by Holly Jacobs
“I’ve changed since Bridget died,” Finn confessed to her.
“I don’t think so. I think you’re exactly who you always were. I can simply see the real you now.”
“Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
Her fingers started toying with the blob in her hand that had once been a napkin. “I’m exhausted, so I’m not sure I want to know, if you don’t mind.”
He took her hand in his, stilling her fingers, and brushed her hair out of her face with the other hand. “I see one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known.”
She snorted. “Yeah, that’s me, gorgeous.”
He knew that she was never going to see herself the way he saw her. The way Bridget had seen her. The way pretty much every person she met must see her.
He’d always thought she must be a loner as she bumped along from place to place, but now he understood that people gravitated to Mattie. She could waltz all over the world and she’d never be alone because most people recognized immediately that she was someone who cared.
Bridget had known. That’s why she left the kids to Mattie. She knew that Mattie would make them the center of her life in a way he never could. Mattie had done that for Bridget in a way he couldn’t.
And suddenly he knew he wanted her to...
He simply wanted her.
He’d held her before, but mainly to offer solace. This time, he held her wanting...no needing, to be close to her. Like everyone else who’d fallen under Mathilda Keith’s spell, he’d fallen and fallen hard.
He leaned down and kissed her, waiting for her to slug him, to tell him that he repulsed her and that the only reason she let him be a part of her life was for the kids’ sake.
But she didn’t.
He was amazed that she kissed him back, and he realized that he wanted more. Much more. He’d never been one to play games, so he said, “I want you.”
Again, he waited for her to laugh, or storm away, and again she surprised him. “I want you, too.”
She took his hand and they tiptoed through the living room where she stopped a moment and stared at Abbey still lost in sleep, then, to his utter amazement, she led him to her room.
* * *
MATTIE STARED AT FINN. He’d fallen asleep in her bed.
What had she done?
Even more important, why had she done it?
She gingerly rolled off the bed, gathered her clothes and made for the bathroom, where she jumped in the shower and then dressed at record speed. Thankful that the master bath had a second door that led to the hallway, she rushed downstairs to check on Abbey.
How could she have lost herself with Finn Wallace and left Abbey alone downstairs?
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Abbey hadn’t moved. Bear looked up as she came into the room, but then lay back down and closed his eyes again.
Mattie sat in a chair and wondered.
She wondered why she’d told Finn about that last time with Bridget. She’d taken it for granted that there would be a last look. Last words.
Something she could hold on to.
Instead, her friend—the sister of her heart—had just stopped.
And here Mattie was, trying to pick up the pieces.
With Finn Wallace upstairs in her bed.
That added a whole new dimension to her confusing thoughts.
So she watched Abbey sleep instead. She watched the little girl’s chest rise and fall as she slept next to the giant puppy and clutched a plastic bottle of lotion.
Up and down. Abbey’s chest rose and fell.
Up and down...
Up and down...
“You left,” Finn said from behind her.
She’d done such a good job of not thinking that she hadn’t heard him come in. She didn’t turn around, but kept her focus on the girl and dog. “I needed to see Abbey.”
“About—”
Mattie was saved from whatever Finn was about to say when Abbey opened her eyes. “Aunt Mattie, Uncle Finn. What’ja doing?”
Mattie stood up and walked over to the couch. She nudged the dog farther down and sat next to Abbey. “We were waiting for you to wake up so you can take your medicine.”
She put her hand on Abbey’s forehead and was relieved that the only warmth she felt was regular body heat.
Abbey nodded. “Okay. It tastes like bubble gum.”
“It does,” Mattie agreed, then had a horrible vision of Abbey sneaking extra tastes. “But even if a medicine tastes good, you shouldn’t take it—”
“Unless you or Uncle Finn give it to me,” Abbey finished.
“Right.” Mattie breathed a sigh of relief.
Abbey smiled. “Yeah, you told me. And Mommy used to tell me, too. I’ll remember.”
“I’m glad you remember.”
Abbey had mentioned her mother so matter-of-factly. It was another instance that Mattie wasn’t sure Abbey remembered, or simply remembered hearing about. But either way, Mattie planned on seeing to it that she kept those stories and memories alive for Abbey, Mickey and Zoe.
She’d visit them at Finn’s and she’d collect those stories and tell them to the kids over and over. “It’s important to remember. And I keep telling you things that are important, like don’t touch medicine, don’t talk to strangers—”
“Don’t leave stuff on the stairs,” Abbey added. She turned to her uncle and said, “I forgot about the not leaving stuff on the stairs and Aunt Mattie fell.”
“When?” he asked sharply, looking for some bruise or telltale sign of her fall.
Given that he’d pretty much seen every inch of her only a short time ago, he should know there were no bruises. She felt herself blush at the thought, and she replied more curtly than she’d intended, “I don’t know. A couple weeks ago.”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“I obviously survived.” Hey, it wasn’t Finn’s fault he’d seen her naked. She owned that, so she smiled, hoping to soften her response. It wasn’t Finn’s fault that they’d...
