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After slipping one hand out of hers, he offered her his arm, and said, “I’d go anywhere with you, princess.”

Edith felt like a princess on his arm, and she didn’t look back though Alex said something under his breath. She couldn’t wait until he started seeing someone, and then she could tease him.

But for tonight, she wanted to enjoy her alone-time with Finn—and she had to find the right words to tell him about Levi.

Chapter Nine

Finn had learned to take life one day at a time. When he’d decided to retire from the Army, he’d deliberately made no plans other than returning to Three Rivers. For a couple of weeks there, he’d even debated doing that.

“But in the end,” he said as he shook out the last of his potato chips. “I had to come home. I don’t think my momma would’ve forgiven me if I hadn’t.” He smiled at Edith, who hadn’t seemed nervous on the way over to his grandma’s house.

He hadn’t even taken her inside to introduce them. Grandma Armstrong had set everything out on the picnic table in the backyard, where they currently sat in the shade, a nice breeze keeping them comfortable.

There had been no flooding here, as Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong lived in a suburb on a little swell of land, and all the water had stayed at the lower elevations. Even a foot or two made such a huge difference.

“So.” He ground his voice through his throat, because he’d done most of the talking already tonight. “You said you’d tell me why you came back to Three Rivers after I told you why I did.”

“So you came so your parents wouldn’t be upset.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Are you going to stay?”

He gave her a smile that felt a little false on his face. “Right now, I’m exploring options.” If that didn’t tell her he had no idea what next week or next month or next year would bring, Finn didn’t know what would. He also hated not having at least a skeleton plan for what he was doing in his life.

“You sure seemed to like living back East,” he said. “You had a good job. Your publisher was there. Why would you come back to the barren Texas Panhandle to work a ranch with Alex?”

“We’ve always gotten along really well,” Edith said, her back straightening. It shot a hint of lightning through Finn, and not in a good way.

“You’re dodging this,” he said. “Why can’t you just tell me why you came back?”

She blinked at him, and he realized he’d used his military intelligence voice. “I’m right,” he said, looking away. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“I just don’t know how you’re going to take it.”

“Then you better give it to me, so I can take it.” He glanced at her and quickly looked away when he found her eyes down on her hands as she picked at her nails. That wasn’t a good sign, as he’d seen her do that when she was nervous. Still, he liked knowing that some of her tells were the same.

Edith Baxter was still in there, even if she’d had a decade of experiences he needed to catch up on.

“I was living in Long Island,” she said. “Then the city, as I took some classes, worked at Glory Publications, and wrote my books.”

“Mm.”

“I—I—Finn, can you let me just say everything, and then we can talk about it?”

He looked at her again, and he could tell this ask was very important to Edith. “Okay,” he said.

“I might cry,” she said, and she sniffled and wiped at her eyes already. “It’s fine. I’m fine, okay? It’s just—sometimes I cry when I talk about this.”

“Can I come sit by you and hold your hand?”

“Would you, please?”

Finn got up and rounded the picnic table. They both faced away from the house now, and he used to be able to see out into the wilds of Texas from this vantage point in his grandma’s backyard. But new houses had gone up, and now he saw fences and other yards in the distance. Still, it was a quiet neighborhood, with nothing to distract them and no one to overhear what they said.

He took her hand in both of his, effectively quieting her nervous nail-picking habit as he hoped to infuse her with some semblance of comfort. “Whatever it is, it’ll be fine,” he said. “I can’t promise to react well, but once I know, then I can—at least I’ll know.”

“Right,” she said. She drew in a long breath, held it, and started her story as the air left her lungs. “I met someone at work. His name was Levi Kingsley.”