to face him.
He’d caught her.
“I’m all wet,” she whispered inanely.
His eyes never left her face. “I see that.”
“I’m—” A mess, she nearly said but the ball of emotion blocked her throat, preventing her from talking. Horrified to feel her eyes well up, she shook her head and tried to pull free.
“Pru,” he said softly, his hand at the nape of her neck, threading through her drenched hair. There were tangles in it but he was apparently undeterred by the rat’s nest. Pulling her in slowly but inexorably, his lips brushed her forehead. She could feel his mouth at her hairline as he whispered soothing words she couldn’t quite make out.
She melted against him. No other words for it really. He was real. He was solid and whole. He was everything she wanted and couldn’t have, no matter how badly she ached for him. She’d already wandered way off the track she’d set for herself, a fact that was now coming back to bite her hard because . . .
Because she was falling for him.
And what made it even worse; her day, her life, this situation . . . was that she not only wanted him in her life, she was desperately afraid and increasingly certain that she needed him as well.
She almost cracked at that. Almost but not quite.
But God, she couldn’t seem to let him go.
Finn tightened his arms on her, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.”
But it wasn’t. And she didn’t know if she’d ever feel okay again so she pressed her face into his throat and let herself take another minute. Or two.
Or whatever he’d give.
Chapter 20
#HowYouDoin
Finn cuddled Pru into him, alarmed by her pallor, by the way she trembled in his arms, the tiny little quivers that said she was fighting her emotions and losing. Her dress had plastered itself to her delicious curves, her long damp hair was clinging to her face and shoulders.
Pulling back, he took her hand and led her to the bar so he could grab a fresh towel. He started to dry off her wet face and realized it was tears, not rain. “Pru.”
“No, it’s nothing, really,” she said quietly, head down, his fearless fun whisperer . . .
“It’s not nothing,” he said.
“I just . . . I need to go.”
Yeah, not going to happen. At least not alone. Finn turned and jerked his chin at Sean, wordlessly telling him he was in charge of the bar.
Sean nodded and Fin took Pru’s hand, leading her down the hallway, not in the least bit sorry for leaving Sean in the lurch. After that stunt toast Sean had just given, Finn was saving his brother’s life by leaving now.
“Finn, really,” Pru said. “Really, I’m fine. Really.”
“And maybe if you say really one more time, I’ll believe you.”
She sighed. “But I am fine.”
She wasn’t but she would be. He’d damn well see to it. He took her to his office.
Thor leapt off the couch where he’d been snoozing, immediately launching into his imitation of a bunny. Bounce, bounce, bounce while bark, bark, barking at a pitch designed to shatter eardrums. “Thor,” he said. “Shut it.”
Thor promptly shut it and sat on his little butt, which shook back and forth with every tail wag that was faster than the speed of light. The result was that he looked like a battery-operated toy dog.
On steroids.
Pru choked out a laugh and scooped him up. “Why are you here, baby?”
“He got done at the beauty salon and Willa had to go before Jake could pick him up, so I said I’d take him for you.”
“It’s not a beauty salon,” she said, face pressed into Thor’s fur, doing a bang-up job at keeping up the pretense of being fine.
“Babe, it’s totally a beauty salon,” he said. “When I walked in to pick him up, Willa was presiding over a wedding between two giant poodles, one white, one black. The black one was wearing a wedding dress made of silk and crystals.”
She slid him a look. No more tears, thank God, but her eyes were haunted even though she did her best to smile. “Wow,” she said.
“Impressed by the lengths Willa’s shop goes to make money?” he asked.
“No, I’m impressed that you can recognize silk and crystals.”
“Hey, I’m secure in my manhood.” He took Thor from her and tucked the dog under an arm. The other he slipped around her waist. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“I’m taking you home. You look about done in.”
“I passed done in about an hour ago,” she admitted.
They didn’t speak again as they crossed the courtyard. But Thor did. He started barking at a pair of pigeons and when Finn gave him a long look, the dog switched to a low-in-the-throat growl.
