Kiss Me Hard Before You Go (30 page)

“Evie, what you did, that was...” he struggled for words and finally settled on, “incredible.”

“I didn’t do anything really. Spence scared the shit out of the sheriff with all his legal jargon.” She laughed. “Daddy didn’t like Sheriff Ford. He said he had no scruples. I always thought it was ‘cause he was Mr. McDaniels’ cousin. Now I know why. Daddy was no dummy when it came to people.”

“Are all the men dicks in Katie’s family?”

“Yep. That’s why she’s got bad taste when it comes to men. I had a good father, and it shows,” she said, and Finch appreciated the implied compliment. A girl like Evie thought he was worthy of her.

“She’s just like my mother when it comes to choosing a guy,” he said with a hint of sadness. “You’ll have to make sure she doesn’t get wrapped up in the first guy that shows her some attention after her baby is born.”

“I know,” Evie said quietly. “How’d you turn out to be such a good guy? I mean, you never had a father figure.”

“I’ve had plenty of them, they’re just not my biological father.” He thought of Friedrich, Mouse, Stoney, and Rolf. “And, there’s a time in a man’s life when he has to decide if he’s gonna be a man,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let the faults of others dictate the kind of person I wanted to be. It’s like that with your mom, right?” He was delving deeper.

“Yeah,” Evie answered honestly. “But I wasn’t as perceptive as you. It took me a while to figure that out.” She paused for a moment. “What’s going to happen?”

He knew what she meant – what was going to happen between them. “I don’t know,” he answered her honestly.

“Me neither, and that worries me,” she said and bit on her lip.

***

Evie brought down her Miles Davis record album and put it on the record player. Davis’ jazz instrumentals filled the room as they sat around the dining room table. Their plates were full, and they continued to stuff themselves, piling their plates with seconds and thirds late into the night. It was well after midnight by the time they got up to leave. She would miss them when they left: Finch was a given, but Doris, Friedrich, Mouse, and even Stoney, had a tug on her heart, and knowing that they’d be gone made her feel the loss. Even though she had only known them for a short time, she felt like they were a part of her family—a family that she wished she could spend the holidays with. She’d cook Christmas dinner and decorate the living room with the largest tree she could find. She would stuff gifts under the tree for each one of them, and they would reminisce about old times. They would be the family she hadn’t been a part of since she was a very young girl.

“Stay tonight,” Evie whispered to Finch.

“Okay,” he agreed, happy that she asked him to.

Evie gave them all a tight hug, even Stoney, who was resistant to the idea.

“Thought you weren’t much for hugging?” Katie said to her.

She half-shrugged. “I regret that I never hugged Daddy enough, and I don’t want to feel that way the rest of my life.”

“Very profound, Eves,” she said. “Freud would be proud.”

***

It was early in the morning, and Finch and Evie lay in her bed. Neither of them were tired, and both had the same intention: to talk themselves to sleep. It was easy for Evie. She had a million random questions stored that she’d been dying to ask Finch.

“If you could be any animal what would you be?” she asked.

He laughed, and said, “You and your questions. I guess I’d be a bird. I could fly anywhere I wanted, and I wouldn’t have a lot of natural enemies. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“But you asked the question.”

She thought for a moment. “Probably a lion. They kick butt, and everyone is scared of them,” she said.

“And they sleep all the time,” he added. “You wouldn’t want to be a cow?” he teased.

“Hell no,” she said emphatically. “All they do is poop, pee, and eat,” she said.

“Like most animals,” he kidded and took a hold of her hand. He wanted to hug her, give her a solid noogie, and kiss her on the lips.

“What makes you laugh?” she asked him.

“That’s easy,” he said. “You.”

“Why? I’m not funny.”

“Sure you are. You just don’t know it.” He pinched the tip of her nose. “What makes you laugh?”

“Everything, really. My dad used to make me laugh,” she said in a serious tone and was silent for a moment. “But I haven’t laughed as hard as I did when when you fell onto that pile of shit.” She giggled.

