Chapter 11
After parking in front of the cottage, he headed inside and found his brother dressed in black trousers and a grey sweater.
“Hurry up, or we’ll be late to the service, Finch.”
“Did we discuss going and I missed it?”
“I thought it was a given seeing as Nina is a friend,” Lynx said.
“Not a given considering I’m pretty antisocial these days,” Finch said.
“Boo fucking hoo, now get moving. Wash off that building stench, and hurry.”
“Manly stench, do you mean? Sweat and sawdust—something you candy-ass rock stars don’t understand.”
Lynx, who was putting on his watch, stopped to look at him. “Did you just have a crack at me?” He smiled. “And there he is, my shithead older brother. I missed you. Now, go wash. Do you need to borrow something that isn’t khaki, or denim?”
Finch grunted something uncomplimentary and raised a middle finger as he walked away. While he was showering, he thought about the past few days and realized his time at Klaus’s had started him thinking about the future, something he’d thought he wasn’t ready for.
He wanted to be more than what the military had shaped him to be. He just needed to work out what that looked like. How his skills could transfer into something that actually excited him.
After drying off, he pulled on boxers and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He then headed to the closet and found a pair of gray cargo pants and a black sweater. After lacing his feet into leather boots, he left his room.
“Ready?” Lynx said when he reappeared in the living area.
“Yeah.”
His brother studied him. “Maybe run a brush through your hair, which, by the way, needs a cut.”
Finch finger combed his hair. His brother sighed but didn’t add anything.
They pulled on jackets and headed out to his pickup.
“I’m thinking it’s going to snow later,” Lynx said, looking up. “You forget how cold it gets here when you live far away, surrounded by high rises,” he added as Finch drove the pickup toward town.
“Do you miss it?”
“When I’m here, I realize just how much. Life’s busy most of the time. Here, I get to just be quiet and still for a while,” Lynx said.
“The thought of all those people wanting a piece of me makes me shudder, bro,” Finch said.
Lynx shrugged. “You get used to it, and they’re the reason we do what we do, or why else would we?”
“True,” Finch agreed.
“You sometimes forget the peace this place gives you, though,” his brother said, looking at the scenery.
“Do you need peace, Lynx?” A stab of shame told Finch he hadn’t asked about his brother’s life because the focus had been on his. “Is everything all right?”
“Sure. Busy, but okay.” Lynx was looking out his window, not meeting Finch’s eyes.
“Hey, just because my life imploded doesn’t mean I’m not there for you. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing. I’m good. It just gets a bit much sometimes. It’s not until you’re deep in the middle of it that you realize maybe you are a small-town boy at heart, you know?” Lynx said.
“By ‘it,’ I guess you mean playing on stage with thousands of adoring fans all wanting a piece of you—literally?”
“Sounds like hell, doesn’t it?” Lynx shot him a smile. “Sometimes I just get a bit burned out, but I’m okay, bro, really.”
“I need you to tell me if you’re not, Lynx. Promise me.”
“Promise,” Lynx said. Then, changing the subject, he asked, “How are you feeling after working on the coffee hut extension?”
“Okay. It feels good to be doing something, even if I could do without the advice.”
Lynx laughed.
Then Finch told his brother about what he’d thought he’d seen at Nina’s house.
“Do you think you imagined it, Finch?”
“I don’t know, and with what’s been going on in my head since the accident, it’s possible.”
“Are you okay?”
Finch shot his brother a look. “I’m sitting here wearing clothes I haven’t worn in forever. Don’t I look okay?”
“Hard to say because you haven’t been okay for a while.”
“I’m doing all right, Lynx. I promise. But I do have one concern.”
“What?” Lynx started drumming his hands on the dash like he’d done since he was a kid. The man was constantly humming or tapping out a tune.
“Red did me a favor, and now I have to work girls’ night at the Rollaway.”
His brother was still laughing as Finch pulled into the Circle Left parking lot.
“Really? That’s brilliant, and now I have to find a way to get in there and see you. Are you going to tell Dan or his uncle what you thought you saw at Nina’s?” Lynx asked before getting out of the pickup.
“I should. After all, she had those break-ins.”
“True, and I agree. Now brace yourself because most of the town will be here,” Lynx said as Finch joined him.
“I’m bracing,” he said, looking at the building. “I guess Nina’s mom left her the money to buy this place,” Finch added. “I think she’ll do well here. She’s a people person and a local.”
“Yeah. It’ll be an adjustment not having Nancy and Hank around, but you’re right, at least she’s a local. Did you know Nina’s mother well?” Lynx asked.
