Heartbreaker(5)

“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.

Today, I need that escape more than ever.

I pull up beside a muddy pick-up truck in the overgrown lot. I head into the main house to change into old jeans and a sweater, the kind of outfit that can stand up to fifty over-eager dogs – and all the mess that comes along with them. Right away, I’m attacked by a barking, drooling herd of Labrador puppies. Someone found them in a box out on the highway. It breaks my heart to think of them out there in the dark, crying for their mother.

“Whoa, easy there.” I push them down, laughing, but they trail me all the way outside. I find Edith, the owner, mending wire fence by the kennels. She’s a legend around town, the one who started taking in strays twenty years back. She built a couple of kennels every other year, taking in every abandoned dog and unwanted kitten litter around. Soon, there was a whole farm full of unwanted animals running wild. The puppies race on ahead, bouncing eagerly around her, then skittering off to play in the mud.

“Sorry I’m late,” I greet her, my boots squelching on the wet ground. “I got held up at work.”

“That’s no problem, sweetheart.” She looks up, her wiry grey hair pulled back with a bright batik-print scarf. “I’m just finishing up here. The collies got out again last night. I had a call at three AM that they were halfway to Wilmington.”

I smile and reach to help her fix the wire in place. “How’s Chester doing?” The old German Shepard has been sick for a couple of days now.

Edith tuts. “Not great. He’s still off his food, so I called the vet in. Maybe he’ll know what’s the problem.”

“Poor guy,” I agree. “I’ll go stop in, see if I can make him drink something.”