Tiny stabs of jealousy pricked at her with every pair of female eyes that Finn drew to him. Covering his tattoos was a smart move on his part, and it certainly helped him blend in, to a certain degree. But if he’d been hoping to avoid notice, he’d vastly misjudged his appeal. Six feet of muscled, strawberry-blond goodness with striking blue eyes were enough to make any woman forget her name.
Lucy missed the tattoos though. They were so much a part of him that he didn’t seem complete without them.
Finn started up the stairs leading to the guest rooms. Lucy strode to the staircase. The key to blending in, she’d often found, was to act as if you were supposed to be there. While she had every right to be in the hotel, following a man up to his room was not something a decent woman would do. As long as she didn’t appear furtive about it, no one should suspect she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. She kept her head up, her eyes ahead, and marched up the steps as if she knew where she was going. She only hoped Finn wouldn’t notice he was being followed.
At the landing, she turned left and hoped she’d chosen the right direction. She gasped and whirled around. Finn’s retreating back was entering a room several doors down from where she stood. Lucy pretended to fix her bonnet, fiddling with it and gazing at her reflection in one of the mirrors that dotted the hallway until she heard his door close. She cautiously glanced over her shoulder.
Seeing no one, Lucy hurried to the door she’d seen him enter, her heart nearly beating from her chest. She was about to see him again. Confront him about leaving. Find out where he’d been, what he’d been doing. Stare into those eyes again. Touch him. Breathe him in.
By the time she reached his door, the anticipation building in her was damn near suffocating. What if he had a wife and children behind that door? What if he didn’t remember her? The last time he’d seen her, she’d been a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old. Now she was twenty-five. A far cry from the young girl he’d fallen in love with.
She reached out to knock, then hesitated. What if he no longer loved her? It had been so long. Surely he’d moved on.
The flood of butterflies in her stomach rioted, her nerves overwhelming her. She should just leave well enough alone. She’d seen him. She’d seen that he was alive and well. Perhaps it was enough. If she walked away now, she’d at least be able to hold on to her fantasy awhile longer. Because if she knocked on that door only to be rejected or to find that he’d moved on…she didn’t think she could bear it.
She took a step back and frowned. His door was slightly ajar. The Finn she knew would never be so careless. Before she could back away farther, the door flew open and Finn grabbed her arm and hauled her inside. The door slammed behind her and Lucy found herself pressed against the wall, Finn’s large hand wrapped about her neck, not squeezing, but most definitely imprisoning her.
He locked the door, his eyes never leaving her. Lucy’s lungs screamed. She couldn’t draw in air fast enough. The initial rush of fear had melted into awareness. This was Finn. Her Finn. He held her captive, every inch of his body pressed against her, his gaze roving over her face as though he hadn’t eaten for an eternity and she were the juiciest piece of meat on the table.
The anger faded from his face the longer he stared at her. His fingers relaxed as finally recognition dawned. “Lucy?”
“Finn,” she whispered. But that was as far as she got.
He crushed his lips to hers, kissing her with a desperation that all but broke her heart. He pulled her against him, molding their bodies together. Lucy flung her arms about him, pressing as close to him as she could. He felt the same. Tasted the same. For a moment, it was as though no time at all had passed. A small sob escaped her throat, a sound that conveyed both her euphoria at finally being in his arms, and her frustration that they had so many layers of clothing between them. She wanted to feel every inch of him, feel his skin against hers. Engrain his very essence into her own so that he could never leave her again.
He tore his lips from hers, cupped her face in his hands, staring as though he couldn’t believe she was really there. She smiled, a laugh choking through her tears of joy. He was really there. In her arms again. Her heart was going to burst with happiness.
She reached up to tangle her hands in his hair, bring his lips back to hers, but he stopped her, grasping her wrists as he broke away from her. His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched. She could see him shutting down, closing off from her.
“Finn?”
He spun away and Lucy’s knees nearly buckled in despair.