She hunted for what to call what they’d done. Been intimate. That was safer than some terms. She should never have been intimate with him. Their relationship was already complicated enough.
“Let me get your medicine, sunshine.” Bear barked and wormed his way out of the makeshift bed. “And let Bear out,” she added.
When she returned to the living room, Finn was sitting on the couch by Abbey. He’d taken her into his arms. He nodded as if what Abbey was saying was the most important thing in the world.
“...and then I took a bath and put on my lotion. I smell like Mommy again. See?” She thrust her arm at Finn, who dutifully and dramatically sniffed her arm.
“You smell like your mom, all right.”
“Can you tell me a story of Mommy?” Abbey snuggled closer to him.
“Once, when your mom and Aunt Mattie were about five—”
Abbey interrupted. “Mommy stories always have Aunt Mattie in them, don’t they?”
“Almost always,” he agreed. “They were best friends. Almost sisters.”
“Yeah, Mommy and Aunt Mattie had brothers, and brothers are hard work, Aunt Mattie says.”
“I never thought about it, but I bet I was hard work for your mom. I was older and thought I was cool, but sometimes she could make me forget.”
“Make you forget you’re old?” Abbey asked.
Mattie snorted at that, and Finn shot her an intimate look. A look that reflected a whole lot more going on than two adults working together for the children’s sake. She felt her cheeks warm again as she stood there, the antibiotic in her hand.
Finn focused again on Abbey. “One summer night your mom sneaked into my room. She had to be about your age now. She woke me up. It was very late, but she’d seen fairies in the yard and wanted me to catch one.”
Abbey glanced out the window, as if checking to see if the fairies were still there. �
�We had fairies in the yard?”
Finn pulled her closer. “Well, I went outside with her to see. She was barefoot and it was a cool evening. She pointed to a blinking light and I caught it in a Mason jar.”
“Was it a fairy?” Abbey asked.
“Well, to me it looked like a lightning bug, but your mom swore it was a fairy that had disguised itself.”
“Maybe you can catch lightning bugs with me and I could see if they are fairies?”
Finn nodded. “In the summer. They don’t come out until it’s hot.”
In the summer. Finn would probably have custody and she’d be somewhere else. Mattie would miss seeing if the lightning bugs were fairies. She wouldn’t be the one standing in the yard with Abbey and the other kids...and Finn. They’d do it themselves, like a real family, which they were.
She poured the medicine onto the spoon and said, “Open.”
Abbey complied and smacked her lips, not minding the bubble gum flavor. She put her head back on Finn’s chest. “Maybe lightning bugs don’t come till summer, but maybe Mommy was right and they’re really fairies. I think fairies come out anytime.”
“No matter when they come out, I’ll help you find some,” he promised Abbey.
Mattie remembered holding Abbey the day that she found out that Finn was suing her. She’d doubted that he would be able to give the kids the time and emotional connection they needed.
And yet, here he was. Here for Abbey. Comforting her, holding her.
Finn Wallace might be a doctor, but he was Abbey’s uncle. He was her real and honest-to-goodness relative, and he loved her. Mattie had only borrowed the title aunt. Just like she’d borrowed Bridget’s family.
Heck, just like she’d borrowed her own family.
It didn’t matter that she loved them all and discovered how much she loved Valley Ridge, they still weren’t hers. Not really.
As she watched Finn, who seemed content to sit and hold his niece, she realized something else.
She loved Valley Ridge, her family, the kids...and she loved Finn Wallace, too. She’d used the word intimate when she thought about what they’d done, but it was more than that. They’d made love. Well, at least she’d made love to him.
She loved him.
It was the cowboy hat moment that Sophie had talked about. It was nothing big. Nothing of massive importance, but everything in her world shifted because it was the moment she understood that she hadn’t only been intimate with Finn, she’d made love to him because she loved him.
She needed to be sure the kids were happy, but she wanted to be sure Finn was happy, too. Because she loved him.
Thinking the words felt liberating.
She wouldn’t fool herself into thinking their lovemaking was anything more than sex for him, but for her it was.
And because she loved all of them, she had to find a way to see to it that all of them were happy and well cared for.
She wasn’t sure how she would do it, but Mattie had never met a task she couldn’t handle once she set her mind to it.
And she was setting her mind to this.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FINN SAT IN his office Monday afternoon and glumly peered out the window. He had half a sub on his desk, but after the first bite he’d lost interest. His thoughts weren’t on lunch or work.
His thoughts were exactly where his heart was...in Valley Ridge.
Finn had experienced personal revelations in the past. For instance, he’d always known he wanted to be a doctor, but it wasn’t until he was in his first cadaver lab that he realized he wanted to be a surgeon. There was something so eloquent about the human body. How organ worked with organ in perfect harmony. He understood the workings of the human body, but he didn’t have nearly as much expertise with people and their feelings.
