Fin sat in the back, staring out the window. Trying to turn her crappy day around hadn’t gone as planned. How the hell had a simple welcome home dinner spiralled into such disaster?
After an eternity of strained silence, Jake pulled into the driveway of the cottage. Fin fumbled for the door handle in her haste to leave the car. Keys already in hand, she unlocked the front door, went straight for her room, and shut the door behind her. Once inside, she moaned a sigh of relief.
Using the mirror on the back of her wardrobe door, she plucked out some wipes and took her make up off. Within minutes she was changed into a tank top and panties and sliding her way into bed. Her phone buzzed a message from a Rachael. What happened with you and Ian? Did you break up?
I don’t know, she replied. He was pretty mad.
Her phone buzzed again. No shit. He threw a glass at you, Fin. I’m glad Ryan punched him.
Fin sighed as she tapped out a response. Is that what everyone thinks? He threw it at the cupboard, not at me.
I think you should break up with him, came Rachael’s response.
Should she? She always told herself she valued her independence and her work. Did she value Ian more? She wasn’t sure. Maybe if she made more of an effort this wouldn’t have happened.
Flipping onto her stomach, Fin pushed up on her elbows and tapped out a reply. He’s not to blame. I’m the one that keeps pushing him away.
Maybe you need to look at why, Rachael replied.
Shaking her head, Fin put her phone back on her bedside table. Lying back down, she cuddled her pillow. Ryan had always been the first one to defend her when they were growing up. That hadn’t changed. But neither had anything else.
Resolving to do everything in her power to move on, Fin reached for her phone again. She would ring Ian, and she would make an effort to be who he needed her to be.
A soft knock came at her door.
Before she could say anything, it opened slightly and Jake whispered, “It’s just me, Fin. Can I come in?”
Ignoring the irrational disappointment that it wasn’t Ryan at her door, she mumbled, “Sure,” and put the phone back on the table.
Fin rolled to her side as Jake climbed on her bed and stretched out on his back. He turned his head to look at her and sighed deeply. “What the f**k was that?”
She rubbed at her brow. “Things haven’t been going so well with Ian and me lately.” Jake raised his brows. “He wants us to move in together.”
“First of all—no f**king way. Second—how does that end up with him throwing a f**king glass at you?”
“Ian didn’t throw it at me,” she defended him. “He threw it at the cupboard behind me.”
“Why?”
Fin buried her head in the pillow, shifting her face slightly so she could breathe. “He thinks there’s something going on between Ryan and me,” she mumbled.
“Is there?” Jake frowned, his eyes searching her face in the soft darkness. “Because even if there was, that’s no excuse to throw a f**king glass at your face,” he growled.
“No!”
After a pause, Jake nodded and said, “I don’t like Ian. Maybe he used to be a nice guy, but I don’t like the way he treats you.”
“You don’t have to like him,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “I’m going to ring him in the morning and see if we can work this out. Ian and I … We have a lot of history.”
“So do you and Ryan.”
Fin’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jake rolled to his side and sat up, putting his feet over the edge of the bed. He looked at her over his shoulder. “You two have always been friends. I thought the Army would be good for him, and it is, but he’s not letting go, Fin. Maybe you’re the one who can help him do that.” Jake stood up and moved to the door.
“How can I possibly help him do that?”
Jake shrugged. “You could try being friends again.”
“But he’s the one who left!” she burst out. “Six years have gone by, Jake, and he didn’t contact me once.”
“Did you get in touch with him either?”
“He didn’t want me to,” she told him.
“Sometimes it’s not about what you want, but what you need.”
Jake opened her bedroom door and stepped out.
“Jake—”
“Night, honey.”
The next morning Fin hadn’t worked out what to say to Ryan so she left for work before both he and Jake were up. She tried ringing Ian when she arrived at her desk, but he didn’t answer. Keeping her head down, she worked solidly through the day, and when she got home later that night only Jake was at home.
She tossed her keys and files on the desk in her room and met Jake in the kitchen. “Where’s Ryan?”
“Training exercise,” he replied, stirring something on the stove.
“Oh? I thought you both had time off.”
“We do.”
So Ryan and Ian were both avoiding her. Great. “You cooking me dinner?”
Jake turned around, pointing the spoon at her. “I am, and you’re gonna like it this time or you’ll be wearing it.”
“Just like the last time you cooked and I wore your pasta all down my favourite shirt?”
He grinned. “You shouldn’t have complained that it tasted like shit.”
Fin poked her tongue out. “It did taste like shit.”
“Interesting.”
“What is?”
Jake smirked. “That you know what shit tastes like.”
