Chapter 10
FINN
“You’re over-mixing the batter. Give it here.” My grandmother comes to relieve me of the bowl. “What’s going on behind that frown, boy? You’ve been a storm cloud ever since you got here. And I know it’s not my baking that’s made you so grumpy.”
She’s right. I was a swirling mess of depression long before I got home from the MacNamaras’ house.
I did the right thing.
I know I did because Isla was still suffering. If she hasn’t moved on from the accident, then I hope knowing more about what happened might help. Knowing the driver of the boat is off the lake, behind bars.
Of course, I’m still here. Free to torment her.
“I blew a shot with the woman of my dreams.”
“The Brown girl?”
My head pops up at that, and I watch my grandmother’s smug smile curl.
“Don’t think I haven’t seen the way you stare at her whenever she’s nearby. Come on. I’m old, but I can still see.”
“I didn’t think I was that obvious.” My response is all grumble.
Grandma snorts, and I’m about to smile until I’m hit with another bout of reality.
“Well, doesn’t matter if the whole town knows. I messed everything up.”
“Last night?”
Hell, last night. The best night of my life. Isla was in my arms, and everything was perfect.
“More like this morning. And also, years ago.”
“You enjoy talking in riddles? Want me to do a puzzle to figure out what you’re saying?” she scolds me while rummaging through the fridge before coming out with a stick of butter. Her long gray braid swings with each movement.
I huff out a breath. “Isla got hurt when we were younger, and I could’ve stopped it from happening but didn’t.”
Grandma barks out a laugh. “That’s a lie. Biggest one I’ve ever heard from your mouth.”
“I’m not lying!”
How does she always make me feel like I’m thirteen rather than thirty?
“Don’t you raise your voice in this house.”
“Sorry.” I keep my voice low and steady this time, though I want to argue.
My grandmother gives me a hard look. “You’re saying, you knew she would get hurt, and you didn’t do anything?”
“No,” I admit. “But I knew someone could get hurt.”
“And you did nothing?”
Not after my dad shoved me away from the wheel. He would get rough sometimes after drinking too much.
“I could’ve done more.”
My grandmother rubs the stick of butter around the inside of a metal pan. “This have anything to do with your daddy?”
“Don’t see why that’s relevant,” I mutter.
She reaches for a wooden spoon and tries to jab my side with it as I shimmy out of her reach. “If your daddy was involved, then he was probably the one doing the hurting. And Lord knows, I was never able to control that man. So, don’t go thinking you could either.”
Maybe not when I was little. But by the time I was sixteen, I was just as tall and weighed almost as much. I could’ve wrestled the control of the boat from him. It would’ve been a fight, but I should’ve done it.
“Everything bad in the world could’ve been stopped if only we’d known about it first.” My grandmother keeps going. “But you don’t know beforehand. So, you can’t be taking on that shame. Especially when it’s your daddy doing the bad thing.”
Wouldn’t that be great if I didn’t have to carry the guilt of that night around with me? But even if I find a way to forgive myself, that doesn’t mean that Isla will suddenly appear in my life.
A loud knock sounds on the screen door.
“Got it,” my grandpa announces, strolling through the kitchen with a half-empty container of seeds he was no doubt using to refill the bird feeders.
The timer goes off, and since my grandmother’s hands are busy, I pull on a set of oven mitts and go to pull out the first two layers of cake.
Tomorrow is my grandpa’s birthday, and she prefers to get a head start on the celebration.
I still need to wrap the bat box I built for their backyard.
The man loves to sit on his porch every evening and listen to the squeak of the little flying creatures as they hunt for bugs in the dying light.
“Looks like we got some guests.” Grandpa returns to the kitchen with a small group behind him.
When I see who the new arrivals are, I almost drop the cake tin I’m holding. I barely manage to make it to the cooling rack.
“Isla.” Her name chokes from my throat.
“Finn.” She steps forward, looking gorgeous in a dress that sways around her legs and hugs her chest as tightly as I want to. “These are my parents, Ann and Patrick Brown.”
The two people have the same short stature, pale complexion, and dark hair color as their daughter, but only her mother has the same shade of mahogany eyes. Her dad’s gaze is darker, and both of the Brown parents stare at my family as if we were a pack of wolves about to devour them.
