Lured In (3 page)

And, yes, it would also help clear her conscience with Sam coming up next month. She should have just told him the truth right from the start, or at the very least coughed it up in an email (the perfectly acceptable way for chickens to deal with everything), but she hadn't.

She hated that she'd basically lied to him; that wasn't who she was. And looking back, the whole thing was ridiculous. It wouldn't make a spit of difference to him now, but she'd feel better if she fessed up, so next time she talked to him, that's what she'd do.

It wasn't as if he'd care at this point anyway, right? Unless…what if Kate was right and Sam was interested in getting back together? Jessie liked him well enough, but had she even shed a tear when it ended? None that she could remember.

They got along great and had fun together, but she didn't do half the things he did, so even if she had been gooey over him, how long could they have gone on?

Besides, Jessie had seen pictures of him with other girls, and clearly she wasn't his usual type. The other girls were all gorgeous curvy blond bombshells who looked at him with big Bambi eyes, as if he were the reason the sun rose every morning.

Jessie was no bombshell and she was quite happy with that, so why the hell had he stayed in contact with her when she clearly wasn't the norm for him?

She squeezed her eyes shut against the memory of the last time they'd gone out, how she'd sat across the table from him, watching him grind that piece of steak between his molars until he finally swallowed.

She'd never considered becoming a vegetarian before, but
that
…yeah, that almost did it.

Never mind; Sam was funny and sweet, and no matter what happened, it'd be good to see him again. Did it cause little bursts of joy in her heart? Not a single one. Did she even consider Olivia's idea of getting down and dirty with him?

Nooo…okay, maybe, but even as that thought slipped through her mind, Jessie dismissed it.

She was many things, but she wasn't one to hook up with a guy just because she was feeling needy. Sure, it would be nice to have someone in her life, someone who could make her smile with nothing more than a glance her way, someone who looked at her the way Liam looked at Kate.

But no matter how hard Jessie tried to remember it differently, Sam had never once looked at her like that.

Taking care so she didn't spoil the head on the drinks, Jessie set them on a tray with a plate of peppered chicken wings and delivered them with a smile to Table 3. Forcing Sam out of her head, she turned her focus to what was going to be the most important thing in the coming days: getting herself into the water.

How the hell was she going to do that? Clearly she was going to need help, because as determined as she was, there was no way in heaven or hell she could do it on her own.

She wasn't close enough with Olivia to ask her, and as much as she liked Kate, Kate had never seen Jessie in a full-on wig-out, and it was probably best if they kept it that way. At one point or another over the years, all three of the O'Donnell boys had been witness to Jessie completely losing it, so they'd all know what to expect if they agreed to help her do this.

And, honestly, she knew any one of them would agree to help if she asked. So as the three of them sat around the table in the back corner, heads bent low over the contract, Jessie considered her options.

Ronan's vacation days were up, so he would be returning to his real job in Calgary tomorrow, and Liam was still recovering from shoulder surgery, so he wouldn't be able to do anything if—
when
—she started to lose it in the water.

That left Finn.

As if she'd said his name out loud, Finn lifted his head, his frown of concentration morphing into a slow, relaxed grin that made her smile back even before he shot her one of his quick winks.

And just like that, a tiny wave of calm flowed through her. She'd trust any of those three with her life, but there'd always been something about Finn and that quick wink of his that set her at ease and made her smile back no matter what.

Yup, he was the one. Of course he was.

“A reel expert can tackle anything.”

As they did every Saturday afternoon, Finn and Liam stood on the far end of the dock and waved the last of the guests off. But this time, instead of heading straight back to the lodge for a pint, they lingered awhile, watching as the Cessna lifted off and disappeared, taking Ronan with it.

“When you were a kid,” Liam said slowly, rolling his bad shoulder a little, “did you ever think there'd come a day when you'd actually be sorry to see him leave?”

Finn snorted, short and harsh. “Hell no.”

The textbook oldest child, Ro had always been an overbearing pain in the ass who believed his way was the right way, period, full stop, end of sentence. And yet, somehow, in the last eight weeks he'd spent at the Buoys, the brothers had managed to work side by side with minimal bloodshed. And since Liam's career-ending injury had brought him home to the Buoys, too, the three of them had forced themselves to try to do what they'd never been able to before: talk things out instead of throwing punches.

Had they been good at it? Not really, but at least they didn't get into it as often as they used to. And when they did, Jess was right there, wedging herself between them like she always had.

Finn didn't even try to suppress the smile that tugged his mouth up when he thought about Jess. There she was, just a couple of weeks ago, all five foot five of her, one hand on Ronan's chest, one hand on Finn's, forcing them apart while Ro jabbed his finger over her head toward Finn's face, yelling about…

What?

For the life of him, Finn couldn't remember, but he sure as hell remembered what Jess's hand felt like pressed against his chest: strong and solid, yet feminine and…and what?

She'd never been like other women; there'd always been something different about her, something he'd never been able to pinpoint, but up until that day she'd always just been Jess.

