by Laura Drewry
Took him the rest of that day to get his head straight again.
He’d almost convinced himself he’d only reacted that way because he hadn’t been with a woman in (holy shit) almost a year. But there was a tiny little voice in his head that told him that was a pile of crap, and no matter how hard he tried to shut that voice up, it wouldn’t go away.
It was Jess, for crying out loud. Sure, when he first met her, he thought she was cute as hell, but that was a lifetime ago. At seventeen, with his hormones in full swing, he’d known better than to make any kind of move on her, because to start with, Da wouldn’t have put up with shit like that, but more to the point, she’d shown zero interest in him.
And, yeah, he’d tried to show off a few times, but that was as far as he went. Eventually, he’d gotten over that crush, as he’d done with every other one he’d ever had, so why the hell had he reacted like that to her touch now, after all these years?
“Come on,” Liam said, nudging Finn’s elbow. “Let’s go.”
After ditching their wet rain gear, they headed for the pub-style restaurant, where Jess, Kate, and Olivia were waiting for them with fresh pints of Gat.
“May the wind be at his back.” Liam lifted his glass and the others knocked theirs against it. “And here’s to Kate, for getting us Hooked.”
It took Finn a fraction of a second longer than it should have to lift his glass to that, and while he might have imagined it, he would have sworn Jess hesitated, too.
There was no doubt that having Sam Ross film his show at the Buoys would be huge for them, and Finn was glad for that. Hell, he’d been the one who’d come up with the idea in the first place. He just didn’t want it to be a problem for Jess.
He knew she and Sam had had a thing for a while; hell, he’d been standing right there when Liam practically shoved Jess into Sam’s arms. Ronan was the one who’d found out Jessie had ended it when she returned to the Buoys. She hadn’t shared many details, but Ronan said it sounded like they were still friends.
Yeah, Finn mused. But what kind of friends?
Jess had never been one to spill a lot about that side of her personal life, at least not to Finn or his brothers, and Finn had never pried. She’d mentioned a couple of guys over the years, and he knew she’d been out with a few before Sam when she lived in Vancouver, but since moving back here, the Buoys had pretty much taken over her life, like it had before, so…
Did she miss Sam or miss actually having a life outside the Buoys? And if she hooked up with Sam again, would she leave? God, Finn hoped not, because without Jess, this place would be nothing but bleak and shitty.
Oh crap. Had he been staring at her that whole time? He must have been, because she was frowning at him and it looked as if she was about to say something, but Olivia spoke first.
“Okay.” Olivia wiped her lip and nodded, just like she’d done every week before grilling them on another piece of the Buoys’ history. “Let’s see.”
So far, she’d quizzed them on everything from how long it took them to build the Buoys, to what life was like growing up in such an isolated place, to why they’d all left if they loved it so much.
Finn and his brothers shared bits of stories with her, but it wasn’t the O’Donnell way to talk about the dark times, like Ma’s leaving and Da’s drinking. Instead, they talked about how Da had taught them everything they knew, from baiting a hook to swinging a hammer, how they’d all done their part to build the Buoys up to what it was today, and how they’d never known any other way of life, so the isolation didn’t bother any of them. The three of them liked the seclusion.
Explaining why they’d all left the Buoys…well…there was no way to nice that up, so they’d pretty much dodged that question by saying they wanted to see what life was like out in civilization.
Outsiders didn’t need to know the truth: that Ro left at nineteen after getting into a huge row with Da, or that Liam always claimed he left because he got drafted, which was true, but even without baseball, he’d have been gone the minute he graduated high school just to get away from the old man’s black mood swings.
As for Finn…despite Da and his drinking, Finn had never wanted to leave; the ocean was where he belonged, it was who he was, but a guy could only listen to his da tell him he was a “fuckin’ mistake” so many times before it broke him.
It was no secret to Finn that he’d been a mistake; he’d known it most of his life. Hell, he even knew it was the reason Ma finally packed up and left, so as the years went by, it shouldn’t have hurt so much every time the old man said it. But it did.