Owen wasn’t kidding when he described Isla’s parents as the cautious sort.
“Nice to meet you.” I move forward with slow, obvious steps, and then I hold out my hand, shaking both of their reluctant ones in turn. “These are my grandparents, Ethel and Barty Hammond.” I face my family. “And you’ve met Isla before.”
Grandma nods with a broad smile, wiping her hands on her apron. “Sure have. Why don’t you all come in? Take a load off. I’ll get you a cup of tea.”
“Tea?” Mrs. Brown perks up at this.
“Finest sweet tea in Folk Haven,” my grandpa assures them, pulling out chairs at the kitchen table.
“Of course. Sweet tea.” The brief flash of hope in Mrs. Brown’s face folds in on itself.
“My mother drinks hot tea,” Isla announces to the room.
Just as I’m struggling for a way to smooth over the misstep in Southern hospitality, Isla keeps going.
“She’s from England. So is my dad.” Isla points at the unobtrusive man.
“Hot tea is a staple for them. Did you know teatime is a huge strain on the power grids over in England? There’s a surge in demand for electricity because everyone is using their electric kettle at once.
I prefer sweet tea because of the high sugar content.
I had yours at the town’s spring picnic fifteen years ago.
Finn brought me a glass. I enjoyed it but didn’t understand why he was bringing me beverages.
Now, I think it’s because he had a crush on me. ”
Another silence descends over the room as Isla pauses to dig something out of her big, floppy shoulder bag, providing a respite for everyone gathered to absorb her twisting road of a speech.
I do remember that day. Isla volunteered to help build the stage for the evening musical acts, and she looked parched after hammering in all those nails.
So, I brought her some tea and silently wished she’d confess how much she liked me, so I wouldn’t have to shore up my pathetic teenage boy courage and ask her out myself.
Instead, she thanked me and asked that I hold her hammer while she drank.
“That’s kind of you to remember my tea,” my grandmother finally says, a slow smile deepening the laugh lines around her eyes. “And I have a nice selection of tea bags. A warm cup before bed always helps me sleep better.”
The Brown parents offer their own hesitant smiles at that news.
“That’s good. Here.” Isla finally surfaces from her bag, pulling out a box. “I brought you all a puzzle.” She tilts the box, so we can see the picture—Hoover Dam, 1000 Pieces.
“That was nice of you. Love a good puzzle.” My grandfather grins, hands out to accept.
Isla passes the gift over. “I thought you four could work on that. My parents need to get out of their comfort zone and meet new people.”
The Browns share a look before turning skeptical glances back on their daughter.
Isla points at them both, a warning in her eyes, as if she expects them to misbehave. “This is good for you.” Then, the mythical woman turns all her piercing focus on me. “I need to speak to you.”
She extends a hand, palm open, fingers spread.
Waiting for me.
As if there were any doubt that I’d take it.
I slide my hand in hers, and she pulls me through the house, out the back door.
Twigs and leaves crunch under our feet as we enter the woods that separate my grandparents’ house from the lake.
I’ve stopped thinking of it as my house ever since I moved into the studio apartment above their garage, which is a separate building.
There are apartments and the occasional house available for rent in town, and I can afford to buy a place of my own. But not on the lake.
And the lake always reminds me of the woman I love, so I don’t want to go too far from it.
“Tell me everything you know about selkies,” Isla orders after pulling me along for a stretch.
I glance back but realize she’s taken us deep enough into the woods that I can’t see the house anymore. Our conversation won’t be overheard even if my grandparents decide to sit out on the porch.
“I know you have a second skin.” Facing Isla, I meet her eyes and draw up the information Owen shared with me all those years ago.
“And that you use that skin to transform into another shape. You can do that whenever you want, but the group that lives on Lake Galen mainly agreed only to turn on nights when there’s no moon.
Figuring the darker it is, the safer you are. ”
She nods, so I keep going. “I know that you are a selkie, and so are your parents. I know that Owen, Moira, Calder, Seamus, and Mrs. MacNamara are selkies, but Mr. MacNamara isn’t.”
