*
Finn's fingertips felt like fire on her skin. A chaste, platonic touch, but it felt more intimate than it should have. Lily held perfectly still, balanced on the balls of her feet, trying not to let herself lean forward into his touch.
They'd barely exchanged a civil word between them, and he'd watched her like a hawk the entire afternoon. Somewhere between sitting across the table from one another and this very moment, the entire feel of his gaze changed from distrust to something much warmer. Fuzzier around the edges. And now that he'd locked her in with those dark eyes of his, she just wanted to rest inside this moment for a little bit longer, wherever it went. He let out a breath that sounded like a decision and tipped his head forward.
"Hey, thank you guys—" Ren's voice startled Lily and made Finn jump back nearly a foot, dropping his hand. Her heart raced wildly as she turned back to the sink and shut off the tap she'd left running.
"Don't be silly, think nothing of it," she said to the sink full of bottles, and possibly herself.
Ren had paused inside the door, like she realized she'd walked in on something, she just wasn't sure what it was. Neither was Lily. Finn mumbled something about his beer and let himself back out onto the porch.
The pregnant woman took a spot beside Lily at the sink, opening the dishwasher and separating the dirty plates Finn had left behind to load it.
"I know you haven't been here long, but it's nice having another woman around." Ren said, as she worked. "We'll never truly outnumber them, but it's nice to have a little more backup."
"You guys are wonderful, honestly. I feel like I'm with my own family," Lily replied, and she meant it. They'd so quickly opened their home and their hearts to her, she wondered why she hadn't taken Emma up on her offer to stay sooner. She turned and leaned back against the counter, crossing one arm over her waist and touching her lips with the fingertips of her other hand. She wished Ren had been just a few minutes later, so maybe it would have been Finn's lips on hers instead of her fingers. "I don't know how long I'll be here, though. The second I outstay my welcome, you'll let me know?"
Up until about ten minutes ago, she thought she might have already outstayed Finn's—hell, he hadn't acted like he welcomed her at all from the beginning, and they'd only made an uneasy truce.
Ren straightened, chuckling, and shook her head as she closed the dishwasher and grabbed a handful of bottles. "That doesn't tend to happen around here."
—EIGHT—
"Tucker!" Lily heard Emma hiss at the pup two seconds before she felt the cold, wet nose on her forehead, immediately followed by the long slurp of his tongue across her face. "Ugh, sorry."
Burrowing her face in the worn quilt covering her, Lily groaned. She loved the goofy pup, but they had to stop greeting one another this way. She uncovered her face and tucked the blankets under her arms, looking at her watch. They kept the dog closed up in their bedroom during the night, and he usually went straight outside with Noah in the morning when he got up to feed.
"Sorry… sorry," Emma repeated as she tugged the dog away. "I had to get a jump start on today and get some horses worked before a new arrival. He just loves you so damn much."
Lily chuckled and shifted into a sitting position. The ache in her bones told her she had a couple more nights of couch sleeping, max, before it was more couch laying than sleeping.
"Good thing the feeling is mutual, Tuck." Stroking the pup's ears, she swung her legs over the edge of the couch and tossed the quilt aside. She twisted slowly at the waist, stretching her arms over her head and working some of the stiffness out of her body before she rose to her feet. It would be a painkiller day she decided as she wandered into the kitchen. Emma handed her a mug of coffee.
"You wanna come up with me?"
Lily yawned and nodded, rummaging in her camera bag hanging by the door for her bottle of painkillers. She shook out two, then three of the white over-the-counter pills and popped them in her mouth, washing them down with the black coffee. Emma set a pair of empty travel mugs on the counter top side by side.
"Sure, I've just got to get dressed." She poured her coffee into one of the mugs and went to her duffle bag at the end of the couch. Living like this out of her bag wasn't convenient—she wasn't sure what she had expected—she'd known their place was small, but she couldn't imagine sending Encore alone and just hoping for the best. She'd been with him this far, she couldn't just abandon him when it came to the hardest part.