“I’ve got it.” Olivia smirked as she looked at Finn and Liam but thumbed toward Jess. “Tell me about this one. I’ve been here a couple months now and I only found out about Sam Ross yesterday. She hardly ever talks about herself and never about anything too personal—”
“It’s almost like she’s an O’Donnell,” Kate snickered, then raised her hands defensively when Finn and Liam balked. “Oh, come on, tell me I’m wrong.”
They couldn’t.
“And there’s no doubt she does a great job around here,” Olivia went on. “But I gotta tell you, I’ve never heard an employee talk to her bosses the way this one does.”
“What do you mean?” Jess cried, sputtering over her glass. “I don’t—”
The chokes and snorts from everyone else drowned out her denial until she finally conceded with a shrug, blushing a soft pink all the while.
“Whatever,” she laughed. “Sometimes they just need to be yelled at.”
After a second, Liam looked over at Finn and tipped his head in question, but Finn waved him on. There wasn’t a hope he’d be able to speak coherently until Jess stopped blushing like that.
“Okay, let’s see.” Liam leaned back in his chair, wrapped his arm around Kate’s shoulders, and squeezed as he tipped his head in Jess’s direction. “This one stepped off a float plane thirteen years ago, green around the gills and shaking like a leaf, and then flat out refused to leave, even though Da insisted the Buoys was no place for a skinny little girl like her.”
“I was neither skinny nor little,” Jess interjected.
“How old were you?” Olivia asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Yeah,” Liam chuckled. “And I bet she weighed all of about a buck fifteen when she got here.”
If that, Finn mused. She’d put on weight since then, but it was all muscle and curves.
“Ro had been gone a couple years by that time,” Liam went on. “And I’d just been drafted, so I was on my way out of here, too, which meant we were going to be shorthanded. But this one jumped right in and worked her skinny little ass off. The way Da spoke, it sounded like the place would have collapsed into the ocean if not for her, eh, Finn?”
Finn nodded slowly as memories of that summer flooded his mind. They hadn’t had a female at the Buoys full-time since Ma left, and the last thing Finn or the old man expected was to find out this skinny little girl worked harder than most of their male employees. She’d started out doing housekeeping and helping in the kitchen, but by the end of that summer, she pretty much had her hands in everything except for going out on the boats.
Jess had hardly spared Finn a glance that whole summer, but he’d sure watched her. Hell, she was the reason he’d blown off that other girl, the one from school…the one with the long blond hair who’d kept phoning him…what was her name?
Andrea.
No, that wasn’t it. Amanda, maybe? Angela?
Whoever she was, he’d liked her, but not enough to ask her out. And from the second Jess stepped off that plane he didn’t give the blond girl another thought that whole summer. Not exactly one of the most considerate or chivalrous times of his life, but Blondie hadn’t wasted any time moving on, so…
What the hell was her name?
“You stayed?” Olivia asked, turning to Jess. “Weren’t you still in school?”
“Sort of.” Jess grinned guiltily as she ducked her
head a little. “I kind of lied and told Jimmy I’d finished high school when I still had to get through my senior year. So I had my mom hook me up through a correspondence school.”
“But…” Olivia hesitated, tipping her head a bit, as if she was trying to gauge whether or not she should ask. “No offense to anyone here, but what did your folks think about you living out here alone with Finn and Mr. O’Donnell when you were so young?”
“I don’t know, I never asked.” Jess lifted her glass, then shrugged slowly before drinking.
“Oh.” Olivia didn’t seem to know what to do with that information.
Finn had met Jess’s folks a couple of times over the years, and while they seemed nice enough, there was something odd about them. It was as if their eyes were…vacant…or something. But when he’d asked Jess about it, she shut him down flat and refused to talk about it.
