George and Kaia had walked out to their vehicles together, leaving Charlie and Ivy in the now quiet space. There wasn’t much left to do. Just restock for tomorrow, since the café would be officially open, turn down the lights and lock up.
Would anyone show up? Would they be slammed or slow? Would Ivy know how to run everything? And how would Kaia do on her first shift? She’d been great tonight—attentive and hardworking but on the quiet side. George, on the other hand, was an outgoing personality, talkative, friendly. Between the two of them and Charlie, Ivy prayed the business would be a success.
When she considered the fact that she still wasn’t sure if she planned to stay in Westbend or not, she was strangely nervous about the success of the café.
But then, Charlie had allowed her to take ownership, to make decisions and pour her heart and soul into this little place. If she did follow through on her plans to move to her parents’, she would miss the freedom and success the café had provided for her.
And the people, too. Especially one dashing rancher who had ignited ever-so-strong feelings in her tonight. Would leaving Finn behind in Colorado hurt as much as Ivy imagined it would?
“The last time I saw my brother flirt was in high school.” Charlie’s comment was a scary reflection of Ivy’s thoughts, and she froze in the middle of restocking the to-go coffee cups. “Until tonight.”
“You mean with the other woman? The one he went on a date with?”
Charlie snorted. “No. I mean with you. He’s falling for you. And if you think I put him up to that in order to help my case of you staying in town, I did not.”
Ivy laughed as her chest constricted with confusion and hope and fear.
“Even I would find that going too far. He definitely figured out how to feel about you all on his own.”
Then why had he gone out with someone else? They’d decided not to get romantically involved, but that hadn’t kept her heart from leaning heavily in Finn’s direction.
“My first impression of Finn wasn’t the most flattering.”
“I can understand that.” Charlie tossed the dirty dishrags from tonight into a small laundry basket she’d brought down from her apartment. “And now?”
“I can’t help but wonder if he’s real. Which person is he? The first or the second? Or some version in between?”
“That’s a valid point. Before...” Charlie paused as if choosing her words. “He was different, before a situation that happened. And he’s been slowly coming back to life since then, I think.”
“You mean because of the woman in North Dakota?”
Charlie’s wide eyes relayed her surprise. “He told you about Chrissa?”
Ivy nodded.
Her expression relaxed. “Well, that’s good. Then I don’t have to worry about saying too much if you know what happened. I can’t stand how she played him, going all damsel-in-distress, dragging him into her chaos and then dropping him the moment he was out of sight. He should never have gotten involved with her in the first place, but that’s Finn—good to the core. Always seeing the best in people. Always trying to save people and enter into their mess with them.”
Ivy’s blood turned to ice in her veins. Always trying to save people and enter into their mess with them. Damsel in distress. Dragging him into her chaos.
So...it wasn’t just hurt that had kept Finn from pursuing anything romantic with Ivy. It was that she was a mess, too. He hadn’t wanted to repeat his last mistake with a disaster like her. Someone whose life was in shambles and being rebuilt. Someone who’d had a liar and a coward for a husband. Someone who was raising triplets by herself. Someone who’d managed to slide off the road while driving cross-country in order to be rescued by her parents.
When you put it that way, no one would want to get involved with you, Ivy. True, and yet, the wound was so deep, so raw, that it consumed her skin, instantly heating her body to flu temperatures.
Since Charlie was looking at her with expectation, Ivy forced an answer. “Right.” She swallowed the fiery ball clogging her throat. “Poor Finn getting taken in like that.”
Despite her opposite intentions, Charlie had just unknowingly proven who Finn really was...and confirmed that Ivy’s intuition was still on hiatus, where it must plan to remain her entire life.
How could she have been so wrong yet again?
Ivy finished restocking cups, trying with everything in her not to let Charlie in on the fact that she’d been privy to only a portion of that backstory.
“I think we’re good to take off.”
“Great.” Ivy opened the cupboard that housed her purse and clutched it against her chest as if it were a shield that could erase the damage from the past few minutes.
“Don’t forget your flowers.”
“I’m going to leave them here if that’s okay with you. There’s no space for them at the bunkhouse.” Ivy couldn’t even look at Finn’s gift right now, let alone touch it.
“Of course.” Charlie checked the front door to confirm it was locked, and then they both walked toward the back exit.
