Page 20 of The Valiant Knight (The Ravensmire Chronicles #2)

Kitchen

Private Talk

Ravensmire

A rriving in the kitchen, Bark Twain was following at his heels. When he saw Graham behind the counter, he was looking off. Now, Finn was concerned. His friend was struggling with something.

It was time to find out what.

“Hey, are you good?” he asked. “You look all worked up, Laddie.”

He laughed.

He was anything but good. Again, watching people find their other halves was wearing him down. Only, how did he say that?

Graham wouldn’t, so instead, he lied his ass off.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he said, changing the subject. “I was just here with Gabby. She sat with the doctor, and he cleared her. You did a good thing saving her.”

Oh, well, he believed he’d saved her for himself, so he was no one’s valiant knight on this one.

It was done with intent.

“I’m glad she’s good. Did she head off to play with old bones with Tony?”

He nodded.

“She looked better. Is she okay after her dip in the lake?”

Finn knew she was okay after going into the lake, but he was the one struggling.

And he needed to talk.

“I think I’m in love with her, and I’m falling apart inside,” he admitted, keeping his voice low.

Well, that was interesting.

“I want to sleep with her in the worst way, but I’m torn. I don’t do random bedhops, Graham. That’s not me. I’m a monogamous kind of a guy, and I don’t think I can handle being with her and watching her walk away. Worse, if she asks for a long-distance relationship.”

Yeah, he knew his friend was a mess after Rosie left. She didn’t just steal his cat, but she took his masculinity and kicked it around too as she headed to the airport.

“Well, what do you think you should do?” he asked, pretty sure the man could figure it out for himself.

Finn sat.

“I think I should go home, stay there, and stop tormenting myself. She’s a doctor, Graham. She’s a hacker for the US government. She’s not giving that up. Not for me, anyway.”

Graham leaned on the counter and gave him some advice.

For him, it was turning out to be always the bridesmaid, and NEVER the bride.

And that sucked.

“Why can’t you follow her?” he asked. “You’re a cop, and if it works out, she would likely be okay with you trying to find a job there.”

He was honest.

“I can’t leave here. My parents are elderly. I’m the baby and have sisters. Who do you think they call when they need help? I’m torn.”

Well, that was a problem.

Graham tried to help him.

“I said the same thing once,” he admitted. “I let the love of my life leave, and I’ve regretted it. Why don’t you have some fun, and worry about the outcome later? What if you guys have sex and it’s bad?”

He stared at him.

“Bad? My dude, there is no way it could be bad. She’s gorgeous and her body…”

He laughed.

“Not that you’d notice.”

Graham had news for him.

“I can find the opposite sex attractive. I just can’t get down and dirty with them. Women don’t get me hard. Men do. My brain is how it is.”

He said nothing about how he was a total bottom, and not only did it have to be a man, but a specific kind of a man.

A dominant one.

Like D’Artangnan.

Sue him.

He had a type.

“You’re stressing yourself out over nothing. You haven’t even gotten on the ride. Get on, and see what happens,” he said. “Stress it later.”

He’d try, but Finn was a worrier.

Honestly, he’d given Rosie his heart, and she left that behind. Before her, there were other women, and none of them saw the real him.

Finn was a one-lady guy, and when he said he loved someone, he loved them so much that it broke him when it fell apart. He wanted a marriage like his parents. They’d been married over sixty years.

They were his role model.

Because of Rosie, and how careless she was with his heart, he knew he couldn’t fuck and run.

That wasn’t him.

He’d abstained for the last three years, focused on work, and trying to rebuild himself. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d waited. Now, he wasn’t sure he could risk it all and have it fail.

There was clear chemistry between them.

There was no doubt about that.

The big pink elephant in the room was that she was an American heading home.

“The only thing you can do, Finn, is let her into your world, and see if she fits here. She can get a job here, or she could be a stay-at-home mom and raise a gaggle of babies with you.”

He laughed and wanted that last part more than he would ever say out loud. All Finn wanted was to come home from work, see his bonny lass, and be happy. He wanted little ones to run to him, and a wife who loved him.

Was that so much to ask?

“For shits and giggles, Laddie, I looked up how much she makes. For the record, I’m grotesquely underpaid.”

When he told him, Graham laughed.

“Well, can your ego handle that? She’s making three times what you get paid.”

He was honest.