“Okay.” Olivia drew the word out slowly, as though she wasn’t sure what else to say about that, and then decided to change tacks instead. “So tell me this. You and Finn are about the same age, no? So why didn’t you go to school with him instead of doing everything by correspondence?”
“Because.” Jess’s brown eyes flashed over to Finn, her shoulders stiffening slightly as they always did when things like this came up. “He went back and forth by boat every day.”
“Not only that.” Having finally found his voice again, Finn shot Jess a quick wink, which seemed to ease some of her tension. “From the second she stepped off that Cessna, she made herself so indispensable to the old man that he couldn’t afford to have her anywhere but here every day.”
“Hardly.” Jess’s quiet laugh made Finn smile, too. “Jimmy tried to get rid of me lots of times; I just wouldn’t listen to him.”
“Thank God for that,” Liam said, lifting his glass in her direction.
And while they didn’t go any deeper than that with Olivia, the rest of them knew Liam was talking about more than Jess keeping things going at the Buoys. She’d kept the old man going, too.
After Ma left them, Da had taken to the bottle with a vengeance. He wasn’t so bad when there were guests at the Buoys, but during the off-season, when it was just him and his boys…things tended to get ugly.
Once Jess arrived, though, that changed, because she never left, not even in the off-season. She helped the old man with the off-season upkeep and repairs while Finn was at school, but she also stood up to Da, refused to let him bully her, and finally helped him realize he had a serious problem. Sure, there were still a few times the old man got into one of his rages in front of Jess, but it wasn’t anything like it had been.
And if Da hadn’t joined AA when he did…Finn inhaled a long slow breath; it was unlikely he or either of his brothers would have ever come back.
Yup, Jessie Todd had changed everything for the O’Donnell family, and that was a debt they’d never be able to repay.
“What do you think, Finn?”
Blinking his brother’s face back into focus, Finn gave his head a quick shake and grinned.
“Sorry? Kinda zoned out there for a second.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Liam snorted. “We’re talking about where we’re going to put Sam and his crew next month.”
“Thought it was already sorted out. Sam’ll take the empty guest room upstairs, and his crew can use the two empty A-frames out back.”
“Right.” Liam nodded. “But once word gets out that he’s coming here, we’re going to have people looking for rooms that week, so if we move Sam and his crew to the empty bedrooms downstairs, that’ll free up both of the extra A-frames plus the guest room.”
“No.” It was out of Finn’s mouth before Liam even finished talking, and then he had to scramble to come up with a good reason. “Downstairs is for family only.”
“I’m down there,” Jess said, as though it was some kind of surprise to him. As though he hadn’t spent the last couple of weeks trying to avoid the hallway when she was wandering around in her pajamas.
That same damn hallway that had started to taunt him every night, daring him to leave his room and go down to hers. To open her door and—
No.
“The A-frames are supposed to be for employees, not guests.” He knew he sounded stupid, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“Yeah,” Liam scoffed. “Except Kate and Olivia are the only ones using them, so we have two perfectly good buildings sitting empty. We haven’t needed extra rooms so far, but why not put them to use if we can, make a little more money?”
“Liam has no need of his room downstairs,” Kate said, grinning up at him. “And with Ro gone, that frees up his room, too. We can easily put Sam and his two crew members down there. Those rooms are plenty big enough.”
“Or…” Finn’s brain finally latched on to something. “You and Liam could move into his room downstairs, and Olivia could move into Ro’s, and then—”
“No.” Kate and Olivia, in stereo.
“What?” He gaped. “Why not?”
“Because.” Kate blinked away from him, then lifted her chin and laughed. “I prefer having more than just a couple sheets of drywall between your bedroom and ours, if you don’t mind.”
“Damn right,” Liam muttered.
“It’s a couple of days,” Finn cried. “Surely to God you two can ease up on the wall-banging sex for a couple of days!”
Snickering, Olivia shook her head. “Sorry, Finn. I’m with them on this. As much as I like all of you,” she said, wincing slightly, “at the end of the day, I really like getting away from you, too.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Jess laughed. “It was one of the first things I warned Kate about when she arrived; we all need our space and there’s not much of that to be had around here, so you need to take it wherever you can.”
