“DON’T WORRY, ADAO. It’s still early days.” Naomi rubbed her hand across the little boy’s shorn head and tried to coax a smile out of his somber little face.
She’d been giving him a massage and manipulating his shoulder joints to try and prevent any blood clots. This type of physiotherapy was critical at this phase of his recovery. And painful, too.
Adao dropped his head and it all but broke Naomi’s heart to see two fat tears fall onto his blanket.
“I want Mama and Baaba.” Adao’s voice caught on the final word and he barely managed to stem a sob.
Naomi ached to pull him into her arms. Tell him everything would be all right. His loneliness and grief tore at her chest with a ferocity she hadn’t felt in years.
She wanted her mother and father, too. Not a single day had passed since they’d been stolen away that she hadn’t ached for their presence in her life. And that of her boyfriend. All lost to a foolish war that had, ultimately, come to nothing. Her country was run by the military now. It was a place she’d never be able to call home again.
“I know, love. I know.” She gave his head a soft caress and before she could think better of it dropped a kiss on top of his head and pulled him to her for a half-hug, doing her best not to put any pressure on his loosely bandaged wound.
“Hey!”
They both looked up as Finn appeared at the doorway. His hair looked like he’d just come in from a windstorm and his eyes were bright with energy. He gave the doorframe a couple of polite knocks after he’d quickly taken in the scene. “Mind if I come in?”
Adao didn’t even bother to disguise the tears now pouring down his gorgeous plump cheeks.
Finn’s eyebrows instantly drew together and he crossed the room in three quick long-legged strides. “Are you in pain, little man?”
Adao shook his head. Then nodded. Then shrugged as the tears continued to fall. It was all Naomi could do not to burst into tears herself.
Physio was often difficult. Often produced tears. Tears of frustration. Tears of pride on a good day, but this was different.
He was a lonely, lost, terrified little boy who wanted his parents.
“Naomi’s not been putting you through her torture chamber, has she, mate?”
A few days ago Naomi would’ve taken umbrage at the question, but now, having seen a new side of Finn, she took it for what it was. A playful attempt to draw a smile from a frightened child. To be honest, she was grateful for the intervention as she was struggling to find anything to say that would make him feel better.
Finn pulled a chair up alongside Adao’s bed across from Naomi. He held out his hand for Adao’s. When Adao didn’t move his, Finn took it in both of his own, ducking his head so he could catch the little boy’s eyes.
“Listen, bud. I know this is tough. You know I know, right?”
Adao nodded.
“I showed you mine...and pretty soon you’ll be able to show me yours.”
“But...all I have is...is...” Adao whispered, tears falling everywhere as he turned to look at his heavily bandaged shoulder. He was still a good week—maybe even a fortnight—away from trying out a prosthesis.
“I know.” Finn shot a quick look at Naomi, who pulled a fresh packet of tissues out of her pocket and put them in Adao’s lap, keeping one for herself. Just in case.
Definitely, more like. She was already scanning her brain for a private corner just as soon as was humanly possible.
“Bud, look at me. You’re talking to someone who’s been there and has come out on the other side. The good side. You’ve got a while yet with the compression garments. They’ll support your arm—”
Adao let out a small whimper and then began to cry in earnest.
Just then one of the local hospital volunteers—a lovely grandmotherly type called Mabel—came in with a cup of steaming tea cradled in her hands. She’d assigned herself the task of reading Adao stories since the charity that had brought him here was unable to provide “on the ground” support.
“Oh, Adao!” She threw a quick inquisitive look at Naomi and nodded at the spot where she stood. Obviously it was “her” spot. “Do you mind? I think maybe we need a bit of quiet time.”
A swarm of responses jammed in Naomi’s throat. All of them were a muddled ache to help and the conflicting, urgent need to push everything back into place that this moment was unzipping.
“Of course.” She stepped away from the bed. There was no point in telling Adao she’d be back the next morning. And the next. He was leaning into Mabel’s arms and giving himself over entirely to his grief.
Finn took up Adao’s charts and quietly explained to Mabel about when to call the nurses for pain management or, if things took a turn for the worse, when to call him.
Naomi felt invisible. Worse, actually. She felt powerless.
Just as she had on that day nearly fifteen years ago when her heart had pounded so loudly she could barely hear the shouts and screams. Shame washed over her as the memories slammed to the fore. Her hiding place. The gunfire. The stench of hot metal filling her nostrils as she’d clenched her eyes tight against what she’d known was happening.
