Page 28

It’s when not a single person follows her into that barn that he starts to think he might have gotten something very, very wrong.

It’s on the drive to the emergency room that he silently vows to make it right.

“This isn’t the way back to the ranch.”

One hand on the steering wheel and the other propped lazily on the center console between us, Finn nods. “I know.”

“Where’re we going?”

“I’m hungry,” he says like that answers anything.

I blink. “Okay?”

“There’s a really good Korean barbecue place nearby.” He glances at me as we roll up to a red light, ducking in what I assume is an attempt to gauge the expression half-hidden by the brim of my cap. “Let’s go.”

“Why would we do that?”

“To eat,” Finn mouths slowly, sarcastically . “Because I’m hungry.”

I don’t get it. He just spent hours in an emergency room waiting for a doctor to do a bunch of tests only to essentially slap a couple of BandAids on my owies and send me on my way, and he wants to…

spend more time with me? Share a meal with me?

A day ago, he was ignoring me. This morning—God, I can’t believe that was only this morning—I was mad at him.

I was resolute that I wasn’t interested in anything he had to say, in anything about him.

And yet the best excuse I can come up with? “I don’t have any money.”

Finn lifts a nonchalant shoulder. “My treat.”

I wonder if he can hear the alarm bells that go off in my head. Because in my mind? My treat equals date . Ironic, really, considering I can’t remember the last time anyone I dated bought me anything.

Come to think of it, I can’t really remember the last time I dated. Because I don’t date. A fact everyone who knows me knows, except for Finn, evidently. “Listen, I know you’ve got some kind of a crush on me now or something—”

The fingers dangling dangerously close to my upper thigh flex.

“But I’m not interested.”

Finn purses his lips thoughtfully. “No?”

“Nope.”

“Really?”

“Not even a little.” Well, that’s going kind of overboard. I do have eyes, after all. And a libido. But finding him stupid hot does not equate to daydreaming about lunch dates and frolicking through a field holding fucking hands.

“Damn.” Finn drums his fingers against the steering wheel, thinking for a second before he faces forward again, rolling his truck past the traffic lights as they turn green. “So Korean barbecue or do you have a better suggestion?”

“Did you not hear me?”

“Oh, I heard you, honey. And now I gotta bury my hurt feelings in some bulgogi.” A millisecond of a pause later, his face splits with a grin. “Kidding. I wasn’t trying to take you on a date. I’m just hungry.”

Oh . “Oh.”

“Good to know you find the idea so revolting, though.”

Revolted . I snort. How dramatic. “I would say mildly perturbed.

“Big word,” he teases before huffing a haughty noise. “You’re not exactly date material right now either.”

“Are you saying I look like shit?”

The sideways look he casts my way, a long brush of dark eyes up and down the length of me, from the tips of my boots to my overgrown roots, makes me squirm. “You could use a shower.”

I whack the forearm closest to me and grumble for him to shut up, but I guess I never really say no to the lunch thing because ten minutes later, we pull up outside a restaurant.

“Listen,” Finn starts as he shuts off the engine and twists to face me. “If you really don’t wanna or if you’re in pain, that’s fine. I’ll get takeout. But if not…”

If not, we can go inside. Eat together. He’ll buy me lunch for no reason other than I fled the ranch so quickly, I didn’t even think to stop and grab my wallet.

The ranch that, if I brush him off, I’ll have to go back to.

I’ll have to see my siblings, face their wrath—or worse, their disappointment.

And the thought of that alone is what has me unclicking my seatbelt. “Fine. But be warned, I’m a three beverage minimum kind of girl.”

That ever-present smile hikes up to dizzying levels of brightness and there’s a moment, a single, blinding moment where I mentally snicker at the me from ten minutes ago who insisted I wasn’t interested.

And then I wonder when the last time Finn looked in a mirror was because he believed me? Seriously ?

“Wait here,” he commands slyly as he unbuckles himself and exits the truck. “I gotta check if the ceilings are high enough to fit that ego of yours.”

The slamming of his door cuts off my outraged scoff—some might even call it a laugh —but I make sure he sees my middle fingers through the windshield as he jogs around the hood.

“I can get out by myself,” I insist as he opens my door for me, rolling my eyes at the unnecessary helping hand he extends. “I got the all-clear, remember?”

“ Allegedly .” His lips thin, eyes narrowing, one brow cocked. “I still haven’t decided if I believe you.”

“Ouch,” I drawl playfully as I bat his hand away. “Your distrust stings.”

