Hold Me Close (Ryker Falls #5) - Wendy Vella Page 0,65
and lowered her into his car. She gave up the fight as he ran around the hood and leaped in the driver side. If she made a run for it, he’d just catch her. He turned on the ignition, and soon they were heading out of town.
“I’m a big girl, Fin. I don’t need you forcing me to do this or taking charge.”
“Sure you are, but let’s face it, you’d put off telling your family as long as you could, and that’s wrong too. They should know. I gave you a few days. That time’s up now.”
“I shouldn’t have slept with you.” The words came out fast. “It’s messed everything up, Fin. We need to just forget about it.”
Maggs almost laughed at the words. As if she could forget about him and how’d he’d made her feel, his big body, his scent, and the places he’d taken her to when he’d been inside her.
“It didn’t feel wrong. Nothing that good could be wrong, and no way in hell do I want to forget it.”
She looked away from him and out the window. Maggie had no answer to that, because he was right. It had felt good, more than good.
Chapter 27
They’d been greeted with delight when they’d arrived at her parents’ house, and while her mother and father had shot him a few speculative looks when Maggs had said she had something to tell them, they’d simply ushered them inside. Coffee had been made, and then Fin had settled in a chair and waited.
“I have something to tell you,” Maggs said when they were all seated.
“Excellent timing on my part then.” Nash wandered into the room, and sat after a nod at Fin. “You just keep turning up, Ranger.”
“I do, and I’m not going anywhere,” Fin said, smiling through his teeth.
He couldn’t fault the man for being protective of his sister, but Fin was going to be a part of Maggie’s life, and Nash needed to get used to that.
“We’re listening, Tigger,” her father said. “You go on and tell your story now.”
She was tense, her hands twisted together as she began, but she got it all out, and the hostile look she sent him told Fin she wasn’t happy that he’d made her.
Why had he made her, he asked himself. It wasn’t like he was an open book or anything, after all; in fact, his family life was hell, and he’d been avoiding his father since the night he’d said they needed to talk.
Was it his place to force her to do this? Possibly not, and yet it was done and he hoped she felt better for it and didn’t hold it against him for the rest of his life.
“You were shot and nearly killed and didn’t tell us!” Nash’s roar pulled Fin from his thoughts.
“Shut it down, Nash. She’s telling you now, and roaring won’t help that,” Fin said. He wasn’t having her yelled at when she had already been through so much.
“You don’t get to tell me how to speak to my sister,” Nash snarled.
“I will if you yell at her. She was wrong not telling you, but now she is. Intimidating her is not helping anyone.”
They glared at each other.
“Enough,” Maggie’s father said. He had an arm around his wife, who was crying. “Fin’s right, Nash. While I’m angry too, yelling won’t help.”
“I’m sorry,” Maggs said, looking ready to cry herself, which made his chest hurt. “Really. I was wrong not to tell you.”
Nash exhaled. “How would you feel if the roles were reversed and it was me over there, shot and hurting, and I didn’t tell you?”
“Angry,” she said in a subdued voice.
Ford arrived, and the story was recounted again. He was no more happy than his brother had been, but he didn’t yell at Maggs, he just looked devastated. Fin realized then, this was a family who loved deeply. It wasn’t the life they lived, or what they had beyond these walls; this family had love in its foundations. He envied them that.
They talked it through, and Fin watched silently, drinking more coffee. His family had never talked stuff through; they just ignored the great big black cloud that had loomed over their life. His mother, he realized, had been unstable, one minute happy, the next sad. Sometimes irrational and others sane. It had been exhausting growing up with her, and he’d resented his father for always working and leaving Fin and his sister to cope with her.