Ten minutes later, the two friends climbed into Noah's pickup truck and headed for the big house with Tucker sandwiched between them. Lily could see Finn in the round pen with Encore before they'd even pulled up in front of Dane's house.
"Hey, he looks good!" Emma said as they climbed out of the truck. "He's moving really well, Lily. I think we did a mighty fine job with his rehab."
Lily crossed in front of the Ford with a smile, Tucker hot on her heels.
"Couldn't have done it without you." She shrugged her camera bag higher on her shoulder. She had meant to go into the West pasture today to check out a big live oak Dane had told her about, but seeing Finn in the pen with Encore drew her like a moth to a flame. And Emma was already heading in that direction, striding confidently across the yard toward them. Lily had to jog a couple of steps to catch up with her friend's long legs, and Finn had already pulled up the horse by the time they got to the work space.
"'Morning Finnegan," Emma greeted him as Finn took his gloves off, tucking them into his back pocket.
"You're up early, Champ." He nodded to Emma, his eyes not straying from her face.
Lily didn't know if he was purposefully ignoring her or not. After the way their interaction had ended the last time, she wasn't sure, despite their conversation, she was welcome.
"I have a bunch of horses to work before Sandy Ray's mare comes in."
"Oh yeah? What's she sending Cocoa over for?"
"Just some fine tuning and hours. Her little boy is ready for small fry and they want to make sure all the kinks are worked out. He'll come over for lessons in a couple of weeks."
Clearly having been left out of the conversation, Lily tugged her camera bag around herself and removed the device. Encore had already lost interest in the humans and was watching a pen of calves by the heifer barn with interest. At Nate's prompting, they had done a couple of cattle penning weekends and they'd been fun, but the thrifty draft cross had no real cow sense, and neither did Lily. She made the round of the outside of the pen while Finn and Emma chattered about which horses were doing what, and took a couple of profile shots of her gelding, then crouched for a different angle, backed herself up against the panels of the pen to take a shot of what Encore was seeing, and then, just for good measure, put her head against his and turned the camera toward themselves for a selfie.
Before long, she saw Emma heading off for the horse barn. Her friend waved at her as she went, and just as Lily was about to follow, she heard Finn's voice behind her.
"We need to talk about your horse."
Because that phrase had been used in the darkest of times, Lily struggled with the jolt of anxious adrenaline coursing through her for a moment before she turned. She had to remind herself sometimes Encore was perfectly fine—physically, anyways—there was no chance of things taking a turn for the worse at this point, but it was hard to forget the memory of it.
When she looked up at Finn, he was scowling; a far cry from how he'd looked when he'd been making small talk with Emma earlier. She thought they'd come to an uneasy agreement yesterday, but his expression said otherwise. He was wedged in between the horse and the fence, closer than he'd let himself get to her since they'd arrived.
"What about him?" She sounded at least fifty percent braver than she felt when it came to facing down the thundercloud that was Finn Baylor.
"I mean, he works well, he's respectful. He's a far cry from the fire-breathing dragon Emma promised me."
She did her best to keep her jaw from dropping open,
but a short, tight laugh escaped instead. She shook her head with a smile. She knew there was no way in hell that was how Emma had described Encore to Finn, and to hear him described as such was almost comical.
"He's not a fire breathing dragon." She watched him for a second, her brow furrowing. What was he getting at? "Would it really be better if he was wild and crazy up front?"
"An honest crazy horse is better than a sneaky one. 'Least then you know what to expect."
Was he really implying her horse was dirty? She frowned, backing up a step. "He's not sneaky. He's scared."
"With all due respect, I need a little more information than 'he's scared' to know how I'm supposed to proceed, since he seems perfectly fine to me." Finn's voice was hard, his gaze unyielding. His grumpy-old-cowboy face had been easier to handle than this. He seemed… angry, and she wasn't sure what she'd done. She hadn't lied to him—she hadn't talked to him about the horse at all—but suddenly she felt like she'd done something to upset him.
