Finn’s attention was stoically forward out the front windshield, which Beth supposed was a good thing since he should have his attention on the road ahead. Except she kind of wished he’d look at her.
His big, muscular body was radiating I-am-not-in-any-way-comfortable-with-this vibes and his handsome face was set in hard lines, his strong jaw sharp enough to cut glass.
She shouldn’t have been so blunt with her question, but it had just popped out. And why not? She did want to know why he didn’t like her, because it was clear that he didn’t. And while she didn’t mind that—he was allowed not to like her—she wanted to know for sure. Just so everyone knew where they stood and there were no misunderstandings.
Still, tension filled the cab, and she felt the urge to put her hand on his shoulder to soothe him, reassure him somehow, but she had the sense that he wouldn’t welcome it, so she kept her hands to herself.
Perhaps you shouldn’t have this conversation now?
Maybe not. It was obvious he hadn’t been happy with it as they’d stood beside the truck, his dark eyes wary and guarded, his expression taut.
What was it about her that made him so tense? Did it have something to do with his wife? And if so, what was it? Because if she was hurting him in some way, she’d really like to know so she could stop.
Her instinct was to come right out and ask, but since Bill had told her that Finn didn’t like talking about it, she didn’t want to bring it up and perhaps hurt him even more.
She bit her lip, watching him instead.
When she’d first met him, she’d thought him a very still man, especially in contrast to the much more intense kinetic energy of his brother. Like a lake on a calm day, the surface smooth, hiding deep, dark depths.
But she realized now she’d been wrong. Because while he might be perfectly still, he radiated tension, almost vibrating with it like a telephone wire in a high wind.
“Sorry,” she said into the silence. “I suppose that was kind of blunt.”
“Yes.” Finn’s voice was curt.
Beth waited, but he didn’t say anything more, his gaze firmly on the road.
Great, this was going well. Getting conversation out of Finn Kelly was like getting blood out of a stone.
Maybe you could have started with something less contentious straight out of the gate?
She let out a small sigh. Okay, yes, she should have. After all, hadn’t she told herself that she had to handle this carefully? Bill had mentioned she should take it slow with Finn, so perhaps she should start doing that.
Beth automatically reached for her silver koru pendant, holding it, feeling the silver warm against her palm. It fitted perfectly there, as she’d designed it to, the reassuring warmth of the metal easing her own tension and the little sliver of doubt that had begun to crack the shell of her positivity.
She couldn’t afford doubts. Couldn’t afford second-guessing. That way lay a path she didn’t want to go down, not again. She had to keep looking forward to the future, be confident in the new path she’d chosen for herself.
Being here, in Brightwater Valley. Where no one knew her and she could be whoever she wanted to be.
Bright. Happy. Fearless. Strong.
She took a breath. “Okay. So if you don’t want to answer that question, how about this one instead? I’d like to get Evan’s paintings for the gallery. They could really draw in the crowds and since he’s a local—”
“He won’t agree,” Finn interrupted. “He hates showing his paintings. He also hates people.”
For some reason that amused her and she smiled. “Hates people? No wonder you’re friends then.”
Finn glanced at her, his gaze a flash of intense darkness in the bright sun coming through the front window of the truck.
For some inexplicable reason, it made her breath catch.
“My advice?” he went on, ignoring her comment. “Don’t even ask. You’re not the first person who’s tried to get to his paintings and you probably won’t be the last, and you’ll only end up disappointed.”
Beth’s amusement faltered. There was something fierce about Finn she hadn’t noticed before, a kind of intensity that she found both compelling and disturbing at the same time.
He had the darkest eyes, almost black, which was strange when his brother’s eyes were so light. Yet it was a fascinating darkness. She’d always been drawn to the bright and shiny, like a magpie, but there was something deep and dark in Finn Kelly that she couldn’t deny was…magnetic.
“Wow.” She tried not to sound as breathless as she felt. “I got a whole three sentences this time. I must be doing something right.”
Finn’s expression smoothed and he glanced back at the road ahead. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Okay, message received.” She waited a moment. “Actually, though, that’s the help I was talking about. You’re his friend, right? Perhaps you could—”
“No.”
