by JoAnn Ross
“This is nice,” she said once she’d set the plated dinners on the table. She sounded as surprised as he was. The chemistry was still there, humming beneath the surface, but for this moment, there was an easy comfort between them.
“It is,” he agreed as he topped off their wineglasses. “And if it tastes as good as it looks and smells, Barbara Ann’s going to want to increase your salary.”
It was better. Finn had eaten in enough high-end celebrity restaurants over the years on the rare occasion his father would invite him, or some of his brothers and he would go out to dinner together (especially if Gabe or James were paying), but this topped them all. Somehow it managed to be the meat-and-potatoes comfort food she’d promised, but she’d raised it to a level that it should come with one of those Michelin stars.
“This is freaking amazing.”
“Thank you.”
“No, seriously. It’s the best meal I’ve ever had. Hands down.”
She laughed at that. “Says the man who moved from a carrier mess to hash browns and frozen pizza.”
Damn. There wasn’t any way he could assure her that he knew the difference between mess and diner food and these ribs with the meat literally falling off them without getting into who he really was. And although he knew Mary was right about her deserving to know the truth, no way did he want to ruin the evening after she’d obviously been working for hours.
“I’ve eaten at a few high-end places over the years,” he said mildly. “And believe me, this could hold its own in any of them.”
“Thank you.” Color rose in her cheeks. Finn had noticed that she didn’t blush often. She was, in her own way, as guarded as him. He liked being able to get past her walls and please her in a way that had nothing to do with sex.
The conversation flowed surprisingly easy, moving from the Alaskan scenery, which both agreed was amazing, to some of the other places they’d visited. When they both agreed Italy was heaven on earth, Finn neglected to tell her that James had inherited a winery their mother hadn’t lived to learn that her husband had bought as a surprise birthday gift after a visit they’d taken together there.
James had traveled to Positano to sell it but instead had fallen prey to the love bug that had swept through the family and was getting married in October after the grape harvest. Finn had promised to try to be there, and although it would still be hunting season, Mary had agreed he should attend. If for no other reason, he wanted to check out the female who’d finally managed to bring workaholic Perfect James to his knees.
She told him about her earliest days, when she’d sing at open mic nights every chance she’d gotten. How once she’d played a folk/Celtic festival in North Carolina where her stage had been set up ten feet from a tent featuring a bagpipe workshop.
“The music I play doesn’t tend to get me booked into the kind of bars or clubs that end up with burly guys having brawls,” she said. “But that’s not to say things can’t get dicey. Like when I was playing an outdoor wedding in Colorado. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a yellow jacket fly up your dress while you’re performing the wedding processional.”
He laughed. “If I’d been there, I could’ve helped you out with that.”
She tilted her head. Narrowed her eyes. “By lifting up my skirt.”
“Absolutely.” Finn wasn’t about to deny what they both knew he’d been thinking. Because, hey, he was a guy, and she had dynamite limbs. “And while we’re on the subject of weddings, why don’t you tell me what, exactly, happened with yours?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t have to fly in the morning. And the parade doesn’t start until ten. So, we’ve plenty of time.” He stood up. “You can tell me while I clean up.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“You cooked. I’ll clean. Matter settled.”
“Bossy,” she muttered. “And why do you even want to know about why I called it off? It doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
At least she’d admitted there was an us. “Because I’ve realized I’m a selfish guy where you’re concerned.” He picked up both their plates and carried them over to the counter next to the sink and dishwasher.
“Oh?” She took another sip of wine and eyed him a bit warily over the rim of the glass, making him wonder if Carter IV could’ve been one of those abusers who’d go off with jealousy if he thought another guy was looking at his woman.
“When we do go to bed again, and we will, I want it to be the two of us. I don’t want some other guy in your head in the bed with us.”
“You’re awfully confident.”
“I’m confident that what we had that night wasn’t a one-time thing. And if you hadn’t gotten scared and snuck away, we could have explored it deeper.”
“You were leaving town, too,” she reminded him. She did not deny being scared by the intensity of their connection. “And since you brought it up, if you were awake at the time, you could have stopped me.”
“Got me there,” he agreed. And hadn’t he been regretting that ever since? He’d come to the conclusion that the reason he’d let her get away was she wasn’t the only one who’d been shaken. “But that was then. And this is now. And for the time being, neither of us is going anywhere, so we might as well get it out into the open.”
“Are you always this rational?”
His laugh was quick and rough. “Where you’re concerned? Hell, no. Not at all. But aren’t you curious where we might have ended up?”
“It wouldn’t have lasted.”
“You’re so sure of that.”
“Not to sound jaded, but yes. I am sure. And are you really going to make me talk about all this before we have sex?”
“You do sound jaded, yes, I am holding out for the reason you cooked dinner for me and not your new husband, and at least we’ve gotten to the point where we agree we are going to have sex.”
“You already turned me down,” she reminded him.
“Which you didn’t remember because you were wasted,” he reminded her back.
