Spin (15 page)

I pulled her to me and made her forget about
DC, at least for a while.

~ Jane ~

“I’VE GOT FRIENDS coming over in the morning,” Finn
murmured as we fell into his bed after the moon had begun to set.
We lay in the dark, the moon splashing across the far wall, with
Max snuffling in his dreams on the floor beside the bed. “We’ll be
hammering,” he told me. “And sawing. And probably cursing.”

“Mm,” I murmured, burying my head in his
pillows. I really liked his pillows.

“I hope we don’t wake you.” He put his arm
over my belly and dragged me backward, and pressed my spine into
his chest, my bottom into his groin. He was warm.

“I’m always up early.” I snuggled in,
slipping into sleep. “I’ll make you guys breakfast.”

He slid his hand down between my legs and
just rested there. “You’re my superhero,” he said softly.

“Believe it,” I murmured back.

WHEN I WOKE up, there were men there, as promised.
Hammering and sawing and occasionally cursing, just as Finn had
promised.

Also, they were laughing and talking and
listening to music.

I showered and ran out to pick up a couple
of things from town. Men who hammered and sawed and cursed needed
serious carbs for a late breakfast, and I’d seen a bakery in town
the other day that looked worth checking into.

It was. When I returned, the sun was higher,
the day was hotter, and Finn’s friends all had their shirts
off.

I smiled.

The wooden skeleton of the house was clear
cut against the hard blue sky. The sounds of hammering and a radio
wafted down. Finn saw my dust, and when I circled the house and
came out in front where they were working, he was there, waiting
for me. Without his shirt on.

What a great Sunday.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I said back, grinning like an idiot,
holding two loaves of artisan bread in my hands.

His hard, lean body was pretty amazing,
tanned and slick. And even his loose jeans and the tool belt
hanging off his hips couldn’t hide the rest of him, which I
happened to know first-hand was equally amazing.

He planted a kiss on my mouth and took my
hand.

“Come on. I’ll introduce you.”

I felt nervous and bright. Four half-naked
men were visible against the brilliant sky in various poses of
workmanship—one was measuring something, two were lifting a beam,
and, high up in the rafters, one man was hammering.

They all looked over, and cries came wafting
down to us of, “Hi,” and “Hey, Janey,” and one long, loud, “Janey
Ma-a-a-ac!” like I was a long-lost friend.

“That’s Jason,” said Finn of the last. “He’s
friendly.”

“That’s nice.”

“Stay away from him.”

I smiled. We watched them work for a minute.
I really enjoyed watching them work, and it had almost nothing to
do with the fact that they were all shirtless and tanned and did
what they did really well.

Finn gently clamped his fingers around the
top of my head and turned me to face him. “All done?”

I nodded, feeling happy. “Can I help you
guys?”

“Sure. Murph could probably use some help.”
He pointed to the guy up on the roof rafters.

“I was thinking something down low.” I
pointed at the ground, then examined his smile. “But you knew that,
huh?”
His grin grew. I glanced back at his friends.

He put his palm on the doorframe beside my
head. “Stop looking at them.”

I slid my arms around his neck. “The only
one I’m interested in has a dog with three legs, a tat on his back,
and knows his way around ginger.”

One dark eyebrow notched up. “You really
want that ginger.”

“Not at all,” I answered primly. “I just
appreciate spices.”

He tipped his head toward the construction.
“Babe, we’re going to be at this all day.”

My smile brightened. “Oh good.”

“You should go somewhere. Far away. Out of
eyesight.”

And that’s when I realized I was in
uncharted waters here. I had nothing to do today. Nothing pressing,
no must-dos or hurry-ups. I felt confused. What did you do with a
wide-open day?

“I could take Max for a walk,” I
suggested.

“Good idea. There’s a trail down by the
river.”

I nodded skeptically. “I was thinking maybe
a mall.”

Now he looked at me skeptically. “Dogs
aren’t allowed in malls. Anyhow, the river’s better.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a river. Also”—he leaned in
closer—“I can meet you there later.”

“Yeah?” I said, real casual, as if the words
didn’t get me hot.

“Yeah. Have your pants off. I’ll only have a
minute.”

“Mm.” I pondered this. “Well, that does
sound like fun, especially the part about one minute, but then,
there’s the showerhead, and it doesn’t involve sticks and dirt,
so…”

“You love dirty, Janey Mac,” he said,
pulling me up against him, and I got a little more hot down there.
“I can make you come just by talking dirty. But I can handle a
showerhead if that’s what you want.”

“Hm.” I sniffed. “Well, you’ll be down at
the river, and the shower’s up here, so I don’t see how it’ll
work.” I flashed a perky smile. “Anyhow, gotta go. Men need food.”
And I went inside to make breakfast.

