Finn

by Dale Mayer

  “Leave them on the bed,” he said. “I’ll sign them when I get back out.”

  Figuring he was probably getting ready for a shower, she dropped them on the bed and then noticed the sketchbook was open. She looked down and caught sight of the same woman as before, only this time it was complete. She lifted the sketchbook and stared in both shock and admiration. Moments later she recognized the woman. She froze.

  It was her.

  Tears filled her eyes. The picture was stunning and made her much more beautiful than she was, but, with a few strokes, he’d caught her nose, her eyes, the look on her face. It was magical. She sank to the bed, stunned to see the talent, that raw skill on the page in front of her like that.

  How could he not go pro?

  This was beyond belief. She quickly flipped through the pages and realized that every damn page of the sketchbook was filled with pictures of her.

  Various stages.

  Various poses.

  Various looks.

  She shook her head in shock, and in the back of her mind came that same ugly suspicion again. She didn’t quite know what to do. Over forty drawings of her were here, and yet, she hadn’t counted, but the book only held forty-five sheets, and hardly any were blank. Her breath shuddered in her chest at the horrified realization that he was quite likely way too fixated on her, just as Ziegler had been. When she heard him in the bathroom, washing his hands, she quickly dropped the sketchbook and disappeared.

  She needed time to think about this. Not going back to Anna, Fiona raced outside to the animals. She stood here, propped up against the fence inside the horse pen, Lovely wandering in front of her, as Fiona tried to calm down, but she was afraid it was way too late for that. After what she’d been through with her other patient, she couldn’t go through it again. She’d cared about the other patient but on a strictly professional level.

  This patient she cared about on a whole different level. The tears, once they started, just wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t even begin to gain control. When they finally slowed and came to an end, she found herself curled up on the ground, her back against the post, her arms wrapped on her knees, hugging them tightly. As she lifted her head and stared at the much different panorama around her, she whispered, “Oh, dear God.”

  She didn’t know how long she’d been lying there, but her whole world had collapsed in a wave of fear. She lay here for a long moment as she didn’t quite know how to deal with this new reality. A few moments after that, she finally shifted and heard a voice behind her.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  She stiffened, recognizing Finn’s voice. She didn’t know what to say, but she didn’t have to say anything. He knew that wasn’t an option here. He must have seen her. But then how long had he been here, watching her cry?

  “I know you probably don’t want to believe me,” he said, his voice coming a little bit closer.

  She didn’t turn around but could hear the crutches as he made several hops and steps and then worked his way slowly toward the fence. “If you’d looked at the other sketchbook,” he said, “you would have seen that it’s filled with pictures of Dani.”

  She stiffened at that and frowned. Dani?

  “I started doing it for her, thinking that maybe it would be a nice gift for her wedding, if I could capture just the right look. She’s done so much for this place, I wanted to have something to give back.” His voice was sad, almost apologetic.

  Fiona twisted slightly to look and saw him only a few feet from her on the other side of the railings.

  “And, while I was drawing some of her, I also started to draw some of you,” he said. “There’s something very special about your face, the way it caught my pencil, or my pencil caught you,” he said. “And I just couldn’t stop drawing. Dani hasn’t seen the ones of her, but she has seen a couple that I’ve done of you.”

  At that, Fiona didn’t know what to say. “You know what it looks like, don’t you?”

  “I know what it looks like to you,” he said slowly. “But I don’t think it would look that way to anybody else.”

  “How can it not?” she asked. “I mean, how could I possibly not make the same comparison? The lawsuit itself was just dropped after Dani’s lawyers had a talk with Zeigler’s legal team. But it was traumatic at the time of our initial confrontation. Then I forgot about it until the whole mess reared up again as a lawsuit. I don’t want to be put in that position again.”

  “I’m not fixated on you,” he said, his voice steady. “I’m not making you into somebody who you aren’t.”

  She gave a broken laugh. “And yet, our positions are so very different that I don’t know that you understand just how you feel,” she said.

  “I understand exactly how I feel.” This time his voice was stronger. Adamant. And a little bit angry.

  Well, she understood that feeling. She hopped to her feet, turned and glared at him. “Don’t you understand what this looks like?”

  He stared at her in astonishment. “Those photos should tell you more than anything how I feel about you,” he said bluntly. “Words don’t have anywhere near the same impact as something like that, something that I created from my heart.”

  At that, she took a step back. Confused, she shoved her hands in her pockets. “I want to believe that’s how you see me,” she said, “but how am I supposed to separate the patient-nurse relationship?”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked, tilting his head ever-so-slightly to the side. “Just because the other guy was crazy and co-dependent and needed to know that you were there as that shining beacon in order to make the kind of progress he did, he didn’t know how to disassociate from it and to keep it within reality,” he said. “I highly doubt you went out and had dinners with him or that you sat out in the fields and had coffee with him, did you?”

