Finn

by Chris Keniston

  For the second time this week, she'd buried her head at the library. When she'd heard from Ned that he had the afternoon free, she hurried over to sit out front and drink sweet tea. He'd been right about one thing, life took on a whole different feel when you slowed down enough to just sit and watch.

  Turning under the large Farraday Arch, Joanna almost squealed, eager to share her findings with Finn. The last few days had been absolutely amazing. So little had changed between them, and yet, everything had changed.

  Pulling up next to Adam's car, Joanna ran inside. "Oh. My. God. You won't believe it."

  Finn was the first to meet her midway between the kitchen and the front door. "What won't I believe?"

  Normally, she was rather discreet about showing her affection for Finn in front of his family, but tonight she didn't really care if the whole world was watching. She flew into his arms, wrapping her arms and legs around him. "I figured it out!"

  Finn's eyes grew dark and before she knew it, she'd leaned in and planted a kiss on Finn's mouth that had her forgetting everything else except that she was finally here really with him.

  "Figured what—" Meg's voice came to a stop just behind Finn. "Looks like here we go again." The sound of her heels clacking on the hard wood floor disappeared into the kitchen.

  Reluctantly, Joanna slid down to stand on her own feet again and eased back a step, her brain a little rattled. Along with a few other body parts. "I, uh…"

  "Figured something out?" Finn said.

  "Right." All the excitement was back. Grabbing his hand, she dragged Finn to the kitchen where a good number of the Farradays were gathered, including a new face.

  An attractive dark haired woman slid out from under Ethan's arm and reached forward, offering her hand to Joanna. "I'm Allison Monroe."

  "Nice to meet you. Joanna Gaines."

  Allison's gaze shifted to Finn and back to Joanna. "Nice to meet you as well."

  The first thing Joanna noticed about the famous doctor was the way she immediately stepped back, tucking herself into the crook of Ethan's shoulder. The next thing she spotted was the way Ethan stared down at her. If Joanna could bottle the way the Farraday men looked at the women they loved, she'd be richer than anyone on the planet.

  "So don't keep us hanging." Aunt Eileen pulled a covered dish from the oven. "What's all the excitement about?"

  "Oh." Joanna turned to find Finn at her side.

  "Yes. I want to know too." His gaze leveled with hers and her breath caught in her throat at the same sappy look she'd just seen on Ethan. "Joanna?"

  She turned to face everyone. "You know I've been struggling putting the pieces together of what happened to Three Corners."

  A few heads bobbed as they went about their business sorting dishes and preparing for dinnertime.

  "We figured out from the journals that Lilibeth Mueller was a mail order bride who lost her husband early and then took on work in Three Corners as a cook. She somehow made enough money to send her daughter to private boarding school in Dallas."

  "Must have been big tippers," Adam teased.

  Joanna laughed. "You might say that."

  "Oh." Aunt Eileen hung up the potholders and pulled up a chair. "I think things are about to get interesting."

  "Yes." Joanna leg go of Finn's hand and sat down beside Aunt Eileen. "We knew Three Corners must have prospered because of where they were situated between three major revenue sources in the area."

  A few heads nodded.

  "Today I found an obituary for Sadie Chegwidden, the honorary mayor of Sadieville in 1910. She and her sister had come from the east after the Civil War and built the grand Parlor House."

  "Parlor house?" Aunt Eileen repeated.

  "Having learned to read between the lines, I'm pretty sure she ran the house of ill-repute that the agriculture college used to shuffle students off to."

  Finn's hand fell on her shoulders. "Very good detective work."

  "It gets better." Joanna covered one of his hands with hers. "After the library I stopped at Ned's for a bit."

  "A bit?" Meg rolled her eyes. "Does the man even know how to have a short conversation?"

  "No," Joanna and Eileen deadpanned in unison then laughed.

  "After a while Ned shared a story about a camping trip he'd done as a boy with his dad and grandfather. Somewhere between the fish and wilderness stories—"

  "Not the one about the catfish with teeth the size of a tiger?" Sean Farraday said with laughter in his eyes.

