“Why? Why did you leave?”
She took a deep breath through her nose before she let it out through her mouth in a rush. “I found these journals. Bethelda’s journals from when she was thirteen until now. Each one was a year in her life. And then I got to the one where she met my father.” Her voice broke when she got to that part, and she closed her eyes, turning her head away for a moment. When she looked back to him there were tears on her cheeks.
That was it, that was all it took for him to move the remaining distance to her.
He reached up to her face, cradling her jaw with his palm and running his thumb across her wet cheek. She leaned into his touch and let out another breath, like his touch eased her.
“You found out who your father was?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “His name was Daniel Emmanuel Fernandez. He called Bethelda Betts, and he loved her.”
“What happened?”
“He died. He died and it destroyed her. She was about four months pregnant when it happened. She couldn’t keep me because she couldn’t look at me. I reminded her of him. And if she couldn’t have him, she didn’t want anything.” She blinked again and more tears fell from her eyes. “So, she became the way she was. For her, being alone meant you didn’t lose anyone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you found the journals? I would’ve come back.”
“I know you would’ve. You know, when I decided to come down here, for the funeral, I thought it was something I was going to have to deal with all on my own. And then I walked into that bar, and I met you.” She gave him a sad smile as she reached up and touched his jaw with her fingertips, trailing them across the scruff of his beard.
“When I found the journals, I went back to that old mentality. I needed to do it on my own, stand on my own without anyone’s help. Then it became all too much for me to handle and I ran. I ran because I saw how thoroughly love destroyed Bethelda and it scared me more than anything.”
“Why?”
“Because I was in love with you…I am in love with you.”
At her words, at her declaration, Finn pulled her against his body and covered her mouth with his. He kissed her like his life depended on it. Actually, his life did depend on it.
“I love you, Brie,” he whispered across her lips. “Love you more than I’ve loved anyone.”
“I’m so sorry that I left. I won’t ever do it again. I swear to you. I don’t want to do things on my own, Finn. I don’t want to be alone.”
Finn moved his hands into her hair, tilting her head back as he looked into her golden brown eyes. “What do you want?”
“You.”
Epilogue
No Better Love
Sometime later…
Clean, crisp sunshine streamed through the bedroom windows. Finn had forgotten to close the blinds the night before, not all that surprisingly as he’d been thoroughly distracted with making love to Brie.
She was curled into his side that morning, her head on his chest as she slept. Her hair was a riot of tangled curls on the pillow. She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. No matter how many times he woke up with her in his arms, he still considered it one of the greatest gifts of his life.
He didn’t want to wake her, really didn’t want to disturb the peaceful expression on her face, but it was Sunday and they needed to have breakfast before they went to church.
“Baby,” he whispered, brushing his fingers across her cheek.
“Hmm,” she hummed, slowly blinking her eyes open.
“We have to start the day.”
“I don’t want to.” She burrowed in closer to him, pressing her lips to his chest. “Let’s just stay in bed all day.”
Finn laughed…he couldn’t help it. “You know that isn’t going to happen.”
She sighed, her breath moving out and over his skin. “I do know that. We probably only have another sixty seconds.”
“My guess is thirty.”
It was more like twenty seconds before the sound of feet running down the hallway echoed through the house. A moment later the bedroom door burst open and a thirty-six-pound ball of terror—along with his constant canine companion Frankie—burst into the room.
Owen launched himself onto the bed, landing on Brie and Finn with a squeal of laughter. “Time to get up!”
Finn grabbed his son and rolled so that Owen was on his back, limbs flailing as Finn tickled him.
“No, Daddy. Nooooo!” Owen giggled harder.
Finn leaned down and blew a raspberry on Owen’s stomach, another high-pitched squeal of delight filling the room. The tickle torture stopped a moment later and Finn lay back down, Owen climbing up on his father’s chest.
“Morning.” He gave each of his parents a big, loud, smacking kiss on the cheek before he sat up again. “Can we have pancakes? With chocolate chips? And whipped cream? Puh-leeaseee.”
“Only because you asked so nicely. You going to help Daddy make them?” Brie grabbed Owen’s foot and tickled the bottom.
“Yes.” He grinned, his golden brown eyes lighting up.
“Deal,” Finn agreed, getting out of bed and padding over to his dresser in a pair of boxers. He grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it on before he grabbed Owen’s outstretched hand.
“Mommy.” He looked over his shoulder when they got to the door. “Meet you downstairs?”
“Give me five minutes.”
“OK.” He nodded before he started walking again.
When Finn got to the baby gate at the top of the stairs, he saw Lo patiently waiting. The cat always slept with Owen and Frankie in Owen’s room, but unlike his son and dog, the cat did not take part in the morning barrage into his and Brie’s room.
Finn unlatched the gate and Lo and Frankie headed down while Finn helped Owen conquer the stairs one step at a time. He let Frankie outside before they went into the kitchen and he started the coffeepot, which was always priority number one. Owen watched his father measure out the grinds, telling him about the dream he’d had with Captain America and Iron Man.
