Page 11 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Finley

He hadn’t meant to steal her away from the house, certainly not for this long, but Finley’s best intentions tended to fly out the window when pretty girls were involved.

“Watch your step,” he said, instinctively holding a hand out for Nicola as she traversed a treacherous slope. The rolling lawn had turned to birch and oak forest a few minutes ago, and her flat-bottomed boots weren’t made for serious hiking.

“Thanks,” Nicola said, grasping his hand with her warm, soft fingers. Finley’s stomach did a somersault. She smelled like daisies and pressed powder and spring rain, and when she grinned at him in triumph as she made it safely down the embankment, Finley wanted to die a little.

He was just showing a guest around the property, he reminded himself. He was doing Eileen a good turn by helping to entertain Nicola, therefore giving her some time to talk to Adam alone. There was nothing untoward about what was going on here.

He might almost believe it, if he repeated it enough.

They slowed as they came across a small cottage in the woods, hewn from the same gray stone as Craigmar and decorated with the same white trim.

Smoo and Smug lazed around in the fenced front garden, flanked by sprays of bright yellow daffodils.

Finley stole a glance at Nicola to gauge her reaction.

His home was modest, and it wasn’t exactly modern, but he kept it tidy, and he was proud to have it as his own.

Nicola stopped ten feet from the house, rooted to the spot with wide eyes.

Finley wanted to kick himself. She had liked the lamb, so he thought she would like the hounds.

But Adam had told him just yesterday that Nicola was afraid of dogs.

Why had he even decided to show her where he lived, like that was something that might interest her? Stupid, Finley.

“You really are afraid of them, aren’t you?” he asked. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Smoo yawned, exposing his teeth, which were probably as long as Nicola’s pinky finger.

“I was bit by a neighbor’s dog when I was five,” she said, tearing her eyes away from the dogs just long enough to glance at Finley. “I never really got over it.”

“I was going to bring them out walking with us, but I can leave them here instead,” Finley said. One of the dogs let out a whine, as if he was aware he was going to be left behind.

“Hush, Snug,” Finley chided. “That’s Snug there, with the one blind eye. The other one is Smoo.”

“Funny names for such big dogs.”

“Big babies, maybe. I raised them both on table scraps. They’re my best friends.”

“They must be very well trained, if you’ve had them so long.”

“They’re well-behaved when they want to be,” Finley said.

“Is this where you live?” Nicola asked, taking in the house now that she had moved past the shock of the dogs.

Finley just nodded, unsure of what else to say.

Would it be too much to invite her inside?

He wasn’t sure he wanted her seeing all his paperbacks and history books overflowing from the bookshelf and stacked on the floor, or the secondhand armchair he had dragged here from the charity shop, or the stereo he had inherited from his father set up in place of a television.

It might expose too much of him, tender parts he didn’t want anyone else to see.

“I like it,” she said, taking a few more wary steps forward. “It looks like it’s been well taken care of.”

Complimenting the care he had taken with power washing the stone and repainting the trim and weeding the front garden was probably the sweetest thing she could have said to him, but Nicola didn’t know that.

Finley did his best to tamp down the way his heart swelled.

She was just making pleasant conversation with a stranger, Finley reminded himself.

This is about Eileen. You’re only doing this as a favor to her.

“You know,” Nicola said, voice high and thin, “my therapist says I should take more risks. Maybe I could say hello to uh, Snug. And Smoo.”

Finley shot her a grin, incorrigible as a schoolboy.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nicola said, taking two more tiny steps forward.

She was almost at the gate now, which was still securely closed against the dogs inside the garden.

The wooden posts were high enough to prevent all but the most determined dog from hopping over the fence, as Finley had learned through trial and error.

Unless Smoo went chasing after a squirrel the dogs stayed behind the fence.

Finley let himself inside the garden and shut the gate securely behind him. Then he took a dog collar in each hand and held the beasts close at his side, talking in a low, firm voice.

“Hush now. Behave yourself in front of the lady, boys. You know how to say hello, don’t you?”

Nicola approached the fence very, very slowly, as though something might explode if she moved too quickly. Then she curled her fingers around the gate and peered at Snug, who tilted his head at her and grinned. His tail thumped against Finley’s leg in a friendly wag.

