Beth shut the door of the gallery behind her, the sound of the movie abruptly muting. Then she began to do a slow inventory of the displays, noting what was on show and what wasn’t and thinking about what gaps there were.
Anything to distract herself from meeting Finn’s dark gaze across the heads of the people watching the movie and feeling her heart tumble like an acrobat over and over in her chest.
Seeing the walls behind his eyes. Walls he was never going to lower for her, and she knew that. She could sense it. He was protecting himself fiercely, locked up tight like an oyster.
She understood. Letting people in was hard. But she could still feel the pressure of Izzy’s and Indigo’s grips on her hands, steadying her, letting her know they were there, and she knew while it was hard, it was also worth it to lower those walls and let people in.
People you trusted. But maybe that was the problem.
She loved him, she could admit that now, and while she’d never demand his love in return, she did need his trust. And it seemed obvious that he wasn’t going to give it to her, or the most secret, essential part of himself.
In which case how was it ever going to work between them? How would their marriage survive without trust? How would they ever be a family together?
If he doesn’t let you in, then you’re never going to be a family.
Beth’s throat closed, the thought much more painful than it had any right to be.
Oh lord, but she was tired of feeling like crying every five seconds. It was getting old.
She moved over to the counter to have a look in the stock book, then heard the gallery door open behind her. She turned to find Finn coming in, closing the door behind him.
Her heartbeat sped up, her palms feeling sweaty. Ridiculous to feel like this every time he was near, especially given she’d been living with him for the past two weeks. But then that seemed to be her stock response to him. He made her feel like an overwrought teenage girl in the grip of her first crush.
He took a couple of steps toward her, then stopped, his hands where they customarily were, which was in the pockets of his worn jeans.
God, he was gorgeous. Dark and brooding and powerful. No wonder she felt like a teenager when he was around.
No wonder you’re in love with him.
Yeah, well, she could do with being in love with him a little less, because quite frankly it sucked every bit as much as she’d thought it would.
“Hi,” she said, the word coming out breathless. “Did you…want something?”
“You wanted to talk, Beth. So here I am.”
“Oh, I thought we were going to do that after the movie.”
“I saw you leave, and I’ve seen the movie before.” He lifted a shoulder. “If you want to talk, here I am.”
Crap. She did want to talk, but now that he was standing there with his dark, enigmatic gaze on hers, she felt nervous.
She swallowed, reaching for her pendant and feeling the reassurance of the cool silver against her palm. Sunny, her daughter, a reminder of what Beth had promised her—to find happiness and strength, a new life worthy of her daughter.
She could do this. She had to. For their child’s sake.
“Okay, fine.” She lifted her chin. “So…what are we doing, Finn? How exactly do you see our marriage working? Because right now it feels like it’s not going to, and we’re not even married yet.”
He didn’t move, not saying anything for a moment. But that was the way with him. He took his time before he spoke.
“So, what do you need?” His voice was low, husky. “What do you need from me? You said something about a road map.”
She had. She’d wanted some way of navigating around the topics he didn’t want to talk about, some way of knowing what his boundaries were so at least she wouldn’t end up inadvertently hurting him.
But that wasn’t going to work now. Because actually she didn’t want to avoid those topics. She wanted him to trust her enough to talk about them, and if he couldn’t fill in the parts that were quicksand and briars, at least she could help make them less boggy and sharp.
That was what a partnership was, wasn’t it? It was supposed to be about mutual support, about sharing the load.
She’d never had that with Troy. When she’d needed him, he’d left. But she could see herself having that with Finn. And what was more, she wanted it.
“I did say that,” she said. “But I don’t think a road map is going to be enough for me anymore.”
He was very still, watching her in that steady way he had, no hint of his emotions on his face. “Then what else do you want?”
“You,” she said, just coming right out with it because why the hell not? “All of you. Not only you looking after me or cooking me dinner. Or you holding me at night. I want you to feel like you can confide in me. Share things with me. Lean on me. I want you to trust me.”
A muscle leapt in his jaw. “I do trust you.”
“No, you don’t,” she said sadly. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t change the subject whenever I try and talk about that bath. You’d come into my workspace in the cabin. You wouldn’t tell me you are fine every time I ask if you’re okay. You’d let me take care of you. You’d let me give you what you give me.”
The muscle leapt again and he looked away, those wide shoulders stiff with tension. “I can’t, Beth. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Her stomach hollowed, though really she should have expected this response. He’d been clear with her from the beginning that a relationship, a real relationship, wasn’t what he wanted.
“Can’t what?” she asked anyway.
He glanced back and it was as if that door to his soul had been opened and she could see through it. She’d always known he was intense, but the ferocity of the emotion that burned in his eyes now stole the breath from her body.
“If you’re expecting love,” he said in a low voice, “I can’t give it to you. Sheri was the love of my life, and I will never love anyone the way I loved her. Not ever.”
It was nothing she didn’t know already, even though he’d never said it so explicitly before. And it wasn’t surprising. Finn was a man of deep, fierce emotions, and when he committed to something, he committed with his entire being.
