“Are you doing anything tonight?” Finn whispered in Anna’s ear, and she looked around to make sure nobody was listening. Or looking.
Even if somebody couldn’t hear what he was saying, he was a little closer to her than a conversation usually required. When she didn’t see anybody, she stepped sideways to close the distance between them.
“What did you have in mind?” It had been three days since their not-quite-overnight trip, and it had been on her mind. A lot. She’d like to do that again sometime soon.
“I was thinking I’d take you for a ride.” He paused and then chuckled. “On the bike, I mean.”
“Oh.” Admiring how he looked on that bike, especially the way his jeans hugged his butt and thighs, was one thing. She hadn’t really imagined herself on the back of it, though. “You don’t have one of those seats with the big back on it, though.”
“No, but it curves up a little to support you. And you can hold on to me.” He rested his hand at the small of her back and she shivered. “I won’t let you fall off the back, I promise.”
“Do you have a helmet for me?”
“Of course. It’s my mom’s, actually. She used to ride with my dad sometimes, and every once in a while she’ll take a ride with me around the lake just to get out.”
The idea of going down the road on a motorcycle made her nervous, but she’d watched Finn on it more than she cared to admit. He was comfortable with it and it was obvious he knew what he was doing, and she trusted him to be safe with her on the back.
“That could be fun.”
“I promise it will be.” The fingers stroking the small of her back dipped just under the waistband of her jeans.
“I’m not having sex with you outside,” she said, heading that off at the pass. “Or on your motorcycle, because that doesn’t look fun no matter what Playboy magazine says.”
“We can kiss, though, right?” She nodded because that wasn’t even a question. She always wanted to kiss him. “Should I pick you up at the RV about seven?”
“I’ll meet you at the entrance to the campground at seven.” She’d tell Eryn where she was going, of course, but if she played her cards right, the rest of the crew would never know she left her RV. Fewer questions that way.
When the day finally ended—later than it should have due to somebody not being great with a measuring tape—she was tired, but she jumped in the shower and made herself a chicken salad sandwich for dinner.
“You’re running out on me again?” Eryn asked from her usual spot on the tiny couch. “Where to tonight?”
“He’s taking me for a ride on the bike.” She wasn’t sure which of the butterflies in her stomach were nervousness and which were excitement, but they were all fluttering in there together.
“You’re going to want to take that ponytail out and either do a low pony at the base of your neck or braid it. The lump under your helmet might give you a headache after a while.” When Anna looked at her with surprise, because nothing about her assistant screamed biker chick, Eryn shrugged. “I dated a girl in college who had a beat-up motorcycle. We had a blast with that thing. I think I liked the bike more than I liked her, actually. When we broke up, I really missed it.”
Laughing, Anna went back into the bathroom and redid her hair so it was pulled back below where her helmet would sit. Then, after putting her license and a credit card in her back pocket, she grabbed her phone and said goodbye to Eryn.
It was a short walk to the campground entrance, which was around a wooded corner, so it was out of sight of the RVs. She heard the rumble of the Harley’s engine before he came into sight, and as he pulled up beside her, the nervous butterflies kicked into high gear.
After he’d turned it off and leaned it onto the kickstand, Finn swung his leg over the bike and pulled her in for a long kiss.
“You’re shaking,” he said. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not sure.”
“I want to. I’m nervous about it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try it.”
“If you want to stop, just tap me on the shoulder and I’ll find a place to pull over. And if you want to come back, tell me. I don’t care if we’ve gone five hundred feet or five miles, okay?”
Reassured she could trust Finn to take care of her, she nodded and accepted the helmet and sunglasses he handed her. He had to help her with the buckle, and then he pulled a lightweight leather jacket out of one of his side bags.
“This is Mom’s, too. It’ll be a little big on you, but as the sun starts going down, it can get chilly. And it’s just good protection.” He laughed at her expression. “You ever been hit by a June bug on bare skin at sixty miles an hour? Trust me.”
It took her two tries to get on the bike behind him. The first time, she panicked when the bike dipped slightly, but he assured her he had it balanced and they wouldn’t fall over. And he only laughed at her a little bit. The second time, she was able to get her leg up and over so she could straddle the seat behind him. It was comfortably cushioned and slightly higher than his seat, so she could see over his shoulder.