Everyone she loved had gone when she’d found the courage to open them again. Fear had turned her into a coward—not a hero like Finn. And with that knowledge came another bitter home truth. She did not deserve unconditional love. She’d thought she’d loved her parents and boyfriend unconditionally, but she had failed at the first hurdle and had just saved herself. And for that solitary selfish act, she could never forgive herself.
* * *
“Naomi! Wait.” Finn jogged to catch up to her. Damn, she could crank up the speed when she wanted to. No doubt all that running she did along the river.
Not that he’d clocked her doing her stretches outside the hospital most days before shift. No...he didn’t do things like that. The less you knew about someone, the easier it was not to care.
And yet here he was, actively avoiding his own advice. Maybe Christmas was a time of miracles.
“Let me take you to lunch.”
Her eyes went wide. He fought not to do the same. He didn’t ask women to lunch.
Colleague.
A colleague wrestling with the age-old dilemma. Getting too close to a patient. Most of the time the essential emotional distance needed just clicked into place. It didn’t take a brain surgeon—or someone who’d been forced to go through a shedload of PTSD counseling as he had—to see this little boy had wormed his way straight into her heart. And he knew he wasn’t the only one to have noticed.
“I’ve already had a sandwich, thanks.” Her tone was apologetic rather than dismissive. And if he wasn’t mistaken, the swipe at her eyes wasn’t a bit of primping. She was fighting tears.
“Coffee, then.” He steered her toward the elevators and put on his best stab at a jaunty salesman’s voice. “I hear they’ve got some festive pastries down in the atrium café. I could grab some and meet you down by the river.”
“What?” she snapped, dark eyes flashing with a sudden flare of indignation. “So you don’t have to be seen being nice to me in public?”
“Hey.” He lifted his hands up in protest. Talk about wrong end of the stick!
She carried on over him, clearly having found her voice again. A very cross voice. “There’s no need. I’m more than happy to carry on working. Unless you think I’m not up to the job.” She squared herself off to him, eyes blazing with challenge.
“You’re crossing a line.” He cut her off cold, the smile dropping from his face. He knew she was upset, but he’d never questioned her professional skills. “No one’s doubting your ability to do your job.”
She harrumphed. “Are you sure about that? This little talk of yours isn’t actually some sugar-laced ploy to let me down easily? Tell me you’ve decided to put someone else on the case?”
“I will if you carry on like this.” Finn meant it, too. There was more than an impassioned plea to do her job crackling in her eyes. Adao’s presence here had turned her normally chirpy demeanor raw with emotion.
“Are you kidding me?” For a moment Naomi struggled to come up with the best retaliation. “This is what I do. It’s all I do. No hidden talents here. No secret skills in the kitchen. Or special volunteering projects. Sorry to disappoint, Mr. Morgan.”
“Finn,” he corrected her, trying to shake the defensive reaction that shot his shoulders up and around his ears. “And let’s leave the sports center out of it, shall we? Those kids are...”
They meant the world to him. Reminded him he had a heart.
“What I do there is different. There’s no need to try and rack up bonus karma points to prove you’re good at your job. You already are.”
She wheeled on him as the elevator doors opened then closed. “You mean you can act like an actual living breathing human being with them but not with me? Fine. Suits me. Once these elevator doors open feel free to take it in whichever direction you like—except mine.”
Where the hell had that come from? He’d only been trying, in his usual clumsy way, to... Wait a minute. This was all-too-familiar terrain.
Defensiveness. Evasion. Flare-ups followed by pushing the ones you cared about away while deep inside all you really wanted was to be pulled into a deep, reassuring hug and told everything would be okay because you were in a place so dark it was impossible to believe in anything good ever happening again.
She was at war with something that lived deep within her.
Had he become her “someone” she could rail against? The one she was testing?
Despite the fact her entire body was radiating fury, Finn didn’t move. He knew how lonely it felt when a person finally succeeded in pushing everyone who cared about them away.
Damn. He cared.
Despite the twitches to fall back into old habits, he held his ground.
His patience paid dividends.
As quickly as Naomi’s temper had detonated, a few moments of “I’m not going anywhere” eyes from Finn saw the remaining sparks fizzle and all but disappear. She dropped her head into her hands and huffed out a full-bodied exhalation. After a deep breath in, she let them fall.
“Sorry. I—I didn’t mean...” She floundered, trying to find the right words.
