-eighteens who aren’t on duty!”
Naomi just stared at her as if she were a ghost.
Mercifully, Evie whirled around with a wave and a merrily trilled “Fa-la-la-la-la” before registering the shock of being interrupted on their faces.
“Carols?” Finn asked, as if it were the natural progression of snogging the woman of your dreams—Wait. Woman of his dreams? That was going to take some processing.
Naomi shook her head and pointed vaguely to another part of the hospital. “I’ve got to check on someone.”
No, she didn’t.
The message was clear. She was saying something, anything, to get as far away from him as possible.
“Fine.”
His stiff, abrupt movements as he pulled on his outdoor gym clothes spoke volumes. He didn’t want this to end. He wanted it to be the beginning. The frustrated yanks he gave his hoodie as he pulled it over his head and down across his torso—yes, he caught her looking when his shirt hitched up, ha!—were all far too familiar reactions for him. He’d behaved the same way with his ex-wife. Pushed her away when the going had got tough.
Well, he wouldn’t give Naomi the chance. Not tonight. Not ever.
He pretended not to watch as she went over to the duffel bag she’d brought in and pulled out a bright red picture frame with a tropical theme embossed along the edges. She turned around with a shy smile and showed him what looked like a family photo. “For Adao.”
Ah...
She actually was going to see someone.
He pressed his fingers to his eyes and gave his head a good shake. What an idiot.
He raised a hand to wave goodbye, but when he looked toward the doorframe she had already gone.
CHAPTER NINE
PACING ON A houseboat wasn’t much of a tension-reliever.
Finn loved the place even though he near enough brained himself on the doorframes every single day. The warm wooden planks. The compact but modern kitchen. The old leather sofa he’d wrangled in through the small rooftop hatch by sheer force of will.
The ability to untie himself from the mooring and set off whenever the mood struck.
It’s how he’d ended up here in Cambridge. He’d bought the portable home when his stint at rehab and his marriage had come to mutual and abrupt endings. He’d stayed in the Manchester area for a while to keep up with his rehab. But really? Once he’d cut ties with his past, he’d liked the idea that he could just cast off whenever he wanted and just go.
He stared at the phone for a minute, then picked it up, checking that he still had his ex-wife’s number. His mum had sent it to him “just in case.” She never nagged, but about once a year she asked if he’d “heard anything on the grapevine.”
The way he’d treated Caroline gnawed at his conscience.
They’d not been a match in the end. They’d been kids who’d married too soon, all caught up in the romance of him going off to war. The last thing they’d been equipped for had been for him to come back at the ripe age of twenty-four with one good leg and a seething ball of fury where the other one had been.
He’d been angry with everything and everyone back then. Most of all himself. But his immediate family had taken the brunt of it.
His parents had retired to Spain a while back and, before they’d gone, the three of them had made their peace. They got it.
It wasn
’t simply the loss of his leg. It was losing the army as well. It was his family’s chosen profession. His family’s history. And for the first time ever...a Morgan was stepping away from the front line.
Sure. It had been bad luck. No one looks to get injured.
But Caroline...bless her...she hadn’t been who he’d needed at his darkest hour.
And now, fourteen years after coming out of that pitch-black tunnel, he was beginning to think he’d found the woman he could open his heart to.
Someone who understood a core-deep sense of loss.
When Naomi looked into his eyes she seemed to see all of the trauma he’d endured and more. The pain. The doubt. The urgent, primal need to do better. To be better.
All the things he saw when he looked into Naomi’s eyes.
She knew him.
And for the first time since he’d cleared his social calendar of anything more than a casual fling he wanted more.
He wanted Naomi.
He stopped his pacing and snorted out a laugh as he remembered Theo warning him about wearing through the floorboards at the hospital. To do so on a houseboat would be little short of a disaster. He scanned the cabin, looking for something, anything, to do.
A stack of cookbooks lay front and center on his dinky kitchen island.
When in doubt?
Bake.
And while whatever he’d decided to rustle up was in the oven, he’d call Caroline. It was about fourteen years overdue, but...maybe he’d needed the time.
He began pulling ingredients out of the cupboards.
Excuses. Everything he thought up to say to her was an excuse.
The truth was, he’d met someone.
And if he were going to be in any sort of place to even try having a relationship, he needed to make peace with his past.
* * *
A quick look at the ward clock showed it was just after eight.
Naomi had ended up getting wrangled into listening to a few of the carols by a very happy Alice and Marco who’d let it slip they’d set their wedding date for just before Christmas.
She hoped they hadn’t noticed her fingers leap to cover her kiss-bruised lips as they’d spoken of their excitement about spending the rest of their lives together.
She’d made her excuses, something easily done in the hospital, and had come up here to see Adao. Chances were he was asleep, but even if she was able to tiptoe into his room and place the framed photo of him with his family near him, it would be nice for him to wake up to.
It wasn’t as if she was going to get much sleep tonight.
Kissing like teenagers!
No.
She shook her head.
What had happened with Finn had been two consenting adults ripping open a pent-up attraction. And from the looks of things, neither of them had any idea what to do next.
She’d had a couple of boyfriends, but nothing with this level of passion. If the gossip was anything to go by, Finn was a renowned lone wolf so... He was such a mystery to her and yet...a part of her felt like she’d been waiting her whole life to find him because she’d known him all along.
Those kisses.
Fireflies danced around her belly at the thought.
