Chapter Ten
It was so quiet once he was gone.
Kenzie sat there on the sofa for the longest time. Already, she missed him desperately. More than once, she grabbed her phone, started to call him, to beg him come back, to…
To what? There was nothing to come back for. She was not going to marry him. She’d learned the hardest lesson twice and she just couldn’t take the chance of finding out if the third time might actually be the charm.
Yes, she’d hoped to keep his friendship. But who was she kidding? She cared for him deeply and he cared for her.
And yet, she couldn’t say yes to him. There was nowhere for the two of them to go from here.
She got up, went to the kitchen and took a few tissues from the box on the counter. Back in the living room, she dried her eyes.
And when she looked down, Tom and Ed were sitting there at her feet, tails curled neatly around their front paws, staring up at her as though they weren’t sure what to do.
She swiped away another tear before it could fall. And then, she dropped to the sofa again and patted her lap with both hands. “Come on, guys.”
They jumped to the sofa, climbed into her lap and started purring for all they were worth. She cuddled them, swallowed down the tears and longed for the man she couldn’t let herself have.
* * *
Monday at lunch in the teacher’s lounge, both Lauren and Sandy wanted to know what in the world had happened to Kenzie. Apparently, the breakup with Finn was written all over her face.
Lauren leaned close to her and whispered, “You’ve been crying. What happened?”
Kenzie straightened her shoulders. “I’m fine.”
Sandy made a pouty face. “It’s hurtful when you lie to us. What’s going on?”
Kenzie pressed her lips together and shot a quick glance around the lounge. All the tables were taken. The last thing she needed was to share her heartbreak with the majority of her colleagues at Tenacity High.
Lauren suggested, “It’s a nice day. Let’s take our lunch outside.”
Kenzie resisted, but her friends were relentless. The three of them ended up taking their bag lunches out to the athletic field, where they sat on the bleachers, Sandy and Lauren on either side of her. On the field, a girl’s PE class practiced soccer drills.
“Talk,” commanded Sandy as she took a bite of her ham on rye.
Kenzie had planned to keep her mouth shut, to stonewall her friends until they finally gave up. She really didn’t want to talk about it—especially not at work.
But she looked in Sandy’s worried eyes as Lauren leaned close and whispered, “Just tell us. You’ll feel better.”
“Finn and I broke up.”
Dead silence. Both of her friends were shaking their heads.
Finally, Sandy asked the big question. “Why?”
Kenzie dropped her chicken-salad sandwich back onto the plastic wrap in her lap. “He asked me to marry him.”
“And…” prompted Lauren.
“It’s simple. I’m never getting married again.”
“You turned him down?” said Sandy with a moan.
“That’s right. I turned him down. He left. That was Saturday. I haven’t talked to him since.”
Her friends scooted closer. They each wrapped an arm around her. It helped. But only a little.
Lauren said, “Please don’t call me a traitor, but—”
Kenzie leaned her head on Lauren’s shoulder. “Never. You’re the best.”
“—Finn is one of the good ones,” she continued. “And in my experience, the good ones are pretty darn hard to find.”
“Call him,” said Sandy. “Tell him you made a mistake and you need to talk and— Wait. I have to ask. Was there a ring?”
Lauren scoffed. “Please. It’s not about the ring.”
“I know,” said Sandy staunchly. “But was there?” At Kenzie’s slow nod, she demanded, “Okay, I’m going to need a description. A detailed description.”
Kenzie sighed. “Fine. It was perfect. A gorgeous round diamond, antique gold band, low-profile, bezel-set.”
“Oh, my…” Sandy shook her head. “That sounds like the exact right ring for you—and gorgeous, to boot.”
“Yes, on both counts.”
Sandy whimpered in distress. “I can’t believe you turned him down.”
“Oh, please,” grumbled Lauren.
“Don’t give me that look, Lauren,” Sandy muttered in return.
“I don’t mean because of the ring—though let’s be real, the perfect ring matters.
” She turned to Kenzie again. “I’m just shocked that you said no because you two were made for each other.
I loved seeing you together. Finn’s a great guy and you deserve the best.”
“Stop now,” said Lauren softly.
“Sorry.” Sandy gave Kenzie’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Sometimes I do get a little carried away.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Kenzie reassured her. “And you’re right. Finn’s a terrific guy. It’s just that, after the disaster of my marriage to Tate, I don’t want to get married again. I honestly don’t. My baby needs a family she can count on absolutely. And that would be me, period.”