“There is that,” she said. A little grumpily, he thought. Which had him fighting a smile.
“Look,” he said, leaning against the counter and folding his arms. “You can’t just tell me that you moved in with your parents’ employers, who just happened to not only be your fiancé’s parents but also got you arrested.”
“Not technically arrested,” she corrected. “I never should have said anything, but you’re right, I was drunk. So, what really happened was they had me sent to juvie. Which was, at fifteen, just as terrifying as going to an actual jail with cells.”
“What did you do? Boost the silverware?”
Hell, by trying to keep what had to be a difficult topic as light as possible, Finn realized he’d done the exact wrong thing when those remarkable dark eyes turned shiny.
“I’m sorry.” Finn vaguely remembered the comfort of his mother’s hugs. But after they’d lost her, the Brannigans had never been known for embracing. Or even touching. If you’d done something to earn serious recognition, you might be lucky to get a handshake from their dad. But although he felt totally at sea, he crossed the few feet between them and bent down to take her in his arms.
“No.” She stiffened and shook him off. “Go do the dishes. If you’re nice to me, or if I have to watch your face as I tell you, I won’t be able to get through it.”
She didn’t say it flat out, but Finn got the impression that he might be the first person hearing whatever story he’d insisted on dragging out of her. Which now had him wondering if he should’ve pushed her that far. Then decided that, having gotten here, there was no turning back.
“Your call,” he said. Straightening, he returned to the sink and began rinsing the plates. And waited.
“My life was perfect,” she said so quietly he could hardly hear her over the running water. He did hear her long, exhaled sigh. “Until it wasn’t.”
19
Tori didn’t
know how they’d gotten to this place. She’d never, ever told anyone about her past. Over the years she’d tried to tell herself that she didn’t want others to pity her. But now, as she ran a fingernail around the rim of the wineglass and tried to come up with the words to begin, she realized, fully, for the first time, that her reasons had always been because she didn’t want anyone to know that there was something about her that made her unlovable. At least for the long term.
“So, I guess I told you Carter’s family took me in after my parents died?”
“You did. You said they worked for the Covingtons.”
A thought occurred to her. “How did you know his name is Carter?”
“It was on the manifest Mary gave me when I went to pick you up.”
“Oh. Well. Like I said, I’d always had a huge crush on him. But he was away at boarding school most of the time, and whenever he’d come home, he didn’t even notice I existed.”
“I would’ve noticed.”
As much as she hated even thinking about those days, Tori smiled. “You didn’t see me at eleven.”
“I don’t need to know what you looked like, though I’ll bet you were one of those little girls everyone knows is going to have to beat boys away with a stick,” he said as he filled the bottom of the dishwasher. He had a system all worked out, she realized. Fitting items together like a Chinese puzzle.
“You’re very good at that,” she observed.
“When you have to keep all your stuff in a locker while deployed, you learn real quick to arrange stuff.”
“You were an officer. An aviator. Didn’t you have your own cabin?”
He laughed. A rich, deep sound that vibrated through her like a tuning fork. A sexy tuning fork, hitting all the good notes. “Carriers aren’t designed for comfort. They’re designed as floating, movable air bases, which make them preferable to land bases since eighty percent of the world’s population lives within a hundred miles of the sea.
“Comfort isn’t factored into the equation, and unless you’re the captain or admiral, the odds of getting your own quarters is probably equal to winning the Powerball. I shared my first deployment with eight pilots. The last with four, which, in comparison, was like having the luxury suite on a cruise liner. The downside was it was right below the flight deck.”
He started loading the top rack. “And that was a good diversion, but to get back to your story…”
“You’re not going to drop this, are you?”
“Not unless it’s too painful. Then, yeah, I guess I can go through the rest of my life making up my own scenarios.”
“It’s not that surprising, I suppose,” she said. “One year, Carter came home from his freshman year of college and noticed I’d grown up.”
“And you were how old?”
“Fifteen. Going on sixteen.” In another nine months.
“That’s still too young for a guy in college to be hitting on.”
“Looking back on it, I agree. But at the time I was just so happy he was finally interested in me. In that way, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I get it.”
“It didn’t go anywhere,” she said quickly. “Well, except for a few midnight kisses in the pool house.” But she would have gone further. She’d been so needy at the time, and so in love with his privileged blond Wasp beauty, she would have given him anything and everything he wanted.
“Which stopped when his mother found out.”
“Yes. Of course there was no way she was going to let her son risk his future with the orphaned girl of a servant.” She laughed at that. “It sounds so Dickensian to hear it out loud.”
“Yeah, it does. But wealth has its privilege.”
“Tell me about it.” Tori pressed her fingers against her eyes, trying to block the video of that time running like a never-ending loop in her mind. There’d be days, weeks, months when she wouldn’t think of it. Then it would be back in full surround sound and high def. “She called social services and told them that I’d become unruly and promiscuous. Then, as a kicker, she told them she caught me trying to seduce Carter.”