She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
When she put her hands tentatively at his waist, he turned and spoke with a raised voice so she could hear him through the helmet. “You can hold on however you want. This is fine, or you can wrap your arms around me if you want. And if you get nervous in a corner, don’t try to sit up straight. Just relax against my back and you’ll naturally lean with me. Okay?”
She nodded, but when he fired up the engine and the massive bike vibrated through her body, she leaned against him and wrapped her arms around his stomach. He patted her hand, and then, with a rev of the engine, they were moving.
It was both terrifying and exhilarating at first, but it didn’t take long for her to relax and enjoy the novelty of having nothing between her and the gorgeous landscape they were passing through. With the lake on one side and either woods or gorgeous waterfront homes on the other, she spent most of the ride looking from one side to the other. She was barely aware of the fact her hands were resting lightly on his hips, though she relaxed against his back whenever there was a corner coming.
Anna wasn’t sure how far from Blackberry Bay they were when he slowed and turned onto a dirt road. The bike felt different, almost squirrelly, and even though Finn didn’t seem too concerned about it, she wrapped her arms around his midsection again.
When they broke into a clearing on the banks of a river, she decided the dirt road had been worth it. He pulled to a stop and put his feet down to balance the bike, and then he tapped her leg and motioned for her to get off. She managed to do it without pulling a muscle or falling off, and then unbuckled her helmet while he walked the bike backward to turn it around. After parking it, he took his helmet off and set it on the seat. He put hers with it, and then gave her a questioning look.
“What do you think?”
“I can see why you spend so much time on it. I’m enjoying myself, except for the dirt road part. I’m not sure I like that.”
“I could tell that from the Heimlich you gave me when we first left the pavement,” he teased, and then he took her hand.
They walked along the riverbank, hand in hand, and Anna felt more at peace than she had for a very long time. “It’s beautiful here.”
“This has always been one of my favorite spots. My dad and I used to fish here sometimes. Mostly I played on the rocks, though.”
“I haven’t done that in so many years,” she said wistfully, looking at all the rocks sticking up out of the river.
He let go of her hand and gestured toward the river. “Now’s your chance.”
“Isn’t that something kids do?”
“Why? Was there an age cutoff I missed for doing things that make us happy?”
“You’re right.” She reached up and cupped his face so she could bring him in for a kiss. A long, slow kiss on a riverbank on a warm summer night. “That makes me happy.”
And then she turned and stepped out onto a large flat rock. She moved from rock to rock, choosing each one carefully and testing it first as she moved further out into the river. When one shifted under her foot, she squealed and jumped back, and then she turned when she heard Finn’s laughter right behind her.
“You didn’t think I’d let you have all the fun without me, did you?” he asked. “But maybe not that rock.”
She laughed and turned back to scout out her next rock, wondering if she could make it all the way to the other side of the river and back without getting wet.
“I think you’re keeping secrets from me, Anna Beckett.”
He said the words in a light—almost teasing—tone, but some of the color seemed to drain from her face as her eyes widened. He probably shouldn’t have brought it up while they were balancing on rocks in the middle of a river.
“What do you mean?”
“I heard an interesting rumor today,” he said, suddenly concerned that he’d opened a can of worms he couldn’t put the lid back on, and she didn’t look happy about it.
“Oh, really?” She stepped onto another rock, maybe to give herself something to look at besides him.
“According to the grapevine, you’re the daughter nobody in Blackberry Bay knew Christy Nash had.”
He could tell by the way her body stiffened that he’d hit a nerve.
“That is an interesting rumor,” she said while neither confirming nor denying it. The way she drew out the words gave him the impression she was trying to buy herself time to think.
“Kind of a coincidence you’d end up in this town.”
“Did Brady say something to you?”
“So Brady knows?” He’d been hoping his best friend hadn’t been keeping something this big from him, but it was obvious she and Brady had talked, and she nodded the confirmation.
Anna was Brady’s half sister. That was something it would take him a while to wrap his mind around.
On the heels of that thought came another. Did Brady know he and Anna were seeing each other? He’d thought their night in the motel was their secret, but obviously there were conversations happening he wasn’t a part of.