“Seriously? Just flat-out no?”
He didn’t reply, slowing the truck down and then pulling off into a small, narrow gravel driveway. A rickety wooden farm gate stood across it, and without a word, Finn got out, strode to the gate, and unlatched it.
Beth watched him from the front seat of the truck, thinking.
He really was being quite rude, and if Bill hadn’t let slip that piece of Finn’s past the way he’d done, then she might have been annoyed. But he had let it slip, and it was awful, and so she didn’t feel annoyed. She felt…sorry for him.
Five years, Bill had said, which meant there had been some water under the bridge. But grief didn’t have a time limit, she knew that all too well, and sometimes the years were eons, and sometimes they were the blink of an eye.
So no, she couldn’t be angry.
She’d be understanding and empathetic and careful instead.
Finn got the gate open and headed back to the truck, climbing back in and driving it through, onto the driveway. Then he got back out again to close the gate behind him, and all without a word.
Beth decided not to push it, so she sat there silently as Finn drove the truck up the winding gravel drive to Clint’s horse farm, looking out the window and admiring the view instead.
It really was in a pretty location, set on the green hillside, with lots of farmland around and some bush—black and silver beech mostly, which was common in South Island forests—creeping up the hills behind the house. The views over the lake and the mountains beyond were spectacular, reminding her a bit of Deep River.
Not that she was homesick. How could she be homesick for a place she couldn’t wait to leave?
Finn pulled the truck up into the big gravel turnaround next to a cluster of farm buildings that also included the stables, then turned the engine off.
“Evan is difficult,” he said unexpectedly.
Beth stared at him, surprised that, first, he’d actually spoken, and second, that it was something useful.
“Like you, you mean?” she said, teasing.
His expression was opaque. “I suppose I deserve that.”
Beth was about to tease him again by telling him he absolutely deserved it when old Clint came out of the stables and headed for the truck, a big German shepherd trotting at his heels.
Finn gave her one last enigmatic look before he turned away, getting out and going over to greet both the old man and the dog.
Beth stayed where she was, uncertain about what to do now she was here. She’d said hello a couple of times to Clint, but she didn’t know him, and despite what she’d told Finn, she didn’t know much about horses either. Her affinity was with sparkly things rather than livestock.
She watched Finn and Clint chat for a moment before both of them headed toward the stables. Then she frowned as Finn abruptly stopped and turned around, striding back to the truck.
He pulled open her door. “Come on,” he said shortly. “Come and see the horses.”
Surprise rippled through her. “Me? But I’m only here to—”
“I’m going to be a while and I’m sure you don’t want to sit by yourself in the truck for the next hour.” His eyes gleamed in a way that made something fizz and spark inside her. “Anyway, didn’t you say you love horses?”
Heat climbed in her cheeks, both because of the way he looked at her and by the total lie she’d given him about the damn horses. “Oh, I don’t mind sitting—”
“Beth.” His voice was softer this time and very low. “Come on.”
The way he said her name, the deep timbre of the word, set off a small electric charge inside her.
She didn’t know what was happening. Attraction was something she hadn’t looked for and didn’t want, still less having that attraction for a man as complicated as Finn Kelly.
Simple, that’s what she wanted. That’s why she’d come here. Simple and easy was the path to happiness, not complicated and dark and difficult.
Not a man still grieving.
She needed lightness and charm, which meant if she was that hard up for some uncomplicated, sexy fun, she should be looking at Levi. He was a man who was certainly up for that kind of thing, not Heathcliff over there.
Ignoring the fizz and pulse inside her, Beth put on her usual cheerful mask and grinned. “Well, okay. But only if you help me with Evan.”
“You just don’t give up, do you?”
“Nope. Alternatively…” She drew out the moment for effect. “I’d settle for proof that Finn Kelly knows how to smile.”
A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I know how to smile. I just don’t smile at you.”
It was nearly a win. Nearly.
“Ouch,” she said with feeling. “You really know how to win a girl over.”
Something in his face eased slightly. “Come and see the horses or don’t, it’s up to you.”