She’d kissed like a teenager with her boyfriend back in Zemara. It had been sweet. Innocent. Two young people focused on school, getting into university and then, when war had broken out, surviving.
She glanced at the photograph she’d managed to get from the medical charity.
In it Adao’s face was alight with an ear-to-ear grin. He was holding a puppy in one arm and had his other arm flopped round his big sister’s shoulders from his perch atop a large wooden barrel. His parents were behind the pair of them, also smiling. It was a perfect family photo and reminded her so much of how happy she had been with her own family that a prickle of impending tears teased at her throat.
She shook it away as she approached Adao’s room. She was here to comfort him, not cry about her own past.
Her eyes shot wide open when she reached the room. Far from asleep, Adao was wide awake, with a huge, cuddly labradoodle sprawled across his lap.
Alana, Doodle’s minder, was sitting in a chair a couple of meters away, reading a book.
Naomi tapped on the doorframe.
“Okay if I come in?”
Alana nodded toward Adao. It was up to him.
He looked at Doodle and the dog wagged his tail so he smiled and nodded.
“I’ve brought you something I thought you might like to put by your bed.”
“Really?”
The astonishment in his voice tugged at her heart.
She pulled the photo out from behind her back and showed it to him.
Tears instantly sprang to the little boy’s eyes. Naomi held her breath, suddenly worried it was the worst possible thing she could have given him. She hadn’t been able to look at any photos of her own family since they had been taken away that horrible day. They existed. In an envelope buried deep in the back of her cupboard. But to look at their smiling, beautiful faces every day and know she’d never see the real things again? She didn’t know that she had the strength.
“I love it. I love it so much. Thank you, miss.”
“Naomi,” she gently corrected.
He repeated her name as if tasting it, his eyes still glued to the photo. He pulled the photo close to his chest and hugged it, then lifted it up to his face and gave each of his family members a kiss.
Out of the corner of her eye Naomi saw Alana reaching for the box of tissues near her chair.
She didn’t blame her. The moment was about as powerful as they came. She was struggling to keep her own tears in check.
Adao’s face brightened as an idea struck. He showed the photo to Doodle. The dog sat up and listened as Adao pointed out his mother, father and sister. Then listened to a detailed explanation of where the picture had been taken—outside their home—when it had been taken—after they’d come home from church—what they had eaten afterwards—a huge meal with the rest of the members of their congregation—and how he had played and played with his friends that day. Played until the sun had gone down, when all their mothers had called them in and made them go to bed so they would be fresh for the next day at school.
His voice had cracked a bit at the end, but it was the happiest he’d ever sounded.
In fact, it was the most Naomi had ever heard him speak.
From the astonished look on Alana’s face, it was the most she had heard as well.
“Good idea,” the blonde woman mouthed.
“Naomi?” Adao was holding the photo out to her. “Could you please put this up so Doodle and I can see it from the bed?”
“Of course.” She made a bit of a to-do about rearranging the scant items on top of his bedside table and put the photo front and center as Adao lay back on his pillow. “Is this good here?” She gave it a tiny shift closer toward him.
He looked at Doodle for confirmation. The dog lifted his head and tilted it to the side as if checking it from the same angle as Adao, then gave a little woof.
Adao beamed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m so pleased you like it.”
There was a light knock on the door. Navya, one of the night sisters on the ward, was wearing The Look. It was gentle but firm, and it meant it was time to go now.
Naomi dropped a kiss on Adao’s head. “See you tomorrow, okay?”
For the first time he didn’t look at her fearfully and a huge warmth wrapped around her heart.
She walked to the elevator with Alana and Doodle, amazed at seeing the change in the little boy.
She gave the dog’s head an affectionate rub and smiled. “Does everyone tell him their secrets?”
“A lot of people do. Mostly the children,”
Alana conceded with a smile. “But you know what they say.”
Naomi shook her head and entered the elevator along with the pair of them. “What do they say?”
Alana cocked her head to the side at the same time as Doodle. “A problem shared is a problem halved. Or something like that. Maybe it’s burden.” She shrugged and grinned. “Better out than in is what it boils down to. Isn’t that right, Doodle?” She gave the dog a loving stroke. “This guy knows far too much about me. I’m surprised he doesn’t put his paws on his ears and start to howl half the time.”
Naomi laughed along with her, but the words were hitting home. She’d never shared her story with anyone. Not even the girls and women she’d first bunked with at the refugee facility she’d stayed in when she’d first moved to the UK. She’d nicknamed the facility “The House of Secrets.”
Naomi had convinced herself it was best to keep her story close. Hidden. But between kissing Finn and watching Adao pour out his life story to this adorable pooch...it was like the universe was offering her sign after sign that now was the time she needed to share her story.
And she knew exactly who she wanted to share it with.
The elevator doors opened and Alana and Doodle began to head toward the main exit. “Are you walking to the car park?”
Naomi shook her head. “I think I’m going to take a little walk along the river.”
“It’s freezing out there. Make sure you wrap up warm.”
Naomi watched as the pair ambled out of the hospital and toward the car park then set off with a gentle jog along the riverbank.
She’d know Finn’s place when she saw it.
Something told her the universe was working in her favor tonight and it was time to start reading the signs.
* * *
Finn was pulling the cake out of the oven when he heard the knock on the door.
What the—?
No one visited him. Ever.
He opened the door, feeling almost as shocked as Naomi looked to see him there.
“I need to tell you something. To explain.” She spoke low and urgently, as if she might implode if she didn’t get whatever it was she had to say out soon.
