It was a very long afternoon. After talking to my father, I sat in my room brooding for longer than I’d like to admit. The phone rang on and off, and although I was sort of tempted to eavesdrop, I was probably better off not knowing.
Finn made it back from the hospital at a little past six o’clock. I didn’t much want to hang out with my father at the moment, but I did want to see Finn, to reassure myself that he really was—miraculously—okay.
Saying he was okay was overly optimistic. I could tell by the careful way he walked and the tightness at the corners of his mouth that he was still in pain. Even Dad could tell, because he quickly urged the Knight to take a seat. Finn sank down onto the sofa gratefully.
“Are you well enough to guard her?” my dad asked. I guess his compassion only went so far.
Finn shrugged stiffly. “Not if I’m escorting her around the city. But in the house with the added protection of your spells, I can manage it.”
“Can’t you find someone who isn’t hurt?” I asked Dad, biting my lip as I looked at Finn. I hated the thought of him possibly having to defend me when he was already injured. I wasn’t sure I could bear a repeat of this morning’s nightmare.
“I can manage,” Finn repeated before my dad could answer. “I wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true.”
Dad nodded his agreement and turned to me. “Even at less than a hundred percent, you won’t find a better guardian than Finn. Besides, I’m meeting Alistair and Grace for dinner and strategic planning in less than half an hour. I wouldn’t have time to find a replacement.”
I didn’t bother to argue. I prefer to save my energy for battles I can win.
Dad left about ten minutes later, and I wondered what I was supposed to do for dinner. I’d skipped lunch altogether, and though Dad had called me to come down for afternoon tea, I hadn’t taken him up on the offer. I was famished.
Finn levered himself off the sofa, and I winced in sympathy.
“Please don’t get up!” I said, although he was already on his feet. “Do you need something?” My mind kept flashing back to the sight of his beaten and bloody face, to the knife stabbing through his shoulder until the tip was buried in the floor. And as brave and strong as he was, he hadn’t been able to completely muffle a scream when the paramedic had pulled the blade out.
“I’m not an invalid,” he said, and proceeded to amble toward the kitchen.
I was horrified when he started pulling food from the fridge and I realized he meant to cook. That answered my question about dinner.
“You are not cooking,” I told him in a voice I’d used on my mother when she was too drunk to be allowed near an open flame.
His response was to arch one brow at me while he continued gathering ingredients. It looked like he was planning on spaghetti and meatballs, based on what he’d pulled out so far.
“I’ve been cooking since I was about six,” I told him. “I can handle making spaghetti. Please sit down.”
My voice cracked a bit, to my embarrassment. But after what he’d gone through today on my account, it made something deep inside me ache to see him doing this for me when I could do it myself. I had come to Avalon partly in search of someone to take care of me, to let me be the child I’d never gotten the chance to be. Funny how now that I had the chance, I wanted nothing more than to take the reins back into my own hands.
Finn put down the green pepper he’d been examining and turned to face me, leaning a hip against the counter. “I’ve been cooking since I was six, too, and that was a lot longer ago for me than it was for you.”
“But’”
“If you’d succeeded in having me sent home, I’d be in my own kitchen cooking my own dinner right now.”
I swallowed hard a couple of times, hating the fact that I felt like crying over something so stupid as who was going to cook dinner. I’d made it through the attack and its aftermath without bursting into tears; surely I could hold them off now.
Finn took a couple of steps toward me, and his voice gentled. He actually had a very nice voice—deep and kind of