“How did he lose his eye?” she asked.

“Oh, he was born blind. We’ve all got our quirks, don’t we?”

With a slight tremor in her fingers, Nicola reached her hand over the fence and let it hover a few inches away from Snug’s snout. He snuffled at her palm curiously, but then he lapped at her fingers, as tender as could be.

Nicola let out a relieved, if nervous, laugh.

“Good boy, Snug,” Finley cooed. “Very nice and proper.”

Nicola was brave enough to let Snug lick her fingertips for a few more seconds before she withdrew her hand behind the safety of the fence.

“Very good,” Finley said, and this time it was directed at Nicola.

It was a trained instinct, to follow up adrenaline with praise, and it slipped out before he could catch himself.

Finley heard the command in it, the tone like he owned her, like she was his to teach and reward, and that made him want to shut himself inside the house in embarrassment until she left.

He absolutely should not be bossing around a guest, especially not when it made her blush as red as a strawberry.

“Want me to leave them here while we explore?” he said, bright and quick like a normal, sane, human person.

“Yes please,” Nicola said. “But thank you for introducing me to them. And for showing me your home.”

Finley patted Snug’s head, gave Smoo a scratch behind the ears, then slipped out through the gate and back onto Nicola’s side of the fence.

“It’s a house, for sure,” he said. “But Craigmar is my home. The woods, the beach, all of it.”

“You must know every inch of it, then.”

“I do. Better than the back of my hand.” He noted the position of the sun in the sky.

They had been out here a while, and there was still the walk back to the house to contend with.

They should really get going soon, before Eileen or Adam started asking any questions.

But time moved so fluidly out here, in the birch forest with Nicola smiling up at him, and Finley wanted to steal just a few moments more with her, if only for his own selfish pleasure. “Can I show you one more thing?”

“I’d love that,” she said, beaming bright.

It would be all too easy to lose his footing and fall right into the warmth of that smile, losing himself in her brightness.

Finley could already feel himself slipping.

Finley led Nicola up a rocky incline at the very furthest end of the lawn, climbing up and up until they reached his favorite outcropping, the one that jutted straight out over the sea.

Below, ocean waves crashed against shining black stones, an endless churn of foam and water.

Salt mist sprayed onto their faces. Nicola’s cheeks were bright pink with exertion and joy by the time they reached the top, and her hair was somehow even curlier than before from the damp air.

Outsiders never lasted long at Craigmar. The atmosphere was hostile to them, and they withered like foreign plants thrust deep into rocky Highland soil. But somehow, the further Nicola walked out into the wild with him, the more she bloomed.

“God,” she breathed, eyes eating up the horizon, “you can see for ever.”

“It’s where I like to come to think,” he said. “There’s no one out here to bother you. It’s just you and the sky and the ocean, alone together.”

“And what do you think about out here?” Nicola asked, half-teasing.

Finley’s heart snapped shut like a clamshell. He had said too much already. He needed to be more careful.

“Bit of everything,” he replied, carefully nonchalant as he refused to meet her eyes. There was too much at stake for him to run his mouth and ruin everything. He had his orders, and he knew his role. It was safest to stick to the script.

But then again, this hadn’t been exactly what he and Eileen had discussed, and Finley certainly hadn’t been counting on Nicola, on a total innocent with stars in her eyes.

Well, Finley thought as he caught Nicola giving him a hungry sidelong glance, maybe not a total innocent. But she didn’t sign up to be an actor in Eileen’s passion play.

“I appreciate you bringing me out here and showing me all these beautiful things,” she said, edging closer to him so their shoulders were nearly touching.

Finley hunched forward, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and tried not to notice how near she was.

“Especially since Adam and I just invited ourselves over. That’s not exactly polite. ”

A slender needle of guilt slipped between the armor-plating around Finley’s heart. It pierced the flesh beneath, drawing blood.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “Sometimes the best things in life are unexpected.”

He expected it to come out breezy, friendly, proverbial, but his damned earnest nature betrayed him. He heard the way he said it: too honest, too rough.

Finley turned to look at Nicola, and they were suddenly close, so very close.