Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
“ W hat do you know about Ward Montgomery?”
Finn looked up at him from the upside-down little bike on the work table in his garage. “Erin’s dad?” He shrugged, sliding the chain on the bicycle and aligning it until it was tight. “His fertilizer’s overpriced but he served the best crumb cake around. Why?”
Giovanni sipped the beer his cousin offered when he first stopped by. “What was he like at home, like, when you and Erin dated?”
Finn’s sharp blue eyes cut to him, suspicion swirling with the sapphire flecks. “Who wants to know?”
His cousin was rarely guarded. The fact that an unmistakable boundary just went up, proved he knew something. “I do.”
“Why? Why this sudden interest in the dead hardware store owner? You thinking of buying out the shop?”
“No.”
Finn reached for a set of training wheels sitting on the shelf and unwound the nut holding the bolts in place. “Erin’s grown into a pretty girl, but she’s single by choice. If you’re thinking she might be an easy conquest, I’d respectfully ask you to look elsewhere. She’s got a lot of stuff to work through right now. It wouldn’t be right to take advantage of someone in her state.”
Giovanni narrowed his eyes. “You think I’m the kind of guy to take advantage of girls?”
“I’ve heard your act, G. I know how you are with women.”
“It’s an act, Finn. I’m telling jokes.”
His cousin met his stare with a harder one of his own. “I’m protective of her.”
“You’re married.”
“And I don’t keep secrets from my wife. Erin’s my friend. As her friend, I’m going to suggest you look elsewhere.”
“What if it’s too late?”
Another hard stare.
“Is that a problem?” Giovanni asked. “It’s been a long time since you two dated?—”
“Are you using her?”
“Jesus, Finnegan. Give me a little credit.”
“What is it you want from me?” Finn snapped. “Permission? Erin’s a grown woman who can decide for herself. But she’s had a hard life. Her dad just died and her brother disappeared when she needed someone to lean on. She needs support and she doesn’t have a lot of friends. I can’t recall you two ever being particularly close, so I’m not sure what you’re doing in my garage asking all these questions about a girl I haven’t dated since we were kids.” He shoved the training wheels aside and turned to grab a ratchet off the shelf.
“Did he hit her?”
Finn’s shoulders noticeably tensed. He held the ratchet in his hand but didn’t turn around. “I never saw him lay a hand on her.”
“You were inseparable as kids, Finn. You dated her for years. We all know you two lost your virginity to each other. Are you tellin’ me, in all that time, you never once saw something that made you stop and think something might be wrong? A bruise or a scrape on her skin?”
His cousin’s shoulders sagged and he turned, his gaze on the table. “There were things.”
“Like what?”
“Sometimes she’d run up here and she’d be scared. She missed a lot of school and had a lot of bumps and bruises, but she was clumsy. Don’t think I didn’t ask.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fuck you, Giovanni, if you think I wouldn’t say something if I saw something suspicious. We knew Ward. He was a decent guy.”
“You sound like one of those people on the news who gets interviewed about the serial killer next door.” He set his beer down and paced. “How did no one know about this? Are we all that freaking blind? A guy puts out crumb cake and we assume he’s gotta be nice?” When he stopped pacing and faced Finn again, his cousin was watching him with a strange look. “What?”
“You care about her.”
Heat burned under his collar. “So what if I do? She’s not as mean as everyone thinks.”
Finn grinned. “I know.”
Giovanni grabbed his beer and killed it. “I had sex with her,” he blurted. “The night of the blizzard. Her car went off the road and I pulled her out. Then my battery died and one thing led to another and… It’s been years and you’re married now, so I’m not gonna apologize for it. You have no claim on her and for some crazy reason I can’t stop thinking about her.”
His cousin’s jovial chuckle shattered the tension. “She was at the motel with you when I picked you up that morning, wasn’t she?”
There was no reason to answer.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Finn laughed again. “I never saw this coming.” He sipped his own beer and then sobered. “It’s sad about her dad.”
“Is it?” Giovanni challenged. He didn’t know Ward the way others did. But he was getting to know Erin, and that put him on her side.
Finn sighed and leaned against the shelves, his arms crossing at his chest. “There were bruises. I knew something wasn’t right, but she always made excuses. I was a kid. She never confided in me about that stuff, but I knew she hated being home. We used to fight a lot because she didn’t like hanging out with my family and we couldn’t go to her house. She hated when I started working at the lumberyard.”
“Why did that matter?”
“Because it meant I was never gonna leave Jasper Falls and I was her escape plan. She used to fantasize about us running away together.”
Giovanni hated the thought of her sharing any fantasies with someone else. “God forbid any of us choose not to work in the family business.”
“Hey, that lumberyard made my family and yours. If you don’t want to work there, fine, but I made the right choice by staying. Erin just wanted to leave. She didn’t want me. In the end, we weren’t even…” He shook his head. “She used to hate being touched.”
“I know.” He held his cousin’s stare, making it clear that he was in this for more than a blizzard fling.
“But she also cheated on me a lot, so go figure.”
“It’s because you were too attentive. You cared about her. And you protect the people you care about. If Ward was hitting her and you asked questions whenever you saw a bruise, questions she didn’t want to answer, it makes sense that she’d stop taking her clothes off around you.”
“But she’d strip for other guys?”
Giovanni shrugged. “Didn’t you ever have casual sex? You’re not looking for red flags any more than you’re looking for commitment. Those guys didn’t see her. They just used her.”
He could tell by the way Finn looked away that this was something he’d never discussed, something that had once been a great source of pain and confusion for him.
“If it helps,” he told Finn. “I don’t think her behavior had anything to do with you. You’re a good guy, Finn. And if I know Erin, I don’t think she ever enjoyed hurting you. She was too busy dealing with her own pain to stop it from spreading to you.”
“Maybe.”
When he left his cousin’s house his mind was made up. Things started to make sense. Erin denied any sort of sexual abuse when he’d asked—thank God for that—but he couldn’t imagine how much other abuse she might have suffered. Mental, physical… No wonder she always seemed so unhappy.
There was one thing he couldn’t figure out. If her life at home had been so miserable, why had she stayed?