Lured In (4 page)

“Thought it was already sorted out. Sam'll take the empty guest room upstairs, and his crew can use the two empty A-frames out back.”

“Right.” Liam nodded. “But once word gets out that he's coming here, we're going to have people looking for rooms that week, so if we move Sam and his crew to the empty bedrooms downstairs, that'll free up both of the extra A-frames plus the guest room.”

“No.” It was out of Finn's mouth before Liam even finished talking, and then he had to scramble to come up with a good reason. “Downstairs is for family only.”

“I'm down there,” Jess said, as though it was some kind of surprise to him. As though he hadn't spent the last couple of weeks trying to avoid the hallway when she was wandering around in her pajamas.

That same damn hallway that had started to taunt him every night, daring him to leave his room and go down to hers. To open her door and—

No
.

“The A-frames are supposed to be for employees, not guests.” He knew he sounded stupid, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.

“Yeah,” Liam scoffed. “Except Kate and Olivia are the only ones using them, so we have two perfectly good buildings sitting empty. We haven't needed extra rooms so far, but why not put them to use if we can, make a little more money?”

“Liam has no need of his room downstairs,” Kate said, grinning up at him. “And with Ro gone, that frees up his room, too. We can easily put Sam and his two crew members down there. Those rooms are plenty big enough.”

“Or…” Finn's brain finally latched on to something. “You and Liam could move into his room downstairs, and Olivia could move into Ro's, and then—”

“No.” Kate and Olivia, in stereo.

“What?” He gaped. “Why not?”

“Because.” Kate blinked away from him, then lifted her chin and laughed. “I prefer having more than just a couple sheets of drywall between your bedroom and ours, if you don't mind.”

“Damn right,” Liam muttered.

“It's a couple of days,” Finn cried. “Surely to God you two can ease up on the wall-banging sex for a couple of days!”

Snickering, Olivia shook her head. “Sorry, Finn. I'm with them on this. As much as I like all of you,” she said, wincing slightly, “at the end of the day, I really like getting away from you, too.”

“Don't be sorry.” Jess laughed. “It was one of the first things I warned Kate about when she arrived; we all need our space and there's not much of that to be had around here, so you need to take it wherever you can.”

Why wasn't anyone listening to Finn?

“It's not like you'd be staying in the lodge forever,” he growled. “You can move back to the A-frames as soon as the
Hooked
people leave. What's the big deal?”

“The bedrooms downstairs are pretty much empty.” Liam's casual shrug was almost enough to make Finn want to punch him. “So it's just easier to move them in down there instead of switching us all around.”

Easier for whom? It sure as hell wasn't going to be easy for Finn, knowing that those thin sheets of drywall Kate mentioned would be the only thing separating Sam from Jess. They might not be together at the moment, but Finn wasn't stupid. There wasn't a woman alive who didn't think Sam Ross was the hottest thing going, and a guy would have to be a complete idiot to not want to be with Jess.

So, yeah, Finn wanted a hell of a lot more than drywall between them—like, how about staircases and different floors? How about a couple of hundred meters of lawn, with the very real possibility of a bear attack? Yeah, that'd be more like it.

“Wait,” he said. “Ro's coming home for this, so he's going to need somewhere to sleep.”

“He can bunk with you.” Liam took a short sip of his Guinness, then lifted his free hand. “Come on, Finn, you said it yourself—it's a couple of days. It's not like they're staying forever.”

Well…shit
.

How the hell was he supposed to argue against his own damn point? He couldn't.

If Jess and Sam were going to hook up again—something Finn definitely couldn't rule out after hearing Kate and Olivia snickering about it in the kitchen—then…
ugh
…maybe Finn would go sleep on one of the boats.

Unless…

Jess didn't seem all that excited when she found out Sam was coming to the Buoys, so maybe she wasn't keen on him sleeping in the family quarters, so close to her.

“What do you think about it?” he asked, tipping his chin in her direction. “Are you okay with having them down there?”