His heart softened another notch. Flare-ups were inevitable when the stakes were so high. And there was no doubt about it. Something about Adao had got right under her skin.
Just the same as she had slid right under his.
Two lost souls doing their best to make the world a better place. Sometimes they did good. And sometimes they made a hash of things. Sometimes they did both at the same time.
“C’mon,” he said. “Coffee.” He punched the elevator button again before tipping her chin up so she was looking him straight in the eye. “And a festive pastry. Doctor’s orders.”
He turned back to the elevator, trying to disguise his pleasure at eliciting a smile from her. A small one. But it was a smile, nevertheless.
* * *
Naomi was one part mortified to one part mollified.
Thank goodness they were outside, walking along the river where there were all sorts of other things and people to look at besides the tall, dark-haired, increasingly intriguing doctor she’d just verbally flayed.
Whoops.
Having a meltdown in front of someone—especially a surgeon—wasn’t really her style. Particularly as it hadn’t even been about something to do with a patient. This was a hundred percent personal and he knew it. He hadn’t rubbed it in, though. For someone whose forte wasn’t “cuddly bear”—at least at the hospital—it touched her to see that kind heart she knew he buried under his bluff and bluster rise to the surface.
She blew on her latte before taking a sip of the cinnamon-and-nutmeg-sprinkled drink, sighing as the warm liquid slid down her throat.
“Hit the spot?” Finn asked.
“Yes. And thank you. I’m really sorry—”
“Uh-uh.” Finn tutted. “You’ve already apologized seven times. That’s my limit.” He stopped and pointed off the path toward a wooden bench made of green sleepers nestled in a sun-dappled copse of silver birches. “This is a good spot.”
“You know all the good ones?” A feeble joke, but he gave a little laugh nonetheless. Generous, considering she’d not been showing her best face for the past half-hour. A rare slip.
He gave a vague wave along the towpath. “I live a bit further down the river, so I do actually know all the good spots.”
“You live on the river?”
“Literally.” He grinned. “Houseboat.”
“A houseboat?” She didn’t even try to hide her shock. “You.”
“Yup. My family moved a lot when I was a kid—military—and I guess life on the move suited me.”
“A houseboat?” Naomi couldn’t even begin to picture it. Finn was so tall and powerfully built and...well...it was easier to picture him striding across the sprawling slate floors of a huge stone castle than a houseboat.
Finn laughed a full, rich guffaw. “What? You don’t think little old me could fit on a houseboat?” He gave her a quick scan then dropped his volume a notch. “You’d be surprised what I can do when I set my mind to it.”
Naomi flushed and looked away. Courtesy of Finn Morgan, she’d been surprised quite a few times recently. She had little doubt he could achieve whatever he wanted when he put his mind to it. He’d already pulled at the seams of her perfectly constructed life and exposed her weak spots. No one had done that since she’d arrived in the UK. Not even the emergency refugee staff who’d seen her at her shell-shocked worst when she’d arrived from Zemara. It was as if from the moment she’d arrived she’d had to prove she was worth even the tiniest kindness.
Her foster mother, Charlotte Collins, had been the only one in those early days who she’d felt hadn’t been judging her. Her compassion and support had meant so much to her it was why Naomi had legally taken her surname. At that point, to survive, she had needed to look forward. And Charlotte had given her the strength to do so.
Which had been why standing by and doing nothing when Adao had been crying had near enough destroyed her. Little wonder she’d gone on the defensive when Finn had followed her out. She’d been braced for all sorts of words to come hurtling at her: coward, failure, weak, worthless.
But he’d not said a single one of them. Instead, he’d shown her patience. Kindness. And now this...a chance to talk without any pressure.
Following his lead, she took a seat on the bench and sat back to take in their surroundings.
The little woodland nook looked as though it had been designed by Hollywood. Frozen beads of water clinging to the silvery bark shone in the watery sunlight. The river quietly susurrated in the distance as joggers wove their way around couples—old and young—walking alongside the river’s towpath. A hoar frost had coated everything overnight and it had yet to melt. Even though the sky was a clear blue today, it was cold and everyone was wearing hats with fuzzy bobbles or silly Christmas jumpers. Or both. No doubt about it. There was a festive buzz in the air. So different from the chaos swirling away in her chest.
“He got to you.” Finn’s voice was warm. Kind. “Sometimes that happens.”