  “No,” she shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “Of course not,” he repeated. “Because that wasn’t the relationship you had with him. The relationship he had with you was in his mind. You had a professional relationship with him. That’s all there was, and that’s why, when you found out how he felt, it was such a shock. You and I have already been dancing around this for weeks. The fact that I drew those pictures has nothing to do with an obsessed mind or somebody who doesn’t know the reality of this relationship,” he said quietly. “It’s entirely pictures of a man who can’t get you out of his mind but for all the right reasons.”

  She looked at him hesitantly.

  He nodded. “I get that that’s your past, and it’s some of your garbage that you have to toss away, but this is your opportunity to do so. You can’t judge what we have by the same brush of the relationship he had in his mind. That wasn’t real. What we have is real.”

  She could feel the tears coming into her eyes again. She wiped them away impatiently.

  “The thing is, you have to look at how you feel yourself. Maybe this is something that I’m making up,” he said, suddenly backtracking. “Maybe I’m the one who made the mistake here. Maybe you don’t care about me.” He turned away slightly, looking at the horizon. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m the one out to lunch here. In which case I need to pull back in a big way. I was planning a future. I was planning on living together, marriage, the whole nine yards,” he said, “but I don’t want to be thought of the same way as this Ziegler guy and looked upon the way everybody else here looks upon him. If I’m totally out to lunch,” he said, his voice harsh, “then you need to tell me. And I’ll stop this now.”

  Slowly he made his way back to the rehab center.

  “It’s not,” she said.

  He froze and shifted slightly so he could look at her. “It’s not what?”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s not like that.”

  “I need more than that,” he said, his face stiff and his shoulders rigid. “I get that you’ve got a problem with us having a relationship. I get that you’re afraid that I don’t know what my own min
d is. And that, in a way, is very insulting because I do know my own mind. I didn’t come here looking for an angel. I didn’t come here for any other reason than hoping to heal. I’ve come further and farther and better than I had even thought possible since arriving here, but one of my greatest joys was also meeting you. I am not in any danger of confusing the two. Are you?”

  She walked toward him, feeling a shakiness inside, a sense that she was on the brink of losing something that she would regret forever. “No,” she said. “I saw those drawings, and it just brought up all the fear and pain and nightmares I’ve had for the last few weeks. I didn’t compare the two of you. You two are so different. In fact, I went out of my way to avoid doing that, but seeing those sketches …”

  “I get that,” he said steadily, his gaze never leaving hers.

  She liked that about him. He was always very much a person who stared down trouble. He looked it in the eye and dared it to take over his life. He was the kind to deal with stuff and to not shove it under the rug.

  She wasn’t so sure that she was.

  This conversation was hard. She would have to open herself up even more. She’d spent a lot of time these last few years building up those walls—first due to her cheating boyfriend and later due to her deluded patient—and now she would have to break both those walls down.

  “What I feel is real,” she said with a heavy sigh. “The sketches just pushed a button, and all that grief, pain and confusion came out. There’s so much fear.” She stopped, closed her eyes for a moment and said, “Not about you or about how I feel about you. But that you didn’t feel that way about me. That I was making a mistake all over again. That I had inadvertently hurt somebody else, in this case, somebody I cared about very much.”

  “You need to understand how I feel,” he said. “I’ve tried to make it obvious. I’ve tried to make this easy. But there’s nothing ever easy about relationships. Dani knows how I feel about you. She’s also warned me to be careful.”

  At that, Fiona chuckled. “Yeah, that’s Dani. Besides, she wants the world to be happy.”

  “I’m totally okay with the world being happy too,” he said. “In a way, I’d prefer it because it’s much easier on all of us. And it’s nice, when you’re happy, to want everybody around you to be happy. But life isn’t always that way. So we’re either moving forward, and you’re letting this go completely and forever, and you’ll never doubt how I feel again,” he said, with a note of warning, “or we have to decide that this is not built on reality and not built on trust … because, without trust, there’s nothing.”

  She felt his words almost like arrows to her heart, but she also heard the truth behind them.

  “I hear. I understand,” she said, “and I do trust you, and I do want to move forward. But you also need to understand that sometimes little things can set off hidden emotions. So, as much as I may never want to be afraid or to not trust you again or to want this to ever rear its ugly head again, I can’t promise that. I will do my best to deal with it when it comes up, and I will certainly want to talk to you about it then,” she said, “but don’t ask something of me that is not possible to give.”

  He looked at her, and a slow smile dawned.

  She finally realized he stood here, a crutch under one arm, but his arms were open. She closed the gap between them in seconds. As his arms tightened around her, she burrowed in close, and he whispered, “Good answer. None of us are perfect. None of us can guarantee how we’ll react in a given situation. I’m willing to try. And that’s all I ask of you.”

  She squeezed him tight. “Trying is easy,” she said. “But doing a really good job at it, that’s not quite so easy.”

  He chuckled. “But you’re doing so well at everything else,” he said, “I’m sure you’ll do fine at this.” He kissed her gently on her temple and then her nose. “Feeling better?”

  She nodded slightly and tucked her head closer into his neck. “I do have to ask you something though,” she whispered. She could feel him stiffen beneath her. She gave him a gentle squeeze and then pulled back. “Do I really look like that to you?”