The woman paused with her hand on the light switch. “Tonight went really great, Ivy. I couldn’t have done it without you. I know you said you’d let me know if you’re leaving or staying tomorrow, and I promised myself I wouldn’t pressure you, but...I’m really hoping for the second option. In case you need any encouragement, I just want you to know that.”
It felt good to be wanted. Needed. “Thank you. I’ve thought of little else since you broached the idea. Every day I think I’m going to wake up and know. That the decision will be clear.” Her sigh echoed down to her flats. “I guess that means I’m just going to have to decide. That I’m not going to be hit over the head with what to do.”
“I can hit you over the head if you want.”
Ivy laughed. “I appreciate the offer, but I obviously just need to make a decision. It’s so hard to know if I’m focusing on my own wants or what the girls need. And are those the same or different? That’s what has me stuck.”
“That certainly adds pressure. I hate to be the one pushing you. I do understand if you stick to your original plan, Ivy. And I don’t regret hiring you for one second. If you were just here for a short time, then I’m thankful for that.”
“Thank you for understanding. And appreciating me. I forgot what it felt like to be valuable for a while.”
Charlie squeezed her arm before flipping off the lights and locking the door behind them.
Ivy tucked her sweater closer around her as she hurried to her vehicle. She scrambled into the driver’s seat and started it to appease Charlie, who was waiting on the landing to her apartment to make sure she was safe.
She waved, and Charlie let herself into her apartment.
Ivy drove out of the lot and down the street until Charlie and the café and the mechanic shop faded from view. When her vision blurred with tears, she pulled to the side of the road and put the vehicle in Park.
“So when he said he couldn’t kiss me, couldn’t go there with me, it was never about another woman hurting him. It was about me and my life being a mess and him refusing to get involved. Ouch.”
Her vehicle answered her with silence, and a gaping hole opened inside of her. Hadn’t she been afraid of this very thing? That she couldn’t trust her instincts. That she couldn’t fall for Finn because it was too fast. That she didn’t know the real him.
Ivy had just repeated all of the ways she’d failed with Lee...and somehow it hurt even more the second time around.
On the drive back to the ranch, Finn had cooked up a plan.
If he could get the girls in bed and maybe even asleep before Ivy got home, then he’d have her to himself. And despite his reservations over influencing her in any way, there was nothing he wanted more.
“Teeth brushed?” He stood by the bathroom door and observed the chaos of the three pajama-clad girls sharing the small space.
“I did mine already.” Sage scooted by him and rushed into the living room.
Reese paused from brushing rather carefully for a three-year-old. “No, you didn’t!”
“Hold on.” Before Lola could chime in with her opinion and start World War III, Finn checked the toothbrush on the vanity. “It’s dry.” He raised his voice and stepped back so that Sage could hear him as she ran laps around the coffee table. “Which means you didn’t brush, Sage. Come on. Come over here and get it done.”
“No.” Sage paused on the other side of the coffee table like an animal ready to bolt, her sassy mug shouting, You’re not in charge of me.
Finn inhaled deeply. He was rushing them because he wanted time with Ivy, but they’d had a long day. Lina had kept them extra, until halfway through the opening, and then they’d barely seen their mom at the café. Surely he could scrounge up some patience.
“How ’bout I brush them for you this time?” Sage showed slight interest at that. “We’ve got to get the sugar bugs out of your teeth. They might be multiplying right now.”
She giggled and came his way slowly.
“Open up. Let me see.”
She opened wide, and he mock-yelled, “Oh, no! There’s so many of them. We have to catch them!”
Sage laughed and squealed. When he put toothpaste on her toothbrush, she let him check all over her mouth for the pesky invisible offenders. By the time he was done with her, Lola and Reese were lined up for the same, even though they’d already brushed.
Finn took his time, making them giggle, enjoying them again now that he’d stopped focusing on himself.
Just as he finished with their teeth, the front door opened, and Ivy came in. The girls rushed her, and she knelt to scoop them all into a hug.
“Best part of my day.”
“They’re ready for bed. Teeth are brushed.”
“Mista Finn found sugar bugs in our teeth, Mommy.” Sage relayed the information with a serious tone. “But he gotted them all.”
“It’s true. I did. I’m a master sugar bug tracker and destroyer.”
Ivy’s mouth twisted as she studied him, confusion wrinkling her forehead. What was that about?
“Let’s get you girls into bed. It’s late, and tomorrow’s another early day.”
“Nervous about the official opening?” Finn asked.
