The Home They Built

by Shannon Stacey

  “Anna, I’ll be okay. But I want you to promise me one thing.”

  “Anything,” she said, meaning it with all of her heart.

  “No matter what happens, I want you to try to keep what you and Finn feel for each other separate from this mess. I know it might take a little time, but you need to forgive each other.”

  “We kept some pretty big, important secrets from each other, Tess. I don’t know if—”

  “Nope!” Tess shook her head. “Too late. You promised me anything, so now you have to do it.”

  Before Anna could respond, Tess wrapped her in a strong hug. She hugged her back, holding her for a long moment.

  Then, at a speed that illustrated how good an actress Tess actually was, she gave a jaunty wave and left Anna standing there alone.

  She listened as Eryn and Tess said their goodbyes, and then her assistant stepped hesitantly into the room.

  “You okay?”

  Anna shook her head. “No, I am far from okay.”

  “I think we’re done here. Frankie and Jim just loaded the last of their tools into the trailer, and Mike—who I’m never speaking to again, by the way—and Cody packed up the SUV. All they have to do is hook up and they’re ready to go.”

  “I guess we’re out of here, then.” She sighed and looked around the room one final time before looking back at Eryn. She couldn’t muster Eryn’s level of anger at Mike right now, even though they’d started out together and he’d given his loyalty to the network. She had another man on her mind right now. “Have you seen Finn?”

  “No. I’m sorry, Anna. Joel was waiting for Tess when I said goodbye, but Finn’s bike is already gone.”

  The stab of pain made her breath catch in her throat, but Anna just nodded and started walking toward the front door.

  He hadn’t said goodbye. She hadn’t even heard his bike start, and he was just gone.

  Eryn took a detour on the way back to the campground, driving Anna up the long dirt road to Christy’s house. Taffy and Bean were delighted to have company, and Eryn threw sticks for them while Anna sat with her mother for a few minutes on the porch.

  “I’m sorry this ended so badly for you,” Christy said when Anna finished telling her what had happened.

  “I wanted to see you before I leave,” Anna said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “I have to go and things are going to be messy for a little while, but I want to see you again. I want to...be your daughter, I guess. Call you sometimes and see you when I can.”

  The realization that seeing Christy meant coming back to Blackberry Bay threatened to take her breath away, and she had to concentrate on calming herself to keep from falling apart. Even if Finn went back to his life in Portsmouth, he spent so much time in this town there would always be the chance of running into him. Right now she couldn’t imagine a time when seeing his face and not being able to touch him wouldn’t emotionally devastate her.

  “You are my daughter. Always. And I already can’t wait to see you again. Maybe when things calm down we can get together. I’m not very good with road trips, but I can get one of the boys to drive me halfway.”

  “That’s a good plan. And there’s plenty of room for Taffy and Bean, too, though my yard isn’t quite as big as yours. I can probably scrounge up a stick or two, though.”

  When Anna stood, Christy did the same and took a step toward her. “Can I give you a hug?”

  “I would love a hug right now.” She was afraid she’d fall apart in a sobbing heap when her mother’s arms wrapped around her, but she was able to stay calm and savor the feel of Christy holding her for the first time.

  There were a few tears when they said goodbye, and a few might have fallen into Taffy and Bean’s fur when she gave them love on her way to the car, but she managed to hold back the worst of it.

  All that remained now was packing up the RVs and heading out of town. When she was back in Connecticut, she’d call Duncan and start the process of seeing if she could piece her career back together.

  The pieces of her heart, though, were thoroughly shattered. Those she knew she wasn’t going to be able to put back together.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Three days later, Finn walked into his parents’ house for the family dinner he’d been more or less commanded to attend. It was less a dinner than a meeting, which was the only reason he’d shown up. His appetite was pretty much nonexistent, but the problem of the Bayview Inn wasn’t going to go away while he locked himself in his apartment and tried to bury his heartache under a mountain of work.

  “We’re in the dining room,” his mom called. “You’re just in time.”

  He kissed his mother’s cheek and rested his hand on his dad’s shoulder for a second before bending to kiss Gram’s cheek.

  “Anna called me,” she said.

  No preamble. No easing into it. Just bam—words that punched him in the chest. “When?”

  “Just before you got here.” When she paused, Finn’s hands balled into fists. “She just wanted to see how things are.”

  “I guess she’d know that better than we would, since they haven’t been in touch yet.”

  “She hasn’t heard what the network plans to do yet. She’s going to try to do what she can for me, though.”

  Finn dragged a chair out and sat next to her at the table. “What she could have done was shut this whole thing down before it even got started, instead of putting you in this situation for her own personal reasons.”

  “Finn Weaver, don’t you even start.” Her tone was sharp, and he arched an eyebrow at her. He wasn’t the one in the wrong here. “She didn’t put me in this situation. I did. Maybe you can be upset she was complicit in my plan, but it was my plan. Make no mistake about that.”

  “We need to stop trying to place blame and focus on solutions,” Alice said gently, resting her hand on Finn’s shoulder.

