“Uh-oh. I have bug spray somewhere.” She opened her trunk again, rummaged around and pulled out a spray bottle. “You do me and I’ll do you.” Her cheeks went pink as she handed him the bottle.
He laughed. “You’d better be glad I’m an old friend. Some guys might take that the wrong way.” He sprayed her shorts-clad legs, back and front, her arms. “You’d better do your own face,” he said. “Hold out your hands.”
She did, and he sprayed some repellent into them. As she ran her hands lightly over her face, he lifted her long hair and squirted a little on the back of her neck.
She could have done that herself, too, of course. But he wanted to see the pretty, vulnerable back of her neck. Wanted to touch her soft, wavy hair that always smelled like flowers.
Her face was still flushed as she took the bottle and did a much more businesslike job on him.
They settled again, with laptops, and Meg got right to work. She typed steadily, smiling sometimes, occasionally consulting a small notebook or looking off into the woods.
Finn tried to focus on his own book in progress, but his concentration was spotty. Something about Meg reawakened his desire for love and a family, something he couldn’t even consider with her because of the dark secret he knew and had to keep. He took a couple of deep breaths and then refocused on his screen.
Much later, she stood and stretched, and the sight of her brought him out of his reverie and back, with a bang, into the present moment. Wow. Meg was simply lovely, glowing with joy.
“I’m going to take a stroll through the woods,” she said. “Want to come?”
Of course he did. They locked their things in the car and then headed down one of the paths.
It was actually a great way to get more of a feel for the area’s natural beauty and wildlife. He looked up at the sky, hoping to spot one of the bald eagles that nested in the area. Instead, he saw a heron, headed toward the marsh, its awk-awk-awk distinctive over the chorus of crickets and frogs and smaller birds. A squirrel scrabbled up and around a tree trunk, chased by its friend or mate. Small pools of standing, brackish water alternated with marsh grass growing in clumps. A couple of turtles plopped lazily into the water at their approach.
Meg chatted happily about her project, and he smiled at her enthusiasm.
She laughed up at him. “I’m going on and on, aren’t I? I’m just excited to finally have the ideas flowing. Thank you so much for helping me.” She reached out and touched his arm.
He reached for her hand, clasped it and didn’t let go. They walked a few more steps and paused, and then she turned to him, her face confused. And concerned. And interested.
He shouldn’t have done it, but he couldn’t resist those full, beautiful lips. He pulled her close and kissed her.
CHAPTER FOUR
MEG HAD NEVER felt anything like Finn’s kiss. It wasn’t the careless, passing thing she remembered from her marriage; he kissed her like she was the most precious and wonderful creature in the universe.
His hair. It was thick and wiry and she wanted to touch it. She did touch it, and ran her hands through it, and her fingers felt alive, supersensitive.
His lips were warm on hers and just firm enough, and electricity seemed to sizzle through her lips and into her heart. Waves of it danced there, shimmering through her stomach and veins.
And they kept on kissing.
Rather than rushing toward some other motive, Finn kissed her in a leisurely way, as if they had all the time in the world. Or maybe it was just that time stood still as they remained in place, kissing, kissing, kissing.
Finally, he lifted his head and looked down at her, one corner of his mouth turning up.
She sucked in air. “Wow. I haven’t done that in a long time.” Ever, she amended silently. I haven’t kissed like that, ever.
He touched her lips with a gentle finger and then leaned closer. “It’s like riding a bike,” he said against her mouth. “You don’t forget.”
“I...don’t think...it’s like riding a bike.”
He dropped a kiss on her again.
“At all. It’s not like that at all.” She reached for him then, clinging on, head spinning, legs weak.
From the direction of the parking lot, a car door slammed and children’s voices rose.
“We might be getting company,” she said. Reluctantly, she pulled away from the warmth of him.
He gave a low growl and pulled her against him. The children’s voices came closer.
She stepped back, regretful. “We should go. I have a reputation to uphold in this town,” she said. “Really. I can’t have any of my kids’ parents finding me kissing the mysterious stranger.”
“Of course.” He brushed a hand over his hair, held out a hand to her and then pulled it back. “No hand-holding, either, I guess.”
“Right. Sorry.”
So they walked back side by side in what felt like a comfortable silence.
Until they got to the parking lot and she looked at his face. What was that expression? Why was his forehead wrinkled like that? Why was he looking at the ground and not at her?
The ride home was quiet, but not quite as comfortable. Halfway there, he cleared his throat. “Meg, I’m sorry.”
“No need—”
“Really, I am,” he interrupted. His voice sounded flat. “I don’t want... I’m in no position to have a relationship.”
She tried to tense against the hurt of that, but it hit her anyway, square in the gut. Why wasn’t he in a position to have a relationship when he seemed to be as rich as Warren Buffet? Was one of his usual arm-candy women serious, or was it just that he didn’t care for her?
Hurtful phrases from the past came back to her in Randy’s voice. “You’re looking a little heavy” and “Can’t you loosen up some?” and “Boy, it’s obvious you don’t have any experience.” Over the years, she’d managed to wipe away that ugliness, or so she’d thought. But there it was again, right under the surface, released by another handsome man.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I really don’t want to hurt your feelings. You’re a great person—”
“Stop.” She said it sharply as she swerved to avoid a Sika deer. “You don’t need to pretend. I’ll be fine.”
