Page 17 of Wood Riddance
I dipped my chin, snuggling farther into my hoodie, as a familiar sense of trepidation grew in the pit of my stomach.
“And then last summer, when Remy and Hazel were in trouble, I needed help.” Even mentioning it brought me back to the cold dread that had overtaken me when I learned my brother was in danger.
“So you called him,” Parker said, interrupting my thoughts.
I nodded. “I didn’t know what else to do. All I knew was that he had a plane.”
Paz had called Mitch Hebert and explained the situation. When he asked for help, Mitch had refused, saying his plane was undergoing maintenance and was unavailable.
So I acted. I called Finn, told him Remy and Hazel were in danger, and thirty minutes later, we were taking off from Lake Millinocket. I never bothered asking how he got the pontoons on or gassed it up that quickly. He didn’t hesitate to do the right thing.
“Then the two of you flew to the rescue, and the rest is town legend.”
I shrugged. “Something like that. It was such a surreal experience, and I was coming down from an adrenaline high. I thought he was so heroic and humble. He defied his father to help my family. And in the immediate aftermath, it felt like something had shifted between us. That something might happen.”
“But it didn’t.”
I shook my head. “It’s for the best. Because a couple of months later, we learned the truth about his dad.”
“It doesn’t change what he did, how he dropped everything to help,” Parker said softly.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on the feeling of the cool summer air in my lungs. “It doesn’t. But it does change how I feel about him. He went from a man I could tolerate, felt gratitude toward, to a man I can’t stomach being near. Now Henri and Paz want me to ‘get over it,’ but it’s not that easy.”
“I know, babe. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Not as much as all of you,” I snapped, my eyes welling with tears and my heart aching so badly I felt as though my chest might cave in. My entire family had paid the price for Mitch Hebert’s criminal actions. Parker herself had been kidnapped. Paz too. Henri had almost died after the truck he was driving had been tampered with, and Remy and Hazel had been hunted by drug traffickers. Me? I hadn’t been shot or kidnapped or chased by bad guys with guns, yet I was the one who couldn’t get over it. Couldn’t process all the needless violence and suffering and pain.
The emotional tidal wave was threatening to consume me, and that was my cue to leave. I refused to ruin Paz and Parker’s happiness with my needy bullshit. The poor woman had already spent the evening picking up the pieces of my mini breakdown.
So I made my goodbyes and carried He-Man, who refused to walk to the damn car, then headed home. As I drove, I ran through my interactions with Finn today.
I couldn’t get how he’d looked out of my head.
Still enormous. Still intimidating. His arms wrapped in ink. His long hair pulled back.
But something was missing.
He had always possessed this swagger. He was massive and intimidating at first glance, but he laughed and joked a lot. He had the kind of confidence that kept him from taking himself too seriously.
The man I saw today? He was different. It was like the light had gone out of him.
The energy, the hunger for experiences I had admired for so long, was gone.
His eyes were dark and stormy, without a hint of their usual playfulness.
For fuck’s sake, he didn’t even bother to flirt with me. Never, in the two years since we’d bumped into each other at that restaurant, had he passed up an opportunity like that.
Shame washed over me as I navigated the dark roads. For the way I had acted. Not with Henri—he deserved my wrath for not consulting me. But with Finn.
I hated him and his family and everything they had done. That sentiment hadn’t changed. His father was still alive, albeit awaiting a trial that would certainly land him in federal prison, while mine had been gone for almost three years. He should have been here, playing with his grandkids and sneaking kisses with my mom when they thought we weren’t watching.
But I had been unprofessional today. I’d lost my cool. Something about that guy made me twitchy, and the thought of having to work with him had me struggling to keep my dinner down.
The nausea was made worse by the sorrow that had been my companion for three years. Everyone around me was moving on. Yet I was still trapped in my grief.
My throat closed up, and tears pricked the back of my eyes. I was never getting my dad back. He was gone. And somehow, I was the only one struggling to accept this. My mother, after being buried in crushing grief for more than a year, had found herself again. Found a purpose working at the school and doting on her grandkids.
And my three brothers had all fallen in love. Hell, Henri was in the process of adopting two kids. They were building families and homes and careers, and I was being left behind.
