Understanding dawned and the tension left his face. “Are you serious?”
Her chin trembled. “Yes.”
“But you said you weren’t sure.”
And she might never be. Crossing the last few inches that separated them, she hugged his waist and pressed her ear to his steadily beating heart. His arms naturally closed around her.
“Love me like the stars love the sky, Finnegan. Show me what that feels like.”
He lifted her chin until her stare met his, then he held her in his sights for several painful seconds. She feared he’d see her truth, see all the ugliness swirling inside of her, and reject her for being a scared liar.
She was scared to be with him, but never afraid of him. He was Finn, her safe place. “I need you, Finn,” she said truthfully. “Right now.”
When he kissed her, it seemed as though her feet left the ground. His emotions were palpable. Finnegan McCullough never did anything halfway. He led her into his home and up the wooden steps to his bedroom. The house was oddly quiet and the silence made her shiver as he stripped away her clothes.
He touched her gently, respectfully, and as if he’d touched others this way before. She frowned, wondering if he had, and a sharp bite of jealousy snapped down on her heart. Finn was hers. She didn’t want anyone else touching him this way.
Her mind was so tightly twisted in knots. She tried to unwind her tension but could never completely let go of it. Every caress caused a physical response, and she made the expected sounds, but she couldn’t fake the intimacy, she couldn’t mirror his openness and trust.
“What happened?” His fingers trailed over a yellowed bruise on her back and her spine arched, drawing her body away from his touch.
“Nothing.”
“Did you fall?”
He knew she didn’t fall, but he sometimes asked stupid questions like that so he could sleep at night and not worry about her.
A vision of her dad hurling his heavy ashtray at her flashed in her mind and the ache in her back throbbed anew. “Yeah, I fell.”
She guided his touch back to her chest and pressed her lips to his. No more talking.
She’d heard of girls crying when they lost their virginity, mostly because of the physical pain. Erin didn’t feel any of that, but she did cry.
When Finn held her more tenderly than anyone ever had, an ache formed in her heart and something shattered inside of her. The pain traveled to her throat, suffocating and tight, constricting until tears burned her eyes. And when he looked into her eyes and whispered, “I love you,” she understood how deeply something was broken inside of her because she didn’t have a clue how to love him back.
Eventually, like everyone else she cared for, Finn would leave her, and her life would be as bleak and dark as a sky without stars.
CHAPTER 2
Present Day
“It’s going to be a few more minutes. The doctor just called it in.”
Erin rolled her eyes and turned away from the pharmacist’s counter. “It’s the same prescription he’s taken for years,” she grumbled under her breath. How hard was it to put a call in to the town doctor? There was only one.
Small children chattered in the nearby aisle. One especially shrill voice called repeatedly for “Daddy” and squealed over a pair of ladybug galoshes.
“Maeve, put them back. You have boots at home.”
Erin’s shoulder’s stiffened and she pivoted to face the pharmacist counter again, snatching a magazine off the rack and bringing it to her face. There was only one child named Maeve in Jasper Falls, and she belonged to the one man she didn’t need to see.
“Excuse me, do you know where the children’s liquid cold syrup is? You only have the tablets on the shelf.”
Erin shut her eyes as he approached the counter.
“Try the endcap on aisle four,” the pharmacist said.
“Thanks.” She could feel the moment he set eyes on her. “Do you always read magazines with your eyes closed?”
Looking up at his familiar blue eyes, she forced a smile. “Finnegan, how are you?”
“Same old, same old. One kid’s got a cold, the others are coming down with sniffles, a blizzard’s on its way, and the town’s fresh out of salt, shovels, and bread. Just another winter day in Jasper Falls.”
She glanced down at the rosy-nosed little boy clinging to his side. Finn’s hand casually stroked his strawberry-blond hair with such natural affection her heart ached. Her parents never touched her in such a way.
“How’s Mallory?”
“She’s great. How about you? I heard you’re working at the hardware store now. Got any shovels over there?”
She blinked at his casual small talk. Had their friendship ended so long ago that he could somehow forget how toxic her home life was? Or had she truly hidden the truth from him that well?