"If he's going to try to kill me when I saddle him up, I'd rather know now," Finn pressed when she didn't reply.
Lily's tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of her mouth. Her heart rate increased without warning. Any other day, with any other person, she'd have cut them down in a heartbeat. But Finn stopped her up. Maybe because she still half-believed the people who told her Encore wasn't worth saving, maybe because he was her last hope and he'd spoken her deepest fears.
"H-he's not going to try to kill you," she finally stammered out, but she suddenly wasn't sure. Nobody had saddled him since the accident. He had shocked the hell out of her more than once since he'd recovered enough not to be regularly sedated for healing.
"Then what the hell are you doing here, Lily?"
She crossed her arms over her chest as if to protect herself from Finn's words, but it didn't do any good. Twisting her lips together, she willed herself not to cry. What was she doing here? This wasn't how she would have picked a trainer any other time. She'd taken Emma's word for it, hadn't even contacted the trainer to discuss her horse's issues or what the plan of attack would be for his progress. Truthfully, she'd done a disservice to the horse she'd been working so hard to fix. And she'd done a disservice to herself. It was hard to believe any part of the Baylor clan could be anything like Finn when Noah and Emma and all the rest of the family were so wonderful, but this was the last thing she needed right now.
Widening her eyes to try to avoid the tears from spilling over, Lily took another step back.
"The wrong thing, apparently."
*
Finn watched Lily's back as she retreated to the horse barn. He couldn't have felt lower if he'd gotten down in the dirt and crawled around on his belly. It wasn't her fault he'd replayed that moment he'd almost kissed her in Dane's kitchen over a hundred times in his mind in the last twelve hours. But he couldn't go on this way, distracted, half pissed, entertaining ideas that hadn't crossed his mind in years.
After this session, where Encore had behaved perfectly, he suspected Lily was actually here more for herself than her horse. Based on Nate and Emma's reports, he'd expected a wall-climbing, aggressive bastard of a gelding that needed a little tough love, but found the horse in his round pen was none of the above. He didn't know if he'd really been lied to, but he did know this woman and her horse needed to go. There had to be any number of trainers in Denver who could help her; hell, he'd help her find them. He just couldn't do this. This is just self-preservation, he promised himself.
If he'd been ready to feel more than indifferent about any woman, he would have actively sought someone out, but as it stood, the fear kicking at the backside of his heart told him there was no way he was ready to go down this road. Not this close, and not this intense.
He was still considering the situation when Emma came bursting out of the barn like a fiery tornado.
"Shit," he muttered, assessing his escape options. He'd have to slip out of the round pen and cross Emma's path to get to either his truck or his house, and the rate of speed with which she was coming at him meant there was no way in hell he'd make it. "Damnit."
"What the hell did you say to Lily?"
"My relationship with my clients—"
"She's not just your client, she's my friend," Emma said resolutely. "So don't give me bullshit about 'clients'."
There was no way he was going to win this one. He took a step back, aiming for a softer approach.
"What did she tell you I said?" he asked.
"She didn't have to tell me anything. The poor girl looked shattered."
Finn wet his lips, and movement caught his eye as Lily walked out of the horse barn without looking back and headed out the gate toward the West pasture, camera bag in tow.
"Well?" Emma demanded, undeterred by his momentary distraction. There it was again—distraction he couldn't afford.
"I asked what she was doing here with a horse that clearly could have gone anywhere."
"That horse cannot go 'anywhere' and neither can that girl." Emma hissed. "If you had bothered to treat Lily like a normal client instead of a leper, you might know Encore has issues being approached from behind. And if you had given the horse more than a couple sessions, you might have discovered that yourself if you still couldn't find the decency to talk to his owner about his issues."
Finn raised a brow, looking over his shoulder at the horse that was to his left, craning his head under the edge of the round pen panels to get the last shoots of grass he hadn't grazed down. He hadn't approached the horse from behind yet, but it would explain, at least in part, what had happened when he'd gotten off the trailer and panicked.
