Her Summer with the Marine: A Donovan Brothers Novel (Entangled Bliss) (17 page)

Finn walked out of the bathroom. He took one look at her face and said, “Kitchen. We started in the kitchen, remember?”

Her face heated. She remembered.

He caught her arm and kissed her. “You’re not getting all prudy on me, are you?”

“Prudy?”

“You know, like feeling odd that we’re don’t seem to have any boundaries when we’re naked.”

“Oh,
that
prudy.”

He caught her gaze. “I’m serious. We haven’t even hit any of the kinky stuff yet. All we’re doing is having fun.
You’re
having fun.”

“I’m not feeling odd that we’re having fun.”

“Good, because we are really, really having fun.”

She laughed. But away from Finn, memories of her phone call with the doctor tiptoed into her brain. Since she’d been home, they’d never had anything good to report, but today’s phone call had been the worst. She hadn’t mentioned it to Nic, didn’t want to burden her. But this was the kind of thing Finn would understand…

Still, talking about their troubles wasn’t their deal. Hell, he’d barely told her about being in the marines. He skimmed over the things about his dad. And selling prepaid funeral packages was totally out of bounds.

Dressed, Finn walked over to the bag of food.

“I’m going to Pittsburgh tomorrow.” The one thing she could talk about.

He pulled the hamburger and buns from the bag. “More work on that ad campaign?”

“Yes.”

He retrieved an aluminum foil container that looked like a tent. “This is broccoli, an onion, red peppers, mushrooms and potatoes, all slathered in chopped garlic and olive oil.”

“Yum.”

“Would you go outside, turn on the grill, and put these on?”

“Sure.”

When she returned, he was forming hamburger patties.

She cleared her throat. “Anyway, my team made some commercials for the project I’m in charge of…Tidy Whitiez.”

“Tidy Whitiez?”

“Adult diapers.”

He laughed. “I remember.”

“The commercials have been changed based on focus group comments. Tomorrow we look at the new versions. That’s why they want me there.” And why she wouldn’t be able to visit her father.

His condition was deteriorating. Faster than they’d expected. But then again, no one really knew when his disease had manifested. He could already be years into this. A decade. He might not be going downhill fast. He might be right on target.

But Finn didn’t care about that.

“We’ll review all the focus group comments and then watch the commercials to see what needs to be changed.”

“Sounds fun.”

Finn nudged his head toward the door, indicating she should follow him as he took the burgers to the grill. On a second-floor deck, with an unobstructed view, she could see storm clouds rolling in.

“I think it’s going to rain.”

“Yeah, we probably won’t be eating out here, but we can grill.” He plopped the burgers on the rack. “So tell me more about the focus groups.”

“They’re great. It’s always fun.” Her dad would have loved them. He would have loved being in advertising. But he’d loved the funeral home business. Now he couldn’t even do that. Hell, he might not ever recognize her again. Her chest tightened.

She ignored it. “The air crackles with creativity when you get the right people together.”

“And you have the right crew?”

“I have a great crew.”

“But?”

“But what?”

“Ellie, your eyes keep filling with tears.”

A breeze ruffled the plastic tablecloth. “Oh.”

“What’s up? Are you lying about how well your campaign is going? Is somebody trying to undermine you?”

“I wish that was it.”

With the burgers on the grill, he closed the lid and faced her, his head tilted in confusion. “You know we can talk about anything, right?”

“Not if we’re only in this to have fun.”

He walked over, put his hand on her arm. The breeze picked up. “We can’t have fun if one of us is crying.”

She pursed her lips, then said, “The call from Harmony Hills Hideaway today was my dad’s doctor.”

“Yeah?”

“He made it sound like he’d just called with an update, but I think he was trying to tell me my dad is dying.”

Finn’s face softened. “What?”

She batted her hand in dismissal, as the scent of grilling meat and olive-oil-soaked veggies filled the swirling air of the impending storm. “Maybe I made too big a deal out of it.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“Well, he wanted me to know my dad had a do-not-resuscitate order and…” Her voice trembled. “And…” This time it out-and-out shook. “And…”

Finn pulled her to him as the tears that kept filling her eyes spilled over. “Shh. It’s okay.”

“It’s
not
okay. And the worst part about it is, the doctors always talk in ambiguities. I feel like I don’t really know what they’re telling me.”

“Maybe what you need is to go see your dad?”

Her heart lifted. But the dark clouds opened up and huge drops of water pelleted them. The breeze became gusts of wind. Thunder rumbled.