Once the coffee was brewing, they headed for the pantry, Owen looking up at the shelves that were just out of his reach. None of the pancake-making ingredients were within a three-year-old’s arm’s length anymore. They’d learned that lesson the hard way, finding a box of mix scattered around the kitchen like snow one morning.
Finn lifted his son in the air and put him on his hip. “What do we need?”
“This.” Owen reached out and touched the box of pancake mix. “And this.” He jabbed at the bag of chocolate chips.
Finn handed Owen the bag before he set him back on the ground. Finn grabbed the box and moved back into the kitchen just as Brie walked in, her hair thrown up in a messy bun on top of her head. She was wearing her dark purple bathrobe and carrying their eleven-month-old daughter Annabella on her hip.
The name was a combination of Anastasia (Brie’s mother’s name), Brie, and Ella.
The little girl would never get to meet her great-grandmother. Ella had passed away a few months after Finn and Brie had gotten married. It had been exactly seven years to the day that Owen had died.
What Annabella did get was her grandmother’s sapphire-blue eyes…Finn’s sapphire-blue eyes.
“Morning, sunshine.” He leaned in and gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek. She giggled and gave him a big smile.
A light scratch at the back door signaled that Frankie wanted to come inside. “I got it!” Owen said as he bolted for the door.
When the dog came back inside, Owen started playing with her. Finn was fine with that. It gave him a chance to get some coffee.
“You know,” he started as he pulled the creamer out of the fridge and set it on the counter. “I had a dream about you last night.”
“What dream was that?” Brie looked up from where she was getting Annabella settled in the high chair.
“That day you came back to Mirabelle. That day you came back to me.”
Brie
straightened before she slowly crossed over to him. She rested her hands on his chest as she looked up at him. “It’s where I was supposed to be. With you. Always with you.”
Finn leaned down and pressed a kiss to her lips, knowing there was no better love than what she’d given him. His family. This life. Her.
Missing Mirabelle? Don’t fret. See the next page for an excerpt from UNDONE and see how Shannon Richard’s A Country Road series began!
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Chapter One
Short Fuses and a Whole Lot of Sparks
Bethelda Grimshaw was a snot-nosed wench. She was an evil, mean-spirited, vindictive, horrible human being.
Paige should’ve known. She should’ve known the instant she’d walked into that office and sat down. Bethelda Grimshaw had a malevolent stench radiating off her, kind of like road kill in ninety-degree weather. The interview, if it could even be called that, had been a complete waste of time.
“She didn’t even read my résumé,” Paige said, slamming her hand against the steering wheel as she pulled out of the parking lot of the Mirabelle Information Center.
No, Bethelda had barely even looked at said résumé before she’d set it down on the desk and leaned back in her chair, appraising Paige over her cat’s-eye glasses.
“So you’re the infamous Paige Morrison,” Bethelda had said, raising a perfectly plucked, bright red eyebrow. “You’ve caused quite a stir since you came to town.”
Quite a stir?
Okay, so there had been that incident down at the Piggly Wiggly, but that hadn’t been Paige’s fault. Betty Whitehurst might seem like a sweet, little old lady but in reality she was as blind as a bat and as vicious as a shrew. Betty drove her shopping cart like she was racing in the Indy 500, which was an accomplishment, as she barely cleared the handle. She’d slammed her cart into Paige, who in turn fell into a display of cans. Paige had been calm for all of about five seconds before Betty had started screeching at her about watching where she was going.
Paige wasn’t one to take things lying down covered in cans of creamed corn, so she’d calmly explained to Betty that she had been watching where she was going. “Calmly” being that Paige had started yelling and the store manager had to get involved to quiet everyone down.
Yeah, Paige didn’t deal very well with certain types of people. Certain types being evil, mean-spirited, vindictive, horrible human beings. And Bethelda Grimshaw was quickly climbing to the top of that list.
“As it turns out,” Bethelda had said, pursing her lips in a patronizing pout, “we already filled the position. I’m afraid there was a mistake in having you come down here today.”
“When?”
“Excuse me?” Bethelda had asked, her eyes sparkling with glee.
“When did you fill the position?” Paige had repeated, trying to stay calm.
“Last week.”
Really? So the phone call Paige had gotten that morning to confirm the time of the interview had been a mistake?
This was the eleventh job interview she’d gone on in the last two months. And it had most definitely been the worst. It hadn’t even been an interview. She’d been set up; she just didn’t understand why. But she hadn’t been about to ask that question out loud. So instead of flying off the handle and losing the last bit of restraint she had, Paige had calmly gotten up from the chair and left without making a scene. The whole thing was a freaking joke, which fit perfectly for the current theme of Paige’s life.
Six months ago, Paige had been living in Philadelphia. She’d had a good job in the art department of an advertising agency. She’d shared a tiny two-bedroom apartment above a coffee shop with her best friend, Abby Fields. And she’d had Dylan, a man who she’d been very much in love with.
And then the rug got pulled out from under her and she’d fallen flat on her ass.
