Book 20 Yours After Dark #4
“I… I need to think about it. I’m sorry… It’s just that there are so many reasons why this isn’t a good idea for me.”
He wants to know all her reasons. He wants to know everything there is to know about her, and that’s unprecedented for him.
Even after all the years he spent with Missy, he’d never wanted to know everything about her.
Their relationship had been lighter, more surface-level than what he wants with Chloe, which doesn’t jibe with his plans to leave the island and return to the life he’d been living before he came here.
They exchange numbers and share a kiss in her driveway. Chloe apologizes for telling him she can’t be with him and then kissing his face off. He tells her he’s equally confused. He wants more time with her and says they’ll keep it low-key.
When he gets home, he calls Missy, determined to end things officially once and for all.
Missy isn’t happy to hear he doesn’t want to pick up where they left off.
She accuses him of stringing her along, which he adamantly denies.
She doesn’t want to be his friend and says they aren’t over by a long shot.
He’s worried about what she might have planned.
Chloe floats through the next day in a weird state of anticipation and excitement, two things that aren’t usually part of her routine. She learned from an early age to keep her expectations reasonable, so she won’t be disappointed when things don’t work out. Because things rarely work out for her.
Her client, Tiffany Taylor, notes that she’s distracted.
Chloe talks about meeting Finn and how he has her all turned around.
Tiffany says, “Just because it hasn’t happened yet for you doesn’t mean it can’t.
If you feel something for him and sense it works both ways, don’t be cavalier about what could be the most important thing that could ever happen to both of you. ”
The constant ache in her hands, hips, knees and ankles is a reminder of why Chloe has chosen to be alone.
She powers through it the way she always does and will continue to do for as long as she can.
And when she can no longer work? She doesn’t know what she’ll do, and that scares her more than anything.
The fear has become crippling since receiving an official diagnosis.
That fear and that diagnosis is another reason to keep her distance from Finn.
At the shop, the florist delivers a beautiful bouquet of wildflowers. She waits until she gets into her car to read the card. Thanks for being my two-week girlfriend. I can’t wait to see you tonight. Finn.
“Oh, Finn McCarthy.” She tears up as she re-reads the message. “You don’t fight fair.”
Finn makes dinner for Chloe and invites Ranger to join them.
He puts steak on the grill, and as he goes back inside to finish the salad, his phone begins vibrating.
Finn makes the mistake of glancing at it to find a furious series of texts from Missy, telling him how awful he is, how he made promises to her that she expects him to keep, how she’s been planning their wedding and has even reserved a venue for next summer.
“What?” Finn reads the texts with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief.
She booked a wedding venue? What the actual fuck?
They’ve never once talked about getting married.
He’s been very careful not to go there with her, knowing he isn’t even remotely close to being ready for anything permanent with her or anyone.
The texts keep coming, faster than he can read them, the gist being that he would be sorry for embarrassing her this way.
In a state of disbelief over the things she said, he shuts off the phone and puts it on the charger. How can she possibly think it’s appropriate to book a wedding venue when they’ve never so much as had a conversation about marriage? Thankfully, Chloe arrives to take his mind off his worries.
While waiting for dinner to finish cooking, Finn notices Chloe’s red and swollen knuckles.
When he asks about them, she says they’re from a long day at work but doesn’t elaborate.
Chloe tells him about her parents and how she ended up in foster care.
“I’m so sorry you had such an awful thing happen to you. ”
She smiles, but her glorious eyes are sad. “What is it about you that has me telling you something I rarely tell anyone?”
Her sadness guts him. “I don’t know, but I’m really glad you trusted me enough to share that with me.”
“I told Katie about it the other day. You’re the first two people here who I’ve told.”
Because he needs it and thinks she might, too, he moves his chair closer to hers and holds out his arms to her.
Later, Finn wouldn’t be able to say how long they sat there, wrapped up in each other as daylight wanes into dusk.