Why wasn’t anyone listening to Finn?
“It’s not like you’d be staying in the lodge forever,” he growled. “You can move back to the A-frames as soon as the Hooked people leave. What’s the big deal?”
“The bedrooms downstairs are pretty much empty.” Liam’s casual shrug was almost enough to make Finn want to punch him. “So it’s just easier to move them in down there instead of switching us all around.”
Easier for whom? It sure as hell wasn’t going to be easy for Finn, knowing that those thin sheets of drywall Kate mentioned would be the only thing separating Sam from Jess. They might not be together at the moment, but Finn wasn’t stupid. There wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t think Sam Ross was the hottest thing going, and a guy would have to be a complete idiot to not want to be with Jess.
So, yeah, Finn wanted a hell of a lot more than drywall between them—like, how about staircases and different floors? How about a couple of hundred meters of lawn, with the very real possibility of a bear attack? Yeah, that’d be more like it.
“Wait,” he said. “Ro’s coming home for this, so he’s going to need somewhere to sleep.”
“He can bunk with you.” Liam took a short sip of his Guinness, then lifted his free hand. “Come on, Finn, you said it yourself—it’s a couple of days. It’s not like they’re staying forever.”
Well…shit.
How the hell was he supposed to argue against his own damn point? He couldn’t.
If Jess and Sam were going to hook up again—something Finn definitely couldn’t rule out after hearing Kate and Olivia snickering about it in the kitchen—then…ugh…maybe Finn would go sleep on one of the boats.
Unless…
Jess didn’t seem all that excited when she found out Sam was coming to the Buoys, so maybe she wasn’t keen on him sleeping in the family quarters, so close to her.
“What do you think about it?” he asked, tipping his chin in her direction. “Are you okay with having them down there?”
“Yeah.” She half-choked, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on her glass. “It’s fine.”
Didn’t sound fine to Finn, and thankfully it must not have sounded fine to Liam or Kate, either.
“We won’t do it if you’re not a hundred percent on this,” Kate said. “We don’t want it to be awkward for you.”
“No, really, it’s fine.” She gave them one of those dismissive-type waves. “It’s just…you know…kind of weird that he’s going to be here, is all.”
“Atta girl,” Olivia cheered, grinning as she winked. “I bet he’d be happy to bunk with you if you asked, and that’d free up a whole ’nother room!”
Jess’s only response to that was a lackluster grin, not even half the size of Olivia’s, and a shrug. Then she downed the rest of her brew and pushed to her feet.
“Enough of this. Drink up; we’ve got work to do.”
They all grumbled quietly but didn’t waste time finishing their drinks and heading off in different directions. Olivia went straight to the kitchen, the one place at the Buoys where she ruled above all else, while Jess disappeared into the tiny back office to take care of the previous week’s bookwork.
As they did every week, Liam, Kate, and Finn rotated through the work that needed doing, which meant it was Finn’s turn to clean the three cabins that lined the cove. He would have preferred doing boat and dock maintenance, but there was no way Kate would trade, so he armed himself with the eco-friendly solutions Jess put together and headed down to Green cabin.
He didn’t mind cleaning, he just hated being trapped inside; it made it harder for him to think when he was confined. Outside, the salty ocean air and the cleansing effect of the wind and rain helped shake any fog or worries out of his head, and he really could have used that today.
Instead, he was stuck inside, scrubbing away all traces of the last guests. He’d grown up cleaning these cabins and had never thought anything of it until Jess made him watch a clip about what scientists found in hotel rooms, and ever since then he’d started taking a few more precautions: elbow-length rubber gloves, a thick heavy-duty apron, and a blue-trimmed scuba mask.
He didn’t want to know what people did in the cabins or up in the guest rooms, but he was going to make damn good and sure there wasn’t a single speck of their DNA left behind.