  Joanna nodded. "That would be one of them, yes. Anyhow, in the middle of the story he mentioned his dad and grandad always took him to the ice cream shop in Sadieville on the way home. I asked if he remembered where Sadieville was." She turned to look up at Finn. "He said Three Corners."

  "What?" Finn's brows buckled together. "That doesn't make sense."

  Joanna wouldn't be surprised if her head fell off from nodding so hard. "But it does! In Lilibeth's journals she thanks God for Miss Sadie." Joanna looked from person to person. "Sadie. Sadieville. Lilibeth's girls."

  Everyone continued to stare rather blankly.

  "Oh for heaven's sake." Joanna shook her head and leaned forward some more. "After Herman died, Miss Sadie took Lilibeth in."

  "Conjecture," Catherine said softly.

  "That would explain the comment in the diary about thank God for Miss Sadie. And it would explain the article mentioning the new cook in Three Corners the same year Herman died—"

  "Still circumstantial," Catherine added.

  "I know, but the ledgers in Lilibeth’s belonging begin in 1910, the year Sadie died."

  Catherine leaned forward, her brow buckled in thought. "So what you're proposing is that when Sadie died, she left Lilibeth the Parlor house?"

  "Yes!" Joanna smacked the table and pushed to her feet. "Lilibeth was a madam!"

  ***

  Scooping Joanna up in his arms and giving her a huge congratulatory kiss may not have been the smartest thing Finn had ever done, but it was indeed one of the most satisfactory.

  "Excuse me," Adam cleared his throat. "Family watching."

  "Oh yeah." Finn released his hold on Joanna. "Now you're worried about public displays of affection. You didn't seem all that concerned when we were remodeling the B&B."

  Adam grinned at his wife. "That was different."

  "Sure it was," Ethan teased, even though he hadn't been in Tuckers Bluff most of that time.

  "Do you have anything else on it?" Finn asked.

  "I do," Joanna practically squealed. He absolutely loved how excited he was about all this. "I decided to look up a few things on the agriculture college that closed down when they opened Texas Tech. Turns out that it closed only a couple of years before the old fort."

  "Which means bye-bye to most of the business," Aunt Eileen added.

  "Who knew we had our own little piece of Chicken Ranch like history in our midst."

  "Chicken Ranch?" Catherine and Allison echoed.

  "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," Joanna and Finn replied, then burst into laughter.

  Joanna pushed away from the table and stood. "I want to look over the journals again and see if things make more sense now that I have a better handle on the history."

  "So you're going to have a good hook for your article?" Finn asked.

  "This is all so much bigger than an article. I'll give Denise the piece on the mail order brides. I'll focus on Lilibeth and her sister. There are some fun letters in the box."

  "Oh how nice." Aunt Eileen stood up too. "I'd better get busy. Supper will be served in a few minutes. Catherine, would you mind setting the table?"

  "Not at all." She reached for the stack of plates and folks began moving around again.

  Stepping out of the way, closer to the hall, Finn pulled Joanna into the circle of his arms. "What are you going to do with all this information?"

  "Promise you won't laugh?" she asked.

  Finn knew what was coming next. "The book?"
<
br />   She bobbed her head. "I thought historical fiction."

  "It will be great."

  Her head tipped sideways and she seemed to study him with curiosity. "You have always believed in me."

  "Always. You've never given me any reason not to."

  "You're amazing." She splayed her hands on his chest between them. "I may have to bring you home with me to keep encouraging me."

  "Or," he lowered his voice, "you could stay here."

  He felt her suck in a deep breath and he blinked. "I mean," Finn reached over to his right hand and removed his Aggie ring, then lifting her left hand, slid it onto her thumb and took a deep breath of his own. "I thought maybe we could do the hubby and wife thing for real this time?"

  Joanna's smile stretched across her face and her head bobbed up and down as her arms snaked around his neck. "Ab-so-lute-ly."

