Chapter 12 Rosie #2
Finn’s smile is small, a little crooked, and a lot sexy.
“I appreciate it, Rosie, but I don’t need it.
My ego isn’t so fragile that I can’t handle a couple days of distracted silence or a few extra dirty dishes.
And even if it were, you’re not responsible for managing my emotions.
That’s up to me, and I guarantee you, I can handle it. ”
His words float in the air like dandelion fluff, ethereal until they stick to my skin with the sharp pangs of understanding.
“Chip liked it when I said sorry,” I say. “He was always pointing out my selfish behaviors and making me feel guilty for things I didn’t mean to do. I apologized to keep him happy and so I could feel safe. You know… emotionally.”
Finn’s jaw hardens and his fingers tighten around the handle of his shovel, heaving it out of the ground before he closes the distance between us.
“You don’t need to worry about being safe with me,” he says, towering over me with eyes that burn with ferocity. “Emotionally or otherwise. Okay?”
I hold my head back to meet his stare, breathing deeply at his proximity. He smells real, like earth and hard work, and his eyes are fevered as they trace the lines of my face. He’s so big and so close, and it sets heat thrumming everywhere.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He holds my gaze a heartbeat longer, hand flexing on the shovel handle like he wants to toss it away, before he breaks the tension with a sharp nod and a step backward. “Good.”
My heart flutters unevenly, and I attempt to regain a little control with a casual thumb toward the house. “So… I just put some food in the oven and wanted to offer you my help with the, um…” I gesture at the mud. “Gardening.”
He cocks an eyebrow, caramel eyes glinting with amusement. “You want to help me dig?”
As soon as he says it, I hear how ridiculous it sounds, but the suggestion that I can’t do something only makes me more determined to try. It’s digging. How hard can it be?
Finn swipes at his eyes, apparently to wipe away dust and sweat, but his large hand hides a smile, and what I catch of it makes my pulse flicker. It also makes me lift my chin.
“Where do I start?”
Finn shakes his head as if to say you’re the boss as he hands me his shovel. “We’re excavating to a depth of around five inches,” he says. “You shovel out the loose dirt here, and I’ll cut the last few feet of this section.”
“No problem.”
I accept the shovel and pretend to know what I’m doing while Finn retrieves another shovel from a collection of supplies stacked neatly against the cabin.
Turns out scooping dirt and transferring it from one spot to another isn’t exactly easy.
The first load is too heavy, and I struggle to balance it.
The next is lighter than I realize, so when I misjudge the strength needed to throw it back, my toss sends clods of earth careening through the air.
I dart a few sheepish looks at Finn to see if he notices, but he’s concentrating on his own stretch of the path.
Even though I get the hang of things after a dozen or so practices and I’m no weakling—I do forty-five minutes of weight training four times a week—within twenty minutes I feel the strain in my shoulders and thighs, my hands sting with the threat of blisters, and I’m covered in a light sheen of perspiration. Okay, so digging is hard.
I’m hefting up another loaded shovel when Dakota pads around from the rear of the wraparound porch and plants her butt at the top of the steps. After she calls to him with a series of woeful little whines, Finn tosses aside his shovel and strides over to meet her.
He stops at the bottom of the steps and sets his fists on his hips. “You can come down on one condition,” he tells her.
Dakota wags her tail, tongue lolling.
“Stay out of the mud.” Finn points to the pile of dirt, then shakes his finger under her nose. “No. Mud. You got that?”
Dakota barks once, her head jerking in what strikes me as an agreeable nod, and I decide in an instant that I love her.
“I mean it,” he warns again, like he doesn’t believe her. “No dirt diving.”
Dakota barks again, squirming and wiggling with excitement.
“All right, then.” Finn climbs the steps and lifts her heavy body into his arms. “As long as we understand each other.”
The second Finn sets the dog on her paws, she takes off at full speed, throws her ungainly bulk into the air, and plows into the mound of dirt.
