way, setting her on her feet just outside the kitchen. “Finn—”
Honey eyes came to hers.
“Go, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I can do this.”
She nodded, turned to follow Ry, but then she turned back. “Finn—”
“Let me help you, dammit,” he gritted, not sharp, but rough and frustrated and punctuated by a sigh. “I can sweep one floor.”
She bit back a smile, somehow charmed by the big, smart, pushy, sweet man whom she’d pushed to grumpiness. “I was just going to say that the vacuum is in the hall closet.”
“Oh.” He bent, started sweeping the floor again.
“Finn?”
A beat then, “Yeah?” Still not sharp. Still gruff.
Still making her smile.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
Yeah, still gruff.
Yeah, she liked it.
A lot.
So much that her cheeks hurt when she walked out to join Rylie on the deck, and for the first time in many years, it was because she was happy and touched and not because she was holding back tears.
Eight
All The Baked Goods
Finn
He had to admit that peanut butter milk was the shit.
The apples were . . . well, apples.
But Shannon had been right. Together it was pretty much the perfect snack. Though, Finn knew that was mostly because of the two females sitting next to him. One, rather, since the soon-to-be-seven-year-old Rylie was now perfecting her sandcastle skills on the beach in front of them.
And he was left with a full belly, warm sunshine on his skin, and this woman next to him, silently watching the waves.
Then she turned her eyes, so similar to the color of the ocean, onto him.
Arrested.
His body. His breath.
That gaze pinned him in place more intensely than the hard-ass director who’d given him his big break.
“Why are you here?”
How to answer that?
Did he give the canned answer? Exhaustion. Working too hard for too many years and he just needed some time to himself?
Or did he tell this woman, this virtual stranger, the beautiful sad female who he was somehow connected with, the dark secret that had been eating at him. The reason he’d flipped out on camera. The reason he’d been sent away, and not just by his agent and publicist.
But by his family.
To get the paparazzi away.
Because Finn hadn’t just lost it on camera. He had a meltdown on a live morning TV show, calling out the anchor for something he’d seen backstage—the anchor cornering a young, female intern—thus triggering a media shitstorm, but also the coming forward of victims of that anchor, and a subsequent firing. He’d been lauded—bravo for stepping up!—and reviled—just another male wanting to be a savior when the system was broken—and he’d deserved both actions in equal measures. Especially because his actions and words hadn’t been truly altruistic. He’d seen that girl, young and innocent and her fire and hope dying in her as the anchor had slid his hand over her ass . . . and he had just been so tired of it all, so fucking tired of the duplicity of Hollywood calling for equality and kindness when he saw this same type of mistreatment, time and time again.
Witnessing the assault had been shit timing.
He’d seen it just after he’d found out about his sister the weekend before.
And where he would have normally taken care, treaded carefully, and not thrown the victim’s story straight into the gobbling jaws of the media and its circus, Finn hadn’t been thinking straight.
So . . . he’d snapped.
He’d remembered all the times someone young and vulnerable had been taken advantage of and he hadn’t been able to do anything because he’d heard about it afterward. All the times he’d been there and failed to intervene when he should have.
Crude jokes.
A laughing innuendo that wasn’t shared all around.
And his sister.
His baby sister.
The timing of those two things . . . and he’d lost it.
“My younger sister was raped,” he said quietly.
Shannon’s startled inhale told him everything he needed to know. “Oh no,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry that happened to her.”
“Me, too.”
She nodded, eyes drifting back to the waves. “But”—he held his breath as the rest of her words came—“that doesn’t explain why you’re here,” she finished softly.
His breath slid out. “No,” he murmured. “It doesn’t.”
Gaze on the horizon, she waited, not pushing for an explanation, not demanding he tell her more. Just sitting quietly and patiently, and Finn found that for the first time in a long time, the words just came.
Not a struggle.
Not painful.
Just as easy as breathing.
Thus was the power of Shannon, he supposed. This woman, whom he’d been connected to since returning the pink plastic