  Then she set a plate of ham steak with pineapple slices and potato salad in front of him before going to her seat.

  Since everything he put in his mouth this week tasted like sawdust, he got the discussion started. “There’s a guy on the coast who’s been trying to buy my bike from me for a while now. I can get a good price from him and I know he can get the cash together quickly.”

  “You’re not selling your motorcycle.” Tess shook her head, her lips pressing into a tight line for a few seconds.

  “Gram, you’ve called it a death machine since I got it. You should be happy to see it go.”

  “But you love that stupid death machine.”

  “Not as much as I love you.”

  Her bottom lip got a little wobbly, but then she took a ragged breath. “I know you love me. And no grandmother ever had a grandson as good as you, but honey...it’s not going to be enough. I’m the only one whose name is on that contract, so they can get whatever they get from me.”

  “We’re still waiting to hear back on how much we can borrow against our house,” Joel said in a low voice. “He promised me a number by tomorrow afternoon. And a bunch of us will be working at Gram’s this weekend, if you can make it, Finn.”

  “I’ll be here. We need to get it done enough so selling it before they can freeze her assets is at least on the table, if unlikely.”

  “We don’t even know how much it adds up to,” Tess pointed out. “Even if we could reimburse them for the materials, we don’t know how much the crew gets paid, and all the expenses of them staying here this whole time.”

  “We’re not trying to reimburse them for everything, Gram.” He reached over and covered her hand with his. “They’re going to come at us with a number. All we need is enough to offer them a settlement amount in lieu of fighting it out in court, because their lawyers are expensive and the longer it drags on, the more it costs. They know all you have is that house, so when they weigh what they have to gain against how much it’ll
cost to get it, I think they’ll accept a settlement.”

  “I’d rather lose that house than have you all give up so much.”

  “We’re going to try to make it so nobody loses anything,” Joel said. “But don’t forget what I told you. You don’t talk to them. Preston’s number is right next to the phone and if anybody calls you, you give them his number.”

  “He’s not that kind of lawyer,” Tess mumbled, and she was right. He specialized in estate planning.

  “It’s not his specialty,” Finn agreed, “but he is a lawyer and he knows a lot of lawyers. If it comes to it, he’ll help us find somebody. The important thing is that you don’t talk to anybody from Relic Rehab or the network or production company or whatever.”

  “Except Anna,” she argued.

  “Especially Anna.” Just saying her name hurt. “I know you liked her a lot. So did I, Gram. But if she has to choose between your house and her career...she genuinely cares about you. I know that. But I work in business. I know that at the end of the day, businesses have to put the numbers first or they don’t survive. She wouldn’t hurt you on purpose, but if you talk to her, you might say something that puts her in a tough position.”

  “But—”

  “It’s better if you don’t talk to her,” he said, going for a firm voice, but his emotions were so close to the surface he felt as if he was choking on them. “It’s better if none of us talk to her.”

  “I know you’re hurt, but you sound so bitter.” She rested her hand on top of his. “I hope you’ll forgive her before she comes back to town.”

  Emotions flooded Finn, but the one that hit him the hardest was the pain. “I don’t think she’ll be coming back, Gram.”

  “Of course she’ll come back. Her mother lives here. Her brothers and her nephews. She’s going to want to get to know them and it’ll be a lot easier for her to come here than for all of them to pack up and head to...where does she live?”

  “Connecticut,” he answered roughly before his jaw clenched.

  He hadn’t even thought about that, but Gram was right. Telling himself he’d get over Anna and move on wasn’t working right now, but it would eventually. But the idea of turning a corner in Blackberry Bay and coming face-to-face with her, with no warning and no time to brace himself emotionally, was a possibility he wasn’t strong enough to consider right now.

  “That’s not too bad a drive, so she’ll probably visit a lot,” Gram said, and she sounded pretty happy about it, which made his heart ache.

  He wasn’t the only one who’d fallen for Anna.

  After dinner, which he managed to choke down, Finn grabbed a couple of beers and went to sit in the backyard. Since he wasn’t going to make the drive back to Portsmouth tonight, he was going to drink them both while spending some quality time with Grizz.

  Sometimes the love of a good dog was the only thing that could make things okay.

  After a few minutes, his dad joined him. He was carrying a beer of his own, and he pulled one of the patio chairs closer to Finn’s. “I wasn’t sure if those were both for you or if one was for me, but I guessed the former and brought my own.”

  “I don’t know if I’m good company right now.”

  “In my experience, the times a man most wants to be alone are the times he shouldn’t be.”

  “I fell in love with her, Dad.” He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but there was something about the beautiful night and the happily oblivious dog that made him feel as if he couldn’t keep the pain shoved down anymore.

  “I’m sorry it went down like this, son. If I’d known... I wish I’d told those people the truth the day they arrived. If I’d blown it up then, we’d still have the legal fallout, but Anna wouldn’t have been in town long enough to break your heart.”

