Maybe if he’d had any sort of plan at all, he would have had an answer ready when Bear first asked where she was. Maybe he would have avoided the way the little boy’s shoulders heaved with sobs, the way he’d looked up at Finn last night, let out a shaky breath of a sigh, and said, “But she’s a good mommy. She’s my best mommy.”
What could he have said? Bear was right. Violet was a wonderful mother. Eventually, Bear had cried himself back to sleep. He was still where Finn had left him, curled up miserably on the bottom bunk bed in the back bedroom.
It was a cold comfort that when it came to making a mess of things, this particular mess hardly even ranked at the top of Finn’s life-to-date list. It probably wasn’t even number two. Third, maybe. Fourth? Lucky, too, that self-hatred wasn’t anything new to him—any minute now the sharpness of this fresh guilt would dull and he could brush past it as if it were merely an inconvenience, an annoyance. He wouldn’t allow himself to think further of his wife. Or of how awful he’d been to Caitlin yesterday, mining her insecurities the way only a close friend could to get what he needed.
What he needed. That was the key to surviving it all. He was clear with himself that this wasn’t about what he wanted anymore—if it ever had been—but need was key. And number one on that list was some kind of plan.
People did stupid things every day. And they got out of them every day. And so could Finn.
Somehow.
The unmistakable sound of the key in the door interrupted his thoughts, and Finn jumped to his feet. Shit, shit, shit. There was nowhere out here to hide, and he couldn’t leave Bear. He started toward the back bedroom, hoping whoever was at the door might delay, but it swung open, and there, her arms filled with paper grocery bags, was Caitlin.
“Jesus,” he said. “You scared me half to death.”
Then he saw who was behind her, and froze.
“Uncle Finn!” The twins rushed him together, each grabbing one of his legs in a hug. “Where’s Bear? Where’s Bear?”
Finn felt the color drain from his face. “Bear’s not—”
But they were already gone, down the hallway, and he could hear Bear’s yelp of surprise as they jumped into his bed.
He turned back to Caitlin, furious.
“Damn it, Cait, I warned you—”
“You didn’t, actually.” She breezed past him into the small galley-shaped kitchen area in the corner of the open room and deposited the paper bags onto the counter with a grunt. Then, her hands freed, she began checking items off her fingers, one by one. “You said no FBI, no cops, no Violet, no George—nothing about me.” She smiled innocently and removed a gallon of milk from the first bag. “Want to freshen up your coffee?” she asked, glancing at his full mug on the table, and it irked him that she knew him that well, even as something like relief began to show itself in a back region of his brain. “I’ve got creamer, too. French vanilla.”
“But what are you doing here, Cait? And bringing the boys into this? Are you nuts?”
She leveled her gaze at him. “No more so than you, evidently.”
“They won’t be able to keep a secret.”
“I’m well aware of that. And I wouldn’t ask them to. Any more than you could ever ask Bear to—could you?” Her pointed words didn’t match the nonchalant way she began loading the groceries into the fridge—summer squash, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, blueberries, eggs, even burger patties and steaks—and Finn found himself struggling not to feel at least a small amount of gratitude, especially when another peal of giggles erupted from the back room. He stared down the hallway toward the bedrooms, his mind racing. He had to get rid of Caitlin—now. And yet, he was in her in-laws’ cabin, with nowhere else to go. And Bear hadn’t laughed in days.
When the last bag was empty, Caitlin folded it neatly and looked at him. “Listen,” she said. “We’ve been friends for a long time, Finn. I know that whatever you’re going through right now, it’s bad. You said yourself you were desperate. You said yourself you didn’t feel like you had a choice. And you came to me for help. So I’m going to be understanding about you acting a little stressed yesterday.”
Caitlin had always been clever. Before and after he’d made the calculated decision to confront her at her house, he’d played out as many different scenarios as he could think of as to how she might react. What he’d do if she did in fact call the cops, for instance, or if he opened the cabin door to find Violet standing there. But he hadn’t thought of this one.
“You asked for help,” she said again, “so I’m here to help. I’m still your friend, Finn. I was your friend first, remember?” She turned away to pour a cup of coffee as she said this so that he couldn’t see her face.
“But bringing the boys here—”
“I had to,” she said simply, turning back toward him and leaning against the counter. “I just spent the better part of a week down in Asheville with Violet, my first time ever away from them.” Finn looked away, out at the lake, trying not to think about what must have gone on there, what must have been said. “I tried to work out a way to come alone, but George would never in a million years have believed that I would voluntarily leave them again right away. He’d have known something was up.”
“How do you know he won’t show up here too?”
“He’s got a big project at work—doesn’t he always? And he understood that I wanted a couple of days away to reconnect with Leo and Gus.”
“But you know they’ll tell him that they saw me and Bear when you get home. How do you expect this to go?”
“I have no idea. But I do know that by the time I get home, whatever the boys say won’t matter, because this will all be resolved by then.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because you and I both know that you need to figure a way out of this. We’re both in trouble now, okay? So neither of us are leaving this cabin until there’s a resolution that involves you no longer being a kidnapper on the run.” She took a sip of coffee, but her eyes never left his face. “Sooner or later, you need to face this, so let me face it with you.”
Something about the way she delivered that line made him think that she’d been rehearsing it the whole way down. The idea of it irked him.
“Face it with me, or face off with me?”
She shrugged. “Maybe both. But like you said, you don’t have any other options.”
Finn could feel his anger dissipating a little as his eyes wandered past her and out toward the lake. It was the exhaustion weakening his resolve, slowing his reaction time. If he hadn’t been feeling so lost anyway, he would have been able to stay angrier. Then again, if he had any other ideas of what to do or where to go, he wouldn’t be here. He would be … well, somewhere else.
“Come on, Finn. Aren’t you a little relieved that you don’t have to do it alone?”