“I knew my birth mother was from this area, but I didn’t know she was still here. I was born in Colorado, so I just assumed she was still there.” She picked what had to have been a very tiny piece of lint off her sleeve, since he couldn’t see it. “Of course I recognized the name of the town when the team reviewed your grandmother’s application, and I was looking forward to seeing some of the places where my mom would have been when she was a kid. I didn’t expect to actually meet her.”
“That’s quite a coincidence,” he said, and then he wanted to kick himself. Gram’s application was not something he wanted anybody dwelling on, but especially not Anna. He decided it was best to steer Anna away from how she’d ended up here and more toward her family. “You’ve actually met Christy, then?”
“Brady drove me to her house and we talked. Not for long, but enough to break the ice, I guess.”
Finn remembered the day Brady had gone to Gram’s house to go over the electrical with the Relic Rehab crew—the way he’d stopped short and stared at Anna. He supposed there was a resemblance between mother and daughter, though he hadn’t really noticed it until he’d heard somebody whispering about it at the café.
“Who told you?” she asked, squinting at him because the sun was low behind him and probably reflecting off the river.
“I’m actually not sure who was doing the talking, but I heard two women whispering about it when I stopped at the café to grab a breakfast sandwich. It was just speculation, but it rang true. So I guess you and everybody else involved should know it’s not really a secret anymore.”
“I’m probably the only person who cared if it was a secret, but I’m a pretty private person. My husband cheating with a professional rival of mine and our subsequent divorce was well covered by the tabloids, so I’m not one for sharing a lot these days.”
He knew she’d been divorced. He wasn’t sure if she’d mentioned it in passing or if one of his family members had talked about it. But this was the first time he heard the lingering hurt and bitterness in her voice, and he could see why she wouldn’t want her personal life on display, even in as benign a way as small-town gossip.
“Obviously you and Brady are doing okay,” he said, trying to ignore his annoyance with his best friend for not telling him what was going on. It was probably a tough spot for Brady to be in. “How did your meeting with Christy go?”
“Better than I expected, actually.” Her face softened, and he wished they weren’t standing on rocks in the river, so he could wrap his arms around her. “I thought I would have a lot more anger, but it turns out that she really did just do what was best for me, out of love. It’s hard to fault her for that. My dad? I’m still struggling with him a little because keeping it a secret made it much more traumatic for me than it needed to be.”
Secrets definitely made a mess of things, and that awareness made him uncomfortable. He hated that he was keeping secrets from Anna, and it made him sad to imagine how different things could be if he wasn’t hiding things from her and they could live their lives on their own terms.
“So you’ll have a relationship with Christy, then?” he asked. Maybe the town grapevine buzzing about her wouldn’t be as painful if there was no reason to keep it a secret.
“Yes, I think so. I’m actually having dinner with the entire family tomorrow night. I guess they usually do it on Fridays, but I haven’t met Chris yet and they’re going on vacation, so...tomorrow it is. Since you already know about me and Christy, and you’re practically part of their family anyway, do you want to come with me?”
“It seems like kind of a big deal for you,” he said. “With a lot of people. Are you looking for an ally?”
“Not an ally, really.” She gave a nervous little laugh. “I’d say it’s more like taking you home to meet my family, but you’ve known my family your entire life and I’m the one meeting some of them, so...”
Like a boyfriend. The thought brought a rush of pleasure, and he hopped to a rock that was closer to her so he could take her hand. Then he lifted it to his mouth and kissed her palm.
“I would be honored to go with you to your family dinner.”
She giggled in a way that made him feel young again, and he held her hand as they navigated the rocks back to shore. Then he kissed her softly, his hands on her waist.
“This has been a very good day,” she whispered against his lips.
“It’s not over yet,” he whispered back before he kissed her some more.
She was right. Today had been a very good day—one of the best, except for the little black rain cloud always hovering in the back of his mind to remind him that all of this was fleeting.
Even if she never found out the truth about the Bayview Inn, he knew. It ate at him every time he was with her and if not for the possible repercussions Gram could face, he would have confessed long ago. But he couldn’t.
And whether she found out the truth or not, she wasn’t staying in Blackberry Bay. She had a home in Connecticut. A successful television show. Book tours and whatever else she had going on in her life. One way or another, he was going to have to let her go eventually.
Just not today.