  Finn took a long swig of his beer and then scratched Grizz’s crazy hair when he came sniffing around to see if the humans had snacks to go with their drinks. It helped, Finn thought. His insides had felt knotted up so tightly that sometimes it hurt to breathe, but the tension was easing a little.

  “I broke her heart, too,” he said after another swallow of beer. “I could see it. She hurt as badly as I did, but what was I supposed to do? We can’t...there’s no coming back from this.”

  “I think you’re wrong about that. If it’s meant to be, son, you can come back from anything.”

  As much as he desperately wanted to believe his dad, Finn didn’t see how it was possible. There had been too many secrets between them and they had hurt too many people—especially each other.

  “I can’t separate the Relic Rehab mess from my relationship with Anna,” he said. “Not if they come after Gram.”

  He heard his dad’s heavy sigh. “She can’t be the reason you turn your back on a future with Anna, if you really believe she’s the one for you.”

  “She is the one, but how can I not?”

  “Look, my mother’s a handful. She is straight-up a pain in the butt. But I know she loves you so incredibly much she would happily pitch a tent in this backyard and live in it with only the clothes on her back rather than watch you let the woman you love get away.”

  “I know she would. And I love her just as incredibly much, which is why I have to focus on putting this in our rearview mirror. All of it.”

  “The problem with putting something in your rearview mirror that you’re not ready to leave behind is that you might spend so much time looking in that mirror you crash and burn.”

  “That’s pretty dark, Dad,” Finn said, scowling at him in the fading light.

  “Yeah, I probably should have waited until after I drank the beer to go all metaphorical.”

  Finn laughed, and the sound startled him because he hadn’t laughed in days. And rather than ruin the moment, he leaned back in his chair, drank his beer and called Grizz up onto his lap. He’d probably only stay there a few minutes, but he’d take it.

  He already knew it was going to be a long night, full of staring at the ceiling and thinking about his dad’s words.

  Finn needed to keep his eyes on the road ahead—get his family on the other side of this obstacle in their path—but it was going to be a long time before he stopped staring at that rearview mirror.

  * * *

  Anna hated New York City. She hated the cold glass building the network called home. And she hated the so-called power suit Eryn had talked her into wearing today. She felt stiff and overly formal, but during the elevator ride up to Duncan’s office, she forced herself to stand up straight and put her game face on.

  They kept her waiting, of course. She’d expected that, and she refused to give any indication it bothered her in the least. They would expect her to be scared. Maybe even cry a little, and plead for their forgiveness.

  But she wasn’t going to do that. She was going to be strong, and if she felt herself stumbling, she’d be strong for Tess. The stakes were high and what power she had needed to be wielded today.

  When she was finally shown into Duncan’s office, she wasn’t surprised to see several other men already in the room. A couple of other executives from the network and one she didn’t know, but assumed was somebody from Legal.

  “Please have a seat,” Duncan said, his deep voice sounding especially stern.

  She sat in the chair he gestured to and folded her hands in her lap. The room was so quiet she was surprised she couldn’t hear her heart beating, and everybody was startled when Duncan abruptly cleared his throat.

  “We’ve looked at the documentation Tess Weaver supplied with her application. We also spoke to the intern who was shadowing Eryn Landsperger during the meeting in which the team dismissed her application and you vetoed that dismissal.”

  “I felt as though some of our projects were too similar to hold viewers’ interest. The Bayview Inn and Blackberry Bay brought the kind of challenging renovation a
nd beautiful location people love to see on their televisions.”

  “It took very little effort to discover there has never been a Bayview Inn in Blackberry Bay and that the documents she provided were fabricated.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his midsection in a way that he probably thought was intimidating, but really just made him look paunchy. “The only conclusion we can draw from the information we have is that you were either complicit in this scheme or grossly negligent in doing your due diligence. Considering not only your personal relationship with the homeowner’s grandson, but the fact we have since discovered your family ties in that town, we’re leaning heavily toward the former.”

  “I never had a conversation with Tess Weaver or Christy Nash before the day I arrived in Blackberry Bay to begin filming.” She hadn’t exactly answered the allegation, but it was the best she could do without outright lying, which was never a good legal strategy.

  “The network has lost faith in you, Anna,” Duncan informed her in such a somber tone she was surprised a funeral dirge wasn’t actually playing in the background. Anna was too afraid of extremely inappropriate amusement at the idea of her termination having a soundtrack to risk opening her mouth, so she simply nodded. “We’re pulling the plug on Relic Rehab, effective immediately.”

  She thought she’d been mentally prepared for this moment. Mere seconds ago, she’d been on the brink of laughter. But the finality of his words—we’re pulling the plug—hit her like a ton of bricks, and she sucked in a breath. It was over.

  Relic Rehab was over. Her career was over. The relationship she and Finn had been building was over. She had nothing now.

  “Anna?”

  Eryn. And the guys. She’d lost them their jobs. And if the network executives were angry enough to cancel her show, what were they going to do to Tess Weaver? She wanted to put her head in her hands and cry, but she straightened her spine and promised herself a cupcake and a glass of wine later if she got through this without losing it.