“We are here for you,” whispered Lauren.
“You bet we are,” added Sandy.
Kenzie slipped an arm around each of them. “Thank you.” They shared a group hug. Her friends were the best. And their support should have made her feel better.
But it didn’t.
Later that afternoon, Kenzie took her place at the base of the bleachers for football practice. It was the first time she’d seen Finn since their breakup Saturday night.
He looked so good, so tall and strong and handsome. Her heart ached just to see him out there on the field putting the team through the usual drills. He didn’t come near her.
Which was good, she reminded herself. They needed to avoid each other now. Distance would help them to move on.
But the pain of losing him just felt so…fresh.
It would get better, she promised herself. Eventually, the hurt would fade to a dull ache and then, over time, to nothing. After all, that’s how it had been when it ended with Tate.
Finn is not Tate, said a stern voice in her head. Finn’s a good man and you know it. He’s a man you can trust. He’s the man that you love—and you’re a fool to have sent him away.
She blocked that voice out—or at least she tried to.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about him, missing him, wondering what was he doing now?
The pain of missing him was bad. Really bad. And if it was going to feel this bad forever, she didn’t know how she would bear it.
* * *
Tuesday morning, Finn got the okay to visit Sean at the hospital in Billings. He rearranged his work schedule and left home at ten.
At twelve thirty, he walked in on Sean just as an aide was taking away his lunch tray. The boy seemed glad to see him and in reasonably good spirits.
“It’s going to be a lot of work and a long recovery,” Sean said. “But I’m tough. I’ll be back on the field next season. You can count on me, Coach.”
Finn gave the boy a big smile. “Now, that’s the best news I’ve heard all week. And I’m not the only one looking forward to having you back on the field. The whole team is on your side, Sean.”
“Thanks, Coach. That’s real good to hear.”
Finn had brought DoorDash and Uber Eats gift cards so Sean could order whatever he was hungry for from a variety of Billings restaurants. He also gave Sean a ball autographed for him by all the other players on the team.
Sean said he’d gotten a lot of calls and an endless chain of texts. “It’s good,” he said. “To know the guys are rooting for me.”
Finn stayed until a nurse entered the room to get Sean up on his crutches for a trip to the nurses’ station and back.
In the car on the return drive to Tenacity, Finn opened the windows, cued up his favorite playlist and turned the volume up good and loud. Sean would be fine…eventually. Finn could let himself believe that now.
What he couldn’t do was talk to Kenzie about it, tell her how brave Sean was, how good it felt to know the odds were solidly in Sean’s favor for a complete recovery.
It hurt, plain and simple, that he couldn’t reach out to her. So he tried to put her from his mind, tried not the think how empty his days felt without her in them.
* * *
That afternoon at practice, Kenzie kept a smile on her face.
It wasn’t easy. In fact, it hurt more today to see Finn out there on the field than it had the afternoon before. It was supposed to get better, wasn’t it? Or at least not get worse.
But it was worse. She missed him so much. It was fifteen years ago all over again, only more so. She ached for him. She needed him near.
Too bad that couldn’t happen—because she’d sent him away.
She kept thinking about her talk with Lauren and Sandy the day before. They thought Finn was a great guy. Because he was. And knowing that just made the pain of losing him all the more unbearable.
She reminded herself that it had only been a few days. She needed to be patient. In time, she would feel better.
She was sitting on the bleachers, her medical bag ready at her side, watching Finn and Barrett lead the team through their usual preliminary warmup routine when Oscar appeared carrying a tray full of water bottles. He sat down next to her.
“Nurse Osborne,” he said, staring straight ahead. “Something is wrong. It was wrong yesterday. You’re not okay, are you?”
She drew her slumped shoulders back and gave him her warmest smile. “I’m okay, Oscar. I really am.”
He slid her a quick glance and then looked away again. “I don’t believe you,” he said under his breath.
“Oh, Oscar…” She brushed his arm without stopping to think that he wasn’t all that fond of random people putting their hands on him. “Sorry…”
He leaned toward her but kept his gaze on Finn and the team. “It’s okay. But I still don’t believe you. You look at him and he looks at you, but never at the same time anymore.”
She didn’t know what to say. Worse, her eyes had gone misty and her throat felt tight. She swallowed hard to force the tears down. “I just… Please don’t worry, Oscar. It’s going to be okay.”
“Worry doesn’t work that way,” muttered Oscar. “You can’t turn it off like a light.” And then, he jumped up, grabbed his caddy of water bottles and headed onto the field.