He fell silent, clearly waiting for her to fill in the blanks. Explain why Adao in particular had rattled her otherwise happy-go-lucky cage.
She couldn’t go down that path. Not when it already felt as if she was being sucked into a black hole that would lead her straight back to that horrible day when her entire life had changed forever. A hit of iron-rich earth and palm fronds filled her nostrils so powerfully she bit the inside of her cheek and drew blood.
After a few minutes of sitting in silence, Finn, no stranger to keeping himself to himself, realized he wasn’t going to get her life story. He hitched his good knee up on the bench and propped his arm on the back of the bench, chin in hand, so he was facing her.
“Next time you need to lash out at someone, maybe you can leave my baking skills out of it? I don’t want that secret getting out onto the hospital’s gossip train, otherwise the entire surgical staff will be demanding marshmallows like clockwork.”
His comically stern expression teased a smile out of her. The second since she’d lost the plot.
How embarrassing to have just snapped like that. And in front of Finn, of all people.
“I’m really sorry—” She stopped herself. “I’ve never done that before.”
“It’s okay. Better in front of me than in front of Adao, right? And look.” He reached out and laid his hand on her arm. “Like I said, it happens.”
She stared at his hand, wondering how such a simple touch could have such a powerful effect on her. Just a colleague giving another colleague a bit of kindness.
But this was Finn Morgan they were talking about. Resident grumpy bear and...well...she was seeing all sorts of differing hues in his “rainbow” these days. In fact, he had a rainbow...not just a set of crackling thunderclouds!
She stared out toward the towpath and tried to collect her thoughts. What he’d said was true. It was impossible to be completely neutral at all times. After all, he’d cleared the entire viewing gallery during Adao’s operation. Even so, she wasn’t feeling particularly proud of herself right now and being on the receiving end of his surprisingly gentle touch was disconcerting. She shrugged her arm away from his hand, disguising the move as a need to give her arms a brisk double rub.
“Cold?”
“No. I mean yes.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m always cold here.”
“Cambridge or the UK?”
“Both.” She frantically thought of a way to nip the direction this conversation was heading in the bud. “But I have an affection for thermalwear so, really, living here suits me to a T!”
Thermalwear? What are you talking about?
Finn didn’t press. Either he was completely repulsed by the idea of her in woolen underwear or...oh, no. Was he thinking of her in her underwear? Worst conversation dodge ever.
“So...how do you deal with it?” Naomi tucked her hands into her pockets.
“What? Not let my heartstrings get yanked out of my chest each time I deal with an emotional patient?”
He wasn’t patronizing her. He was stating a bald reality of being in the medical profession. Emotions were high. Keeping one’s cool was essential. They were health care providers, not family.
“Tell me. What’s the ‘Morgan Technique’?” She genuinely wanted to know. For the first time in her professional life it seemed impossible.
He didn’t even pause to think. “Easy. I think of my dad.”
Naomi’s heart squeezed tight at the faraway look in Finn’s eyes. He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to. It was enough to hear the warmth in his voice to know he loved him.
Her dad was the reason she’d pushed herself so hard when she’d moved to the UK. “Me too.”
The admission was out before she thought better of it. What an idiot. Saying something like that only invited more questions.
“Mr. Collins?” Finn asked. Inevitably. “Was he a physio as well?”
Naomi shook her head. “And Collins wasn’t his name.”
Why do you keep telling him private things?
“Wasn’t?” Finn asked quietly.
Yes. Past tense. She was the only surviving member of her family.
She ignored the question and instead said the family name she’d not spoken in over a dozen years. “Chukwumerije.”
“That was your original surname?”
Yes. It had been.
“A tough one for the British tongue to force into submission,” she said, doing her best to keep her tone light. She put on an English accent and mangled her name a few times. Finn’s laugh echoed throughout the little clearing. He had little crinkles by his eyes. She’d never noticed those before.
An intense need to tell him the whole story took the laughter from her voice.
“There was actually a woman. A lovely woman. Charlotte Collins. She was my foster mother when I came here. Without her...” Naomi’s voice cracked and she pressed her fist to her lips to stem a sob of gratitude.
Finn nodded. He got it. She didn’t need to spell out just how important compassion was. Kindness.
“Say it again,” he asked gently. “Your Zemarian surname.”
It was strange, feeling the taste of her own name on her tongue.
For years using the new name had felt like the worst kind of betrayal and also the most generous of blessings.