Beth debated teasing him some more, but since that only seemed to make the fizz and crackle she felt around him worse, she settled for sliding out of the truck instead.
Clint’s dog came over to give her a sniff, then wagged his tail, and she grinned. “And who is this lovely boy?”
“That’s Karl,” Finn said.
“Hey, Karl.” Beth dropped her hand to give the dog a scratch behind the ears. Karl wagged his tail ecstatically. “I guess at least someone likes me.” She glanced at Finn, who’d already begun walking over to the stable block, so she followed after him, Karl trotting along behind her.
“Any reason why you want me to see these horses?” she asked. “Especially when you don’t seem to find my company particularly enticing.”
Finn kept his gaze on the stables ahead of them. “You said you love horses.”
She rolled her eyes. “We both know that was a total lie. I just wanted to talk to you about Evan.” At least, that was the ostensible reason.
“You can talk to me about Evan in the stables.” He glanced at her. “Why did you want to stay in the truck?”
Beth opened her mouth to reply, then shut it, her face feeling warm. She couldn’t tell him the real reason, that she was finding him far too attractive for her own good and that she was rather overwhelmed. No, most definitely not.
“Perhaps I like the truck.” She kicked at a stone. “Anyway, I’m a jewelry designer, not a horse person.”
Finn said nothing to that as they approached the stables, a long, low wooden building with a corrugated steel roof. There were a number of stalls, each with an open front and a wooden gate, and as the two of them came closer, one black horse put its head over the gate, nickering at Finn.
Clint, a tall man in his late sixties whose weather-beaten, craggy face looked like it had spent decades being pounded by the elements, was already at the stall, and he put a hand on the animal’s long nose, smiling. “Seems like Jeff knows you’re here.”
“Jeff?” Beth murmured. “The horse’s name is Jeff?”
Clint, who’d obviously overheard, gave Beth a narrow glance. “Nothing wrong with that name.” He stepped away from the stall. “Horse just looked like a Jeff to me.”
“Of course.” Beth smiled at him. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that a black horse is usually ‘Night’ or ‘Shadow’ or something more…poetic, I guess.”
Finn reached out and stroked Jeff’s silky black nose, slipping his other hand into the pocket of his jeans as he did so. The horse nickered again, pushing against Finn’s hand. “Take no notice of her,” he murmured softly. “Jeff’s a good name for a horse, a fine name. And you’re a very fine horse, aren’t you, Jeff?”
Beth went very still. There was a coaxing note in his deep voice that she’d never heard before, and it grabbed on to something inside her and held on tight.
Finn’s attention was on the horse, the usually impenetrable expression on his handsome face relaxing into something much warmer, almost affectionate.
For some reason it felt like she’d made a profound discovery and she couldn’t look away.
Jeff leaned farther out of his stall, nosing down to where Finn’s other hand was still in his pocket. “Oh, you know what I’ve got for you, don’t you?” The lines of his face had softened completely now, and then much to Beth’s shock, his hard mouth curved in a warm smile. “Demanding animal. I guess you can have this now.” He pulled a small apple from his pocket and gave it to Jeff, who crunched on it contentedly as Finn stroked his neck.
“You spoil that beast,” Clint grunted, though he didn’t look too unhappy about it.
Not that Beth was paying any attention to Clint. A bit hard to do so when Finn Kelly, whom she swore wouldn’t know a smile if it bit him on the butt, was now smiling as the animal’s soft mouth quested on his palm for more apple.
And what a smile…
Finn was a handsome man, she’d always known that, but his smile, lighting his face and the darkness in his eyes, took him from handsome to devastating in seconds flat.
Now the only thing she could think of was what she could do to make him smile again. And at her.
Careful. You don’t want to be getting too involved, remember? You’re here for easy, for simple. Friends and a good time. That’s it.
Oh, she remembered. But it was fine. All she was thinking about was making a hot dude smile so she could enjoy the view, nothing more. Certainly nothing to do with the accelerated beat of her heart or the sudden heat that washed over her skin. Or the insane urge to follow the line of that smile with her fingertips, see if his mouth was as hard as it looked or whether it would feel soft.