“What are you doing here?” He kept his back to her, his head hanging, defeated.
“Looking for you.”
“Why?” he asked, so quietly Lucy almost didn’t hear him. He looked at her, those beautiful blue eyes burning into hers. “Why?” This time the word was harsh, anguished, ripped from his throat.
“I…I wanted to see you. Make sure you were okay. You left without a word and then there was the war and I didn’t know…I’ve wondered, worried…”
Finn paced, liked some caged animal that was being goaded by malicious spectators. Lucy swallowed the lump in her throat, not wanting to acknowledge that her fantasies were crumbling around her.
“How did you find me?”
“Does it matter?”
Finn’s gaze shot to hers and Lucy straightened. He was different, harsher somehow. But he was still her Finn. And she was a Richardson, damn it. She refused to be intimidated by anyone.
“You just wipe that glare right off your face, Finnegan Taggart. I’ve traveled all the way from Boston with my heart in my throat—praying for the chance to get to see you again, make sure all was well with you. Last time I saw you, you told me you loved me, and while you might not feel the same after all these years, I thought what we had was special enough that we deserved the chance to find out. So here I am. And if you aren’t happy about me being here, well then, you can just say so and I’ll be on my way. But there isn’t any call for you to be glaring at me like I’ve done something wrong because the only one in the wrong here is you.”
Finn stared for a moment, blinking a few times before his lips pulled into a reluctant smile. He shook his head and looked at the floor. “I’d almost forgotten what a corker you are, Lucy Richardson.” He looked up at her. “Never met anyone with as much gumption as you. I’m glad you never lost that.”
He held his hand out, pointing to an armchair near the window. “Sit?”
Lucy eyed him warily, but he seemed to have shelved the antagonism for the moment so she perched on the edge of the chair, watching him as he took a seat opposite her.
“You look well, Lucy. I’m glad to see that. How have you been?”
Lucy wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question. Physically, she was fine. Perfect. But emotionally, she was a wreck and had been since the day Finn had walked away.
So she settled for a noncommittal, “Fine.”
Finn’s eyebrow quirked up and Lucy had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. Seven years or no, he still seemed to know her. Know when she was holding back.
“I’m fine. Really. I’ve been helping out in Richard’s clinic since the war started.”
Finn nodded. “I wondered how you fared. I’m glad to find you well.”
“You could have found that out at any time. Why did you never return?”
“You know why.”
“I know why you left. Or I know why you left Boston, in any case. Though I still think it was unnecessary. Brynne calmed down and saw reason eventually, just as I told you she would.”
Finn snorted. “Really? I would have bet my last penny that she would still want to skin me alive.”
“It took a while, but eventually she understood. She knows things would have been worse for Coraline if you hadn’t taken her. We know you had no choice. And I suppose I understand why you felt you had to leave Boston, at the time. But I want to know why you left me. Why didn’t you take me with you? Send for me? Or at the very least, let me kno
w where you were? Let me know you were all right? Still alive? So many were lost in the war, and I never knew…never knew if you’d been lost, too.”
Finn looked out the window, the ordeals of the last seven years etched into his handsome face. “I guess I didn’t think it mattered anymore. I left. It was done with. Why dredge it back up?”
“Because I never stopped loving you,” Lucy said, her words hardly more than a whisper.
Finn blanched, his eyes closing, shutting her out. Lucy held her breath, waiting for him to respond. Waiting for him to pull her into his arms again, tell her how much he loved her, how happy he was that she had found him.
“You don’t know what love is,” he murmured instead.
Lucy’s breath rushed out of her and it took all she had not to cry aloud. But he wasn’t finished yet.
“You are too young to understand what you are saying. What you felt for me was nothing more than an infatuation. It will pass. It probably has passed. You are just holding onto something that no longer exists.”
Lucy’s chest heaved as she sucked in one lungful of air after another, hoping the oxygen would calm the nausea rising in her belly. And with the anguish came anger. She stood.