He had his partners in the practice, and he was certainly friendly with them, but they weren’t friends. Yes, he asked about their families, commiserated when their sports teams lost, but he’d done so merely as a colleague.
No, his true friends were Colton and Sebastian.
For the first time he wondered if something in him had broken after they’d become friends. Even in college, he’d been too busy with his studies to really invest in anything more than a cursory acquaintance with anyone.
With Bridget it was something deeper than friendship obviously. She was family. His sister. He knew, despite her reassurances, that he often let her down, but she’d loved him enough to overlook his flaws. Now she was gone, and he knew that Bridget’s children needed him badly.
Mattie had seen it from the start. When he initiated the lawsuit, there had been an element of competition in it. He hated admitting that, but he had to face it. He’d thought he could breeze in and easily give the kids everything and maintain the same level of commitment at work. But plenty had changed in the past few months of weekend visits.
He no longer saw Zoe, Mickey and Abbey as his sister’s children. He no longer loved them for Bridget’s sake, or because they were family and he should love them. He loved them because they were Zoe, Mickey and Abbey.
He’d spent the past couple months enjoying the weekends because he loved them and couldn’t stand being apart from them. He packed his bag on Friday mornings and left for Valley Ridge as soon as he saw his last patient.
A woman was walking along the sidewalk. She had two dogs with her. A large black one, and a small white one. She glanced at the office building and for a moment, he could have sworn it was Mattie. Maybe it was the blond ponytail. Maybe it was just that as she moved, there was a spring in her step that spoke of happiness.
That’s how he felt in Valley Ridge—as if his every step spoke of his happiness.
Every Friday as he crested the hill and gazed down onto Park Street, something inside him unwound. He’d never thought it was there before, but when he came home, it disappeared. When he packed again on Sunday to head back to Buffalo, that tension began to wind up tight. Squeezing him until it almost hurt.
He knew that as he parked in the garage at his condo, there was never a feeling of coming home. That was saved for Fridays. When he went to the house he’d grown up in on Lakeview, that’s when he truly came home. And it wasn’t that he grew up there. The house was home because that’s where Mattie and the kids were.
He knew that his feeling of home would only be stronger now that he and Mattie had made love. She was fighting it—their attraction. She’d practically put her hands over her ears and cried out Na na na, I can’t hear you when he tried to talk to her about it. But it was there and he didn’t know what to do precisely.
But he knew what not to do.
He knew that you didn’t sue the woman you loved for custody of the kids she adored.
Yeah, he was sure about that much.
And he was sure that whatever was growing between him and Mattie wouldn’t have a chance to fully develop if he only saw her on weekends.
There. That was two things that he knew. And that was more than he’d known last week.
He thought that someday he’d fall in love with a woman who would fit into his life without causing a ripple. Someone who would be easy to be with. Someone with whom a relationship was easy to build and balance.
Mattie wasn’t that woman, and yet...
That first thing he was certain of he could take care of with a call to his lawyer. He’d asked him what his options were on Friday, and the attorney said he could look after the matter quickly. So that was done. No more lawsuit.
The second... Well, that took more thought.
Normally, he’d toss the problem out to Colton, or now that Sebastian was home, to him. Problem was, Colton was not only preoccupied with the vineyard, he was planning his wedding. And Sebastian was barely home and would have to deal with Hank’s problems. From what Finn had heard, Sebastian was having a hard time with Hank’s issues. Neither of his friends needed Finn to dump on them.
His oth
er option would have been to go to Bridget. She’d always been his touchstone. He’d never told her that. There was a lot he’d never told her. But he knew she knew. Bridget had always known him better than he’d known himself.
And part of him wondered if Bridget had somehow always known that Mathilda Keith was the woman for him. He suspected she might have. He also suspected that she was watching over them now and cheering him on.
Finn ached with how much he missed Bridget. He’d give almost anything for one more conversation with her. He’d pay any sum to hear her laugh one more time as they chased fairies in the backyard on a summer’s night.
Though he couldn’t go back and be a better brother, he knew he’d spend the rest of his life trying to be the best uncle to her children.
He weighed his options during what was left of the afternoon as he went about his normal routine. He saw patients. He scheduled surgeries. He went home to his quiet, sterile condo, with no screaming kids, no giant dog...no Mattie. He called the house in Valley Ridge and talked to everyone, wishing he were there.
Before he hung up from the call, he’d decided; his plans solidified.
He knew what he wanted, and he knew what he had to do next.
* * *
MATTIE HAD MADE her decision and spent her week storing up memories like a hoarder adding another box to the stack.
Her mother dropped in on Monday for coffee with her. They’d gossiped about the boys, about her father, talked about the kids with pride. Her mom had gotten up and kissed her, saying, “I’m so glad to have my girl home. I love your brothers, but there’s something special about a daughter.” She’d walked to the door and gave a little wave. “I’ll come by again soon.”
Mattie admitted how much she’d missed spontaneous moments with her mother and how much she was going to miss them when she left.