“They outweigh you,” Finn told him. “Pick your battles, man.”
The dog was silent in the elevator but that was only because Max, who worked on the second floor in Archer’s office, was in it. With his Doberman pinscher Carl.
When Max and Carl got off the elevator, Thor let out a long sigh that sounded like relief, which under better circumstances would’ve made Finn laugh. “You know your particular breed of mutt was bred to kill Dobermans, right?” he asked the dog.
Thor blinked up at him.
“It’s true,” Finn said. “They get stuck right here—” He pointed to his throat.
Pru choked out a laugh. “Finn, that’s a horrible story!”
He smiled and tugged lightly on a strand of her hair. “But you laughed,” he said.
“I laughed because it was a horrible story,” she said, but was still smiling.
And because she was, he leaned in and kissed her. Softly. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she whispered back.
He wasn’t sure what was going on with her, but it’d only taken one look at her open, expressive face to know she’d somehow been devastated today.
And, given the cut on her cheekbone, also hurt.
Both infuriated him.
The elevator opened and he took Thor’s leash in one hand and used the other to guide Pru off. They were in the hallway in front of her door when Mrs. Winslow’s door opened.
“Another special delivery?” Pru asked her.
“Not for me,” Mrs. Winslow answered. “It’s for you.”
“Um, I don’t eat a lot of special brownies,” she said. “No offense.”
Mrs. Winslow smiled. “Oh, none taken, honey. I’m just passing the word that there’s a little something in the dumbwaiter for you.”
“For me? Why?”
“For your bad day,” Mrs. Winslow said.
Pru blinked. “How do you know I had a bad day?”
“Let’s just say a little birdie looks after all of us,” Mrs. Winslow said. “And he let me know to let you know that you’re not alone.”
“He who?” Pru asked.
But Mrs. Winslow had vanished back into her apartment.
Finn and Pru walked into hers. Finn crouched down and freed Thor from his leash and the dog immediately trotted to his food bowl.
Pru dumped a cup of dry food into it, patted the dog on his head and then went straight to the dumbwaiter.
Finn went to her freezer. He didn’t see an ice pack but she did have a small bag of frozen corn. Good enough.
At her gasp, Finn turned to her. She’d pulled out a basket of muffins from the coffee shop. Tina’s muffins, the best on the planet.
Finn wrapped the bag of corn in a kitchen towel and gently set the makeshift ice pack to her cheek and then brought her hand up to it. “Hold it here a few minutes,” he said.
While she did that, he carried the basket to the kitchen table and they dove into the muffins right then and there.
“Good to have friends in high places,” he said instead of asking her about her face, and when she visibly relaxed he knew he’d done the right thing.
Didn’t mean he didn’t want to kick someone’s ass, because he did. Badly.
“It’d be better to know who those friends are,” she said, clearly not reading his murderous thoughts. She met his gaze. “Do you know?”
He had an idea but didn’t know for certain so he shook his head.
She took another muffin, chocolate chip by the looks of it. “Sean’s toast at the pub upset you,” she said.
Sitting across from her at her table, with Thor in his lap while he worked his way through a most excellent blueberry/banana muffin, he didn’t want to get into Sean’s toast. He much preferred to get into whatever had happened to her. But he knew that she wasn’t going to open up.
Unless he did.
Problem was, he hated opening up. To anyone.
“I’m sorry your dad never got to see the bar and what a success you made of it,” she said quietly.
He put his muffin down. “My dad couldn’t have cared less what we did with ourselves when we were kids. He wouldn’t care what we do now either.”
“But Sean said—”
“Sean’s so full of shit that his eyes are brown,” he said. “My dad never had a pub. Hell, he never even acknowledged he was Irish. My brother perpetuates the lie because he thinks Irish pubs do well and he isn’t wrong. We have done well but it isn’t because we’re Irish, it’s because we work our asses off.”
“You mean you work your ass off,” she said.
He met her knowing gaze. “I just hate the fraud.”