“I’m not the little girl you left in Boston all those years ago. I’m not a child to be told how she feels and doesn’t feel. How dare you try to belittle how I feel?”
“You might be older now, but you were little more than a child when we met. And much has happened since then. I’m not the same man you knew back then and you,” he said, staring ardently at her despite his words, “have changed as well, I’m sure. The war halted everyone’s lives in some way, I think. Whatever feelings you think you still have for me are just remnants of the past.”
Lucy’s hands curled into fists at her sides. She tried to rein in her mounting frustration but it was proving difficult.
Finn stood. “You might still have some lingering feelings for me because you haven’t had the opportunity to find something real.”
“Oh, bull’s balls!”
Finn’s mouth dropped open and he slowly blinked. Normally, Lucy would be mortified at her lapse into her former heathen slang, but the man was beyond endurance.
“I might have been young back then, but I wasn’t stupid. Don’t you dare try to tell me how I felt then, or how I feel now. I’m not a little girl, Finn. Don’t try to treat me like one.”
Finn watched her for a moment, as though he were sizing her up. And then he nodded. “You’re right. You aren’t a little girl. And you weren’t back then either, not really. I don’t think you’ve ever truly been young. You went straight from diapers to a bandit’s mask and then into a bloody war. You’ve never been one of those immature, flighty girls who doesn’t know her own mind. My apologies.”
Lucy took a deep breath and nodded, accepting his apology. Some of the fight had seeped out of her. She hadn’t been sure what to expect when she found Finn, but having to talk him into loving her wasn’t something that had occurred to her. Either he still loved her or he didn’t. It should be as simple as that. Best to find out and get it over with.
“Did you ever marry?” she asked. She held her breath, waiting for his answer.
“No. I never married.”
Lucy’s heart soared for one brief moment, until he spoke again. “There’s never been anyone I wished to marry. There never will be.”
If he had reached into her chest and ripped her heart out, it wouldn’t have hurt more than those words did. The lump in her throat damn near strangled her but she refused to let him see how much he’d wounded her.
And still…she couldn’t give up. There was something he was hiding from her. Something in his eyes when he looked at her.
“I told you not to look for me,” he said. “I told you to leave me be. How did you find me?”
“A patient at the clinic told me about a tattooed soldier he’d fought with in the war. A man with a death wish who fought like the devil himself. Who they called Fish,” she said with a faint smile. “Who else could he have meant, but you?”
“Watley?”
Lucy nodded.
“I should have left after he found me. I never dreamed he’d find you, too.”
“Perhaps it’s fate.”
Finn’s eyebrow cocked again. “Since when do you believe in fate?”
Lucy shrugged. “I’m not sure what I believe in anymore.”
“Lucy,” Finn whispered.
And there it was again. That tone in his voice. That look in his eye. That’s why she couldn’t just walk away from him. He did still love her. No matter what he said. Somewhere deep in that damaged heart of his, he cared for her. She knew it. Knew it, with every fiber of her rapidly fraying being.
She closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms about his waist. For half a heartbeat, he returned her embrace. And then he set her away from him.
“Go home, Lucy. I don’t want you here.”
“Then why did you kiss me?”
Finn’s jaws clench. “You surprised me. I wasn’t expecting to ever see you again and then you were there…”
Lucy made a minute move toward him again and he backed up. “It was a reflex, a mistake. One I won’t be repeating. You shouldn’t be here, Lucy.”
“I know you love me, Finn. And I love you. That’s why I’m here. Because I couldn’t let the only man I’ve ever loved just disappear from my life. Why can’t you just be truthful?”
“I have never been more truthful in my life than when I say that I do not want you here.”
Lucy’s vision blurred with tears she refused to let fall. Each word was like a wasp’s sting piercing her heart. The words she’d meant to say melted away under the intensity of his gaze.
“Why are you doing this?”