And then suddenly, with the warmth of her fingers seeping through his shirt, Finn realized she wasn't just Jess.

She was
Jess
.

The second he'd realized he'd been egging Ronan on simply because he liked the feel of her hand against his chest, Finn backed right off and let Ro win.

Even now, weeks later, he still couldn't believe what that touch had done to him. It wasn't as if it was the first time she'd ever touched him, but it
was
the first time he'd ever felt the imprint of her palm sear all the way through his T-shirt and meld into his skin.

Took him the rest of that day to get his head straight again.

He'd almost convinced himself he'd only reacted that way because he hadn't been with a woman in (
holy shit
) almost a year. But there was a tiny little voice in his head that told him that was a pile of crap, and no matter how hard he tried to shut that voice up, it wouldn't go away.

It was Jess, for crying out loud. Sure, when he first met her, he thought she was cute as hell, but that was a lifetime ago. At seventeen, with his hormones in full swing, he'd known better than to make any kind of move on her, because to start with, Da wouldn't have put up with shit like that, but more to the point, she'd shown zero interest in him.

And, yeah, he'd tried to show off a few times, but that was as far as he went. Eventually, he'd gotten over that crush, as he'd done with every other one he'd ever had, so why the hell had he reacted like that to her touch now, after all these years?

“Come on,” Liam said, nudging Finn's elbow. “Let's go.”

After ditching their wet rain gear, they headed for the pub-style restaurant, where Jess, Kate, and Olivia were waiting for them with fresh pints of Gat.

“May the wind be at his back.” Liam lifted his glass and the others knocked theirs against it. “And here's to Kate, for getting us
Hooked
.”

It took Finn a fraction of a second longer than it should have to lift his glass to that, and while he might have imagined it, he would have sworn Jess hesitated, too.

There was no doubt that having Sam Ross film his show at the Buoys would be huge for them, and Finn was glad for that. Hell, he'd been the one who'd come up with the idea in the first place. He just didn't want it to be a problem for Jess.

He knew she and Sam had had a thing for a while; hell, he'd been standing right there when Liam practically shoved Jess into Sam's arms. Ronan was the one who'd found out Jessie had ended it when she returned to the Buoys. She hadn't shared many details, but Ronan said it sounded like they were still friends.

Yeah,
Finn mused.
But what kind of friends?

Jess had never been one to spill a lot about that side of her personal life, at least not to Finn or his brothers, and Finn had never pried. She'd mentioned a couple of guys over the years, and he knew she'd been out with a few before Sam when she lived in Vancouver, but since moving back here, the Buoys had pretty much taken over her life, like it had before, so…

Did she miss Sam or miss actually having a life outside the Buoys? And if she hooked up with Sam again, would she leave? God, Finn hoped not, because without Jess, this place would be nothing but bleak and shitty.

Oh crap
. Had he been staring at her that whole time? He must have been, because she was frowning at him and it looked as if she was about to say something, but Olivia spoke first.

“Okay.” Olivia wiped her lip and nodded, just like she'd done every week before grilling them on another piece of the Buoys' history. “Let's see.”

So far, she'd quizzed them on everything from how long it took them to build the Buoys, to what life was like growing up in such an isolated place, to why they'd all left if they loved it so much.

Finn and his brothers shared bits of stories with her, but it wasn't the O'Donnell way to talk about the dark times, like Ma's leaving and Da's drinking. Instead, they talked about how Da had taught them everything they knew, from baiting a hook to swinging a hammer, how they'd all done their part to build the Buoys up to what it was today, and how they'd never known any other way of life, so the isolation didn't bother any of them. The three of them liked the seclusion.

Explaining why they'd all left the Buoys…well…there was no way to nice that up, so they'd pretty much dodged that question by saying they wanted to see what life was like out in civilization.

Outsiders didn't need to know the truth: that Ro left at nineteen after getting into a huge row with Da, or that Liam always claimed he left because he got drafted, which was true, but even without baseball, he'd have been gone the minute he graduated high school just to get away from the old man's black mood swings.

As for Finn…despite Da and his drinking, Finn had never wanted to leave; the ocean was where he belonged, it was who he was, but a guy could only listen to his da tell him he was a “fuckin' mistake” so many times before it broke him.

It was no secret to Finn that he'd been a mistake; he'd known it most of his life. Hell, he even knew it was the reason Ma finally packed up and left, so as the years went by, it shouldn't have hurt so much every time the old man said it. But it did.

“I've got it.” Olivia smirked as she looked at Finn and Liam but thumbed toward Jess. “Tell me about this one. I've been here a couple months now and I only found out about Sam Ross yesterday. She hardly ever talks about herself and never about anything too personal—”

“It's almost like she's an O'Donnell,” Kate snickered, then raised her hands defensively when Finn and Liam balked. “Oh, come on, tell me I'm wrong.”

They couldn't.

“And there's no doubt she does a great job around here,” Olivia went on. “But I gotta tell you, I've never heard an employee talk to her bosses the way this one does.”