“It’s not a fraud if it’s true, even a little bit.” Reaching across the table, she covered her hand with his. “Stop feeling guilty about something that isn’t your fault and isn’t hurting anyone. Let it go and enjoy the success you’ve made of the place, in spite of your father.”
He stared at her. “How is it that you’re cute, sexy as hell, and smarter than anyone I know?”
She gave him a small smile. “It’s a gift.”
Leaning over the table, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled the bag of corn from her face. Gently he touched her cheekbone. “You okay?”
“I will be.”
Her resilience made him smile. “Yeah?” he asked. “And how’s that?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Well, it’s raining, and I love the rain. Someone sent me a basket of muffins, and I love muffins. Thor is actually clean and going to stay that way for at least the next few minutes. I don’t have to work until midday tomorrow. And I have company.” She smiled. “The good kind.” She lifted a shoulder. “It’s all good.”
She was aiming for light and she’d succeeded. It was how she dealt, he got that. And he was getting something else too—that he could learn a hell of a lot from her.
She rose from her chair and came around the table. She lifted Thor from his lap and set the dog down. Then she climbed into Finn’s lap herself and cupped his face.
His arms closed around her and one thought settled into his brain. This feels right.
She feels right.
Chapter 21
#UpShitCreekWithoutAPaddle
Pru lifted her gaze to Finn’s, startled by the sudden intensity in his gaze. It said she wasn’t alone, that she mattered, a lot.
At least you’re not the only one falling . . .
This thought was a cool tall drink of relief immediately followed by a chaser of anxiety.
Because she hadn’t meant for this to happen. She hadn’t meant for any of it; his attention, his affection, his emotional bond . . . and all of it was a secret dream come true for her.
Just as all of it was now a nightmare as well, because how was she supposed to give it up? Give him up?
Although the tough truth was, she wouldn’t have to. Telling him the truth would accomplish that because he would give her up once she did.
She’d known they’d be getting to this. She hadn’t missed him looking at her cheek, or the temper that flashed in his eyes whenever he did. “It’s—”
“Not nothing. Don’t even think about saying it’s nothing.” His voice was gentle but inexorable steel.
“My grandfather’s in a senior home,” she said. “Has been for years. I visit him every week but he doesn’t always recognize me.”
“He hit you?” he asked, his voice still calm, his gaze anything but.
“No.” She shook her head. “Well, not exactly.”
“Then what exactly?”
“He was trying to get me to leave,” she said. “He threw the stuff on his lunch tray at me.”
His brow furrowed. “What the fuck?”
“It’s that sometimes he thinks I’m my mom,” she said. “He didn’t like her.”
Finn’s fingers slid into her hair, soothing, protective, and she felt herself relax a little into his touch.
“Why not?” he asked quietly.
“She . . .” Pru closed her eyes and pressed her face to his throat. “She was a good-time girl. She loved to have fun. My dad loved to give her that fun. We spent a lot of time out on the water and at Giants games, his two favorite things.”
He smiled. “And you’re still out on the water.”
She nodded. “It makes me feel close to them. I used to tell my dad I was going to captain a ship someday, which must have sounded ridiculous but he told me I could do anything I wanted.” She paused. “I loved them, very much, but in some ways my grandpa was right. My mom encouraged my dad. The truth is they were partyers, and big social drinkers . . .”
“Is that why you never drink?”
“A big part of it,” she admitted for the first time in her life. “Is that weird for you, being with someone who doesn’t drink?”
He palmed her neck and waited until she looked at him. “Not even a little bit,” he said.
She smiled. “My dad used to say my mom was the light to his dark. He loved that about her. He loved her,” she said, her chest tight at the memory of her mom making him laugh. “They loved each other.”
There was empathy in Finn’s eyes and in his touch. Empathy, and affection, and a grim understanding. He’d had losses too. Far too many.
“I’m glad you have those memories of your mom and dad together,” he said. “I know it sucks having them gone, but at least when you think of them, you smile.”
Mostly. But not always. Not, for instance, when she thought of how they’d died.