I don’t know what’s funnier: Dakota deliberately disobeying orders or Finn’s fatigued moan, like he knew this was going to happen. Either way, I laugh. Loudly.
“You think this is funny, do you?” Finn asks, his eyes flitting once to me and away again as he stalks Dakota, his steps low and stealthy.
“I think it’s hilarious,” I correct with another delighted chuckle.
Dakota zooms around the far side of the pile and leaps into it again, and Finn scowls. “I knew she was going to do this,” he mutters.
“So why did you let her off the porch?”
He rolls his eyes and rounds the dirt pile, trying to get to Dakota from a better angle. “Because I’m a weak-ass dog-dad, that’s why.”
Oh my God. I rest my fingers on my throat, checking that I’m still alive as my body swoons.
Dakota’s filthy now and totally loving life.
She rolls one way, then the other, bathing in the dirt, twisting and tossing and burying herself deeper.
She’s got one eye on Finn, luring him in with apparent defeat before dodging his grasp at the very last moment over and over.
Finally, Finn makes a frustrated leap for her, but she’s too fast, and he lands face down in the dirt just as Dakota bolts into the trees.
“I’ll get her!” I cry before I take off at a run.
“Damn it,” Finn curses, and a moment later I hear his foot falls behind me as he follows me into the woods. “Rosie?” he shouts. “Come back!”
His voice triggers my instinct to run, and maybe I should slow down but I don’t.
I can still see Dakota’s coat flashing between the trees in the distance, and I don’t want to lose her, plus the sound of Finn gaining on me only makes me move faster.
I want to test him. Tease him. See what will happen when he catches me.
My heart hammers in my chest. I’ve never felt alive like this. Free, flying, and safe to chase the high of a little danger without being afraid for my life. I don’t realize I’m laughing until I hear the echo of it in the air, and the sound pushes my soul even higher.
Dakota makes a sharp right turn and I follow her, weaving between the trees as we round our way in an arc back toward the cabin. I can sense Finn gaining on me and I know no matter how hard I pump my legs, his are longer. It’s only a matter of time before he gets me.
I’m still taken by surprise when his hard arm wraps around my waist, and he lifts me clear off the ground.
I shriek and squeeze my eyes closed as he spins me around once, then twice.
Dirt and leaves crunch under his feet and my back presses against his hard, hot chest until we’ve slowed enough that he can set me down without both of us tumbling to the ground.
When he does release me, it’s against a tree trunk, and he cages me in with his hands set above my head and his heaving, sweaty body crowding me against the rough bark.
I’m laughing, trying to catch my breath, when an amused smirk lifts his mouth, and I become extra aware of the way my heart speeds up. He’s filthy, covered in dirt and sweat, and it’s so damn sexy.
“You think you can fly from me, Songbird?” he asks quietly before he slips a hand behind my head and presses me harder against the tree.
His entire body is up against mine with a hard kind of heat that makes it impossible to think.
His thumb sweeps up over the pulse in my neck, across my jaw, and over my cheekbone, leaving a silty trail of dirt on my skin.
I tip my head back to meet his eyes, my heart fluttering in the hollow of my throat. “I think it’s fun to try.”
His full mouth twitches into a crooked smile and he dips his head closer—close enough that I can see all the individual flecks of gold in his caramel-colored eyes.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, brow furrowing as if my face tortures him.
I swallow and watch his mouth as it inches toward my upturned lips. Kiss me, I beg silently. Please, Finn. Put your mouth on me.
I don’t know where his breath ends and mine begins when an urgent, high-pitched screeching of an alarm pierces the air. We both startle, and Dakota bolts back through the trees, barking and tossing her head. Finn jerks away from me like the warning is meant for him.
I run a nervous hand over my hair and try to regain my balance with a glance in the direction of the screeching. “What is that noise?”
“It sounds like the smoke alarm,” Finn says, “but—”
“Oh no!” I catch his eyes with a horrified look. “The pudding!”