I loved breakfast. Loved making it, loved
eating it, loved impressing people with my own special recipe
omelets.

I laid everything out on the counter when it
was ready, the omelets and a whole mess of fried onions and
potatoes, thick rashers of turkey bacon and, of course, the
bread.

They inhaled everything in approximately
five minutes and raved between bites, sometimes during them. It was
extremely satisfying.

Then they poured coffee and stood around
drinking it before heading back out to work, and even though they
were all now completely clothed, it was still nice. Really
nice.

Nice to sip my mocktail and listen in. Nice
to lean my elbows on the countertop and talk with Nick (who
everyone called Murph) about the benefits of coconut oil, and with
friendly, soul-patch Jason about fishing reels (Finn stayed by side
during that one), and handsome, high-strung Beck about investments.
Nice to smell their maleness and hear their friendliness and stand
around with these people who were in Finn’s life. Nice to be part
of something.

It struck me that it had been a while.

Such as, my whole life.

Maybe that’s what you did with a wide-open
day. You filled it with people and things to be part of.

Murph’s phone rang, and somehow that
signaled the end of the party. He went out front with his phone and
everyone else rinsed their dishes and tromped outside, smiling at
me as they went by, thanking me for breakfast.

Finn watched me as they passed.
Meet you
at the river?
he mouthed.

I shrugged and held up my palms like I
couldn’t understand.

But inside, I knew. Of course I’d meet him
at the river. Even though rivers scared me. Anything could happen
when a river’s rushing by you. But right now, all I felt was
excited, by the meet-up, by the unfamiliar wide-openness of the day
before me.

Murph came back in. “That was Banyon,
Dante,” he said as he dropped his phone into his tool belt.

Finn was taking a last drink of water at the
sink. He swallowed and looked over. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It looks like it’ll be Monday
morning, bright and early.
Bright
this time, brother.” He
clapped Finn on the shoulder as he went toward the side door that
led to the construction zone. “It’s going to be a long day.”

“Don’t you guys ever get tired of doing
construction?” I asked, squeezing a lemon into a glass of ice
water. “It must be tiring, doing it all week long, then here on the
weekend.”

Even though there were only three of us left
in the kitchen, the room fell sort of quiet at that.
Very
sort of quiet.

Murph looked at Finn. “It’s not too bad,” he
said vaguely.

Finn looked at Murph. Murph was still
looking at Finn.

I didn’t like all this looking.

My phone buzzed.

I turned to it. I didn’t think, I just
reached. When your phone buzzes or beeps or rings, you reach. It
meant someone needed you, some problem needing solving. And I’d
always been distracted by a problem to solve.

I should have seen there was a much larger
problem brewing right in front of me.

It was Katie the Caterer, with an offer. She
was working an outdoor wedding reception this morning similar to
the Peter J.’s and thought I could meet some of the local vendors,
see how they worked.

So much for my wide-open day.

She also wanted to try out one of my drink
recipes.

How could I refuse?

~ Finn ~

“SHE DOESN’T KNOW what you do?”

Murph and I lugged an ice-filled cooler down
the soft dirt path that led to the river, one of us on each side,
gripping a handle. We always broke work when the heat of midday hit
hard, climbing down off the rafters and heading to the river for a
dunk and a beer before everyone took off. Just relaxing.

Or would have been, if it weren’t for
Murph.

Murph was my best friend, for a lot of
reasons we don’t talk about. He was sharp and loyal and upbeat and
usually had a shitload of good ideas both for business, which made
him useful as well as good. And he was a pain in the ass a lot of
the time too.

“No,” I replied shortly, ducking beneath a
low-hanging branch. The soft dirt path wound under trees down to
the river. “She does not know.”

“Why the hell not?” Murph said.

“Because she doesn’t like pawn.”

“She might not like pawn, but she likes
you.”

“That might not be enough,” I said
curtly.

We reached our spot. A small oxbow cut out
here, around a spit of earth and a large boulder, creating a calm,
deep riverbed separate from the rest of the river, a perfect
swimming hole. The river was good too, if sometimes swift and cold.
A rope was tied to a tree on the opposite shore. Beck and Jason
were already crossing the log to it. The sun dappled the river bank
through the trees here, but upstream a ways and on the river
itself, it blazed out in full, hot force.

Murph dropped his cooler and started
unlacing his shoes. “So, what’s wrong with pawn?”

“She grew up knowing everything that was
wrong with it,” I told him, stripping off my shirt.

Murph kicked his boot off and looked up.
“Meaning?”

“Low-class trash, desperation, a way of
life.” In other words, the Dantes.

He shrugged. “So tell her it’s not like that
with us. Tell her we’re rich.”

“No,” I said grimly.

Our eyes met. “That’s stupid.”

“That’s me.”

“Sounds like you don’t trust her.”