* * *
HE OPENED HIS mouth a dozen times to speak and then closed it. What could he say?
He could tell her he’d lied, that he did want a relationship. He hadn’t, before coming to Pleasant Shores, but these few days with Meg had opened a window and he was looking through it, looking at something beautiful: love and family and connection.
He wanted a relationship, if he could have one with her.
But he couldn’t, not with what he knew. He couldn’t destroy her image of her past. She deserved her memories.
He’d loved kissing her. She was so sweet, yet so ardent and honest and real. They’d fit together perfectly.
Not only that, but she’d melted into him as if she wanted to be there, as if she belonged there. Not trying to jump him for sex, like some of the women he dated; not pretending to be more passionate than she was in the hopes of impressing him, getting him to take her somewhere exotic.
Meg was real, and that had made kissing her rare and sweet and hot.
The thought of never having that opportunity again made his chest hurt and filled his head and heart with despair.
Could he tell her the truth? She was strong, right? She could handle it.
But he’d been raised to take the burden on his own shoulders, not hand it off to someone else. Right now, there was only one living person who knew what Randy had really been like: Finn. And he couldn’t tear down the man’s false image. Not for Meg, and not for her daughter.
They pulled into the driveway, still silent, and he got out of the car and came around to open her door, years of drilled-in good ma
nners coming to his aid. He took the cooler she’d brought and carried it toward the duplex, walking behind her, silent and miserable.
There was someone on the porch. Kayla. She stood waiting for them, arms crossed, unsmiling, Oscar beside her. “I need to talk to both of you,” she said.
CHAPTER FIVE
MEG CLIMBED THE STEPS, beckoning for Finn to follow her, and frowned at Kayla. “What’s this about?”
Oscar must have heard the worry in her tone. He jumped and propped his front legs on her shin, and she reached down to pet him, his soft ears a comfort.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” Kayla put a hand on Meg’s shoulder, her face distressed. “I just don’t think... Well, you need to know about... You said I was welcome to talk to him. Well, I found this, and it made me feel like I had to.”
She held up a notebook, brightly flowered, with a little gold lock and strap that had been opened.
“Your diary?” It had been years since Meg had seen it, but she remembered Kayla writing in it secretly, right around the time Randy had died.
“Yes, I dug it up,” Kayla said, “because I wanted to see if I was remembering something right. I was.” She paused. “I wrote down what he said to Dad.”
“What he said to...” She looked over at Finn. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
He didn’t answer. He was rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, his brow wrinkled, eyes on Kayla.
“When did you hear him say something to your father?” Meg asked Kayla. “Wasn’t I always there?”
“There was a time, in the hospital,” Kayla said. “You’d stopped in the cafeteria for coffee, and I went on up. He was there.” She nodded toward Finn.
Meg’s heart sank for no reason she could name. “Go on.”
“I heard them arguing,” Kayla said. “He was yelling at Dad. Dad was sick and weak, and he was yelling at him.”
Again she looked at Finn. He pressed his lips together and gazed off toward the bay.
“He said, ‘I’ll take care of it and I won’t tell Meg.’ Dad said something else, so quiet—he was weak—and Finn said, ‘I’ll give her the money.’”
Meg tried to process the words. That Randy had wanted to keep something from her was no surprise. But the rest... “What money?” she asked, looking directly at Finn. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
Finn frowned into the distance for another few seconds. She saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath and let it out. Then he turned and looked directly at Meg and then at Kayla. “We should get comfortable,” he said. “It’s a long story.”
Meg just stood there while he pulled over a chair from his side of the duplex. He opened the cooler and handed around sodas. Once she and Kayla had sat down, he did, too.
There was a breeze, a warm one. A family of tourists carried beach chairs and hauled a wagon filled with buckets and toys, headed in the direction of the beach.
Finn cleared his throat and looked at Meg. “Are you sure you want to hear this? It might hurt you.” He shifted his gaze to Kayla. “You, too.”
“I want to know,” Meg said instantly. And then she bit her lip and looked at her daughter. She’d always tried to honor Randy as Kayla’s father, tried not to say a bad thing about him. “But honey, maybe you don’t—”
“I want to know, too.” Kayla glanced at Meg and then frowned at Finn. “I want to know what you did with Dad’s money. Not for me—I’m fine—but Mom struggled so much...”
“Hey. We were okay.” Meg patted her daughter’s hand. “Let’s hear Finn out.”
He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Okay.” Then he looked at the floor for so long that Meg thought he’d decided not to tell them. Her heart pounded. What was he remembering?
“Go ahead,” she said. “We can take it.” She reached over and squeezed Kayla’s hand. “We’re strong.”
“I know you are.” He looked into Meg’s eyes, his own full of emotion.
She thought of their kiss. She had a feeling it was going to be their only one.
“I knew Randy had some flaws,” Finn said. “He always did.”