Time ceases to matter. The only thing he cares about is offering comfort after hearing her heartbreaking story.
As they enjoy dinner, Finn says she has him thinking about changing his plans. She’s all he thinks about. He wants what’s happening between them to be real.
“You are wonderful, and tonight was so great,” she says.
“It’s just that I’m not in a place where I can accommodate something like this.
Trust me when I tell you that I wish I was.
I really do.” Her heart breaks as she says the words, which means it’s the right thing to stop this now.
It won’t get easier later. “Come on, Ranger. It’s time to go home.
Say thank you to Finn for the steak you stole from him. ”
Ranger gets up, stretches and comes to see them.
Finn scratches him behind the ears. “I hope you enjoyed every bite, buddy.”
Chloe makes herself get up, carry items inside, put the leash on Ranger and turn to say goodbye to Finn. “Thank you for a lovely evening.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry, Finn.”
“So am I. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
She cries all the way home.
Finn tells Riley how he told Missy it was over, and that she’d booked a wedding venue.
She’s been blowing up his phone, so he blocked her.
Riley asks him what made him finally tell her it’s over.
“After seeing you with Nicholas and Dad with Chelsea, I realized a lot of things are missing in my relationship with Missy, things I don’t want to live the rest of my life without.
” Riley encourages Finn to go after Chloe.
Since he’s been drinking, he calls Ned to come pick him up.
When Finn gets to her house, he texts her and asks if he can see her. He tells her that the minute she left, he missed her. She missed him, too. As he stands in front of her, neither of them seems to breathe.
“I’ve never done anything even remotely like this,” he says.
“Like what?”
“Showing up at someone’s house in the middle of the night because I can’t bear to stay away.”
Chloe is not in a good place for a serious relationship, and besides, he’s leaving the island. “If you’re willing to make a go of this, I would stay,” Finn says.
“I’m dealing with some things. It’s just…” Glancing down, she takes a deep breath. “It’s not the right time for something like this. It’s not you, so please don’t think that. You’re amazing and wonderful, and if things were different…”
He wonders if she can hear the way her voice wavers as she tries to let him down easy.
The landing has never hurt more. “I hear what you’re saying, and even though I don’t understand it, I’ll respect your wishes.
But I want you to know…” His throat closes, and for a terrifying second, he fears he’ll lose his composure.
“I want you to know that I’ve never felt for anyone else what I do for you.
And if you change your mind, call me, text me, come to me. I’ll always want to see you.”
Finn kisses her forehead and then forces himself to get up, to walk away from her when every fiber of his being is telling him to stay. But she’s made her wishes clear—more than once—and it’s time to cut his losses, as painful as that will be.
In the morning, Chloe drags herself out of bed for an appointment at the clinic.
Dr. David Lawrence has been an absolute godsend since her hands started giving her trouble last summer.
At first, it had been twinges of discomfort in her wrists and then her fingers.
Within a couple of months, her hips, knees and ankles were protesting the long days on her feet at work, and her hands were swelling and aching fiercely.
When anti-inflammatory medication hadn’t alleviated the pain and swelling, David had referred her to a rheumatologist on the mainland who’d put her through more tests than she could count, all of them coming back inconclusive.
Her rheumatoid arthritis factor had been negative, which had prolonged the mystery, but that can happen even if you have the disorder.
In the end, the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis devastated her.
The medication prescribed to alleviate the symptoms is also a chemotherapy drug and leaves her feeling sick to her stomach most of the time.
David and Fiona, the local pharmacist, are the only ones on the island who know about her diagnosis.
Hoping to protect her business for as long as she can, Chloe decided to tell no one else until she has to.
That plan has been working out well until Finn McCarthy came strolling into the salon, setting off an intense yearning for something—and someone—she can’t have.
Sending him away had been the right thing to do. He has his whole life ahead of him and can have any woman he wants. He doesn’t need to be saddled with someone who might end up disabled within a decade, if it takes that long.