Gretchen heard her sister’s car screech to a halt in the driveway and her cries for her mother as she slammed the door behind her. She came through the side gate and stopped when she spotted Gretchen by the pool lacing up her sneakers.
“What are you doing here?” Abigail asked, seemingly forgetting for a moment why she had come.
“I have a week that I couldn’t find anywhere but here to be this summer.” Gretchen shrugged with the same amount of disinterest her sister had shown. It wasn’t often that she was home, her mother had shipped her away to boarding school as soon as she had been able to talk Gretchen’s father into it. Since then Gretchen had always found somewhere else to be while on breaks. She couldn’t wait for college to start in a few weeks, so she could finally stop pretending she belonged in her mother’s huge house.
“What brings you by?” Gretchen asked, fighting her hair into a braid that swung down her back in a long blonde rope.
“Oh, oh, where is she?” Abigail responded without an answer and went bursting into the house. Gretchen followed silently behind her, stopping outside the kitchen door when she heard her mother’s greeting.
“Have you heard?” Abigail called.
“Heard what?” Claudia Christensen asked, sipping absently from her teacup.
“Beth Reynolds,” Abigail told her. Gretchen recognized the name as that of the mother of her older brother’s best friend.
“Please don’t speak of that woman in my house.” Gretchen could hear the disgust in her mother’s voice before she went back to her tea.
“She’s dead,” Abigail told her. “Murdered in her own bedroom.”
“Murdered.” For a moment it was as if Claudia had forgotten how she had detested the woman over the years. A well-manicured hand went to her mouth.
“What…”
“Her husband,” Abigail told her. “He shot her.”
“No,” Gretchen heard her mother say. “He wouldn’t.”
“He did,” her sister replied. “Finn saw him running out.”
Gretchen thought of Finn then, and the letters he had sent her when her parents had first sent her away to school. He had asked about her swimming and her life, but never her schoolwork.
“No.” She wasn’t aware she had spoken or that she had wandered into the kitchen until her sister turned to her.
“Gretchen, you shouldn’t be eavesdropping,” her mother chided as if she were still a child, but Gretchen paid her no mind. She stumbled out of the house and through the back door, following the path her sister had taken through the fence. She ran down the street, through the gates of her stuffy neighborhood and through the heart of her small town. As she turned the corner, she could see the police tape circling the small, single-story house Finn had lived in as a child and sometimes occupied when he was in town. There was a small group forming across the street, watching as the police carried out evidence. She slowed as she approached, her eyes scanning the crowd for Finn, ignoring the looks from the neighbors standing idly by. They knew who she was, everyone in town did, and they no doubt wondered what she was doing here. She watched as two men from the coroner’s office pushed out a gurney carrying a body. There was no mistaking that the man behind them was Finnegan James. He was older than she remembered. She calculated he would now be twenty-four, but her eighteen-year-old heart knew nothing of age differences, and she tumbled headfirst in love with him. He had his hands shoved into the pocket of his worn jeans and his dirty-blond hair hung in his face, down to the collar of the army-green tee he wore. He hadn’t shaved, and the dark stubble of his beard was apparent even from a distance.
Finn looked at the ground, trying to ignore the crowd of gawkers standing across the street, trying to get a glimpse of the tragedy of his life. He knew if he looked up, if he saw the grins on their faces that said they had seen it coming all along, he would break. He followed the coroner, though he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know where he would go or what he would do now. He just knew for once and for all he was done with this house and this family. He heard the whispers as he approached the police car and he fought with himself to ignore them.
“Surprised it took so long,” someone said, followed by, “I always knew they were both crazy as shit.”
Finn felt his control snap and he lunged at one of the men who had spoken. He didn’t see him, didn’t know what he intended to do, he only knew there was rage in him and it needed an escape. He heard people yelling around him and was aware that someone, probably a cop, was pulling him away. But he heard none of it, could make out none of it. He shook off the hands that held him and looked around at the crowd, almost daring one of them to say something else. Then he saw her. He wouldn’t have thought he would recognize Gretchen Christensen. He hadn’t seen her face-to-face in years now. Even his visits with Brock had become less and less, but he knew her, knew the look in her emerald eyes though they were clouded with fear.
“Gretchen.” He choked her name and stumbled back, wanting to erase the look from her eyes. He was too accustomed to that look and what it meant.
She had never seen him truly angry, had likely never seen a grown man hit another man, or heard him say the words Finn had said as he had lunged for his neighbor. For a brief moment, she seemed terrified, afraid he could turn that same anger toward her. He looked at her and shrugged in apology, willing her to remember him clearly. Hoping she would remember the way he had looked the last day of summer years ago when, after spending an entire summer teaching her to swim, she had dived to the bottom of the deep end and came up holding a small red pebble for him.
“Finn.” She ran toward him and leaped into his arms. She squeezed his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. He felt the rage in him subside as it was replaced with Gretchen’s unquestioning love.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of suntan lotion and chlorine—a smell he had always associated with Brock’s baby sister—but now there was something else, something warm and tempting, something he could only describe as Gretchen. Oddly, as he breathed her in again and felt his anger drain and calm wash over him, the words my Gretchen drifted through his mind.
“Can you get me out of here?” he asked, pulling away and scanning the crowd watching them.
“Of course,” Gretchen breathed, her fingers lingering on his neck.
“You want to go to my parents’?”
He shook his head.
“I have a room. I was staying at the motel.”
Gretchen nodded and took the keys he handed her, following him to his car.
* * * * *
Gretchen drove in silence though the air was filled with unspoken words. She navigated the streets, pulling up in front of the dingy motel on the outskirts.
“Have you been paying to stay here?” she asked as she killed the ignition.
