I suddenly get an idea. “I know the place,” I declare. “Take the highway north, just past the bridge.”
Finn does as I say, and soon, we’re pulling up the winding driveway of an old house backing onto the creek. We came here once, years ago. We wandered the empty, run-down rooms before sitting down by the dock, our feet dunked in the cool water. Now the house sits under shady cypress trees, the paint fresh and the front path newly mown.
“The Thomas mansion?” Finn asks, slowly getting out of the car. I scramble out too. “This place was falling apart the last time I saw it.”
“They finally sold it, a few years back. Some developer took it back to the studs, but they did a really nice job. It still has all the original floors, and that great porch wrapping around the back.”
I lead him up to the front door and step inside. I can already see it on his face, that this is the place, but still, I take him through the warm living areas, furnished with classic, beachy furniture, and out back, to where rhododendron bushes and rolling grass lead all the way down to the wide expanse of slow-winding creek.
Finn breathes in the salty marsh air and looks out over the water, like he’s already home. “I’ll take it.”
“Don’t you want to know how much it is?” I ask.
He shrugs, his big-shot lifestyle peeking through. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Ask if they’ll lease it for a couple of months.”
I nod. It’s a big property to be rattling around all alone -- but maybe he won’t be. I realize that for all I know, he could have a gorgeous, sexy girlfriend just waiting back at the hotel. “So, just so I know what to tell the owners…will you be staying here alone?” I ask, trying to be casual. The grin he gives me says I failed, miserably.
“I should have someone out next week.”
My heart sinks.
“To hook up the cable. I can’t be without my TV.”
Finn’s eyes gleam with humor. He’s teasing me, dammit.
“Great!” I refuse to show I’m ruffled. “Then we’re all set.”
I turn on my heel to head back out front, but Finn pauses. “Wait a second. Don’t you want to show me the rest of the property? Upstairs, all the bedrooms?”
Me and Finn, alone in a room with a king-sized bed? I’ve had dreams like that, and I know exactly how things wind up: the both of us tangled up naked, sweaty, and gasping with pleasure. But there are consequences to the most perfect moment of release – and I learned that lesson the hard way. “Sorry,” I reply, my cheeks burning. “I can’t stay. I have to be somewhere. I’m already running late.”
“Sure thing.”
Finn drives us back to the office, still perfectly at ease. But as the miles pass, his nonchalance burns me. Since the moment he walked in he’s been behaving like everything’s fine between us, like it’s no big deal to just show up and act like nothing’s wrong. Or maybe it isn’t, to him. What happened between us may have made an indelible mark on my heart, but what if he barely gave it a second thought on his path to sold-out stadiums and number one hits?
My heart suddenly aches so much I want to cry. I need to get away, but I manage to hold it together until he pulls up outside the old carriage house, and I can climb out of the car on unsteady legs. “I’ll get the contract sent over right away,” I tell him.
“Don’t I get your number?”
I stare blankly.
Finn’s lips curl in a teasing smile. “For questions about the lease.”
“Oh. You can call the office. Delilah will be able to help you out. In fact, you probably won’t see me again. Like I said, I meanly deal with the admin.”
Finn gazes at me thoughtfully for a moment, so long I wonder if I still have frosting on my face. “I like it,” he says finally.
“Like what?”
“Your hair. You always used to hide behind it,” he says, his smile slipping through my defenses all over again. “Now I can see your eyes.”
I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.
Oh no. Not this time.
I turn away and hurry up the steps without looking back, but I feel his gaze on me with every step. This doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself. Finn McKay is back in town, as gorgeous and charming as ever. But I’ve learned my lesson the hard way.
For the sake of my heart, I’m steering clear.
Two.
I wasn’t lying about running late. I make the drive half an hour out of town, all the way to a run-down old farm set on a couple of acres of plain grassland. It’s the home of the Brunswick County Animal Shelter. I’ve been coming out here for years, first as a kid, just to play with all the animals, but then volunteering to help with donations and paperwork. It’s a special place to me, the one place I can go to forget the rest of the world and just feel like me. Like I’m doing something that matters.