His back was to her, but as he went very, very still, Tori could see him stiffen. Neck, arms, shoulders, back. “And he didn’t say anything to defend you?”
“No.” She noticed that he didn’t, for a moment, seem to believe Helen Covington’s side of the story.
“What happened to Covington?”
“He was young himself.”
“He would’ve been over eighteen. You weren’t. Which would have made him guilty of statutory rape if the two of you had had sex.”
“He admitted years later that he was afraid because the family’s lawyer pointed out to him that if he did give into temptation, he could’ve ended up in prison instead of his fraternity house.”
“So he let you take the fall?”
“He was afraid,” she repeated.
“He also didn’t show one damn iota of responsibility. Or honor.”
Tori was not as surprised as she might have been at hearing him refer to what so many would consider an old-fashioned concept. “I wanted to believe he didn’t believe he had any other choice at the time,” she said.
“Because you were still in love with him.”
“No. And looking back, it’s going to sound terrible, but I accepted his proposal because he could give me something I wanted.”
He turned around and looked her hard in the eye. “Not money.”
“No. At the time the fact that he had money didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Then what did you want? Love?”
“No. I knew, or thought, by then that Carter was too narcissistic to love anyone but himself.” She drew in a deep breath. Then let it out. And wished she had shared her feelings with someone back when all this was taking place because she would’ve heard how unworkable what had seemed like a logical solution had sounded at the time. “It was foolish.” Tori knew that now, but the knowledge didn’t make her feel any better. “I wanted a family.”
He scraped a hand over his short hair, clearly unable to follow her reasoning. “With a guy who didn’t love you?”
“With a man who couldn’t break my heart.”
“Because you weren’t willing to give it to him.”
“Because I couldn’t,” she corrected. And didn’t that make her sound even worse? “Maybe it’s because of all the years in the revolving door of foster care, where I’d move from house to house with whatever of my things would fit in a plastic garbage bag, but I honestly don’t think I have a heart to give anyone.”
There. The truth of her emotional deformity was right out in the open. And now the ball was in his court. Your play.
20
The idea of a fifteen-year-old girl carrying her belongings from home to home—no, house to house, because they hadn’t been true homes—in a black plastic garbage bag hit hard. “Are you saying you don’t believe in love?”
She hesitated. “I guess I believe in it for some people,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s for me.”
“Join the club,” he muttered as he added the capsule to the detergent box. Then shut the dishwasher door with more force than was necessary.
“Excuse me?” she asked quietly. He hung the dish towel on the handle and slowly turned around, feeling his heart splinter when he saw the concern in her eyes. Did she honestly think he’d blame her for what the Covingtons had done? Think less of her because, rather than surrender, she’d found a way to survive?
If there was one thing Finn knew a lot about, it was survival. Both emotional and physical. How weird was it, he wondered, that just when he was finding himself ready to open up, he’d fallen for a woman who’d had even more reason to lock away emotions?
“You write about love,” he said. “And yeah, your lyrics are about the loss of love, but if you weren’t at least open to the idea, you probably wouldn’t let yourself go there in the first place.”
It was also why she
sang, he decided. Okay, so maybe the songs she’d played for that Navy crowd were songs to party to, not that different, he guessed, from what she’d sung at those early wedding receptions. But he’d bought her CDs after leaving San Diego and had spent a lot of lonely nights in his rack, listening to her sweet, clear voice through his headphones.
Her warm, vulnerable, wounded heart had reverberated in every song. Every verse. Every word. And because she’d poured so much of herself, so much honesty into her music, over those months, he hadn’t been able to stop wondering about might-have-beens.
“Your cooking’s like that,” he said as the pieces of the gorgeous, complex puzzle that was Tori Cassidy began to click into place. “If I were a judge on one of those cooking shows, I’d know right away that you’d put every bit of your heart into whatever you make.”
She seemed surprised he’d caught that. “I loved cooking with my mother. Cooking and singing were the things that made me happiest. After I lost her, cooking turned more into a ploy.”
“How so?”
“Because I stupidly thought that if I’d cook for whatever family I landed with, they’d realized I could do something special. Be someone special. And they’d want to keep me,” she shot back. “But it never happened, okay?
“And damn, I hate this.” She dragged a hand through her hair, which she’d worn down tonight. “I feel I should be paying you by the hour while you hand me tissues.”
“I can get some from the bathroom.”
“Not needed. Because I never cry.” She folded her arms in a gesture he suspected was more self-protective than stubborn. “It’s another thing I can’t do.”
Or wouldn’t let herself do, Finn considered. He was deciding it might be time to call this off. She’d spent half her life constructing those barricades. Who was he to risk blowing them up in one night? But…
“You cried that night.” He remembered brushing the single salty tear away with his thumb. Tasting it.
“An unconscious reaction to my second orgasm.”
“Third,” he corrected with a reminiscent smile. “But who’s counting?”