  His mouth came down on hers and somewhere in the hazy background of oohs, aahs, and a cat whistle or two, Finn heard a muffled voice ask, "So does this mean they're going steady?" followed the smack of a hand on skin and, "It means we have another wedding to plan."

  Chapter Twenty Four - Epilogue

  From her seat beside Becky, Grace looked up just as Joanna Gaines, soon to be Farraday, scanned the café. Spotting the two of them, she charged forward. The woman had a mission.

  When Grace arranged to take time off to be in Tuckers Bluff in order to help with last minute details of her best friend and DJ's wedding, she had no idea she would soon be the last unmarried Farraday.

  "Holy. Cow." Joanna fell into the seat across from Grace and Becky, leaning forward, hands flat on the table, her brand new diamond ring twinkled under the lights. "You won't believe who just called me."

  "Spill," Becky said anxiously.

  "Remember I signed with that literary agent my magazine editor knows?"

  Becky nodded.

  Grace had heard, but she hadn't been around for the details as they'd happened. She knew Joanna had made friends with pretty much everyone in town in short order. But since Finn slipped his Aggie ring onto Joanna's finger at supper not long ago, in front of God and the half the Farraday clan, as a precursor to the shiny number currently twinkling under the lights, Joanna and Becky had bonded like white on rice. As much as Grace liked Joanna and loved Becky, she felt just a teeny weensy bit left out. Her own fault for moving so far away, but she had two weeks of girl time coming up to get to know Joanna better too. She was so ready to play for a change.

  "My agent sent the proposal and we've heard back already."

  Becky leaned forward a bit and nodded. Grace had to admit, that had her attention too.

  "Not just one of the big five publishing houses." Joanna almost shuttered with excitement. "But three!"

  "Oh that is good news." Becky grinned wide and then turned to Grace with a slight frown, then back to Joanna. "Wait, you mean three different publishers want your book?"

  Joanna's head bobbed up and down so fast, Grace was afraid it might snap off. Not that she blamed her future sister-in-law. Grace wasn't a writer but even she knew how hard it was to get a publishing contract.

  The bell over the café door rang and Joanna's head whipped around. The second her gaze landed on Finn, her entire expression softened.

  The thing that amazed Grace was that from the moment her stoic, silent, blend-into-the-background brother laid eyes on his fiancée, his entire demeanor beamed with so much happiness if it were electricity he'd be a power house.

  "Hey." Finn slid into the booth beside Joanna and leaned in for a short, sweet, simple peck on the lips.

  What Grace didn't understand, since the little kiss hadn't lasted long enough to measure with a stopwatch, why did she feel as though she were intruding on a private moment? Their gazes linked a few more seconds and an entire conversation took place without words. And that conversation was what had made Grace feel like an interloper.

  Becky tapped the table and looked at Finn. "Enough with the cow eyes."

  "Yeah, you two." Grace loved her brother, but if he didn't stop staring at Joanna like she was the last frozen Popsicle in the world during a scorching August heat wave, Grace was going to heave. "We want details—about the book. And who is going to publish it."

  Joanna nodded. "That's just it, I don't know yet."

  Finn squeezed her hand, she shuddered again, more from the excitement than from his touch, but then again, from the way Grace had observed these two cuddling up like lovebirds in winter, maybe Finn was the one getting Joanna's feathers all ruffled. And now Grace was feeling just a teensy weensy bit jealous again. She wasn't looking for a man of her own. Really she wasn't. She'd spent too many years in school getting her degrees and had lots of big plans for enjoying the world, but still, a small part of her would kill to have a man look at her the way Finn stared at Joanna.

  "And that's not all." Joanna took in a long deep breath. "One of the houses asked how much to take it off the table."

  "English please." Becky looked about as ready to jump out of her skin as Joanna was.

  "Apparently, it's called a pre-empt, if we don't agree to a price the book will go to auction."