Finn pulled them both to the door and into the kitchen. Rain drummed against the roof, the sound cozy, almost romantic, as lightning lit the world outside the windows, and Ellie cried softly.

Finn held her close again. “Seriously. In another ten or so minutes, the burgers will be done. With the lid down, we can turn off the gas and let them sit until we get back.”

She pulled out of his embrace. “You wanna go now?”

“You’re crying now. You need to see him.”

She swiped her eyes. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“Go wash your face and get your shoes. And take your time. We can’t really leave till the burgers are done.”

She nodded and went to her bedroom.

…

While she was gone, Finn walked around the one-floor apartment, noticing the pictures Mark had on the old red-brick mantel in the living room, all in pretty eight-by-ten frames, as if he’d gotten them as gifts, probably from Ellie. They showed the pair in happy times, at a restaurant he recognized from his own trips to Pittsburgh, standing in front of a Christmas tree in a living room he didn’t know—maybe Ellie’s apartment—and on a boat. She might not have come home to see him, but Mark had gone to see her.

He smiled. She ambled out of her bedroom, dressed now in jeans, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes. Red-rimmed from crying, her normally big eyes seemed even bigger, rounder. Her hair was a cute mess of floppy curls.

“I’ll turn off the burgers, and we can go.”

She nodded. He raced out into the pounding rain and flicked the switch to turn off the gas. When he came back into the kitchen he was soaked.

“I think we’re going to need an umbrella.”

Looking out at the rain pounding the upstairs deck planks, she nodded. “My dad had a huge one in his office. It’s big enough to fit four mourners.”

“I have one just like it in my office.”

They found her dad’s mourner umbrella, but Finn also saw the raincoat. He pointed at his wet shirt. “Might be smart for you to slip into that.”

She shook her head. “It’s huge.”

He reached for the raincoat. “All the better to keep you dry.”

He opened it and she slipped inside. “What? You think you’re the big bad wolf now?”

Until that moment he hadn’t felt like the big bad wolf. He felt like someone enjoying another person. But with her as sad as she was and her life falling apart, he did sort of feel odd about wanting an affair.

He shook that off. His parents’ abysmal marriage had taught him that people weren’t made for commitments. He didn’t want a commitment, and she didn’t either. Her sadness was exactly why they needed a just-for-fun relationship.

She wiggled around in the raincoat, which was easily three sizes too big for her. “I look stupid.”

He flipped the hood up over her hair. “Maybe, but you’ll be dry.”

They stepped out into the rain, which now reminded him of a tropical deluge. Rivers of water drenched the grass, the sidewalk, the street. With the hood covering her head, and the coat covering the rest of her, Finn protected himself with the umbrella.

Inside his Range Rover, she shook off the hood. He folded the umbrella. Careful not to jab her with it—it was so big it could have been a shepherd’s staff—he shoved it to the backseat of his SUV.

He started the engine and activated the wipers, which worked until they drove out of the thick forest around Harmony Hills Hideaway. In the clearing for the assisted living center, without the protection of the trees, the rain came in sideways. Sheets of water drummed against the car’s metal sides and roof.

He parked as close as he could. Ellie pulled the hood over her curls and slid out of the car. He grabbed the umbrella again, but this time the rain was so hard, he made sure she was under it too.

Splashing through puddles and dodging a wall of rain, they raced across the parking lot and slammed into the foyer of the monitored care unit. Needing to swipe the water from his face and shoulders, he handed the refolded umbrella to Ellie.

When he looked up, there, in her wheelchair, sat Agnes Spinelli. She took one look at Ellie and screamed, “It’s the grim reaper!”

“Agnes, no! It’s me. Ellie McDermott, remember?”

But even as she said the words, Finn glanced at the tall umbrella that looked like a staff and the big black raincoat, complete with hood half-covering her face, and burst out laughing.

“You do look like the grim reaper.”

“I don’t know what you’re laughing about. You’re in the same profession I am. We’re both grim reapers.”

He laughed at that, but Agnes just kept screaming.

Two nurses raced out. They glanced at Agnes then at Ellie. One nurse narrowed her eyes. The other groaned. “Oh, honey, take off the raincoat before Agnes has a heart attack.”

Ellie quickly unsnapped the coat and slid out of it. Finding a coatrack, Finn took the dripping slicker from her, hung it, and leaned the umbrella beside the base.

While Regina wheeled Agnes into her room, the other nurse led Ellie and Finn down the hall.