First off, Abby got a job at an up-and-coming PR firm. Which was good news, and Paige had been very excited for her, except the job was in Washington, DC, which Paige was not excited about. Then, before Paige could find a new roommate, she’d lost her job. The advertising agency was bought out and she was in the first round of cuts. Without a job, she couldn’t renew her lease, and was therefore homeless. So she’d moved in with Dylan. It was always supposed to be a temporary thing, just until Paige could find another job and get on her feet again.
But it never happened.
Paige had tried for two months and found nothing, and then the real bomb hit. She was either blind or just distracted by everything else that was going on, but either way, she never saw it coming.
Paige had been with Dylan for about a year and she’d really thought he’d been the one. Okay, he tended to be a bit of a snob when it came to certain things. For example, wine. Oh was he ever a wine snob, rather obnoxious about it really. He would always swirl it around in his glass, take a sip, sniff, and then take another loud sip, smacking his lips together.
He was also a snob about books. Paige enjoyed reading the classics, but she also liked reading romance, mystery, and fantasy. Whenever she would curl up with one of her books, Dylan tended to give her a rather patronizing look and shake his head.
“Reading fluff again I see,” he would always say.
Yeah, she didn’t miss that at all. Or the way he would roll his eyes when she and Abby would quote movies and TV shows to each other. Or how he’d never liked her music and flat-out refused to dance with her. Which had always been frustrating because Paige loved to dance. But despite all of that, she’d loved him. Loved the way he would run his fingers through his hair when he was distracted, loved his big goofy grin, and loved the way his glasses would slide down his nose.
But the thing was, he hadn’t loved her.
One night, he’d come back to his apartment and sat Paige down on the couch. Looking back on it, she’d been an idiot, because there was a small part of her that thought he was actually about to propose.
“Paige,” he’d said, sitting down on the coffee table and grabbing her hands. “I know that this was supposed to be a temporary thing, but weeks have turned into months. Living with you has brought a lot of things to light.”
It was wrong, everything about that moment was all wrong. She could tell by the look in his eyes, by the tone of his voice, by the way he said Paige and light. In that moment she’d known exactly where he was going, and it wasn’t anywhere with her. He wasn’t proposing. He was breaking up with her.
She’d pulled her hands out of his and shrank back into the couch.
“This,” he’d said, gesturing between the two of them, “was never going to go further than where we are right now.”
And that was the part where her ears had started ringing.
“At one point I thought I might love you, but I’ve realized I’m not in love with you,” he’d said, shaking his head. “I feel like you’ve thought this was going to go further, but the truth is I’m never going to marry you. Paige, you’re not the one. I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of putting in the effort for a relationship that isn’t going anywhere else. It’s not worth it to me.”
“You mean I’m not worth it,” she’d said, shocked.
“Paige, you deserve to be with someone who wants to make the effort, and I deserve to be with someone who I’m willing to make the effort for. It’s better that we end this now, instead of delaying the inevitable.”
He’d made it sound like he was doing her a favor, like he had her best interests at heart.
But all she’d heard was You’re not worth it and I’m not in love with you. And those were the words that kept repeating in her head, over and over and over again.
Dylan had told her he was going to go stay with one of his friends for the week. She’d told him she’d be out before the end of the next day. She’d spent the entire night packing up her stuff. Well, packing and crying and drinking two entire bottles of the prick’s wine.
Paige didn’t have a lot of stuff. Most of the furniture from her and Abby
’s apartment had been Abby’s. Everything that Paige owned had fit into the back of her Jeep and the U-Haul trailer that she’d rented the first thing the following morning. She’d loaded up and gotten out of there before four o’clock in the afternoon.
She’d stayed the night in a hotel room just outside of Philadelphia, where she’d promptly passed out. She’d been exhausted after her marathon packing, which was good because it was harder for a person to feel beyond pathetic in her sleep. No, that was what the following eighteen-hour drive had been reserved for.
Jobless, homeless, and brokenhearted, Paige had nowhere else to go but home to her parents. The problem was, there was no home anymore. The house in Philadelphia that Paige had grown up in was no longer her parents’. They’d sold it and retired to a little town in the South.
Mirabelle, Florida: population five thousand.
There was roughly the same amount of people in the six hundred square miles of Mirabelle as there were in half a square mile of Philadelphia. Well, unless the mosquitoes were counted as residents.
People who thought that Florida was all sunshine and sand were sorely mistaken. It did have its fair share of beautiful beaches. The entire southeast side of Mirabelle was the Gulf of Mexico. But about half of the town was made up of water. And all of that water, combined with the humidity that plagued the area, created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Otherwise known as tiny, blood-sucking villains that loved to bite the crap out of Paige’s legs.
Paige had visited her parents a couple of times over the last couple of years, but she’d never been in love with Mirabelle like her parents were. And she still wasn’t. She’d spent a month moping around her parents’ house. Again, she was pathetic enough to believe that maybe, just maybe, Dylan would call her and tell her that he’d been wrong. That he missed her. That he loved her.
He never called, and Paige realized he was never going to. That was when Paige resigned herself to the fact that she had to move on with her life. So she’d started looking for a job.
Untold Page 34