And she was right in the middle of that thought when Finn looked over at her, that mesmerizing smile still in place, an echo of the heat she felt inside her gleaming in his dark eyes. “Don’t tell me,” he murmured in the same low, coaxing voice he’d used on Jeff. “You want an apple too?”
***
What the hell are you doing?
It was a good question and one Finn didn’t have an answer to.
Intellectually, he knew that staring at pretty Bethany Grant and asking her if she wanted an apple was a bad idea, since obviously she wasn’t a horse and saying it in that low voice amounted to flirting.
But he couldn’t help himself.
Her eyes had gone wide and she was staring at him like he’d just dropped in from the moon, and he found that he liked it.
Her wide smiles, boundless optimism, and relentless friendliness had always felt a bit forced to him. Life could be shit and people could be terrible, and surely no one could be that happy or that friendly all the damn time.
He’d always suspected it was a mask, and sure enough, that friendly smile of hers had fallen away, leaving a look of shock on her face, and yeah, he really liked it. Because he suspected it was a real, honest-to-God response this time.
A response to him.
That pleased him unreasonably.
Then her pale skin went pink, and his pleasure deepened into satisfaction.
“Um, no thank you,” she said a bit breathlessly, and then, going even pinker, she added, “You know…uh…I think I might go back and um…sit in the truck after all.”
She didn’t wait for him to respond, turning and heading straight back to the vehicle sitting in Clint’s gravel driveway.
Finn watched her walk away, pleased with himself that he’d managed to unsettle her so completely. She was always doing that to him, so turnabout was fair play.
“You frightened her off.” Karl had come up to sit next to Clint, and Clint gave him an absent scratch. “Did you mean to?”
“No.” Finn turned back to the horse, who was still nosing at him for more treats, and tried to ignore the pulsing electricity that had settled in his gut. “Up to her if she didn’t want to stay.”
Clint, who like so many Southern men was bluff, burly, and never said anything unless it was in sentences of five words or less, snorted. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You got the hots for her.”
Finn bit down on the automatic denial, knowing it would come out sounding far too much like a protest to be believable. “She’s pretty,” he said instead. “But not for me.”
“Sure.” The expression on Clint’s craggy face was skeptical. “That’s why you offered her an apple like you were telling her to take her clothes off.”
Finn shot him a look that Clint met with the kind of patience older people reserve for the very young being very stupid, and much to his irritation, Finn found himself justifying. “I only wanted to see if she had another expression that wasn’t that fake smile she keeps giving to everyone.”
“Huh,” Clint grunted. “She the first since Sheri?”
Instantly, the entirety of Finn’s being tensed at the mention of his wife’s name. Five years and he still couldn’t relax when he heard it. The raw pain had eased, just like everyone said it would, but the hole in his soul was still there, and that would never go away.
It was a hole he’d never managed to fill with anything else, though working with his brother guiding people on hikes in the bush and showing them the beauty of the natural world went some ways to doing it.
The horses helped too. And he had Clint to thank for that.
So try not to be a dick to him just because he mentioned Sheri’s name.
Especially when he was no stranger to grief himself. Clint had lost his wife, Marie, ten years earlier; that was how Finn had gotten to know him. He’d shown up at the Rose one day not long after Sheri’s death and told Finn he needed help with the horses.
Dealing with anything that wasn’t grief had felt too hard and he’d wanted to refuse, but Clint hadn’t taken no for an answer. And it turned out the old man had known what was going on. Finn, at first, had found distraction in caring for the animals, then a measure of healing.
Horses didn’t talk. They didn’t want to know what had happened and how you were coping and how they couldn’t imagine what you were going through. They didn’t look upset or drown you in clouds of their own grief. All they needed was food and water and a pat on the nose.
There was a simplicity to it that he’d needed at the time, and sometimes he still did.
He’d also found that simplicity out in the bush. In nature there were no people either. Only the sun and the rain and the trees. The mountains and the sky. You could be alone there in a way you couldn’t be even in your own house. A solitude that emphasized the smallness of your own being, at the same time making you aware that you were an intrinsic part of the world and the landscape, just as a tree or a rock. An eternal part of it.
He found that immensely comforting.