When they walked into the room, Finn was relieved to see her dad was in bed, but awake. But when Mark spoke, his voice was weak, tired. “Who are you?”

“It’s me, Ellie,” she said, then she paused.

Finn’s heart shattered. She was giving her dad a chance to remember her.

When he didn’t, she widened her fake smile. “I’m a candy striper, remember? I come in and we talk.”

He said, “Oh.”

Finn took a few more steps into Mark’s room.

“And who’s this guy?” His words continued to be soft, slurred, as if he could barely hold on to consciousness.

“It’s Finn Donovan.” Again, she paused. Again, it seemed as if she was giving her dad a chance to recognize Finn. When he didn’t, she softly added, “He’s an orderly.”

“Ah.”

Finn smiled, though his mind raced. It was as though Mark was there but he wasn’t.

Ellie tucked the covers more tightly around her dad, but Finn stood frozen. He couldn’t even imagine what she’d been going through. For weeks, she’d been talking to a guy who was her dad but really wasn’t.

His conscience tugged about their just-for-fun relationship again. But he dismissed his concerns. With as fast as her father had gone downhill, she needed the fun more than he did.

Her dad fell asleep quickly. After little more than the basic introductions Ellie had made, Mark’s eyelids drooped and then he went out. They stayed ten minutes, enough time to calm Ellie, then left.

Running back to his Range Rover in the rain, Finn debated a hundred different things. But when they got into his car and she was happy and smiling, he knew he was right.

This affair was good for both of them.

But as he pulled out of the parking lot, another thought nagged at him. What happened when it ended? When he beat her in selling prepaid funeral packages, and she ran out of money? What would she do then? Who would console her then? Did she have someone in Pittsburgh who would help her get her life straightened out?

And if she did…was it a guy?

He shoved that thought out of his mind.

Chapter Fourteen

Ellie had to spend most of the next week in Pittsburgh finalizing the Tidy Whitiez commercials. But she drove home every evening and saw Finn for dinner every night. As they ate, he’d ask about her job. Some nights he drove her to Harmony Hills Hideaway to see her dad. Every night they’d make love and he’d tuck her in before he tiptoed out of her apartment.

But Saturday morning, Finn told her he needed to catch up on some paperwork, and she didn’t ask too many questions, fearing that what he really was doing was hitting the streets or the phone, trying to drum up appointments to sell prepaid packages.

Early Sunday morning, when her phone rang and she saw his number on her caller ID, she smiled as she pulled the phone from her bedside table. “Hey.”

“Hey. You busy today?”

“I’m always busy.”

“You can’t work on Sunday.”

The disappointment in his voice twisted through her, and she remembered that this fun thing was a two-way street. Up to now it seemed as if he’d been doing all the amusing. “Why? What did you have in mind?”

“I got the keys to Gary Howell’s cabin.”

She sat up. “Cabin?”

“I thought we’d go up there this afternoon, have a wiener roast, and then stay over.”

Her heart chugged to a stop. “Stay over?”

“Just you and me and the crickets, babe.”

She laughed, but her insides warmed. This was what they were supposed to be doing. Having fun. Not visiting her dad. Not talking about her job. He was always trying to make her happy, and she wanted to make him happy, too.

“You know what? I can get lots done this morning.”

His voice brightened. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“So we can go this afternoon?”

“Yes. Should I bring a bathing suit?”

“There is a lake.”

“I could swim in a lake.”

“Well, there’s also no one around for miles.” He cleared his throat. “You might not really need a suit.”

She frowned, then realization dawned. “Are you suggesting we skinny-dip?”

“I made no such suggestion, but if you happen to forget your suit, I’m just saying swimming doesn’t have to be off the table.”

She laughed as her heart filled with something that went beyond attraction and even friendship. She wanted him, but as she thought that, she realized that this, this normal, ordinary, wonderful connection, was what she really liked. Whether he wanted to or not, he thought about her. Was considerate. Doted on her. Fed her. And always, always made her smile.

Her heart warmed again, so sweetly that her breath caught. Had she fallen in love?

She squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love.

Except…

He was everything she needed. Warm. Compassionate. Funny. He’d taken her to see her dad. He’d laughed with her about her selling adult diapers. He wanted to know every detail of her job.

But most of all, he looked at her in a way no one ever had.

A light, airy feeling coursed through her, surrounding her heart with joy. Of course she loved him. How could she not?

Still, that wasn’t their deal, unless he was falling in love with her, too. After all, would a man who didn’t love her take her to see her dad? Feed her? Care about her?