She’d been granted a new life. A chance to become everything she’d ever dreamed of. But it had only come to pass because of the deaths of those she’d loved most.
Now? Here with Finn? The name felt like a disguise. All part of the chirpy, got-it-together facade she wore day in, day out to keep the demons at bay.
Finn had been mulling over her name. He gave a few aborted starts on mimicking her pronunciation before miming throwing in the towel.
She laughed softly. “When my mother said it, it sounded like poetry. Stella Chukwumerije. She used to say it as if she were royalty.”
He raised his eyebrows. The question in his eyes asked one thing and one thing only: Where were they now?
The fact she’d probably never know haunted her dreams every single night.
“My mum’s name means star, so sometimes...” She let the rest of the thought remain unsaid as her gaze lifted upwards. Looking up at the stars and believing that maybe, just maybe, her mother was looking down at her offered her solace. Most of the time.
At least Adao’s family was alive and well.
An idea sparked. “What if we went onto the internet? Or asked the charity if they have a picture of his parents—maybe them all together as a family. We could put it in a frame for him. I could run and get something from the charity shops now.”
Finn smiled as if she’d just handed him a present. “That’s a great idea. I’ll leave you to the running bit.” He pointed at his knee.
“Is it acting up?”
He tipped his head side to side.
The gesture could’ve meant any number of things.
Yes. No. It always hurts, but I’m a man, so...
“You know—” An offer to give him a massage was just about to fly off the tip of her tongue when he held up a hand.
“I know. I know.” Unlike the last time she’d offered help, his defenses didn’t fly into place. There might have even been a bit of gratitude in those hard-to-read eyes of his.
In this light they were like sparkling like ice crystals with amber hits of flame...
Oh...
Naomi’s body heat shot up a few degrees as their gazes caught and snapped the pair of them into a heightened awareness that blurred everything around them.
Heart. Lungs. Throat. Breasts. Lips. Her hair was aware of Finn. Even more so when he turned toward her on the bench, his knee gently shifting against hers.
It was one of the most sensual feelings she had ever experienced.
Which was ridiculous.
Right?
But it didn’t feel ridiculous at all. Not with his face so close she could reach out and trace a finger along the fullness of his lower lip before—
No.
She didn’t do this. She didn’t deserve this. And especially not with a man who came with a complicated past.
His gaze on her own lips was virtually palpable. Her body responded against her will, the tip of her tongue dipping out and licking her lower lip, vividly aware that the only thing separating them was a handful of centimeters and air.
Abruptly, she swiveled so that she was facing the towpath and pressed her knees together.
“It must be nice to have Charlie to confide in after all you’ve been through.”
“What?” Finn shook his head as if not entirely understanding what had broken the spell.
An all-too-familiar deadweight of anxiety began gnawing at that indescribably beautiful ball of heat in her belly and turned it into a churning mass of guilt.
“You know.” She heard herself continue, regretting each word as it arrived. “After things changed with your wife.”
“Ex-wife,” Finn bit out, his body language instantly registering the change of mood. “We’re divorced.”
A cold wind blew in off the river, grazing the surface of her cheeks. A welcome sensation as they were burning with embarrassment.
Finn pushed himself off the bench, his good leg all but launching him toward the towpath.
She remained glued to the bench, in shock at her own—what was it? Stupidity? Common sense?
No. It was worse than that. It was fear. Fear of allowing herself to feel true happiness.
“I’m heading back. Going to do a quick check on Adao before I go into surgery for the rest of the afternoon.”
He didn’t ask her if she was going to join him, but he didn’t power ahead as she’d imagined he might.
Silently they headed back to the hospital.
* * *
“Aren’t you going in?” Amanda flicked her head in Finn’s direction as he went into Adao’s room.
Naomi shook her head. She was more off kilter than when she’d left the room half an hour earlier.
Had she and Finn almost kissed?
“He’s not been Captain Grumpy again, has he?”
“Finn? No. Not all. He’s—”
“Uh-oh... I see the tides might’ve shifted where Mr. Morgan is concerned.”
Naomi gave Amanda her best “are you crazy” look then went to hover at Adao’s doorway, where Finn was talking with Mabel.
“Absolutely we do, Finn. What a lovely idea. I’ll just send a little message through on this thingamajig here and see if they can’t do it today.” The gray-haired woman pulled a mobile phone out of her cardigan pocket and held it out to him, clearly having no intention of sending the message herself.