“Yeah.” She half-choked, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on her glass. “It's fine.”

Didn't sound fine to Finn, and thankfully it must not have sounded fine to Liam or Kate, either.

“We won't do it if you're not a hundred percent on this,” Kate said. “We don't want it to be awkward for you.”

“No, really, it's fine.” She gave them one of those dismissive-type waves. “It's just…you know…kind of weird that he's going to be here, is all.”

“Atta girl,” Olivia cheered, grinning as she winked. “I bet he'd be happy to bunk with you if you asked, and that'd free up a whole 'nother room!”

Jess's only response to that was a lackluster grin, not even half the size of Olivia's, and a shrug. Then she downed the rest of her brew and pushed to her feet.

“Enough of this. Drink up; we've got work to do.”

They all grumbled quietly but didn't waste time finishing their drinks and heading off in different directions. Olivia went straight to the kitchen, the one place at the Buoys where she ruled above all else, while Jess disappeared into the tiny back office to take care of the previous week's bookwork.

As they did every week, Liam, Kate, and Finn rotated through the work that needed doing, which meant it was Finn's turn to clean the three cabins that lined the cove. He would have preferred doing boat and dock maintenance, but there was no way Kate would trade, so he armed himself with the eco-friendly solutions Jess put together and headed down to Green cabin.

He didn't mind cleaning, he just hated being trapped inside; it made it harder for him to think when he was confined. Outside, the salty ocean air and the cleansing effect of the wind and rain helped shake any fog or worries out of his head, and he really could have used that today.

Instead, he was stuck inside, scrubbing away all traces of the last guests. He'd grown up cleaning these cabins and had never thought anything of it until Jess made him watch a clip about what scientists found in hotel rooms, and ever since then he'd started taking a few more precautions: elbow-length rubber gloves, a thick heavy-duty apron, and a blue-trimmed scuba mask.

He didn't want to know what people did in the cabins or up in the guest rooms, but he was going to make damn good and sure there wasn't a single speck of their DNA left behind.

With the bedding and towels heaped in a pile on the covered porch, he started in the bathroom and worked his way through the rest of the cabin until it damn near sparkled.

Outside, he lifted his mask up so it rested on his forehead and inhaled a long, deep lungful of fresh air.

One cabin down, two to go.

He didn't have to look to know that the sound of boots scuffing on the grass was Jess heading his way. In all the years she'd worked for them, she'd never owned her own pair of gum boots but had simply made do with whatever pair happened to be sitting at the door when she needed them. And even before he turned to look at her, he knew she'd probably be wearing a jacket that was four sizes too big for her, too.

Yup. Da's old gray raincoat hung almost to her knees, and the sleeves were so long it looked as though she didn't have any hands. The damn thing had to be at least twenty years old, but it had always been one of her favorites.

“Ashley!” Blondie's name flew off his tongue before it even fully registered in his brain. That was the name of the chick from school. “Ashley Poplawski.”

“Uh, no,” Jess said, smirking up at him from the bottom step. “Sorry to disappoint you, it's still just me.”

Idiot
.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I've been trying to think of this girl's name since—who cares; doesn't matter. What's up?”

“K, first of all, nice outfit.”

With a slow chuckle, he tugged the mask off his head, tossed it and his gloves over by the cleaning supplies, then ran his fingers straight back through his hair.

Jess's smirk faded slowly as she tipped her face up a little. “You got a second?”

Just ignore the raindrop on her bottom lip. It's not sexy. It's not!

Right. Just like it wasn't even a little bit sexy how her tongue slipped out and licked the damn drop away.

Blinking hard, Finn cleared his throat and nodded. “ 'Course.”

“I, uh…” She looked down, scraped the toe of her boot along the ground, then huffed out a sigh. “I was wondering if, um…if I…I mean, if you—”

Finn walked down the two steps, took her by the sleeve, and tugged her up onto the porch out of the rain.