Nick—the only man who’d ever told her he loved her—hadn’t done half the things Finn did for her. He might not realize it, but if behavior was anything to go by, Finn loved her too.

Her heart jolted. Joy filled her soul, but so did fear. Their time together was limited and complicated by their competition for the same customers. There were so many things that could ruin their relationship that she knew they couldn’t go on the way they were.

When she and Finn hung up, she immediately dialed Ashley’s number. Her call went to voice mail.

She sucked in a breath. “Hey. You and I need to talk.” She took another breath. “I realized this morning that I love Finn. And before you go nuts, I think he might feel the same way about me. I just don’t know how to get him to admit it. We’re going away. Spending the night at a cabin. I could use some advice, like, as soon as you get this call.”

Needing to finish some work before Finn arrived, she jumped out of bed, slid into the jeans and top she’d worn the day before, and raced to her office. Involved in work, she didn’t feel time passing. One minute it was nine o’clock, the next Finn was standing in her office doorway.

“What are you doing?”

She laughed and stretched her hands over her head. “Last-minute reviews of partner comments on the commercials. These will air.”

He ambled to the desk. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“Can I see?”

She hit a few buttons and the first commercial began playing a wedding scene, except the bride and groom were in their sixties and so were the bridesmaids and groomsmen.

He leaned his hip on her desk. “Cute. I guess.”

She peeked up at him. “Men have no trouble with adult protection. But women aren’t so easy to persuade. They worry more about how they look. So this ad is targeted to them.”

The scenes rolled by with the camera following one bridesmaid who didn’t just dance up a storm, she caught the bouquet.

As the bride and groom headed for their limo, the bridesmaid kissed the bride’s cheek. The bride said, “You look pretty in pink.”

The bridesmaid winked. “You don’t know the half of it.”

The cameras pulled back and the voice-over announced that the Pretty in Pink brand of Tidy Whitiez was the new adult protection especially shaped for women.

He stared at it.

She laughed. “Don’t look so confused. The message is simple. Life is different for older people these days. They’re more active. Women especially like to socialize and not be afraid. Our ad just told them they could do what younger women do.”

“Ah.”

She slapped him playfully as she rose. “If you were an older woman with bladder-control problems, that commercial would have you running to your drugstore right now.”

He caught her by the waist. “If I were an older woman we wouldn’t be going to a cabin by a lake.”

She lightly kissed his lips, then realized how easily she had. Because they were more than lovers. They were two people who had accidentally fallen in love.

“I still need to shower.”

As she pulled away, he slapped her bottom. “Hurry up, woman. I bought marshmallows for toasting.”

She laughed as she walked to the staircase to the apartment, glad to see him casually following her.

They were so good together. So in love. But what if she couldn’t get him to see it? What if he didn’t want to see it? All along he’d said he wanted an affair. If she even said the word “love,” he could say she was pushing the boundaries—going for something he didn’t want.

And then it would be over. Before either one of them went bankrupt.

…

Ellie walked down the hall to her bedroom to change, and Finn roamed around the apartment again. Having already seen the pictures, this time he glanced at odd keepsakes her father had scattered on the fireplace mantel and the old-fashioned dining room buffet. Mark seemed to have kept everything, every knickknack, every souvenir his wife, Ellie’s mom, had ever collected. Fancy teacups. Statues of angels.

Why would a guy keep everything a cheating wife had given him?

Shaking his head, he told himself to stop. He lived in a new world now. A world where he didn’t analyze anything. A world where he didn’t take things seriously. A world where he just lived in the moment. Had fun. And it was working out very well, thank you very much. Especially with Ellie.

The landline rang, almost causing him to jump out of his skin. With his hand on his chest to slow his thumping heart, he let four rings echo into the silent apartment. The answering machine picked up.

“McDermott’s Funeral Home. We’re sorry no one is available to take your call right now, but leave your name and number and someone will get back to you.”

“Ellie! Pick up! It’s Ashley.”

Again, he nearly lifted the receiver and took the call. He liked Ashley. She was a good friend to Ellie. But that was the point. If he picked up that phone, talked to Ashley, he would be inserting himself into Ellie’s life.

That was not what they were doing. They were two people having fun.

Period.

“Look, I have no idea why you’re not answering your cell except that you’re in the shower or something. So I’m just going to lay it out here. Finn doesn’t love you.”

He stopped, pivoted to face the wall phone.