  "You're kidding?" Wide eyed, Becky leaned back in her seat. "I'm going to have a famous author for a sister-in-law."

  "Well, I wouldn't go that far."

  "I would." Grace smiled at Joanna's bashful grin. "And as soon as it's made into a movie, I'll tag along for the red carpet walk."

  "Oh, I don't think—" Joanna started.

  Grace put her hand up. "Always dream big. After all, everything's—"

  "Bigger in Texas," Becky and Joanna chorused with Grace and three erupted in laughter.

  "It's going to be really fun having you home again for more than a long weekend," Becky said with a big smile on her face.

  Finn nodded his head and the smile he flashed his sister reminded her of how much she missed her brothers some days. "Maybe Gray will show up and keep you here."

  "Gray?"

  Joanna looped her arm through Finn's. "That's what he calls the matchmaking dog."

  "Ha." Grace practically cackled. "There's no way any dog is going to keep me here. Trust me." She knew every man in and around Tuckers Bluff. Young, old, tall, short, and there was no way under God's green earth—dog or no dog—the man of her dreams was anywhere near this dinky town.

  ***

  THANKS FOR READING! Here's a note from Chris:

  Thanks for joining Finn and Joanna on a fun ride in Farraday Country. By now many of you have read my explanation of how I love to see Star Ratings. The only catch is that we as authors have no idea what you think of a book if it's not reviewed. And yes, every book in a series needs reviews. All it takes is a little as two words: Fun Story. Yep, that's all. So, if you enjoyed reading Finn and Joanna, please take a second to let others know you enjoyed spending time in Farraday Country.

  For those of you who have not read a previous book in the Farraday series and have no idea why we authors keep asking you as a reader to take a few minutes to leave even a two word review, here's more explanation of reviews in this crazy business.

  Reviews (not just ratings) help authors qualify for advertising opportunities and help other readers make purchasing decisions. Without triple digit reviews, an author may miss out on valuable advertising opportunities. And with only "star ratings" the author has little chance of participating in certain promotions. Which means fewer sales offered to my favorite readers!

  Another reason to take a minute and leave a review is that often a few kind words left in a review can make a huge difference to an author and their muse. Recently new to reviewing fans have left a few words after reading a similar letter and they were tonic to tired muse! LOL Seriously. Star ratings simply do not have the same impact to thank or encourage an author when the writing gets tough.

  So please consider taking a moment to write even a handful of words. Writing a review only takes a few minutes of your time. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy
book report, just a few words expressing what you enjoyed most about the story. Here are a few tips of how to leave a review.

  Please continue to rate the books as you read, but take an extra moment and pop over to the review section and leave a few words too!

  Most of all - Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed Finn and come back to visit Grace and soon the return of cousins Ian and Hannah. All three are available now for preorder! I look forward to hearing from you.

  Y'all come back now, you here! (yeah, showing my years LOL)

  Chris Keniston

  ***

  Turn the page for an excerpt from Grace!

  MEET CHRIS

  USA Today bestselling author of more than a dozen contemporary novels, including the USA TODAY Bestselling Aloha Series, Chris Keniston lives in suburban Dallas with her husband, two human children, and two canine children. Though she loves her puppies equally, she admits being especially attached to her German Shepherd rescue. After all, even dogs deserve a happily ever after.

  More on Chris and her books can be found at www.chriskeniston.com

  Follow Chris on Facebook at ChrisKenistonAuthor or on Twitter @ckenistonauthor

  Chapter Excerpt - Grace

  Propping the alley door open, Chase Prescott looked left then right. No sign of his new friend. Dropping another bag onto the pile, he would have loved to shut down, remodel, upgrade, and reopen his new business, but common sense told him that in this small market he could not afford to lose even one customer to inconvenience. Within a week of signing on the dotted line, Chase had been doing his best to get in a couple of hours work cleaning out decades of worthless merchandise before opening the doors to customers each day. On only the second day he'd been putting out the trash and noticed a stealth dog lurking down the alley.