by Elise Faber
He had to admit that being on the receiving end of it in real life didn’t feel great.
Her “What?” even less so.
“Never mind,” he said quickly. Dumbass. She was still married, still pulling the pieces of her life back together. “Forget—”
“You’d want to go on a date with me?”
He frowned at the incredulity in her tone. “Why are you saying it like that?”
“What do you mean, why am I saying it like that?” she said. “You’re a huge movie star. I’m me. Of course, I’m saying it like that.”
“You’re a beautiful, smart, funny woman. Of course, I want the privilege of taking you on a date.”
She laughed.
Literally bent in half, chest falling toward her knees, burger still clutched in her hand as near-hysterical laughter filled the space around her.
“You— Me—” Giggles erupted, but he didn’t find it the least bit funny.
“Shannon.”
Her head came up. “Me.” A shake of that head. “Me. An average brown girl with a movie star.”
“Shan—”
“Me. A soon-to-be-divorced single mom with the biggest movie star in the world.”
“I—”
“Me.” She shook her head again. “With the Finn.”
He sighed, knew he wasn’t going to talk her into believing that he wanted to take her out on a date, to see if this rapport they had, if the connection that had formed was real and would continue to grow.
Finn needed a call to action.
He tugged the burger out of Shannon’s hands and tossed it on the paper wrapper she’d spread on the table.
She stopped laughing.
He stood.
She bit her lip.
He tugged her into his arms.
She released a shuddering breath.
“Yes,” he murmured. “You. With the Finn.”
Then he lowered his head and slanted his mouth across hers. Wide eyes met his for a moment before her lids slid closed, before she melted in his arms, before her lips parted, and . . . she kissed him back.
Hand sliding up his arms, resting on his shoulders, moving in and weaving into the hair on his nape, her nails lightly raking his skin.
Heat.
Goose bumps.
This woman.
He pulled her more tightly against him, loving the way her scent fluttered up and flowed over him, her soft moan in the back of her throat as she leaned more heavily against him.
“Mom! Mr. Finn is kissing you!” Rylie yelled, words punctuating her footsteps on the deck.
Shannon lurched from his arms, feeling like she yanked out half of the hairs from his scalp in the process. Finn sucked in a breath, resisting the urge to tug her back against him, to kiss her again, to watch her melt, feel her lips and tongue against his.
But Rylie was there.
He turned and squatted down in front of her. “I was kissing your mom.”
Shannon made a choking sound.
“Is that okay with you?”
Rylie tilted her head to the side, brown-blue eyes studying him closely. “Do you like her?”
“Ry—” Shannon gasped. “That—”
“I do,” he said, meeting that gaze straight on. “I think your mom is pretty great.”
Rylie nodded. “She is great.”
“So is it okay with you if I kiss her?”
“My dad never did,” she said.
Finn struggled to absorb that gut punch, to not look over at Shannon when she made a pained noise. “If she wants me to kiss her, then your mom deserves to be kissed.” More clunky words. But the next he spouted at least made more sense. “She deserves to be happy.”
“I know.” Her response was laced with the nonchalance of a seven-year-old, especially as her eyes drifted from his to the remains of her meal on the table. A nod. “If it makes her happy, then you can kiss her.”
She scooped up a nugget and took off for the sand, just enough sun left in the sky for her to add another turret to her sandcastle masterpiece, but skittered to a stop on the bottom step. “Mr. Finn?”
“Yeah?”
“If it makes her happy, you can marry my mom, too.”
The nugget went into her mouth, and she took off for her sandcastle.
Finn straightened, slowly turned back to face Shannon, seeing her expression was as shell-shocked as he felt.
From the kiss.
From Ry’s matter-of-fact declaration.
From, at least on his part, the notion that the almost-seven-year-old’s idea might not be the worst one.
He saw a flash of red hair in his periphery, knew that Pepper was watching, that she and Derek were probably documenting the event for posterity . . . and for Pepper’s part, to tease Finn later.
But he didn’t care.
There was only one question he wanted the answer to.
“Does it?” he asked softly.
Wide blue eyes met his, a trace of panic in their depths.
“Do my kisses make you happy?”
No, he wasn’t proposing marriage. Yes, he liked her. Yes, he was considering setting up a home base in Stoneybrook to be closer to her and Rylie.
But, marriage?
No. Not yet, anyway.
But not yet isn’t a no, Finn. That mental voice was his mother’s. The same one that always infiltrated his inner thoughts. Part ensuring he stayed on task. Part calling him to task. But also never failing to help him get his thoughts in order.
“Shannon?” he asked when she stared at him without speaking.
She shook herself.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you like it when I kiss you?” A beat. “Or, in Ry’s words, does it make you happy?”
White teeth nibbling on a pink bottom lip. “I—” She sighed, gaze coming to his. “Yes, Finn. I like it when you kiss me.”
Relief.
Sweet, sweet relief.