“I've never seen you have this much trouble spitting something out before.” He grinned at her, but she was too busy looking down to notice. “Okay, seriously, Jess, you're starting to freak me out.”

Even with her head down like that, he could see the way her mouth started to curl into a smile, but when she finally looked up at him, she still seemed to be struggling.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “What's up?”

She inhaled a long deep breath, then chewed her bottom lip for a second (
not sexy, not sexy, not sexy
) before nodding.

“Okay. I was wondering if I could ask you a favor.”

“That's it?” He waited a second, fully expecting there to be more. There wasn't. “Jesus, Jess. Of course. Whatever it is, yes.”

“It's big.”

“Okay.”

“No, it's really big,” she said, her usually steady voice wobbling slightly. “So if you don't want to do it, I totally understand. Don't feel you have to do it just because you've already said yes.”

“Jess.”

“I mean it, Finn. It's going to suck up a lot of your time and no doubt all of your patience and then some.” She was already stepping back, her foot reaching blindly for the first step as she spoke. “You know what, forget it. I'll…I'll figure it out.”

“Jess.”

She stopped moving, her foot hovering in empty air above the step.

“Just tell me what it is,” he said. “You must've thought I could help, so let me do it.”

“It's not you I'm worried about,” she muttered, turning her face down and away from him. “I don't know if
I
can do it. I thought I could, right up until I opened my mouth a minute ago, but now I'm…I don't know.”

“Seriously?” He leaned against the railing and chuckled. “Out of everyone here, you're the one who can do everything, Jess; God knows you've proven that more times than either of us can count.”

It took a couple of seconds, but finally she looked back at him, her brow raised, her mouth twisted to the side.

“Not everything.”

A second—no, a fraction of a second was all it took for those two words to register in Finn's brain. There was only one thing he knew of that she'd never been able to do.

“Holy shit,” he croaked, shoving off the rail and reaching for her arm to keep her from backing up again. “D'you mean…You wanna…Seriously? Yes! Absolutely yes!”

“But—”

“No. No buts.” He started to pull her up farther onto the porch, then stopped for fear his excitement would scare her off. “You can totally do this, Jess. And I'm…”

He trailed off as the weight of what she was asking hit him square in the chest.

“You're what?”

“I'm, uh…
wow
.”

It was his turn to take a step back, and as he did, he laced his fingers behind his head and blew out a low breath. She could have asked anyone, but she'd come to him. After all these years of living with whatever terror had kept her out of the water, a terror she'd never shared with any of them, she'd chosen
him
to help her through it.

That was…yeah, that was a hell of a
wow
.

“I feel stupid saying it,” he muttered. “But, shit, Jess, I'm honored you asked.”

A flash of something—panic maybe—streaked through her eyes. “Well it's just that Ro's gone and Liam's shoulder's all screwed up still, so…”

“Oh.” The gust of pride that had ballooned through him three seconds ago popped and died as fast as it started. She hadn't chosen him specifically; he was her only choice. “Right, okay.”

“No, no,” she cried, reaching for his arm. “I didn't mean it to sound like you were my last resort.”

“It's okay.”

“No,” she repeated, stronger this time. “I just—I don't know why I said that. I'm still kind of freaking out over the whole thing.”

Did it matter why she'd said it? Sure, it was another blow to his ego, but that didn't matter, because it wasn't about him or either of his brothers. It was about helping Jess work through her fear, and Finn didn't give a shit why she'd asked him; he was just happy she did.

So before his stupid pride made her change her mind, he forced a grin as he shot her a quick wink.

“Don't sweat it. When d'you want to start?”

“Soon,” she said. “Before I talk myself out of it again. But I don't want to make a big deal about this in case I really can't do it, so if you could keep it between us, that'd be great.”

“ 'Course. Yeah. Sure.” Keeping it a secret wasn't going to be easy, given the close proximity they all lived in, but if that's what she wanted, Finn would do everything he could to keep it on the down-low. “Why don't we meet tonight at the north-trail lake? Eight o'clock?”