What he did not find comforting was Clint’s question, so he ignored it, looking down at Jeff still nuzzling his hand. He gave the animal another stroke before stepping away.
“Look,” he said. “Would you mind if I took Beth back down to town? The documents are going to take an hour or so to go through, and I don’t want her to have to wait.”
Clint hadn’t moved. “You didn’t answer me.”
“Yeah, and I’m not going to.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Clint growled. “Your dick didn’t die when your wife did, and neither did you. You’re allowed to find other women attractive.”
Tension crawled through him. He really didn’t want to discuss this. He knew damn well his dick hadn’t died, and sure, he’d felt a couple of sparks of attraction when he’d been out with Levi or Chase in Queenstown’s bars, the tourist town a couple of hours away and over the ranges from Brightwater.
But this thing with Beth felt…more intense. And he wasn’t sure why. He only knew that he didn’t want it.
He’d felt that for one person and one person only and she was gone. He wasn’t ready to feel it again and he didn’t know if he’d ever be ready.
What he did know was that he didn’t want to feel it for some woman who was basically a self-help manual in human form.
“Fine,” he said shortly. “She’s attractive. But I’m not going there, okay?”
“Sure. But taking your own frustrations out on her and everyone around you is getting old, Finn.”
Finn tried not to wince at that, because as usual Clint managed to home in on the bare truth. A truth he’d already acknowledged to himself, to be fair, but had tried telling himself wasn’t that bad.
Except he knew it was that bad.
He’d become the same kind of bad-tempered, moody bastard he despised. His father, in other words.
Now that was a lowering thought.
“You know why I’m selling up here, right?” Clint went on, his brown eyes uncompromising.
Of course Finn knew why Clint was selling up. They’d talked about it many times. Clint was moving to Christchurch, the closest big city to Brightwater, because he wanted a change of scene.
“Didn’t you want to go and live by the sea?” Finn asked.
“Yeah, I do. But that’s not the main reason. I want to be with Lizzie.”
Lizzie was a woman Clint had met a year or so ago on a trip to the city and had gotten on with like a house on fire.
Finn had assumed that moving closer to Lizzie had factored into his decision to move, but not that it was the driving force behind it.
“Right,” he said. “Well, that’s good—”
“I’m lonely here,” Clint interrupted bluntly. “And I’m tired of being on my own. I don’t want to spend my last few years in an empty house. So Lizzie and I are going to get a house together. May even get married next summer.”
Finn wasn’t sure what to say. There was an uncomfortable tightness in his chest, a heavy kind of ache, and he didn’t want to probe too deeply into what that ache might be. He didn’t want it to be there at all.
“Are you giving me advice, Clint?” he asked. “Some kind of lesson?”
“Damn straight I am,” Clint said without hesitation. “You’re a man of strong feelings, Finn Kelly, and those feelings have to come out somehow. At the moment they’re coming out as anger, but that’s not helpful to anyone, let alone to that young woman sitting in your truck.” He glowered. “All I’m saying is be a man and handle yourself. I won’t ever forget my Marie, she’ll always be part of me, but I’ve decided I’ve got to live my life. And you need to live yours.”
Finn got what Clint was trying to say. He really did. But he’d already made the decision to live his life. And here he was, living it. Sure, he was being a grumpy bastard and he really did have to handle that, but he wasn’t going to be upping sticks and taking off to the city to live with some woman.
He was fine with everything the way it was. Helping Chase and Levi run Pure Adventure NZ. Spending time in the great outdoors. Managing the stables. Yeah, all of that was good and he wasn’t about to change any of it.
One day he’d probably decide to head into town, find himself someone to spend the night with. Hell, maybe he’d even go for two nights. But it wouldn’t be anything deep or meaningful, and it wouldn’t be anything lasting.
Short, sweet, and easy. That’s all he’d ever be in the market for.
“Yeah, well, I’ll take that under advisement,” he said, turning back to his truck. “But I do hear you about taking my deal out on other people. I’ll handle it.”
“Sure you will.” Clint’s tone dripped skepticism. “Just make sure you don’t hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”
And it was clear who Clint was referring to.