He looked at her again, let her see into the depths of those deep blue eyes. She could drown in those eyes and would do so willingly if he’d let her. “You don’t belong with me, Lucy. I’m no good for you. I’m no good for anyone.”
Lucy opened her mouth to protest but Finn raised his hand. “No. This won’t work. I told you this back in Boston. The years have changed nothing. Go home. Go find some handsome, respectable young man and forget about me. And let me forget about you.”
Finn made to walk past her to the door, but stopped, his shoulders dropping. He half turned his face toward her and Lucy filled with hope that he’d changed his mind. That he’d declare he’d been mad to try and send her away. Then he stiffened, his body rigid with determination, and pinned her with a hard gaze.
“Wait a few minutes after I leave. Make sure no one sees you leaving my room. Neither of us needs the scandal.”
To Lucy’s everlasting shame, a sob escaped her throat and the tears that had been burning behind her eyes finally fell.
Finn’s face softened and he closed the distance between them. He cupped his hand behind her neck, brushing his thumb across her cheek.
“Finn,” she whispered.
He kissed her forehead, his lips brushing across her skin so faintly she could barely feel them.
“Go home, Lucy. I don’t want you here.”
And then he was gone.
Lucy stared at the closed door long after he left while she struggled to stifle the heartbreak that was crushing her soul. Finally, she started to pull herself together, one emotional thread at a time, until she was able to shove her roiling emotions deep down and square her shoulders with new resolve.
Finn might have said he didn’t want her there, but he was lying. To her and to himself. And she was going to make damn sure she made him face the truth. He still loved her.
For the first time in many years, she felt a spark of her old fire. She had something to fight for again, and Richardsons never backed down from a fight.
Go home?
“No way in hell,” she muttered.
Chapter Five
Finn strode down the hallway and back down the grand staircase of the hotel, hardly see
ing where he was going. He couldn’t believe she was really there. When he’d first seen her, he’d half thought she was a dream. What was she doing here?
He shouldn’t have kissed her. That had been a mistake. He could still taste her on his lips. Still feel her pressed against him. He could never let that happen again. It would do nothing more than hurt her further and wound him past the point of endurance. How many times had he wished he could hold her in his arms just one more time? Well, he’d gotten his wish. And now the memory of that kiss would be a bittersweet torture for the rest of his miserable life.
The pain in his chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe. He stopped short and forced a deep breath.
“Taggart! There you are, man. We’ve been waiting.”
Finn’s blood ran cold. The reason for his rejection of Lucy stood before him, impatiently waiting for Finn to catch up. Finn shoved his emotions back into the deep, dark hole inside his heart and turned to his employer. Philip Halford was an up-and-coming politician who had brilliant prospects in the mayoral election. Finn also owed the man his life, and therefore, his servitude. At least for the time being.
The man was the epitome of society: well-bred, civic-minded, philanthropic. Outwardly. Those in the right circles knew nothing of his murky past and he paid a lot of money to keep it that way. And now Finn was serving as his right-hand man. Finn had a feeling that Halford wanted to keep him close so he could watch him, more than any other reason. After the kidnapping fiasco in Boston, Halford had decided Finn’s talents would be of more use to him personally than out in the field. Finn didn’t agree. But he had little choice in the matter. Halford owned him, for all intents and purposes, for another two years.
So far, the job had been relatively easy. Finn had been helping with Halford’s campaign, overseeing the odd shipment or two when Halford had cargo coming in he wanted to keep secret, and occasionally he acted as a sort of bodyguard, keeping fans and detractors alike from getting too close to the politician. Though, in truth, nothing remotely dangerous had ever occurred. In fact, Finn often felt he should be guarding the public from Halford, rather than the other way around. The man took the whole political game a little too seriously. No old lady or baby within a mile of Halford was safe. And that was just the face he showed the public. If his true nature were ever revealed…well, it would take more than Finn to keep the man from a noose.
Blood Blade Sisters Series (Entangled Scandalous) Page 44