Fin gagged a little and he laughed. “Don’t be gross.”
“You said it, not me.”
She walked over to the stove and peered into the saucepan. It looked like some kind of red sauce with odd shaped lumps of meat. “What is that anyway?”
Jake stuck the spoon back in the pan, and sauce splattered up the tiles as he gave it a messy stir. “Go away or I won’t cook anymore.”
She grinned. “Is that a threat or a promise?”
Jake swiped at her with the tea towel, and she danced out of his reach. “Go. Get out of my kitchen!”
It wasn’t until three nights later, with Ryan yet to return from his exercise, that Ian called her back.
“Fin,” he muttered when she answered the phone.
Fin put her head in her hand. “Ian. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” After a pause, he said, “We need to talk.”
“I know,” she agreed softly.
“My place?” Ian shared an apartment closer to the city with his co-worker, Evan. “Evan’s not here,” he added.
“Okay. I’ll be over soon,” she promised.
After hanging up, Fin changed out of her work clothes and into a pair of petite tailored shorts and the pretty pink knitted top that Ian had once said looked good on her. Grabbing her keys and sandals from the wardrobe, she called out, “Jake? I’m going out.”
“Where?” he yelled from his sprawled position on the couch.
She opened the front door and over her shoulder said, “Ian’s place.”
He started to get up. “Fin, you can’t—”
She shut the door quickly behind her. As much as she loved her brother, he needed to realise that Ian would never hurt her.
Arriving at his apartment, she knocked softly on the door. Ian opened it, his shuttered eyes roaming the length of her before he stepped aside.
“Come in.”
“Thanks,” she murmured.
She set her bag on the dining table and walked into the living room, sitting down on the wide, navy leather couch.
He scratched at the back of his head. “Drink?”
Fin nodded. “Please.”
After a moment he came out of the kitchen with a wine for her and a beer for himself and sat down beside her.
“So dinner was a bit of a fail,” he said, looking at her.
She nodded at that understatement. “I’m sorry, Ian. It got out of hand very quickly, and ended badly.”
Ian sighed deeply. “I’m not sure where we go from here, Fin. You’ve resisted me every step of the way. Maybe it’s time I cut you loose.”
“Cut me loose? What am I? A horse?” She set her wine on the glass coffee table with an angry clatter.
“Christ.” He ran a hand through his hair. “If you don’t want me, just say so. Stop dragging this out. I’m over it. I’m over …”
“Over me?”
His blue eyes searched her face. “I don’t think I ever really had you. Not all of you. There’s always been something missing.”
“Is this about work?”
“Part of it,” he conceded. “You’re always working. Always away on some excursion or some research expedition. What do you want from me, Fin? To sit around and wait for you for another six months?”
“Six months isn’t that long!” she burst out.
“But that’s what you said last time. And when you’re back, then what? You’re off to wherever to start on your thesis. Where do I fit in with all of that?”
Fin picked at the hem of her shorts. “I’m not ready to settle down. We’re both so young. We’ve got our whole lives ahead of us to do all that stuff.”
After a deep swallow of his drink, Ian set it down next to her wine. “Come here.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him. Fin shifted on the couch until she was straddling his lap, and his hands came around to rest on her ass, his thumbs hooking into the waistband of her shorts.
“What do we do?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
Resignation swept across Ian’s face and he closed his eyes. “I’ll wait. Six months, Fin. You come back and we’ll see how we feel then.” He opened his eyes. “You told me you loved me.”
“I did,” she whispered.
Ian leaned in, his lips a breath away from hers. “Then show me.”
It was after midnight when Ryan let himself through the front door of the little cottage. Seeing both Fin and Jake’s doors closed, he shuffled quietly down the hallway and tossed his bag on the bed. In the bathroom, he peeled off his army fatigues and stood under a hot shower.
Resting both hands against the cool tiles, he bent his head, letting the steaming water pound over his neck and back.
He’d had a shitload of rage to work out of his system. The training exercise couldn’t have come along at a better time. Ryan always, always, had control of his emotions, except when it came to Fin.
Every day he trained—how to crash a car properly, using explosives, climbing, roping, diving, parachuting, tracking. He could speak three different languages. He was taught how to save lives and taught how to kill at the same time. He could take a man out, quickly and silently, with his bare hands. He learned how to lock his emotions down, but when it came to Fin, none of it mattered. Seeing Ian get violent towards her had him losing control in a split-second.
Dead on his feet, he switched the shower off and stepped out, towelling himself dry half-heartedly. Tugging on a pair of sweatpants, he wandered into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and reached for a beer.