Yet Beth’s heart squeezed tight all the same. “I’m not asking you to love me like that. I would never ask you to love me like that. All I’m asking for is some trust.”
“Trust? That’s all you want?” His dark gaze blazed. “Shit, Beth, you should ask for more than that. You deserve more than that.”
Did she? Did she really? No one else had ever said anything about what she deserved before. Her father hadn’t wanted anything to do with her depression and her mother made it all about her and her own fragility. And Troy had just left.
No one had said you deserve more.
“I don’t know,” she said thickly. “Do I?”
“Of course you do.” Finn took an involuntary step forward, an anger she didn’t understand leaping high in his gaze. “You’re beautiful and funny and smart. And so damn talented. You light up the room. You bring sunshine everywhere and you just…you just bloody dazzle.”
She blinked, her eyes prickling for about the millionth time that day. “Well, if I dazzle and I’m so damn talented and funny and brilliant, why can’t I get more from you?”
The words hung in the air, heavy and weighted.
She probably shouldn’t have said them, but she didn’t take them back.
Finn didn’t look away this time. “Why? Why do you want more from me? What the hell can I possibly give you that you can’t get from anyone else?”
There didn’t seem to be much point hiding what she felt for him, not now. And why shouldn’t he know anyway? It was the truth.
“Because I’m in love with you, you idiot,” she said huskily. “And look, I don’t much care if you love me back or not. I just want you to let me love you.”
The expression on his face shifted, shock giving way to something else, something bright and fierce and raw. The he shut it down.
“No,” he said in a guttural voice. “Don’t do that. Don’t say you love me. Love wasn’t part of the deal, remember?”
“Actually, I don’t remember any kind of deal. You talked about what you could give me. But there weren’t any rules about what I could give you.”
“No,” he repeated, and this time she could hear the desperate note in his tone. “That’s not happening. I won’t let you. I don’t want you giving me one goddamn thing.”
It should have hurt, that rejection, because it was a rejection. And maybe if he’d been gentle and firm about it, it would have. Maybe it would even have broken her a little.
But he wasn’t gentle and firm. He wasn’t even hard and uncompromising, the way he could sometimes be when his will was tested.
No, she’d seen that expression on his face, the fierce, bright one. It was longing—she was sure of it. And it came to her suddenly that he wasn’t arguing because he didn’t want what she had to give. He was arguing because he did. He wanted it desperately.
He stood there rigidly, his jaw tight, everything about him radiating tension. And part of her wanted to end this conversation and stop pushing him, tell him it was okay, they could discuss this at a later date, never if that’s what he wanted.
But she knew she couldn’t do that. Because deep down, she suspected he didn’t want that. He was hungry for connection. She’d felt it every time he took her in his arms, in the care he lavished on her and on the animals he looked after. In the town he protected with his quiet, steadying presence.
He wanted it, yet for some reason he was denying himself.
“Why not?” she asked quietly.
***
Beth stood in front of him, curvy and perfect, her white-blond hair glowing in the last rays of the sunshine streaming through the windows of the gallery. Her green gaze was direct and he could see the strength inside her. Not a brittle strength but supple, flexible. Willing to bend but not break.
She loved him, she’d said. The one thing they’d promised each other wouldn’t happen. The one reason why all this worked.
He didn’t love her, but she loved him.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It wasn’t supposed to happen.
This wasn’t supposed to be complicated. It was supposed to be easy. And that was the problem, because nothing was easy when feelings got involved; everything became that much harder, that much more painful.
He didn’t want pain for her, not after everything she’d been through.
He’d told her the truth when he’d said that she deserved more, because she did. She deserved happiness and stability. She deserved love. She deserved the life she’d come here to claim and a man who could love her the way she should be loved, which was with every part of him.
But he wasn’t that man. He’d never be that man. He didn’t have the ability anymore, not after Sheri. And he couldn’t allow her to give him her heart while he kept his locked away. It wasn’t fair to her.
Liar. Don’t make this all about her when it’s your own damn cowardice you’re protecting.
The thought wound through his brain, but he shoved it away.
He wasn’t protecting himself. This was for her sake and cowardice would be letting her love him while he gave nothing back. He could tell himself all he liked that bringing her the food she liked and looking after her when she was sick and moving her into his house was enough, but it wasn’t, and he knew it.
Beth Grant was a woman who needed to be loved.
“Why not?” he echoed, trying to ignore the way his chest ached and his hands longed to reach for her, to pull her close. “Because it’s not fair, Beth. It’s not fair to you. Not after all you’ve gone through.”
Her gaze flickered. “Don’t give me that. Don’t make this about me. Anyway, aren’t I the one who gets to decide what’s fair to me?”
A strange agitation gripped him. He pulled a hand from his pocket and shoved it through his hair. “So what are you saying? You’d be happy to marry a man who doesn’t love you? You came here for a new life, Beth. To find happiness. And I can’t give you that happiness. I can’t.”