It takes him less than a heartbeat to understand the danger.
Then he grabs my hand and takes off at a run.
He shortens his stride so I can keep up with him, but I run as fast as I can, terrified that I’ve burned down Finn’s home.
The cabin his parents built. My refuge. The place I’m starting to wish I never had to leave.
Finn’s hand is large and warm, his skin worn and rough, and I wish I could enjoy feeling it wrapped around mine, but I’m too anxious to get back to the cabin.
Chasing Dakota didn’t lead us too far in the other direction, and all my weaving around trees hasn’t messed with Finn’s bearings, so the way he leads me back only takes a minute or two.
When we burst into the clearing with Dakota yapping at our heels, I’m relieved to see there’s no smoke in the air, but the sound of the alarm is louder and more insistent, so I don’t assume we’re out of danger just yet.
Finn rushes up the porch steps, dragging me behind him, and throws open the front door.
The cabin is hazy and smoke seeps from the oven in thin, gray vines.
I blink at the sting in my eyes and cover my mouth to filter the smell, but Finn bolts to the kitchen, flings open the oven door, and grabs a nearby dish towel to pull the baking pan off the metal rack.
I hang back, embarrassed and guilty, as he drops the dish into the sink and then pushes open the nearest windows.
Taking the hint, I hurry to the opposite side of the cabin and open the windows there too, while Finn flips on the ceiling fan.
When every door and window in the cabin is opened and the smoke starts to drift away, Finn climbs up onto a dining chair and switches off the blinking smoke alarm.
The silence afterward is loud in comparison.
“I’m so sorry, Finn,” I say. “I wanted to do something nice for you. It’s my grandmother’s favorite and the only thing I know how to make.” I rub my eyes and hope he assumes my tears are due to the smoke. “I guess it’s not as foolproof as I thought.”
“Hey.” Finn’s big hands land on my shoulders and he pulls me against his bare chest so he can envelop me in his arms. “It’s okay. It could have happened to anyone.”
“I doubt it.”
He gives me a small smile. “Okay. Maybe not anyone.”
I laugh through my tears, but both cut out completely when Finn drops a casual kiss on my forehead.
“And I’m as much to blame as you are,” he says, like he doesn’t even realize he’s done it. “I shouldn’t have let Dakota near all that dirt. Rolling in mud always gets her riled up. We’d have been here to take your dessert out of the oven if we weren’t playing games in the trees.”
“Right,” I agree absently, resisting the urge to brush my fingers over the spot where his mouth landed on my head. “Thanks, Finn.”
He releases me and glances out the front door, where the instigator waits for her ride at the base of the porch steps. Finn goes out to get her, but when she pads inside, nose wriggling, she gives us a single disapproving sneeze, turns, and heads straight out again.
Finn lets her go with a weary sigh. “Troublemaker,” he mutters with affection before he turns to me. “I’m going to head out and finish digging out that path. Did you want to join me or go back to your writing?”
“I can help a little while longer,” I say. “If you want me to?”
He sweeps his arm toward the open door. “After you.”
Dakota is sprawled on the porch swing, her paws and muzzle caked with dirt, and she watches us pass her with a disinterested gaze. Back at the scene of her crime, Finn passes me a shovel with a murmured warning and the hint of a teasing gleam in his eyes.
“Just try and get the dirt on the pile this time, all right?”
That secretive little smile, like the world entertains him in ways nobody else bothers to notice, plays on his lips.
My cheeks heat with embarrassment, but I don’t care.
How is it possible that I’ve spent two days lost in my music and when I reemerge, feeling stronger and more myself than I ever have, I discover Finn’s experienced a transformation too?
We work together until the sun goes down. Well, Finn works. I’m so preoccupied by the shape of his muscles and the lightness in my chest that by the time we go inside, I haven’t helped at all. But I do have the inspiration I need to write another song.