But also awareness that she hadn’t answered his other question, about it making her happy. Instinctively, Finn knew the time for that conversation could come later, when she wasn’t so unnerved, when Pepper and Derek weren’t watching, when their dinner wasn’t getting cold.
So, he tugged her back into her chair, handed over her burger, and then he asked her about her second day of school.
Shy.
Shy at first, but then she found her rhythm, quickly having him in stitches about a kindergartner who’d been confident enough to climb the outside of the play structure while she was taking her turn supervising midday recess, but hadn’t been confident enough to get down.
“And finally, the custodian managed to find the tall ladder and we got him down.” She chuckled. “But I could have sworn that I was going to have to call the fire department.”
“They did have to call the fire department for me once,” he said.
“What?”
His lips twitched and he told her a story he’d never shared with anyone, about filming on location in Scotland a few years back, with a small crew he’d since sworn to secrecy.
“Then the director convinced me to climb down the cliff.”
She gasped.
“I had a safety line,” he said. “It was perfectly safe.” A beat. “Except for the fact that I’d packed on thirty pounds of muscle for the role and every time I tried to pull my heavy ass back up the rocky side, the stones crumbled and fell apart in my hands.”
Another gasp.
“There were five of us that day.” He shook his head, remembering how helpless he’d felt. “And I think that all together they weighed less than me at that time. They couldn’t get me up, so we had to call the fire brigade.”
“Brigade?”
“We were in a remote part of Scotland at the time,” he explained. “They had me back up in minutes, and I swear I spent a fortune on Scottish whiskey for them and the crew in order to keep their silence.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“Blackmail I was willing to pay in order to confiscate their phones and delete the videos and pictures they took that day.”
She laughed, eyes dancing. “I bet that was quite a sight to see.”
“I imagine it was.”
Her head tilted.
“What?”
“I’m trying to imagine you with thirty more pounds of muscle,” she said, tone teasing. “You must have been huge.”
“Words a man dreams of hearing,” he deadpanned.
She swatted him. “You know what I mean.”
He waggled his brows. “I sure do.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Yes.”
A groan and he leaned over his chair, brushed his lips over hers. “What will I have to pay in order for you to keep your silence about my story?”
“Hmm.”
Calculation in bright blue eyes, and Finn braced himself almost without realizing it, the slice of uncertainty drifting forward unbidden, because even though they were laughing and joking around, this was the point that most people asked for big things. Things he could give, but requests that were often more than he wanted to give.
“You’ll bring me a mug of coffee sometime,” she finally said. “However you made it this morning, you’ll replicate that and bring me one large mug with extra cream.”
“Coffee?” he repeated. “That’s it?”
She shrugged. “That’s it.”
Relief.
Respect.
Like. Fuck, he liked this woman a lot.
They finished eating, exchanging more war stories, though this time none of them included the fire brigade, then they packed up the garbage, and she called Rylie in for homework and bath time, admitting with a chagrined look that she had some tweaks she needed to make to her lesson plans based on a few “surprises” from her class. Finn read that as she had a couple of challenging students under her charge, but when he asked, she just shrugged and said, “Meh. It’s just part of the job.”
“Superhero,” he murmured.
She rolled her eyes. “Not so much.” Her eyes darted away then back to his. “Thanks again for dinner.”
He nodded.
She nibbled at that bottom lip.
“Can I kiss you goodnight?”
Shy eyes on his, but what made his heart skip a beat was the lack of sadness within those blue depths.
After spending the evening with him.
Yeah, that felt good.
What felt better?
Her mouth against his. Her body pressed flush to his. Her tongue, her lips, her arms wrapping tight around his neck.
Yeah, all that was better.
So much better that the second he walked into his cottage, he pulled out his cell and told his assistant when he picked up the call to, “buy me a house on this beach as quickly as possible. I don’t care how much it costs,” he added when his assistant sputtered. “I just want it done as quickly as possible.”
Then he hung up and went to sit on his deck, listening to the waves as darkness fell around him.
For the first time in years, he’d finally found peace.
For the first time in years, he’d finally found something he wanted to pursue and ferret out and explore further.
For the first time in years, he was excited to see what life would hand him.
Unfortunately, what Finn didn’t realize was exactly what that call had set in motion.
Thirteen
Thirty Pounds of Muscle
Shannon
The next morning there was a cup of coffee waiting on her front deck.
It was held by a world-famous movie star, but that was no big deal.
Ha.
Who was she kidding?
It was a thousand times better because it was held by the Finn.
“Morning,” he said, extending the cup.
“Morning,” she murmured, taking it and bringing it up to her lips for one glorious sip. “Oh my God,” she moaned. “You’re the best ever.” She took another sip, moaned again.
“Killing me, sweetheart,” he said softly.
“Wh—” She glanced from the cup to his face and felt her cheeks go hot. “Oh. I—”
Rylie barreled from the kitchen, her princess backpack on her shoulders, but an old Star Wars shirt of Shannon’s draped over her body like a dress, black leggings beneath, pink sparkly sneakers on her feet.