Finn looked at the older man, held his gaze. “I won’t,” he said, and meant it. “That’s the last thing in the world I want.”
Clint grunted. “Fine. You sorted out a temporary arrangement with Miller and his boys?”
Toby Miller had a farm not far from Clint’s and a couple of sons who helped him out with it. Toby had a bit of experience with horses, so Finn had asked him if he and his boys would give him a hand, since Finn wasn’t going to be able to manage the stables on his own, not when he had his commitments with Pure Adventure NZ too. At least until he’d found a permanent stable manager.
“Yeah, Toby’s fine with it.”
“Good. Oh, before you go, there was one other thing I wanted to ask you while I remember.”
“What?”
“I can’t take Karl with me to Christchurch. There’s no room at Lizzie’s and he’ll hate the city. You know of anyone who can take him?”
Finn looked down at the dog sitting at Clint’s feet.
The dog looked back, ears pricked, as if waiting for something.
He didn’t need another animal, not when he was already buying himself a lot of horses. Then again, why not take the dog? He’d gotten used to living by himself, but maybe it would be nice to have the company. And Karl was affectionate and obedient, a great dog.
“I can,” Finn said, deciding. “He can live with me.”
“Good.” Clint gave Karl another scratch. “See you back here in fifteen then.”
Finn nodded, then strode back to his truck.
Beth was sitting in the passenger seat, a familiar paper bag in her hands, and she started guiltily as he pulled open the door.
The front of her T-shirt was dusted with golden flakes of pastry, as were her jeans, and she was in the process of wiping away yet more from around her mouth.
“Bloody hell.” Finn was suddenly extremely irritated. “You damn well ate that sausage roll, didn’t you?”
Beth put a hand over her mouth. “Oops. I did. Sorry, my bad.”
She did not look sorry in the least.
“That was my sausage roll.”
She shrugged. “Well, you didn’t have an apple for me, did you?”
And a pulse of heat hit him straight in the gut.
This was revenge, wasn’t it? Because he’d unsettled her. He’d made her stare, wiped that smile off her face, made her blush, and now she was pissed about it. It was obvious.
“You should have waited.” A rough thread wound through his voice. “I would have found one for you.”
She blinked. Then another pink flush swept over her face and she looked away, brushing the crumbs from her T-shirt with slightly more vigor than necessary, bracelets chiming. “I didn’t want an apple. I wanted a sausage roll.”
He shouldn’t be saying these things to her, shouldn’t be unsettling her, yet he was—that was clear.
It was this tension between them, this electricity.
Which means you’d better pull back and not make quite such a dick of yourself; otherwise, yeah, someone’s going to get hurt.
Finn gritted his teeth and put a leash on his temper as well as the libido that wasn’t showing any signs of slipping back to the coma it had been in for the past five years.
Then he got into the truck, shut the door. “Now you owe me,” he said in more normal tones.
She glanced at him. “Owe you?”
“Yeah.” He started the engine, then turned his head, meeting her gaze. “You owe me a sausage roll.”
A little flake of pastry rested on her cheek, and it was all he could do to restrain himself from reaching out and brushing it away.
A crease appeared between her blond brows, and she studied him for a long moment, as if she found him puzzling. Then it disappeared.
“Okay, fair,” she said.
“But I’ll take a beer instead,” he amended, knowing this was a bad idea but saying it all the same. Because he’d been a dick and he wanted to make it up to her, and he’d promised Clint he’d handle himself. “By way of an apology.”
“Your way of apologizing is to let me buy you a beer?”
“Fine. I’ll buy the beer and we can talk about how to get Evan to give up at least one of his paintings.”
Beth’s usually radiant smile was a little uncertain at first, but it slowly crept over her face like a summer sunrise, warm and sweet and full of promise.
“Seriously? That would be wonderful. But please, you’re right, I do owe you, so I will definitely be buying the beer.”
And he had to look away. Had to almost physically force himself not to keep staring at that beautiful, beautiful smile.
Because that one wasn’t fake, and it touched him.
He hated that it touched him.
“Good,” he said with no emphasis whatsoever. “That’s settled then.”
And he didn’t say another word as he drove them both back down into town.