  He winked and said, “Honestly, you look way better. If I thought I could get my fingers to draw you the way I see you, it would be perfect. I keep trying. But you’re so very precious,” he whispered, “and so very beautiful.”

  She smiled up at him. “Is that because it was drawn by somebody who—”

  He placed a finger against her lips, stopping her words. He leaned forward, and he whispered, “If you’re asking, the answer is yes,” he said. “I do love you.”

  Her smile, when it came, blossomed across her face, and her breath caught in her throat. She threw her arms around his neck and whispered, “Well, thank heavens for that.”

  He chuckled, grasped her chin gently with his fingers and lowered his head and stared into her eyes. “Now, shall we take a moment and be us and enjoy the journey?”

  She nodded. “Yes, please.”

  And he lowered his head, and he kissed her. Not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but a kiss of love for all the tomorrows flowing forward.

  And she’d never ever been happier.

  Epilogue

  Gregory Parkins stared at the application in his hand and wondered. He’d had this thing printed off and filled out half a dozen times in the last couple weeks, and every time he had balled it up and threw it away. Hathaway House was just one of many other rehab centers that he had thought of going to. He knew he needed to go to this one though, but it wasn’t so much for himself but because of the woman he had left behind.

  He wouldn’t have had a clue that she was even there if not for a write-up about Hathaway House that had hit the internet and gone viral. Something about Dani and her father and what they had accomplished since they built the center. The article had piqued his interest, and he’d gone looking to see what kind of a rehab center it was. His research had led him to photographs of the staff at the center, and there, sure enough, he’d seen the photo that had sent him into a tailspin.

  Meredith, the woman he had left behind the last time he had headed off on a mission. It had already been five years, but he’d never forgotten her. Gregory could only hope that she’d never forgotten him either. But the chances were, she’d moved on, was likely married and had a family by now.

  But he didn’t know that. Should he reach out to her or just ignore this? Ignore? His laugh was hollow, completely devoid of emotions. He knew he couldn’t ignore her. Wasn’t that evident by the number of times he’d filled out the paper applications only to crumple them up and throw them away? He and Meredith had spent three wonderful weeks together, and he thought he’d found the one.

  When he had finally told her that he was leaving again, she’d been heartbroken. Desolate. Her brother had died overseas, and she didn’t want to deal with the same kind of loss again. Gregory understood, but he’d signed up for the navy as soon as he could, right out of school. He’d been honored to join, and his career had fulfilled him every year since. No way would he walk away at that point.

  As soon as he left her, he regretted his decision.

  He knew he should have turned around and found a way to make this work, but instead, he’d buried himself in his work and had tried to forget her. And, for a time, he’d managed. But then he had been blown up by an IED. Now, if he went to look for her, he would feel like he was second-best, like he had only come back to her because he was no longer whole. No longer fit for the navy, so she was his second choice.

  Again. Just like before. But for different reasons.

  He didn’t want that. Nor did he want her to feel that way.

  Yet, if she was still at the rehab center and single, they had a chance to work on a whole new level of a relationship. And with so many more problems than they had originally. Even to him, that sounded harsh, but the truth was often harsh. He didn’t even know why she would want him back in this state. He’d be offering her less than what he had been before,
and yet, he’d walked away from her.

  He snorted.

  As if he were fully capable of walking away anymore. Because he no longer could. … Not without crutches, a wheelchair or a prosthetic.

  Gregory laid the paperwork off to the side. He had also filled out the online form but hadn’t really worked on the last couple questions, determined to at least do that much, as he knew Hathaway House could help him physically if nothing else. Maybe he could walk away from her again and not regret it this time. Maybe, just maybe, he could find a whole new life. Sometimes one had to go through the pain to get to the closure, and eventually, to reach a new life at the other end.

  He quickly filled out the last few questions online; then his gaze landed on Meredith’s picture once more. Not giving himself much chance to rethink anything, he reviewed the online application—the same as the physical paperwork he had filled out a dozen times—and hit Send.

  For better or for worse, his application was in.

  This concludes Book 6 of Hathaway House: Finn.

  Read about Gregory: Hathaway House, Book 7

  Hathaway House: Gregory (Book #7)

  Welcome to Hathaway House, a heartwarming military romance series from USA TODAY best-selling author Dale Mayer. Here you’ll meet a whole new group of friends, along with a few favorite characters from Heroes for Hire. Instead of action, you’ll find emotion. Instead of suspense, you’ll find healing. Instead of romance, … oh, wait. … There is romance—of course!”

  Welcome to Hathaway House. Rehab Center. Safe Haven. Second chance at life and love.

  Navy SEAL Gregory Parkins knows he’s not so bad off as to need what Hathaway House offers, but he’ll do anything to get in. RN Meredith Anderson is there, and Greg loves Meredith. In the time since they split up, his life has been one disaster after another, including the one that ended his career—the career that separated them in the first place.

  Meredith was horrified to hear what happened to Gregory. But seeing his file was an even bigger shock. Greg thinks he’s basically back to normal, but Meredith knows he has a long way to go. She doesn’t know how to tell him, without running the risk of him leaving Hathaway House before his healing can really take place.