Mom.”
“Well, obviously I can do blue.” Shannon winked. “Maybe even sunglasses.”
He wanted to see how she could possibly do sunglasses on tiny fingernails. He wanted to eat pizza and see the penguin-printed socks.
But this was Mom and Daughter time.
And his watch buzzed again.
“You really should take care of that,” Shannon said, then wrapped an arm around Ry’s shoulders and continued walking.
Finn waved, turned for his own house.
Later, he would wish he’d turned the other way, wished he’d gone onto the street and seen the For Sale sign.
He could have put things to rest in a heartbeat.
But he didn’t turn the other way.
Instead, he went into his cottage, called his agent back, who was hounding him to make decisions about the piles of scripts.
All were shit.
He picked one anyway.
Then he ordered a pizza of his own.
He was still sitting on his deck, hours later, the sky dark, the sound of the waves constant and soothing, dredges of his pizza on the table in front of him, when he heard it.
Footsteps.
The screech of a chair leg.
Finn turned his head, already knowing what he’d see.
Shannon.
She shook out a blanket, draped it across her lap.
Then went still. So still that if he hadn’t known she’d come out onto the deck, hadn’t seen her with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have known anyone was out there at all.
And he found himself frozen in place, not wanting to break whatever solace she’d found, not wanting to intrude . . . while also wanting, needing to study her. To trace her silhouette with his gaze, to note its peaks and valleys highlighted against the moonlight.
What was it about Shannon that was so fascinating?
Was it pure hero complex? Yes, he’d enjoyed and taken pride in the fact that he’d lightened her load, at least for a few days. Was it that he was attracted to her? That was an irrefutable truth. She was beautiful, but he had seen more classically pretty, more curvy, more thin, more tall, more short, more . . . women that could logically be stated fit all of those ideological standards.
Hell, he’d spent the last decade sharing the screen with many of them.
Was it her daughter?
Ry was light to her heavy, bright to her dark, and yet, he’d seen those glimpses of light and bright in Shannon, too. Before life had mostly squashed it out.
Her husband was a dumbass.
He knew that without a doubt.
His pull to Shannon herself? That was a mystery.
One he should probably leave unsolved, and yet, one he also knew he wasn’t going to leave unsolved.
Especially when he watched her shoulders curl in on themselves, saw her body bend in half, almost crumpling, a sob trailing across the sand to his deck to hit his ears.
He was on his feet and striding toward her before he processed the movement.
Then he was on the bottom step of her deck.
Then he was at her chair.
Her eyes flew up to meet his. “Finn.”
He didn’t stop to think, didn’t say a word. He didn’t know what had made her sad that day, couldn’t make her ex not be an asshole. The only thing he could do was hold her close, let her cry, and then dry her tears when she was finished.
“Finn,” she protested when he lifted her in his arms.
The protest died out as he sat down, bringing her flush against his chest, legs stacked across his lap. “Shh,” he murmured, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. “You don’t have to tell me why you’re crying. Just—just let me hold you while you do.”
Silence.
Then a heart-wrenching sob, louder, and so painful that his own heart felt flayed open in response.
Her forehead dropped to his shoulder, tears streaming down her face, soaking into the cotton of his T-shirt. Her arms fell to his waist, and she cried.
Finn held her. For a long, long time, he just held her.
And when the sobs stopped, after he’d wiped her tears from her cheeks, Shannon didn’t move from his arms. Just dropped her forehead back to his shoulder and lay limply in his embrace.
So, he continued to hold her.
Until her breathing evened out, until she fell asleep.
He continued to hold her until the moon began to set. He held her until goose bumps lifted on her skin, until she shivered.
Only then did he stop holding her.
But he waited until he’d tucked her under the covers of her bed before he did so.
Eleven
Pancakes
Shannon
“Mom!” Rylie yelled, careening in through the bedroom door and slamming the heavy wooden panel into the wall