“Yeah. Yeah. I gave you a good laugh that night. Okay, next question.”

“What makes you cry?” she asked.

“Hmm...” he pondered for a moment. “I don’t cry a lot, Evie.”

“Because you’re a guy? That’s stupid.”

“No, I try not to let things affect me,” he said and rubbed his chin. “I cried when Mom died, when some idiot townie beat Mouse to a pulp,” he shuddered and added, “and when your dad died.”

“My dad? You didn’t really know him.”

“It wasn’t because of him; it was because of you,” he explained. “I knew exactly what you were going through, and there wasn’t anything I could do to make your pain go away,” he admitted.

Evie leaned forward and kissed him on the corner of his mouth, feeling his pointed hairs against her lips, and she knew she would cherish the meaning behind that statement for the rest of her life.

Chapter 29

The sun rose too early, or it seemed that way to Finch and Evie. They had tried to stay awake as long as they could, but they had only gotten a couple of hours of sleep, Evie more than Finch.

“Morning,” Evie said, smiling. Finch’s chocolate tresses were tussled, and he gave her a tired grin.

He waved his hand in front of his face. A shadow of stubble hinted above his lips and on his chin. “Pew,” he said with a scrunched face.

Evie brought her hand up to her mouth.

“I just got a whiff of manure,” he said.

Evie quickly removed her hand from her face. Her bedroom window was wide open, and the echoes of cows mooing pervaded the room.

“You are on a farm, you know?” She laughed at him as he plugged his nose.

“How do you stand it?” he said in a nasally tone.

“After a while you stop smelling it,” she said. She sat up in bed and yawned. It was still dawn, and the sky was various shades of orange overlapping each other.

He rolled on his side and lay his head on her stomach, hearing the sounds of hunger gurgling toward the surface. “There’s a monster in there.”

“I bet yours sounds the same,” she said, pushing him off of her.

He lay on his back with his head propped against a pillow and pointed to his stomach. “No way. See for yourself,” he said with confidence.

Evie glared at him and scooted down, laying her head on his stomach, feeling the flatness of it against her ear and cheek. She peeked up at him, and he gave her a self-contented look. “See,” he said. “No monster.”

She twisted her lips and shot him a dirty look. He chuckled quietly and played with her hair. “I’m gonna miss that look.”

She frowned at his words.

“And...I’d love to kiss you right now, but between the manure and our garlic breaths, it wouldn’t be very romantic,” he said.

“Well, maybe we should brush our teeth and use some Listerine so we can spend the next half hour making out?” She raised an eyebrow and gave him an impish grin.

He jumped out of bed in a hurry and pulled her up, taking a hold of her hand. “It takes a minute to brush our teeth and gargle with mouthwash. That gives us twenty-nine minutes. Come on.”

Evie giggled as she followed him to the bathroom.

***

As he headed back to the carnival, he whistled and then inwardly ridiculed himself for it. Serial killers whistled, he thought. But he was so happy and wondered how he could feel this way when he was going to have to say goodbye to Evie in a week. After a twenty-nine minute make-out session that resulted in a shirt being removed (Finch’s), he was feeling the aftermath of it. His cheeks were still red, and he felt warm, even though the sun’s rays hadn’t had their impact yet.

Finch was an expert when it came to smells, and he was just as keen with voices. He could hear someone and know exactly who they were even if he was blindfolded. To him, Evie’s voice was like a sultry melody that shouted with joy one moment and then teased him relentlessly with an array of seducing pitches the next.

He continued his way through the maze of tents and slowed his pace when he heard a muffled conversation. As he moved closer, he heard a deep-pitched twangy voice that instantly brought him back to the night he went out for dinner with Evie. The tone of his voice was all too familiar. Then, a heavily accented Russian spoke, and a cold chill instantly ran up Finch’s spine.