“Something like that. Can you stay for a minute while I tuck them in? I need to talk to you.”
“Sure.” Could it be so easy? He’d been wondering how to manage what she’d just asked of him without overstaying his welcome.
Ivy was in the girls’ room for about two minutes. In that time, Finn paced and then sat, then got up to pace again.
When she came out, she looked worn and tired, and by instinct, he walked in her direction, opened his arms and pulled her close.
She stiffened and then released a wounded exhale as she relaxed against his chest.
“Long day?”
She nodded but didn’t speak. They stayed that way for a time, his hope buoying. All he wanted was this on repeat. This and the chance to love her.
Ivy’s shoulders straightened as if she’d heard his thoughts and disagreed with them. She backed out of his embrace, and his lonely arms fell to his sides.
“I shouldn’t have let myself go there with you just now, but somehow you lure me in.”
“Lure?” That was a strong word for a hug.
“Yes, lure.” She began pacing the length of the short space, unknowingly following the path he’d just been on. “You confuse me so much. One minute you’re a jerk.” Ouch. He had fought hard to distance himself from her in the beginning. “And then you turn into my friend...and my rock.” His mouth dried as her eyes shimmered with moisture. “And then I find out who you really are.”
“What do you mean who I really am?” A dull throbbing began to beat inside his skull. This conversation wasn’t going in the direction he’d hoped it would.
“When you brought up the stuff with the woman in North Dakota, I thought she’d just hurt you. And you let me believe that.”
His gut crashed to the ground.
“But tonight, when I was talking to Charlie, I found out the rest of the story.” Her finger jutted in his direction. “And don’t you dare blame your sister. I told her I knew what had happened with you and this other woman in North Dakota, because I believed you’d told me all of it. I didn’t have any reason to assume you hadn’t.”
Finn’s tongue was a boulder—useless and heavy.
Ivy stopped directly across from him. “We stood right here and almost kissed. And you implied that you couldn’t get involved with me because of the past—because of being hurt. But you hid your real reason to avoid anything with me.” Finn’s lids shuttered because he couldn’t handle the stark pain claiming her pretty features. “I was a mess. My life is a mess. And you were trying not to get involved with another woman like the one in North Dakota.”
He met her gaze, willing her to see everything he felt. “You are nothing like her.”
“No? You didn’t see a woman who needed rescuing when you rolled up on the girls and me after we slid off the road?” The noise she made was somewhere between a snort and a cry. “And the worst part is, I’m so mortified that you thought of me like that and I didn’t have a clue. Once you started changing and opening up, I kept wondering if you could be real. If a man like you actually existed, or if my instincts were dead wrong once again.”
His hands snaked out to grasp her arms. “Ivy, I exist. I’m the good version, not the bad. I promise.”
Her head tilted in her listening position as if asking him to prove it. “Did you or did you not avoid a relationship or any romantic feelings for me because of how my life is in turmoil? And because you didn’t want to get involved with another woman who was like the last one? Admit it. When you saw me, you saw a huge mess. Admit it!”
Finn had never witnessed this side of Ivy. She’d taken him to task after their almost kiss, but that had been nothing compared to the sea she currently resembled, the waves crashing and angry and hurting.
The itch to bury his initial reaction and fears over her was so strong that Finn’s knees wobbled like a bowl of Jell-O in a toddler’s hands. But not leveling with her now wouldn’t help anything. They couldn’t build a relationship on that. But once he admitted it, there wouldn’t be anything to build.
“I don’t think that way now.”
“But you did in the beginning.”
Finn let the silence answer since he couldn’t bring himself to. “I was wrong. Now I know you. I was still recovering from Chrissa, and I let that fear win. I can see now that you’re not that person. You’re so strong, Ivy. So amazing. And I—”
“Stop.” Her hand came up. “You didn’t listen to me once. We were standing right here.” She pointed to their feet. “And now it’s my turn.” Her eyes flitted to the door. They no longer held the hint of moisture. Instead they were fierce with resolve. “Go. Leave. Get out. Please.”
It was the please that slayed him. The broken notes in it. The harm he’d done. If she wasn’t willing to listen, how could Finn convince her that he’d been an idiot? That he’d figured out that she didn’t need rescuing. No, that was him. He was the mess, not her.
So he did what she asked. He left even though every part of him wanted to stay and fight for her. She’d made her decision, and he had no choice but to respect it.