She watched him, and he didn’t understand the look in her eyes because by rights she should be angry with him, yet there was no anger at all there. Only what looked like compassion, which made the restless, antsy feeling inside him even worse.
“But you want to,” she said quietly. “Don’t you?”
He stilled, his heart beating way too fast.
You do. You want her. You want to be with her, have her in your house, in your bed, in your arms. You want to talk to her, confide in her, share everything with her, and you have since the day you first met her.
No, shit, he didn’t want that, and he didn’t know where this weird, restless, agitated feeling was coming from. He couldn’t give her that even if he’d wanted to because he’d given all of that to Sheri and he had nothing left in his heart for Beth.
Nothing.
“It doesn’t matter if I want to or not,” he said flatly, trying to calm the hell down. “The fact is, I can’t. Sheri died and everything I had to give died with her. I’ve got nothing left for anyone, not even you.”
“And our child?” Beth asked in the same quiet voice. “Does that include them too?”
His heart twisted. “That’s different.”
“Is it? So I suppose Gus is different too. And Chase. And Levi. And everyone in this whole damn town. You love them because it’s different.”
It’s not different. You love all those people, so why can’t you love her?
No. Bullshit. Of course it was different. Those people were family, and you had to love family. You didn’t get a choice with family.
But he had a choice with Beth.
Beth was someone he could love and love intensely. She was so bright, so beautiful, and she was having his child. She was compassionate and strong. She was the light to leaven his dark and she wanted his intensity. She reveled in it in a way Sheri never did.
She suited the man he was now far better than Sheri.
Which meant he couldn’t have her. Ever.
He couldn’t give himself to another person again, not like that. Losing Sheri had nearly killed him. He’d been a shell of a man afterward, his heart dead inside his chest, and it had taken him a long time to come back to himself again. A long time to heal.
Beth was wrong. He didn’t want to be the one to give her happiness. Yes, he wanted her in his bed and in his arms, but that’s it. He didn’t want her in his heart. He didn’t want to let himself love anyone the way he’d loved Sheri ever again.
Keeping his heart to himself ensured he could be there for the people that needed him, and that was the most important thing.
Even if it meant shutting out the one person who didn’t deserve it.
“Yes.” The word sounded flat in his ears. “It’s different.”
“How?”
“I don’t have a choice with them. They’re my family.”
Beth was standing so close, her scent surrounding him, and he could see the silver pendant at her throat and the frantic race of her pulse beneath it. Could see the compassion and sympathy in her eyes, as if he was the one who deserved it, not her.
“And I’m not?” she asked gently. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying you’re a choice.” He couldn’t be anything but hard now because that would at least keep her at a distance. “And I can’t choose you.”
It was a shitty thing to say, and he wanted her to turn from him and walk away. To take her bright, shining presence away, along with the temptation to throw himself into her light and burn there.
But she only nodded, as if this was something she expected him to say. “I get it, Finn,” she said. “Maybe if I’d lost someone like you lost Sheri, then I might make the same choice. And I’m not going to demand you make a different one. It’s hard to love again when you’ve had a loss, and it’s hard to trust when you’ve been let down. It’s hard to reach out, to make yourself vulnerable.” She took a little breath. “But if there’s anything I’ve learned while being here it’s that suffering alone doesn’t help. You need people around you, and you need to let them in.” She took a step toward him, coming close, but didn’t touch him, though he could tell she wanted to. “You taught me to trust again, Finn Kelly. You taught me I was strong enough to ask for help and that is a strength, no matter what some people might say. And I want you to feel that strength too. So…if and when you decide to make a different choice, I’ll be here.”
He stared at her, not understanding at first. “What do you mean you’ll be here?”
She smiled, even though her eyes were full of tears. A genuine, beautiful Beth smile. “Well, I’m hardly going to walk away from you, am I? You were always there for me. Why shouldn’t I be there for you?”
“Beth, I—”
“No, don’t say anything. You don’t have to now. We’ll sort things out later.” She hesitated a moment. “I’m going to give you some space though. So I hope you don’t mind if sleep at Clint’s tonight.”
He felt as if the ground was abruptly sloping away from him, his balance shot, unsteady on his feet. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, her to walk away, get angry, shout at him, anything but this compassion and sympathy.
Even Sheri would have shouted at him, since she’d had no patience with his “fussing” around her, as she termed it.
Yet Beth wasn’t doing any of that. She was only smiling at him as if he’d given her a gift, not flung her love back in her face.
“I can’t marry you, Beth,” he said bluntly, ignoring the growl of his more possessive self, because it seemed she didn’t understand. “You know that, right? Not now.”
A tear slid down her cheek, which didn’t make any sense to him because she was still smiling. “That’s your decision. If you don’t want to, you don’t want to. Just know that whatever you decide, I’m not going to go back to the States. I’m staying in New Zealand. And I’ll stay in Brightwater Valley.”
Relief gripped him, so intense he could hardly breathe. All he could do was nod.
Then without a word, she walked up to him and touched his cheek gently, as if she was saying goodbye. Then her hand dropped away, and she went past him, out into the night.