Meg nodded. “I knew that, too.”
“Everyone has flaws.” Kayla sounded impatient. “Get to the point.”
“He... Well, there was an indiscretion.”
Here it came. Meg glanced over at Kayla, concerned. Kayla had always held her father in such high esteem.
“What do you mean, an indiscretion?” Kayla asked.
He looked at Meg. “There was another woman,” he said slowly. Then he paused. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”
“There was another...what?” Kayla’s eyes were wide and shocked, and the color drained from her face.
Finn was quiet, as if letting them process it. Meg squeezed Kayla’s hand.
Kayla looked at Meg, pulled her hand away and pressed a fist to her lips. “You’re not even surprised,” she choked out.
Meg’s throat tightened, too, for Kayla. Seeing her daughter’s pain made her own chest ache. “No,” she said slowly, “I’m not surprised. I knew. Or was pretty sure, at least.”
“You knew?” Finn stared at her. “I thought you idolized him.”
“You never said a word!” Kayla burst out. “You always told me he was a good man. He was a good man. He was.” But doubt had crept into her voice.
Unwelcome memories pushed themselves out of some closed chest in the back of her mind. Randy coming home late, saying he’d had a work meeting, smelling of alcohol and sometimes of a woman’s perfume. Randy suddenly claiming their sex life was boring. Randy getting critical of her looks.
The signs had all been there, and she’d confronted him, but he’d denied it, over and over.
She tugged her mind back to the present, looked at her daughter’s distressed face and then turned back to Finn. They needed to get through this. Kayla was going to be hurt, from the destruction of the image of her father, and while Kayla had asked for it, brought it on, Meg could have strangled Finn for what he was telling them.
But now that he’d started, he should finish. “Go on,” she said. “What’s this about money?”
“Yeah.” Kayla’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying you gave Dad’s money to...to some other woman?” Her voice rose to a squeak.
Oscar let out a woof and nudged at Kayla’s leg, and she reached down to pet him.
Finn blew out a breath. “It’s a complicated story.”
“We have time to hear it,” Meg said. She took a drink of soda. Was she upset? Sort of—she didn’t like the idea of Finn having some big secret about Randy—but she was beyond being surprised at anything her husband might have done. Truth to tell, she’d have left the man long before his death, except for Kayla.
The big disappointment was that Finn was involved in Randy’s shenanigans. She’d thought he was better than that. “Maybe we all need a beer instead of soda,” she suggested.
“Mom!”
Finn gave her a half smile. “If you’re serious, I’d love one.”
She went inside, half listening to see if he and Kayla talked, but the silence was deafening, so she hurried back out with three light beers. “All I’ve got,” she apologized, handing them around.
Kayla cracked hers open. “We’re waiting to hear,” she said to Finn.
Meg pressed her lips together. Kayla wasn’t near tears anymore, but her sharp tone betrayed her anger and pain.
If she thought Finn had taken money away from her family—which Meg still found hard to believe, even though he wasn’t denying it—and she’d just learned her dad wasn’t the paragon she’d always held him up to be...it couldn’t be easy. Again, she reached over and squeezed Kayla’s hand.
Finn set down his beer and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “As Randy’s lawyer and friend, I visited him se
veral times in the hospital. On my last visit, he clearly had something on his mind. When he explained that he’d gotten involved with a woman who was into drugs and down on her luck, I guess I did yell at him. We had heated words, at any rate.”
Kayla’s lips compressed into a thin line, but she didn’t speak. Meg’s muscles tightened. She didn’t really want to hear the rest, nor did she want Kayla to hear it, but Pandora’s box was open and there was no closing it.
“He told me he had bearer bonds in his desk drawer at work, and that he wanted them to go to her, to help her get her life together.”
“Wow.” Meg blew out a breath. So Randy had cared for his lover—one of them at least—enough to want to fund her recovery.
“Bearer bonds,” Kayla said. “They’re, what, not in anyone’s name?”
“Right, so ownership can’t be traced. They’re not issued in the US any longer, but you can buy them in certain countries, and some banks will still cash them.” He opened his mouth as if to say more and paused. “Anyway. There are a lot of legal issues I can explain if you’re interested.”
“He went to some trouble to do this.” Meg was still struggling with the implications. Had Randy known he was dying earlier than he’d told her? How long had Finn known? As Randy’s business lawyer, had he been involved in some shady overseas transaction?
“Apparently,” Finn went on, “he’d promised to send her to rehab before he’d gotten sick.”
“That’s so wrong.” Kayla’s breathing was ragged, and her voice was thick. “Why should he pay for his mistress’s problems when Mom had to struggle all these years?”
“I didn’t struggle so much.” Meg thought back to the years immediately following Randy’s death. “We always had shelter and enough to eat, and eventually, everything got pretty comfortable.”
The soothing words were for Kayla, and they were true. Inside, though, she was reeling about something else.
Finn had known all this, after they’d reconnected, and hadn’t told her. He’d kissed her, knowing what a dupe she’d been. Knowing that he’d taken money that should legally be hers and Kayla’s, and given it to some drugged-out other woman. She couldn’t look at him.
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