“I wouldn’t expect you to find it accommodating,” he smirked.
“My dad would give you a room for free at the hotel,” she told him, referring to the luxury hotel on the river her father owned.
“I don’t need handouts from your family.” He opened the door, pushing himself out and going to his room.
Gretchen sat for a moment, staring after Finn. He made her nervous. She didn’t know what to expect from him or what to say to him. He was her brother’s friend. He had never been hers. He and Brock had been dating girls and raising hell when Gretchen was in elementary school, but she had always had a crush on Finn James, and now, as she thought about his hands on her waist and the press of her chest against his, she thought of him in a way she hadn’t any of the boys she’d ever dated.
She slid from the car and made her way across the gravel parking space to the room Finn had entered. She didn’t bother knocking, just pushed open the door and walked in, watching him as he stood in front of the mirror, his hands braced on the counter.
He had pulled off his shirt, and Gretchen stared at the hard muscles of his back. The space between her thighs grew warm and she forced herself to breathe, but couldn’t make herself look away.
“She was a whore.” He finally spoke, breaking the trance.
“Your mother?” She came into the room and closed the door behind her, turning the lock slowly.
Finn nodded, his gray eyes meeting hers in the mirror.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I shouldn’t say that?” he challenged.
Gretchen watched him for a moment before shrugging.
“Was she?” she asked him. “I didn’t know her well.”
He smirked then shook his head.
“You wouldn’t,” he told her. “You weren’t a man, and you weren’t paying her for her services.”
Gretchen had heard stories that Beth Reynolds was a prostitute, but since most of it had come from her own mother who openly detested the other woman, Gretchen usually didn’t pay much attention to the stories.
“What happened to her today?” She held Finn’s gaze in the mirror, though her nerves raced and she had to fight not to tremble.
“Her husband killed her because she slept with other men for money.” The anger had returned to his deep voice. “She works for that bastard Raymond Carlisle.”
He slammed his fist into the counter and his knuckle split.
Gretchen didn’t flinch, instead she moved forward, wrapping her arms around his lean waist and pulling his back to her chest. She rested her cheek against his bare skin.
At Gretchen’s touch, Finn immediately felt the rising fire begin to wane, only to be replaced by a sudden urge to have Gretchen Christensen beneath him. He looked down at where her fingertips pressed against his abdomen, just above the band of his boxers. There was something incredibly sexy about her blunt nails painted a bright purple.
He straightened from the counter and turned, her hands sliding around his waist as he did, so they rested on each of his hips when he faced her.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” she offered as she raised her eyes to his.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” he told her, knowing that talking about it wouldn’t do him any good. When he left this town, he would be looking for action, retribution. He clenched his jaw against the rage.
She slid her hands up his sides and around his neck, pressing against his bare chest.
One of his hands went to her waist as the other fisted around her braid, pulling her closer before crushing his mouth to hers. His mouth left hers, trailing down her neck to the top of her peach tank top. She arched against him involuntarily.
He guided her toward the bed, easing her to the mattress when it hit the backs of her thighs. He looked down at her, and for the first time in his life wanted to please someone else before himself. He leaned down and took her mouth again. She tasted as warm and inviting as she had smelled earlier.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, aware it was the first time he had ever uttered those words to anyone, and also aware they had never been truer.
She turned her head shyly and he nipped at her exposed neck. His calloused hand slid beneath the hem of her shirt and she trembled.
Gretchen lifted her hands, reaching for him, and he saw they shook.
He froze and looked down at her, even as she moved against him.
“Gretchen, are you…have you ever?”
She met his eyes then and shook her head slightly.
“Is it that obvious?” She tried to smile, but he could see that she was upset.
“Jesus Christ, Gretchen.” He pulled away from her and stood, running his hands over his face.
She sat up quickly, tucking her legs under her, so that she rested on her heels. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I don’t really know what to do, but if you just show me…”
Finn stared back at her as she knelt on his bed with her blonde braid coming unraveled and her eyes heavy with desire. She was a fucking siren, and he was having a hard time not listening to the song of her voice.
“We can’t do this,” he explained, not quite sure where he had suddenly found a conscience.
“Yes, we can. I’m not scared, Finn, I just haven’t ever…”
“You’re a kid, Gretchen.”
He could see immediately in the fall of her smile that his words had hurt her.
“I’m eighteen. I’ll be living on my own in a month,” she insisted.
“That doesn’t mean a thing, baby.” He shook his head. “You’re Gretchen. You’re Brock’s baby sister, you…”
Gretchen rose from the bed then, visibly struggling with the tears filling her eyes.
“I was his sister before too,” she snapped. “That didn’t seem to bother you at first. I thought guys, like, got off on being the first.”
Finn watched her without knowing what to do. He didn’t know how other guys felt about her virginity, but he was both terrified and aroused by it and her innocence.
“Don’t be mad at me.” He reached for her, but she jerked away. “Gretchen, I can’t be the one. I am not who you want to look back and remember being with the first time.”
He couldn’t be her first, or likely any other number either. He had no business wanting a girl like Gretchen. She was too young, much too innocent and too purely good for someone as tainted as him.
“You’ll thank me,” he tried to assure her, but she only glared at him, rubbing roughly at the tears in her sparkling green eyes.
“Fuck you,” she whispered, the quiet tone of her voice doing more to punish him than any yelling could have accomplished. She hurried from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Finn fought the urge to go after her. He knew the best thing he could do for her was to stay away from her and let her forget about him.
“Fuck me is right,” he muttered, running his hand through his hair, still able to smell her on his skin.
He was certain forgetting Gretchen Christensen would be damn near impossible.