by Laura Drewry
When Finn came up with the idea of reaching out to the various fishing shows, he never expected Kate to land Hooked. And while he knew it was great for the Buoys, there was a big part of him that wished they would have snagged a different show instead.
And even as that self-serving thought flitted through his mind, Finn wanted to kick himself. He didn’t know Sam super well, but from what he did know, he seemed like a good guy, and if Jess’s blushing was any indication, maybe things were heating up between them.
Living out at the Buoys limited her options when it came to men, so if Finn were any kind of friend, he’d be happy for her that Sam was coming up. She deserved a good guy in her life, and, okay, so maybe Sam wasn’t the guy Finn would have picked for her, but who was?
Before that train of thought completely derailed, Finn shut down that part of his brain. Whatever it was about Jess that had him thinking about her differently—and, worse, looking at her differently—it had to be a passing thing, just like the first time, right?
All he needed to do was keep his mouth shut and not let on that his juvenile-type crush had come around again, because, just like the old man before them, Ro and Liam wouldn’t put up with shit like that—especially not from Finn.
So he’d keep his head down and everything would go back to the way it used to be. The way it should be.
If he were lucky, maybe one of the women guests coming up in the next few weeks would be enough to turn his head. Hell, there’d be an unprecedented five women arriving today; surely to God one of them would be interesting.
“Finn!”
“Huh?” He jerked up so fast that he sent coffee sloshing over the side of his mug and singeing his fingers. “Jesus, Liam. What?”
“You tell me,” his brother grunted. “That’s twice in two days you’ve zoned out on us. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. What do you want?”
The look Jess flashed him as she handed him a cloth said she didn’t buy that for a second, but thankfully she didn’t call him on it.
“I said I’ll go grab the bedding from the dryer and help you finish up the cabins.”
“Can I finish my coffee first?”
“Bring it with you,” Liam said, heading out of the kitchen.
“Ugh,” Finn groaned as he shook his head at Kate. “With the amount of time you two spend locked up in your cabin, you’d think he’d be worn out once in a while.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Kate shrugged as she laughed. “But, injured or not, that boy’s got stamina.”
She hadn’t even finished before Finn and Jessie were yelling over the top of her.
“Don’t—”
“Ewww!”
All it did was make Kate laugh harder. “Finn started it.”
“And I’m ending it.” After refilling his mug, he lifted it in salute to Jess, who sort of smiled back as he headed out to catch up with Liam.
Making up the beds wasn’t difficult, but it was that much faster with help. They were just finishing up the third cabin when Liam threw a curveball Finn wasn’t even close to being ready for.
“So what d’you think about Jessie and Sam?”
I fuckin’ hate it.
Before that thought got away from him and blurted out of his mouth, Finn wrestled it into silence.
“It’s none of my business.”
“I know, but it’s Jessie. Our Jessie.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Finn said, grinding the words out between clenched teeth. “I’m familiar with who she is.”
“And Sam-freakin’-Ross.”
“What’s so surprising about that? You’re the one who shoved him at her in the first place, so what did you think was gonna happen?”
“I don’t know.” Liam’s casual shrug made Finn want to punch him. “Has she said anything to you about him since she moved back here?”
“No.”
“Me neither, so I just kinda thought…I don’t know. Ro said they broke up, but maybe they got back together.”
Finn didn’t respond, but that didn’t slow Liam down.
“She hasn’t left once, and he hasn’t flown in, so they can’t have seen each other since…what? End of March? Beginning of April?”
Finn knew exactly when she’d last seen him: March 29, the night Da died.
“I’m not her freakin’ secretary, Liam; how the hell would I know who she sees or when?”
“I don’t know; it’s just that you guys are pretty tight, so I thought maybe she—”
“No.”
“Really? You spend almost every night in the great room with her; she’s never said anything about him to you?”
“We don’t talk the whole time; we read.”
“I know, but…nothing?”
“No.” This was getting really old really fast.
“Weird. I guess I figured if she said anything to anyone, it’d be you.”
Finn didn’t answer, mainly because Liam hadn’t actually asked a question but also because Finn knew if he opened his mouth, nothing good would come out of it.
“Kate says he’s kept in touch with Jessie a little since she came back.” Liam tossed the comforter up on the bed and pulled up his side. “And did you see how red she got when she mentioned his email? Nobody blushes like that unless there’s something going on.”
Finn clamped his teeth down on the inside of his cheek and gave the comforter a hard yank until it lay perfectly flat, but still, Liam kept on going.
“Kate wouldn’t tell me everything Jessie said, but it sounds like Sam might still be into her. Do you think she’s—”
“Jeez, man—I don’t give a fuck, okay? I don’t know how into him she is, and I sure as hell don’t know how far he is into her.” The innuendo of what he’d just said scraped against Finn’s brain like a pickax over concrete. “Fuck. Go ask Kate—she’s the one who seems to know everything.”
With three hard shoves, he had the pillow stuffed in its case and threw it back on the bed, leaving it for Liam to straighten.