“Not really. She came around a few times when we were younger, when Nina was on a playdate with Birdie or Blue, but I’ve been out of town so long, I saw little of her in the past few years.”
Lynx nodded.
“Mom said she had to go into a home a few years ago now,” Finch added.
“That had to be hard on her only child.”
“And then some.”
They went inside then and joined the other guests, who were all dressed in subdued colors and here for Nina and her late mother.
People greeted the McAllister brothers with smiles and questions about what Lynx was up to now and how Finch was feeling.
He felt the telltale tingle in his palms and the niggle in his head as the well-meaning questions kept coming.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said to Lynx and headed through the door that led to the bathrooms. Sometimes he just needed a second to get his shit together when he was in a room with so many people. A moment to take a few deep breaths and refocus like he’d been taught.
He went down the hallway, took the stairs up, headed down another hallway, and opened a door at the end. He stepped outside into the cold air.
Bracing his hands on the railing, he inhaled a deep lungful and then exhaled slowly. He did it three more times until he felt steadier.
“Finch?”
Turning, he watched Nina step through the door.
“Hey,” he said, “You doing okay?”
She nodded. “You?”
She wore deep charcoal trousers and a white shirt. Over that, she had on a black woolen vest. Her heels were nosebleed tall and her hair pulled up in a high ponytail. The ends of a black silk ribbon fluttered as she moved closer to him.
The woman could wear anything and look stunning. But today she was more than that. She looked vulnerable too. It was there in the shadows under her eyes and the pallor of her skin. She was wounded, and that made his chest ache.
“How are you, really?” Finch asked instead of answering her question.
Nina exhaled slowly, stopping beside him to brace her hands like he had on the railing. She smelled good, a soft, subtle scent that hung in the air briefly before it dispersed.
“Scared, nervous, and not ready to say goodbye to her.”
“All entirely natural reactions,” he said. “You look really nice.”
“So there’s that, at least,” she replied, a small smile tilting her lips.
“Your mom would be proud of you.”
“Why do you think that?” She lifted her hands off the railing to look at him, tilting her head as Klaus often did to study him. Her brown eyes looked bigger, which Finch guessed was from whatever makeup she’d put around them.
“Because you’re successful, hot, and—”
“Successful and hot will do,” she said, her smile a little wider now. “She’s only been gone a few days, and I miss her so much, even though at the end, she wasn’t the mom I remember. But knowing she’s no longer around is hard because she’s the only family I have.”
“I’m sorry.” He took her fingers and squeezed gently.
“She didn’t know me before she died, Finch.”
He let her talk because she needed to.
“And it turns out I didn’t really know her either,” she whispered.
“Why do you say that?”
She shook her head. “That’s another story, but not for today—in fact, I’m not sure it’s something I’ll ever talk about.”
“Nina. If you need—”
“I will definitely not be going to you to unload the crap from my past,” she said. “No offence, but you have enough of your own stuff to worry about.”
She wasn’t wrong. “What crap from your past?”
She waved that away with a flick of her wrist. “My turn for a question,” she said. “Why are you up here alone when everyone is below? Restroom, or something else?”
“You have to talk about things. Don’t store them away inside you, Finch.” His therapist had been big on talking.
“Sometimes when I’m in a room full of people, I need to leave and take a minute somewhere quiet.” He’d told no one this before.
“You panic?” Her fingers gripped his tighter.
“Yes.”
Their eyes caught and held. Then she placed her free hand on his chest, rose to her toes, and kissed him softly. Their lips clung together for long seconds, and then she eased back, and he let her hand go. Not because he wanted to, but because he needed to.
“You’re safe, Finch. Only good people who care about you are in Circle Left today. Remember that, okay?”
“I know that it’s not rational. I’m better—way better, but it creeps up on me sometimes when I’m not expecting it.”
“I’m glad you’re better, but you need to give yourself time to heal, Finch.”
He wanted to lean in again and kiss those soft glossy pink lips because then he’d forget the hell that was his life, but today wasn’t about him. It was about her.
“Congratulations on buying this place.” His words sounded like a rusty door hinge. “I’m glad it’s a local.”
“Me too.”
“You’ll be great here. You like people.” He didn’t want her to leave him yet.
“Thanks. Now we need to go down there, otherwise they’ll come looking for us.”
“Okay, and you’ve got this, Nina. Now you lead, and I’ll follow.”
He doubted anyone would come looking for him, but he walked behind her down the stairs, and as he moved, he felt it again. Another dislodged piece slotting back into place inside him.