“You’ve been walking around on a broken ankle—”

“It was never broken .”

“—for two weeks. I think a doctor could’ve told you you snapped your spine in half and you still would’ve strut out of there, insisting you’re fine.”

I poke my tongue against the inside of my cheek as I decide how I feel about that admittedly kind of spot-on evaluation. “Yeah, well, he didn’t.”

He did, however, make all kinds of huffy noises and pinched faces as he twisted and prodded at my ankle before wrapping it up and commanding me to stay off it—advice I’m definitely not going to take because it’s not that serious. It’s not a broken back. My back is just fine.

If you ignore the hoof-shaped bruise smack between my shoulder blades.

I got lucky, that’s what the doctor told me.

That’s what I told Finn. That’s what I tell him again yet still, he hovers like a fussing mother hen as I lower myself from his precious baby monster truck and hobble the short journey to the front door he holds open and ushers me through with a dramatic swoop.

I’m mid-twist to make sure he catches my second eye-roll in as many minutes when he suddenly bellows, “ Joy .”

Frowning as I follow his line of sight, I quickly figure out that Joy is the pretty, raven-haired girl abandoning the hostess stand in favor of swanning our way.

And hugging Finn.

Like hugging Finn. Not a friendly, oh hey there, buddy sideways hug, but a full-on frontal embrace that makes me feel like the biggest dumbass in the world for accusing Finn of trying to take me out.

“I didn’t know you were coming in today,” she says—because whatever relationship these two have, and I have a pretty good idea what that might be, it’s evidently the type where she knows his whereabouts. “This is a nice surprise.”

I’m not sure what kind of a response I’m expecting from Finn, but a half-smile and an even, “My usual table okay?” is not it.

Joy, on the other hand, is unperturbed. She guides us to what I assume is Finn’s usual table, the two of them walking a couple of steps ahead while I slope behind, eyeing their closeness curiously.

“Your usual?” she asks as we slide into a booth, not bothering with menus—not bothering to address me either. Which is set to become a running theme, apparently, because Finn doesn’t consult me before nodding.

He does, however, add a handful of drinks I’ve never heard of to the order.

Not long after she scurries away, I learn it’s not just Joy that Finn knows.

It’s the waitress who swings by to drop off waters.

A busboy walks past and calls a familiar greeting.

This place has one of those open kitchen concepts, and I spot a man in an apron waving at the man opposite me, reminding me that he’s one of those people.

A chronically liked person. Someone who makes friends wherever he goes, and with ease too, and who remembers the names of multiple staff members—of everyone he’s ever met, probably.

“What’s that look for?”

I replace whatever look he’s talking about with a blank slate.

“I’m just trying to figure out when the fuck you have time to come here so often.

” That’s the half-truth, at least—I just omit the part about whether or not he’s banging the pretty girl currently staring at me like she wants to shove the pen she repeatedly taps against her little podium through my eardrum. “Your girlfriend’s pretty.”

Subtle , I internally chastise myself.

Subtle , the upward quirk of his mouth teases. “Not my girlfriend.”

“No?”

He shakes his head.

Does she know that? “She seems nice.”

Unwrapping a couple of straws, he drops them into two glasses of water before pushing one across the table to me. “She is.”

“You seem like the type to like nice girls.”

“Yet you thought I was asking you out.”

Ouch . But touché. “She likes you.”

He shrugs like he knew that already.

“If I’m, like, some kind of a pawn—”

“A pawn ?”

“—to make it clear you’re not interested—”

“If I was planning on doing that, I probably would’ve brought someone who isn’t repulsed by me.”

Repulsed . Jesus Christ. “You really need me to tell you you’re pretty, cowboy?”

“Nah.” Again, Finn shrugs, slouching with one arm strewn across the back of the booth, wearing a cocky-as-shit smirk. “I know I am.”

Before I can come up with an adequate response to that, we’re interrupted by the waitress swinging by again and dropping off a whole tray of drinks, two of everything, half of which Finn pushes my way.

He tells me what they are, he tells me which ones he likes, he tells me which ones he thinks I’ll like, as if he could know.

And all the while, I barely listen. I stare at the condensation dripping down the sides of the glasses, and when my hands start to shake, I knot them together in my lap. “Is there alcohol in these?”

When Finn shakes his head, I can’t tell if my shoulders slump from disappointment or relief—the former, I think, I know , if I’m being honest.

Irritation makes me itch. Because it feels like a tease, because I got my hopes up, because I fucking hoped in the first place.