He peered around the corner of the tent. His instincts were right; they were never wrong anyway. Like when he just knew about his mother’s ex-boyfriend Don. Don was too much charm – a red flag for Finch. No one in the world was that nice, and when he found his mom with empty pockets and a bloodied lip, he wasn’t surprised. There had been a long line of “Don’s” in Finch’s mother’s short-lived life.

“That accident didn’t scare enough people. I want this carnival gone, and I don’t care what you have to do to make that happen,” Nate McDaniels said to Dmitri.

Dmitri cowered and frowned. “I’m not doing anything else. That boy was hurt. He could’ve been killed. I just won’t,” he cried.

“You can and you will,” Nate threatened. “If you and that wife of yours want my baby, you’ll do it! I need you to come through or our deal is off,” he demanded. “I don’t care what you’ve got to do. Just make sure that no one wants to come to this carnival or else you’ll never get your hands on my baby!” Nate left in a huff.

Finch couldn’t move, and his hands shook. He gritted his teeth and tried to see straight, but all he could see was red. He breathed heavy and hard and tried to calm himself, to get his anger in check, but all he wanted to do was storm over to Dmitri and punch him square in his jaw. Once for hurting that kid. Twice for the shit he put him through. And a third time for screwing with Evie’s money. She was banking on profit from the carnival, and that accident could ruin things.

“Fucking traitor,” he muttered. Before he took a step forward, he watched Dmitri shake violently as he slumped to the ground and cried. A moment of sympathy overcame Finch, and he stopped himself from doing something he knew he’d regret later. It took him months to overcome the guilt he had when he fought Tony Marello, all because Tony called his mom a slut. Finch knew it was true—she slept with anyone who would tell her he loved her—but hearing it from some snot-nosed kid pissed him off, and he swung violently at Tony, breaking his nose and jaw. It was a moment of triumph followed by months of regret. He didn’t want to repeat the same mistake now. He spun on his heels and turned in the other direction, heading toward Friedrich’s tent.

***

After he told Friedrich what he saw and heard, Friedrich decided they needed to confront Dmitri. “We must discover his reasoning before we do anything,” Friedrich said.

Dmitri was planted in the same spot. His long, boney legs were bent, and his face was buried in his hands.

“Dmitri,” Friedrich said in a stern tone.

Dmitri looked up at Finch. His pale angular face was flushed, and his ice blue eyes were damp with tears.

“We need to talk,” Friedrich said.

He ran his long fingers through his dirty blond hair. “I cannot talk right now,” Dmitri muttered.

“You can talk,” Friedrich said, lifting him off of the ground.

Friedrich held onto Dmitri’s arm as they made their way back to his tent. Once inside, he shoved Dmitri down on his cot and stood before him. He narrowed his eyes on Dmitri and said, “Confess.” He nodded his head once and added, “We already know what you have done; we just don’t know why you have disgraced us.”

Dmitri looked down at the ground.

“Why?” Friedrich said.

Dmitri didn’t respond and gave a hiccuped cry. Finch stood next to Friedrich, his arms folded against his chest. He watched as Dmitri’s wet eyes darted back and forth.

“Why’d you do it?” Finch asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

He brought his gaze to their incredulous stares and inhaled. “I was desperate,” he said. “Olga and I cannot have a baby, and Mr. McDaniels promised us one.”

Finch already suspected whose baby he had promised, but he decided to ask anyway. “Whose baby?”

“He said his daughter was with child and was giving the baby up for adoption,” he answered.

“That’s not true. She’s pregnant all right, but she isn’t giving her baby up,” Finch said.

Dmitri looked at him with surprise. “He promised us,” he said.

“And you believed him?” Finch said with exasperation. “You’re going to have to start from the beginning so I can see where your stupidity began.” He sat down across from him.

He swallowed. “Olga and I were eating at The Diner. She likes the milkshakes, and we go there frequently,” he explained. “There was a young couple—they could not have been much older than you—sitting in the booth next to us, and they had the most beautiful baby. Olga could not take her eyes off of him. She is so good with children, you see,” he said with a faint smile. “Babies like her, and this child was smitten with her.”