"That girl didn't do anything to you," she continued while he watched the horse grazing. "If you're going to be mad at anyone, be mad at Noah and me. But don't take it out on her. She's fragile and she needs some goodness in her life for a while. And we're going to give it to her. You are going to fix her horse. And we're going to fix her confidence. Got it?"
Finn held his breath for a moment, watching his sister-in-law. She'd come a long way from the bossy little girl crossing the fence line to play with her 'brothers'. Most days he was proud she'd grown up a strong enough woman to handle Noah, but days like today, he wished she'd mind her own business. He could have argued with her, told her he wasn't willing to work with the horse anymore, but he didn't want to be here all day fighting with her just to lose anyway. He let out the long breath in a loud rush. Suddenly, Encore, who had been stealing grass under the bottom rail with his hindquarters turned toward them, took three great leaps forward before careening around the sand pen to get away from the noise. Without hesitation, Finn stepped out of the pen between the planks of the fence. Standing beside Emma, he watched the gelding race a couple laps around the circle before he settled enough to gear down.
When Finn tore his eyes away from the horse and looked over at Emma, she was staring back with a brow raised as if to say 'told ya so'. Story of his life.
Clearly, he had another angle to work with this horse. If he hadn't been so concerned over whether his owner was here or not, he would have figured that one out a lot quicker.
"Damnit."
"You're not a quitter, Finn. Tell me you'll finish this job, however it ends."
"I'll finish the job."
—NINE—
"Good morning, Finn."
Warmth filled Finn at the sight of Aida Montgomery. Technically, she was Banks and Nate's grandmother, but she served as surrogate grandma to the entire town. He had memories of her as far back as he could remember, and she was unchanged—silver hair, twill work pants and a short-sleeved plaid button-down. It was her standard uniform when it came to anything from volunteering at the high school football games to gardening in her own backyard, which she was doing right now. She'd known it was him without even looking up.
"'Morning, Nan. Nate around?"
She straightened, slowly, and he resisted the urge to reach out and help her because he knew she'
d only slap his hands away. He'd never known her husband; there were times he wasn't even sure she'd ever had one. She was as capable and handy as any man he knew—she sure wouldn't have ever needed one. She'd singlehandedly raised the Montgomery boys when their parents had taken off, and she'd done a fine job of it, too. They were men he was happy to call his friends.
With a twinkle in her eye, she shook her head. "I thought he'd come home to visit me, but apparently not."
Finn looked pointedly to the back of her house where the gooseneck trailer Nate had brought Encore in was parked. He knew there was a horse somewhere between Three Rivers and Denver counting on him for a ride back to the Renegade Racing outfit. Which meant one thing: Nate had gone to town and found himself some pretty little thing to hold his attention and bide his time with.
"You want me to go drag him up?"
"Oh no, don't be silly." Nan brushed his offer off, shaking her head, and then winked at him. "Maybe he's out there finding something that'll hold his interest here."
Finn chuckled; she was always lamenting that while she had Banks nice and close, Nate had settled in Denver. The boys were her pride and joy, and she never tired of talking about them.
"He'll be back for dinner," she stage-whispered conspiratorially as she gathered her gardening tools in a bucket and moved toward the house. "He always is."
With a few quick steps, Finn got ahead of her and held open the sun porch door. A bistro table sat in the corner with two chairs pulled out, topped by a ceramic jug with a half dozen tulips, a coffee carafe, and a couple of mugs. While Nan kept herself busy with town business just about all day, every day, she had kept Sunday mornings open for him since shortly after Sunny's funeral. They would talk about just about anything; from client horses to Dane's children to the price of feed—anything that would take his mind off his pain, and he'd leave with something to put on Sunny's grave. It was coming to the end of the season for fresh garden flowers; soon she would peel the supermarket price tag stickers off of small bouquets she picked up at Sawyer's, and when he'd try to pay her, she'd deny all day long that she hadn't just had them 'laying around'. The woman was one of the most normal, dependable things in his life these days.
Secondhand Heart Page 5