Her daughter loved clothes.
No clue where she got that from.
Another ha, Shan thought as she glanced down at her own sparkly flats, black jeans, floral blouse, and jumble of necklaces.
“Mr. Finn!”
“Ms. Rylie!” He pulled out another to-go cup and handed it to her. This one was bedazzled with rhinestones spelling out “Princess.”
“Coffee?” Ry asked excitedly.
“Nice try.” He ruffled her hair. “Hot chocolate.” His eyes flicked to Shannon’s and he murmured, “Sorry, I should have asked first.”
She smiled. “It’s fine.”
“Chocolate is the best!” Ry said on a fist pump.
“From the mouths of babes,” Shannon said, stepping out onto the deck, shutting and locking the doors behind her. “Sorry to rush you out. But we have to leave, or we’ll be late.”
Finn nodded. “I figured I’d walk with you.”
She froze.
“Unless that’s not okay . . .” His words trailed off.
“Um . . . no, that’s fine. It’s great. Uh—”
He bent, brushed his lips across hers. “Don’t overthink it,” he murmured. “I just wanted to see you.”
“You—” Another kiss, and as he straightened, releasing her lips slowly, her breath caught, his skin gilded gold by the morning sun. “You’re pretty in the morning,” she murmured.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “So are you.” A moment passed. “So, is me walking with you okay?”
Was it?
Shan wasn’t sure, but . . . she also didn’t want to walk without him.
Ugh.
She was torn, and she shouldn’t be torn. This was Finn. He’d brought her dinner the night before and coffee this morning. Hell, he’d brought Ry hot chocolate in a bedazzled cup. She should be jumping with joy at his interest in her. But she’d liked Brian so much, had cared for him and loved him with everything inside of her, and now she was feeling . . . a lot.
For Finn.
And that was fucking scary.
No, it was terrifying.
Unfortunately—because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings—he could see that. “You know what?” he said. “I’ll just see you guys around another time. Maybe dinner later in the week—”
She had a decision to make.
To continue being scared, to keep living this half-life of hers.
Or she could grasp onto this scary newness in front of her and just . . . live.
Finn stepped away, but she lurched forward, laced her hand with his. “No,” she said. “I mean, yes, to dinner later in the week. No, to you leaving. I’d be happy to have an adult to walk with.” She smiled, albeit a bit nervously. “We meet Lizzy on the way and then my life is sparkles and Star Wars.”
“Star Wars!” Ry exclaimed, bustling down the stairs, her backpack bouncing.
“That,” Shan confirmed.
“So, I shouldn’t mention to her that I’ve worked with Rey on a film that’s coming out next year.”
“Uh, no,” she said. “Because she doesn’t have any concept of a film’s release date and will want to see it immediately.”
“I happen to have a copy.”
She sighed. “Of course you do.”
“But it’s not exactly kid-friendly.”
“No?” she asked, rounding the house with him beside her.
“Nope,” he said. “Mostly because it features me and my extra thirty pounds of muscle shirtless for most of the film.”
“Hmm. So, how soon until I can watch it?”
He grinned. “To
night?” he asked. “I actually do need to watch it. I promised the director I’d review this cut.”
“You’re shirtless for most of it?”
Still smiling. “Yup.”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I could put myself through the torture.”
He made an affronted noise, started to joke back, but she missed it. Mostly because the realtor sign was gone. Just as quickly as it had appeared and upended her emotions, it was gone again. She pulled out her cell, and sent a text to Alberto, letting him know it was gone.
Strange.
But the sign being gone was good, right?
That meant her call to the lawyer the night before had actually done something, that he’d been able to work his magic.
Relief poured through her.
“Shan?”
Or maybe, Brian had found some humanity and dropped the issue. Although, more likely, Alberto had drummed up some of the lawyer mojo she paid him for and had stopped the sale in its tracks.
Thank God.
“Shannon?” Finn asked. “Are you okay?”
She shook herself, glanced down at her watch, knowing she didn’t have any more time to delay if she wanted to make it to school on time. “I’m fine.” She smiled. “Sorry, I was woolgathering.”
“About?”
“My—”
“Mom! Can I run up and join Lizzy?” Ry shouted, taking several steps in that direction.
“No!” she called back. “Wait for me.”
Then she hustled after her bouncing-in-place daughter, catching up with her before Ry lost patience and darted across a street or driveway where someone might be backing out and not see her.
As she moved, she forgot about Brian and the For Sale sign. In fact, as they caught up with Lizzy, also clad in Star Wars gear, as they made it through the madness of school drop-off and playground supervision, and as Finn walked her to her classroom, stepping inside the door and out of sight of the nosy-nellies to brush a kiss across her lips, she completely forgot all about their woolgathering conversation in the first place.
Later, she would wish she hadn’t.
But in that moment, she cherished her tingling lips and just waved goodbye.