Finn gave Naomi a quick nod where she was hovering in the doorway. “You still up for getting Adao a frame?” He looked at the little boy whose tears had now dried. “Would you like that, pal?”
Adao nodded, his tear-laced eyes wide with anticipation.
“Right. I guess we’d better send the office a message.”
She watched as he made a show of trying to get the tiny phone to obey his large fingers, even managing to draw out giggles from both Adao and Mabel.
When he was done, he handed the phone back to Mabel then chatted a bit more with Adao. Told him how he was still toying with the idea of becoming an astronaut one day. Pointed out what fun going through airport security was now that he had an “iron” leg. Told Adao how lucky he was they were both lefties. Some of the best people he knew were lefties, he said with a wink, before turning to give her a meaningful look.
She was a leftie.
Was there anything the man didn’t notice?
Finn was so good with him. It was mesmerizing to watch the pair of them as Finn ever so casually noted Adao’s heart rate. Blood pressure. A little bit of swelling that had developed around the joint. There were multiple factors to consider in these early days after the surgery. Joint contracture. Pathological scars. Cardiovascular response to what had been, ultimately, a traumatic event. Residual limb pain. Phantom sensation, edema, and the list went on. All of which Finn nimbly checked while keeping up a light-hearted conversation about Adao’s favorite British football players.
It turned out Adao didn’t have any. His heart lay with the Spanish.
“What?” Finn feigned receiving a dagger to the heart and only just managing to pull it out. “Not one British player?”
Adao shrugged and grinned. He liked who he liked.
Standing there, watching the pair of them banter, Naomi felt an acute sense of loss. She could’ve kissed this man. This gorgeous, warm-hearted bear of a man.
Would it have been a mistake?
Most likely.
She didn’t deserve a fairy-tale moment like that, let alone the promise of the happiness that could follow in its wake. From what little she knew about Finn, and the stony silence he’d maintained as they’d walked back to the hospital from the river, he wasn’t exactly in the market for love. Neither was she, for that matter.
Lust. That’s what it had been. A hit of seasonal lust that had taken them both by surprise.
That he was able to treat her as if absolutely nothing had happened between them was proof he compartmentalized his life. Just as she did.
Work.
The sports center for him. The riverside runs for her.
Home.
She tipped her head to the side and scrunched her eyes tight, trying to imagine him in a houseboat, and came up with nothing. The first thing that popped into her mind was a huge man cave carved into the side of a soaring mountainside. Accessible only by foot. Or yak. She easily pictured it all decked out in shaggy woolly mammoth hides and zebra skins. Did it make sense? No. But then again... A huge fire would be roaring in the center of it, with Finn presiding over the place as if he were the king of the jungle. Or the mountain range?
“What’s got you so smiley?”
“What?” Naomi shook her head, startled to find both Finn and Adao looking at her as if she’d lost her marbles.
Oh, crikey. She’d gone all daydreamy right in front of the man she was meant to not be daydreaming about.
“Nothing. Just thinking about...” Her eyes darted across the ward to where a Christmas tree was merrily blinking away “I was just thinking about the Christmas party and how much fun it will be.”
“Christmas party?” Adao spoke the words as if he’d not let himself imagine such a delight.
Naomi grinned.
“Absolutely.” Evie was really outdoing herself if the rumor mill was anything to go by. “It’s in a couple of weeks, I think. And...” she held up two sets of crossed fingers “...if everything goes well with your recovery and we get your physio under way, I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be able to go.”
Adao looked to Finn for approval.
Finn smiled and gave the little boy’s short head of hair a scrub with one of his huge man hands. “You heard the lady, mate. You focus on getting better and in a couple of weeks’ time you might be showing Santa your new prosthesis.”
For the first time the mention of the false arm elicited a smile from Adao. “I would very much like to shake Santa’s hand,” he said.
“Well, then.” Naomi’s heart was buoyed at the fierce determination lighting up the little boy’s eyes. “That’s what we shall focus on.”
Her gaze shifted to Finn, whose eyes were already on her, his expression unreadable. What had she expected? Him to be all doe-eyed? Hardly. She’d turned him down. He was getting on with his life as if it had never happened and what lay deep in those moonstone-colored eyes of his would remain a mystery. No matter how much curiosity was getting the better of her.
She gave Adao a quick wave goodbye and headed toward the stairwell, fighting the growing sensation that running away from Finn could be one of her biggest mistakes to date.