“Relax,” Liam muttered. “What the hell’s your prob—”
Finn wouldn’t look at him, even though he knew Liam was staring at him, waiting for some kind of direction on where he should go with that unfinished thought. But Finn’s only direction was to get the hell out of that cabin and away from Liam, whose sudden silence made it pretty clear he’d already figured out which direction this was going.
And it was going south real fast.
“Holy shit! Finn, wait!”
Oh yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. There were still things to do before the next load of guests arrived this afternoon, and that’s what Finn planned to focus on, nothing else. Liam, of course, had other plans.
Half a dozen steps outside the cabin, Liam caught him by the arm and spun him halfway around, making them both stumble. “Are you shittin’ me?”
Finn wrenched his arm free and kept walking, but it didn’t matter how fast he moved. Liam matched him step for step all the way around the cove, down the dock, and into the fish shack, where he closed the door behind both of them.
Finn grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on—a spare rod holder for the downrigger—and wrestled with himself over whether to hurl it across the shack or not.
He didn’t, but only because he knew it would’ve ticked Jess off. And that on its own made him want to throw it even harder. But he didn’t. Instead, he wrapped both hands around that stupid piece of plastic and squeezed until his knuckles ached.
The only thing worse than Liam blathering on about Jess and Sam-freakin’-Ross was Liam not saying anything about anything. He just leaned back against the door while Finn prowled around the confines of the fish shack, trying to scrub his imagination clean of anything that had to do with Jess and Sam together. The best way to do that would be to think of something else—anything else.
Like making sure the sink was good and clean for the next batch of fish coming in. Sure, they cleaned it
after every load, but it could never be too clean, right?
“Finn.”
Nope, he wasn’t having it. If Liam wanted to talk, he’d have to find a different topic, because Finn was done talking about Jess and Sam-freakin’-Ross.
“Instead of standing there doing nothing,” Finn said as he finished up the sink, “why don’t you go see if we need to restock the boat coolers with herring?”
Kate would have no doubt restocked the herring along with the various other baits and lures on each of the boats yesterday, but it never hurt to double-check. Too bad Liam didn’t bite.
“You gotta be out of your fuckin’ mind.”
Finn didn’t know why Liam was whispering—it wasn’t as if anyone else was around—but instead of answering, Finn opened the cupboard above the sink and said the first thing he could think of.
“We’re low on rags. I think there might still be a load in the wash; we should grab those before the guests arrive.”
Liam ignored him. “Jessie? Our Jessie?”
Closing the first cupboard, Finn moved on to the others, silently cursing Kate for having tidied everything so well the night before that there was nothing for him to do, nothing to clean, nothing to fix. Still, he went through each one, as though the time spent with his face hidden by the cupboard doors would be enough to bore Liam out of the shack.
No such luck.
“How long has this been going on?” Liam asked. “Does she even know?”
“Do you know if Kate added line to the next order? The halibut reels are all loaded, but we’ve been going through eighty-pound test like crazy the last couple of weeks.”
“She doesn’t, does she?”
“We should probably—”
“Finn!” Liam shoved away from the door and took a step toward him. “I don’t give a shit about what kind of fishing line we’re low on right now.”
Inhaling slowly, Finn closed the last cupboard and forced himself to turn around. He folded his arms over his chest, leaned back against the counter, and, after a long, tortured exhale, finally blinked up at Liam, whose eyes were as big as Finn had ever seen them.
“Then pick something else or get the hell out of my way,” he warned. “ ’Cause I’ve got shit to do.”
When Liam didn’t say anything, Finn made to walk by him, but Liam lifted his arm straight out, blocking Finn in.
“Seriously, man, this is nuts.”
“Are you going to move?” Finn asked, trying really hard to keep his voice calm and steady. “Or am I going to have to move you?”
He didn’t even care that it was Liam’s bad arm blocking him in; if it didn’t get the hell out of his way soon, he’d make that torn rotator cuff seem like a hangnail. Typical Liam, though, he just continued to ignore Finn.
“Not Jessie,” he said, his two words as threatening as Finn had ever heard him speak. “She’s the glue that’s held this place together since forever, and you…if you screw that up…”
He didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. Finn knew what was at stake, and he also knew it didn’t matter, because Jess was never going to find out anything Finn had been thinking about her.
“She knows us too well,” Liam said, shaking his head slowly. “Don’t you remember sitting in the kitchen last spring when she tried to warn Kate away from us?”
’Course Finn remembered; while Liam sat there eating his spaghetti, Finn had all but accused Kate, and womankind in general, of everything that was wrong with the world. Kate had been shocked and pissed right off at what he’d said, but none of it surprised Jess. She already knew that the three O’Donnells were batshit crazy and that there wasn’t a woman in the world any of them trusted.
She was wrong, though. There was one woman Finn trusted with his life, and she was the one who clomped around the Buoys in too-big gum boots and a twenty-year-old sweater that could have easily wrapped around her twice. She was the one who called the three of them out on all their crap, and she was the only person who’d always accepted him as he was, warts and all.