When Owen first told me that, my heart tried to give me hope that I had a chance with Isla.
But that would only work if I ignored what I had done.
What your dad did, a voice in my head that sounds an awful lot like my grandmother insists.
“Owen said your parents had a bad experience and were extremely cautious. That if they found out what had happened to you and that I—a human—knew, they’d probably move you all away.
” That was the worst threat my friend could’ve thrown at me to keep my mouth shut.
“I know there are others like you, but Owen didn’t name names.
Oh, and that the school nurse is a witch.
At least, she was fourteen years ago. Ms. Madeline might have retired by now. ”
“What else?” Isla presses when I fall quiet.
I shake my head. “That’s all I know. I mean, I can guess there’s probably a textbook amount of info he didn’t give me. But Owen made sure to tell me just enough to understand. And to keep quiet.”
“Nothing about mates?”
Mates. The way she says the word, I can almost feel the heavy meaning behind it. And I’m suddenly ravenous for her to tell me more.
“No. I don’t know anything about mates.”
Isla steps forward, holding me with the power of her eyes. “Legend says a selkie will know their mate when they are saved by them.”
My mind stutters over the new information. “Owen.” The name pops out of my mouth, and Isla’s quest to seduce the man makes more sense now. “Owen is your mate.”
The guy’s quick thinking is all that got us through that night. The only reason Isla is alive.
But she shakes her head. “I thought so too. Tried very hard to make my heart want him. I thought maybe if he wanted me, then my body would listen to what the fates had told me all those years ago.”
Again, the image of my best friend holding the woman I love invades my mind, and I squeeze my eyes shut, desperate to get rid of the sight.
“Then, I woke up this morning, next to the man I’d always wanted, and I decided that fated mates were overrated.”
I blink my eyes open, staring down into her lovely, upturned face. “What are you saying?”
Isla’s hands settle on my shoulders and then drag down to my chest. “I asked you to kiss me because I’d decided to stop chasing a future I thought I should want and instead pursue the one I actually craved.
I was fully prepared to tell the gods they were wrong.
But then you told me the truth, and I realized they weren’t. ”
“So, you do want Owen?”
Her brows scrunch together as she stares up at me. “No. I want you. I’ve always wanted you. And it happens to be convenient that you’re the one who saved my life. That you’re my mate.”
“Whoa. No.” I move to step back, but Isla fists her hands in my shirt, holding me in place. “I’m the one who endangered you. You can’t say I’m your savior when I’m the one who hurt you.”
“Your father hurt me.”
“I let him drive.”
“Parents command a large amount of influence over their children.” She sounds so reasonable, and I want to believe her.
“Looks like you can handle yours pretty well.” I jerk my chin toward the house.
The selkie continues to hold me in place. “Now, I can. Because I’m a grown woman.” Isla traces my face with her gaze. “Would you let your father drive intoxicated now?”
“No way. Never again.”
“And I won’t let my parents’ fear of humans keep me from the person I need in my life.”
“Isla—”
“You, Finn. I need you.”
A groan cracks out of my throat, and suddenly, I’m gathering her up in my arms, holding her close to me as I bury my face in her neck. “I need you too,” I whisper against her neck.
“Tell me who hurt me,” she demands.
“My father did.” And the truth is a stone weight removed from my shoulders.
“And who saved me?”
I can still feel the jab of the knife and my warm blood dripping down my arm onto her wound.
“I did.”
“Tell me who my mate is.” Her arms are tight around my neck, and I revel in the way she clutches me.
“I am.”
There’s electricity in the air, raising goose bumps on my arms.
“Will you kiss me now?” She loosens her hold enough that our gazes clash.
“I don’t think I can stop with a kiss.”
The woman I love told me I’m hers. My whole body is hot with need to show her that she’ll never have a reason to regret her choice. That I don’t need a drop of magic in my body to be the best mate a selkie has ever had.
“Then, don’t stop.” Isla leans in, flicking her tongue against my bottom lip.
Next thing I know, my ass is on the ground, and my woman is straddling me. Our mouths are so close that we share a breath, just before I tilt my chin up and claim a taste of my selkie mate.