“I can handle her making more money, and that she’s got multiple degrees, but I can’t handle watching her walk away and abandoning me.

It’s my one hard line. The second I find out she’d stay, I’m hers.

I just have to get to that point, and I have only a few days to make it happen. When are they leaving?”

He had to tell him.

“Sunday. I’ve been instructed to drive them to the jet on Sunday afternoon. Jackson James’ jet will be landing and taking them home.”

And that made him want to weep.

It was Wednesday.

“What if she doesn’t want to marry a cop?” Finn asked. “I live in a small house, and I’m always at work…”

“Ask her.”

He rolled his eyes.

“That’s not the first thing you ask a lady when you first meet her. You can’t ask that or if she’s a runner.”

Again, he said the same thing, basically.

“Ask her if she’d stay here. I don’t know why you can’t just ask that question.”

He laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

“Oh, well, that’ll go over well. I haven’t even kissed her, and I’m asking her to stay? That makes me look like a fucking daft nut.”

He didn’t know what Finn wanted him to say. He’d given him viable options. He just had to choose one. What did he have to lose?

“You are a fucking daft nut. You’re stressing over this, and you haven’t even figured out if you’re compatible in bed. You might want to go there first. It’s not the sixteen hundreds, my friend. For all you know, your dick might not be her cup of tea.”

Yeah, he supposed he was right, even though she was checking him out.

When they heard someone coming, they stopped talking. When Gabby walked into the room, she came to a full stop.

“Um, am I interrupting something?” she asked, sensing they’d been talking about her. That was the only reason people would stop talking when someone entered a room.

“No,” Finn said.

“Yes,” Graham stated.

She looked back and forth between them and was hella confused by that.

“I think I’ll just go,” she said, starting to back up, not wanting to intrude.

Instead, Graham went there. If his friend didn’t have the balls to do it, he’d handle it.

“How do you feel about cops?” Graham asked.

From where he stood, Finn looked horrified. He was shaking his head, but his friend, if he could call him that, was ignoring him.

Oh, shit.

This was embarrassing.

At his question, she paused.

“I mean, I’m a cop, technically. So I would say I’m generally pro-cop. I’m not afraid of guns, and I can actually use one. Why?”

Graham continued.

“Would you marry one? You know, if say the universe dropped a cop into your path, and you thought he was semi attractive, mildly annoying, and completely neurotic, could you see yourself marrying his daft ass?”

Finn couldn’t believe this.

There was no freaking way.

Oh, holy shit!

At that very moment, Finn wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. He couldn’t believe that Graham was going to go there.

As she stood there, she saw Finn blush, and since she’d just had a whole conversation with Tony about Finn, she was betting that Finn just had a whole conversation about her with Graham.

It was kind of entertaining.

Gabby knew what they were talking about now.

Her.

This was confirmation.

She glanced over at Finn, who looked hella embarrassed. Then, she was honest.

“I don’t think a person’s job is generally a problem.

If I was married to a cop, I’d likely worry all of the time, but it wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me.

As for him being semi attractive, and mildly irritating, that is silly.

A heart loves who it loves. Now, who’s asking me to marry him? ” she asked, staring right at Finn.

He placed his head on the table, willing a meteor to crash into this castle and bury him in the magma at the earth’s core.

Well, she’d picked that up quickly, so Graham might as well keep going.

“And how do you feel about Scotland? Could you live here? Or are you always going to be an American girl who needs her country?”

That was too far.

“Graham,” he hissed. “Knock it off!”

He was burying him.

It would take a year of dates to dig out from this mess now, and he literally had four days.

She laughed.

“I haven’t seen enough of this country yet, but from what I’ve seen, it’s really nice. As for needing to live in America, my job is there. Would I leave it? Yes. If the right person asked me to.”

She was freaking out inside.

Finn looked uncomfortable, and that told her everything she needed to know.

The men here were VERY forward.

“So you’d live here?”

She nodded.

“Again, if a handsome man who had a penchant for saving me were to ask, yes. Some random stranger? No.”

Finn stared at her.

Was she saying what he was hearing?

Because this was working out, Graham continued. Someone had to save Finn. He wasn’t saving himself, which was all kinds of ironic since he was her hero.

“What if a guy wanted to follow you back? Would you let him crash on your couch until he got situated? Maybe let him be your roommate?”

Finn was going to vomit.

He couldn’t believe this.

Gabby was amused.