Smart and quick, she only needed to watch someone demonstrate something once and she had it figured out. She was the one they all looked to when they needed something, and that was never more true than the night he called to tell her Da had died.
He knew she was out with Sam that night and knew it wasn’t the easiest thing getting in and out of the Buoys, especially for her, so he’d resigned himself to the fact that he’d be on his own until at least the next day, when either she or one of his brothers made it in.
Two hours later Jess stepped off the Helijet and then just stood there on the dock, holding him so tight until he finally got himself together again. For someone her size, she sure could hug tight.
She was damn cute, too. When she didn’t have her black toque pulled down over her ears (yes, she even wore it in the summer sometimes), her dark brown hair usually hung in long loose waves around her shoulders, except when she needed to focus on whatever she was working on; then she pulled it back into some funky kind of twisty knot.
As far as Finn knew, the only makeup she ever wore was cherry ChapStick (did that even count?), which was just fine with him, because there wasn’t a single thing about her smooth skin or bone structure that needed any help. She always had a fresh, clean, easy look that instantly drew people to her, and those eyes of hers, the same warm dark brown as her hair, could snap him out of a shitty mood with nothing but a single glance.
He could sit with her for hours in the great room, her reading one of those damn romance novels, him usually only pretending to read whatever book he had in his hand, while he was actually watching her expression change from page to page.
Lee Child’s and Robert Jordan’s books had never once made Finn laugh or yell, or God forbid cry, but Jess couldn’t get through one of those romance things without running the gamut of every emotion. And while he didn’t like to see her cry over anything, he loved that no matter how tough and capable she was with every single thing at the Buoys, those books never failed to bring out the softer girlie side of her.
“Finn!”
It took Finn a couple of really hard blinks to see through his fog, and a few more to realize he was still standing in that damn fish shack with Liam.
“Even if she’s not with Sam, which could be a definite possibility, it’s a horrible idea. Worse than horrible, because we both know you’ve never lasted more than a month—two tops—with any girl, so when the inevitable implosion happens and you dump her like yesterday’s trash, where’s that going to leave us? I mean, besides the fact this whole place would fall apart without her running it, it’s Jessie, for God’s sake. She deserves a hell of a lot better than that.”
Better than what? Finn?
He didn’t ask, because he refused to admit anything to Liam: not the truth about what he was feeling and not the fact that he knew Liam was right. Jess deserved someone she could trust, someone who’d trust her, and since she’d watched him screw up every relationship he’d ever been in, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell she’d even consider that he’d be any different with her.
Smart girl.
Finn swallowed hard, then cocked his jaw to the side as he raised his brow at Liam.
“You about done?”
When Liam didn’t answer, Finn shoved past him and jerked the door open.
“Jesus, Finn.”
Liam followed him outside, but neither one said a word until they were mere steps away from the lodge. That was when Liam growled low in his throat.
“Please don’t do anything stupid, okay?”
“Great advice coming from someone who met, married, and deserted a girl all in the span of five days.”
“Fuck you; that’s night-and-day different from this.”
“This what?” Finn asked, one hand on the rail, one raised in guiltless question. “I haven’t done a thing, so you’re getting your panties in a wad for no reason.”
“Oh, don’t even—”
/> The door opened before they could reach it and out stepped Jess, holding the stack of clean rags for the fish shack. Her gaze, instantly knowing, instantly fed up, flicked from Finn to Liam and back again.
“Oh God, what? You were both fine when you left here half an hour ago, so what could possibly have pissed you both off already?”
Finn tipped a look at Liam, challenging him to say something that he couldn’t prove, something that would no doubt screw things up for no reason, but Liam just rolled his eyes and sighed.
“Thirty years old,” he groused. “And Finn still can’t hospital-corner the sheets.”
Long wisps of her hair caught the afternoon breeze and blew around her face, catching on her eyelashes and bottom lip before she wrangled them free again.
It wasn’t cute at all. Nope. Not at all.
“Whatever.” Her frown deepened as she fought to untangle her hair again, this time from over her eyes. “Can one of you run these down to the shack please?”
Finn was already reaching for them. Anything to get away from Liam.
“I got it.”
“Great. Thanks.”
In case his jackass brother was watching, Finn made a point of not letting any part of him touch any part of her in the handoff and then headed straight for the path that led to the dock, as Jess’s voice hung in the air behind him.
“Okay, seriously. Do I want to know what happened?”
“Nah,” Liam answered. “It’s nothing.”
Jess’s short harsh snort made Finn grin. She knew bullshit when she heard it.
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Pull my other leg; it’s got bells on it.”
Chapter 5
“You can separate the men from the boys by the size of their rods.”
It didn’t matter how many guests came and went from the Buoys, there was always something new. This week there’d be three women in the Green cabin, two in the lodge, a couple of guys in the Orange cabin, and another four inside the lodge. The men had all booked in for the full week, but the women were all only there for four days.