“What do you mean?” Jess cried, sputtering over her glass. “I don't—”

The chokes and snorts from everyone else drowned out her denial until she finally conceded with a shrug, blushing a soft pink all the while.

“What
ever,
” she laughed. “Sometimes they just need to be yelled at.”

After a second, Liam looked over at Finn and tipped his head in question, but Finn waved him on. There wasn't a hope he'd be able to speak coherently until Jess stopped blushing like that.

“Okay, let's see.” Liam leaned back in his chair, wrapped his arm around Kate's shoulders, and squeezed as he tipped his head in Jess's direction. “
This one
stepped off a float plane thirteen years ago, green around the gills and shaking like a leaf, and then flat out refused to leave, even though Da insisted the Buoys was no place for a skinny little girl like her.”

“I was neither skinny nor little,” Jess interjected.

“How old were you?” Olivia asked.

“Seventeen.”

“Yeah,” Liam chuckled. “And I bet she weighed all of about a buck fifteen when she got here.”

If that,
Finn mused. She'd put on weight since then, but it was all muscle and curves.

“Ro had been gone a couple years by that time,” Liam went on. “And I'd just been drafted, so I was on my way out of here, too, which meant we were going to be shorthanded. But
this
one
jumped right in and worked her skinny little ass off. The way Da spoke, it sounded like the place would have collapsed into the ocean if not for her, eh, Finn?”

Finn nodded slowly as memories of that summer flooded his mind. They hadn't had a female at the Buoys full-time since Ma left, and the last thing Finn or the old man expected was to find out this skinny little girl worked harder than most of their male employees. She'd started out doing housekeeping and helping in the kitchen, but by the end of that summer, she pretty much had her hands in everything except for going out on the boats.

Jess had hardly spared Finn a glance that whole summer, but he'd sure watched her. Hell, she was the reason he'd blown off that other girl, the one from school…the one with the long blond hair who'd kept phoning him…what was her name?

Andrea.

No, that wasn't it. Amanda, maybe? Angela?

Whoever she was, he'd liked her, but not enough to ask her out. And from the second Jess stepped off that plane he didn't give the blond girl another thought that whole summer. Not exactly one of the most considerate or chivalrous times of his life, but Blondie hadn't wasted any time moving on, so…

What the hell was her name?

“You stayed?” Olivia asked, turning to Jess. “Weren't you still in school?”

“Sort of.” Jess grinned guiltily as she ducked her head a little. “I kind of lied and told Jimmy I'd finished high school when I still had to get through my senior year. So I had my mom hook me up through a correspondence school.”

“But…” Olivia hesitated, tipping her head a bit, as if she was trying to gauge whether or not she should ask. “No offense to anyone here, but what did your folks think about you living out here alone with Finn and Mr. O'Donnell when you were so young?”

“I don't know, I never asked.” Jess lifted her glass, then shrugged slowly before drinking.

“Oh.” Olivia didn't seem to know what to do with that information.

Finn had met Jess's folks a couple of times over the years, and while they seemed nice enough, there was something odd about them. It was as if their eyes were…vacant…or something. But when he'd asked Jess about it, she shut him down flat and refused to talk about it.

“Okay.” Olivia drew the word out slowly, as though she wasn't sure what else to say about that, and then decided to change tacks instead. “So tell me this. You and Finn are about the same age, no? So why didn't you go to school with him instead of doing everything by correspondence?”

“Because.” Jess's brown eyes flashed over to Finn, her shoulders stiffening slightly as they always did when things like this came up. “He went back and forth by boat every day.”

“Not only that.” Having finally found his voice again, Finn shot Jess a quick wink, which seemed to ease some of her tension. “From the second she stepped off that Cessna, she made herself so indispensable to the old man that he couldn't afford to have her anywhere but here every day.”

“Hardly.” Jess's quiet laugh made Finn smile, too. “Jimmy tried to get rid of me lots of times; I just wouldn't listen to him.”

“Thank God for that,” Liam said, lifting his glass in her direction.

And while they didn't go any deeper than that with Olivia, the rest of them knew Liam was talking about more than Jess keeping things going at the Buoys. She'd kept the old man going, too.

After Ma left them, Da had taken to the bottle with a vengeance. He wasn't so bad when there were guests at the Buoys, but during the off-season, when it was just him and his boys…things tended to get ugly.

Once Jess arrived, though, that changed, because she never left, not even in the off-season. She helped the old man with the off-season upkeep and repairs while Finn was at school, but she also stood up to Da, refused to let him bully her, and finally helped him realize he had a serious problem. Sure, there were still a few times the old man got into one of his rages in front of Jess, but it wasn't anything like it had been.

And if Da hadn't joined AA when he did…Finn inhaled a long slow breath; it was unlikely he or either of his brothers would have ever come back.

Yup, Jessie Todd had changed everything for the O'Donnell family, and that was a debt they'd never be able to repay.

“What do you think, Finn?”

Blinking his brother's face back into focus, Finn gave his head a quick shake and grinned.

“Sorry? Kinda zoned out there for a second.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Liam snorted. “We're talking about where we're going to put Sam and his crew next month.”