“Yes, you’re having fun, and, yes, he is a great guy, but you have a deal. You’re not doing anything serious. You might have fallen in love, but Finn hasn’t, because he doesn’t want to. That wasn’t part of your deal. So get that notion out of your head. And if you can’t, then you have to stop seeing him.”

She sighed heavily. “Call me.”

The answering machine went through various rotations, made clicking sounds, and then went dead. Finn stood in the archway between her dining room and kitchen, staring at it.

She’d fallen in love?

He squeezed his eyes shut.

The ten minutes it took her to come out of the bedroom were an agony of decision for him. But he knew they had to talk about this. When she finally bounced up the hall, in a pair of dark shorts and a pink shirt that made her skin look healthy and brought out the best in her red-brown hair, he almost changed his mind.

Hopping into a flip-flop, she said, “Ready?”

He rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Ellie?”

She smiled. “Yeah?”

Though the answer was in her smile, in her bright brown eyes, he asked the question anyway. “Are you in love with me?”

“In love with you?” she scoffed, skipping away to hop into her second flip-flop. “Geez, you’re vain.”

“Ashley called.”

“Oh, yeah? She must have tried my cell and then called here when I didn’t answer—”

He saw the very second the truth dawned on her. She glanced at the old-fashioned answering machine. There was no blinking light, but the machine was so old the message light had probably quit functioning.

She caught his gaze. “Did you pick up the call?”

The hope in her voice almost killed him. He wished he could say,
Yes. We had a nice chat. She wants you to call her back
. But he couldn’t lie. Ashley’s message was on the phone.

“She left a message.”

“Oh.”

He hesitated. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt her. But if she loved him, they couldn’t go out anymore. It wasn’t their deal. They were competitors. One was going to beat the other. One was going to lose. They could not fall in love.

“This thing between us was supposed to be about fun.”

She straightened. Right before his eyes she discarded her fearful reaction to Ashley’s call and reverted to I’m-just-in-this-to-have-fun mode. “And it is.”

“Not if you love me.”

She said nothing, but her big brown eyes filled with shiny tears. It tore him up to see her so sad. Worse, it gutted him to know he was the reason. He’d never felt so strongly about anything or anybody—

Oh God. He didn’t love her. Did he?

Fear snaked through Finn. Not fear that he had hurt her, but the real fear that even
thoughts
of love, commitment,
connection
inspired. His dad was supposed to have loved his mom, and loving him had made her a prisoner. Ellie’s parents had loved each other too. Abundantly, if Mark’s saving every keepsake was any indicator. Yet that love had died too. And ended in a true disaster. A disaster that rippled through the town and made Ellie’s school years miserable.

“We both know love only hurts people.”

“I think love makes people happy.”

“Happy? Geez, Ellie! How can you of all people say that? Your mom was leaving your dad when she was killed. Your dad was a private man in a public profession who lost his wife two ways. Do you think your mom stopped to think about how embarrassing her leaving would be? Do you think she stopped to think about how painful her leaving would be? And what about my parents? My dad beat my mom and out of some misplaced sense of loyalty she stayed with him.
That’s
the love we know.”

“I agree we haven’t seen the best examples of love, but I don’t think our experience is the norm.”

“What? You think it’s a coincidence that the two people in Harmony Hills with crappy families gravitated together?”

“I think we gravitated together out of need. We couldn’t talk to anyone else. We always had to pretend, until my dad got sick, I came home, and we really started talking. Shared trouble is part of how we fell in love.”

“That’s convenient.”

“That’s the truth. Finn, do you honestly believe every family in this town is secretly unhappy?”

“I think people compromise and live lives of quiet desperation. I never want to do that.”

“And you think staying single is the answer?”

“I think living the life I want on my terms is my answer.”

“And to hell with anyone who gets hurt.”

He looked at the ceiling. “I told you I only wanted to have fun. I never made promises.”

She smiled sadly. “No. You didn’t. No one ever does.” Her voice wobbled on the last words, and she turned away from him. “You know the way out.”

She walked back down the hall.

Her bedroom door closed.

For thirty seconds, he stood there. The knowledge that she was in her room crying roared through him, demanding that he comfort her. The struggle not to follow that instinct left him breathless and furious, but also up against a very important truth. If he comforted her, it would be an admission of how much he felt for her. She’d cling to that, and him, and he could never leave. He would be trapped.

And so would she. Right now she might love him, but what about next year or the year after? Or five years from now? Or when, like her mom, she met a man who swept her off her feet, and made her forget her husband and children?

He scrubbed his hand across his mouth. The thought that she might leave him filled him with indescribable pain.