Page 34 of Off-Limits Love
“And?”
“And I have a master’s in business, and all this time, I thought I’d follow all of you and do my own thing. Pursue a business of my own.”
Finn shifted with his horse when it dipped its large head to get a better look at a curious seagull. “That’s changed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Did something happen?” He understood getting blindsided. He kind of felt that way when it came to Mak and the way she spoke to him, seemingly accepted him—yet pushed him away.
She’d avoided him the remainder of the party and practically ran out of the building once it was over. Which left him wondering if he’d made a huge mistake in crossing that line despite her invitation to do so.
She’d offered friendship, nothing more. Maybe she hadn’t meant to say the words aloud? Maybe he’d read her expression wrong? Heard what he’d wanted to hear?
But the way she’d looked up at him, it had seemed to him like she’d wanted him to kiss her, so he had before he could overthink it and chicken out.
Apparently he wasn’t the only one pondering life today, though.
Hud had gone quiet, and Finn noted the way his brother’s grip tightened on the reins in his hands.
“Jameson, Luke, and I went out last night to grab a drink for my birthday. On the way home, we saw an accident happen right in front of us and stopped to help.”
Hud shook his head, his gaze still somewhere on the water. “It was a mom and two kids. The car caught fire. We got them out—barely—but we got them. And they’re okay today when…they wouldn’t have been.”
Images from the past came to mind—that of him, trapped in the backseat, upside down and screaming, staring at his mother’s face as the light faded from her eyes and she’d bled out.
“The thing is, I got a few scholarships, and I know I worked while I got my degrees, but I couldn’t have done it without you guys funding me.”
Early on, Alec and Brooks had started putting back money to help any of them who wanted to go to college. Cole had passed it up and enlisted, but Dawson had gone into finance. Elias had a business degree like Gage and Hudson.
Isla had tried college but decided it didn’t work for her. He couldn’t blame her, though. She’d hired in as the Drakes’ full-time nanny and made six figures doing a job she loved. It helped that she worked for a billionaire and his artist wife, but dang. That was good money.
They required her to keep up on CPR and other light medical training just in case and were even paying for her to take self-defense classes should they ever be needed.
She traveled with them, and she wasn’t allowed to leave the house with the Drakes’ kid unless there was a bodyguard with them. The Drakes wanted the child—and Isla—as protected and prepared as possible.
Hudson flashed Finn a glance, and Finn forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand.
Given Jameson’s training and friendship with Hudson, Finn had a pretty good idea where this was going, but Hud was the only one who could make the call.
“How mad are you all going to be if…I don’t follow through and use the degrees?”
“You want to be an EMT?” A face flashed in front of his eyes. A grizzled older man reaching into the backseat toward him, talking to him, trying to calm him down. He’d been an off-duty fireman driving by the night of his parents’ accident, much like Finn last night.
But the things those firemen and EMTs saw on a daily basis… Helping save a trapped family who were able to get out and walk away was one thing, but what about the others? The ones who didn’t make it. The images that couldn’t be unseen or forgotten.
God bless those men and women for the jobs they do, but was Hud cut out for that?
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe a fireman too. Jameson’s doing both.”
Finn had always promised himself he’d never cut down someone else’s dream. When he’d first brought up buying the farm from the original owners, he knew his brothers had their own opinions on “Farmer Finn,” but having scraped through high school due to the bullying, it wasn’t like college was for him. “I’m not diminishing what you did last night, Hud, but are you sure it isn’t just the adrenaline? The rush from saving those people?”
The riders had paused ahead of them, and several had dismounted to take photos.
This area of beach had sun-bleached driftwood that had washed up from hurricanes and a pretty backdrop of pines and craggy live oaks opposite the water. No matter the direction, the images were beautiful.
“Maybe,” Hud drawled softly. “I guess that’s something I have to factor in. I like helping out on the farm. I like being busy helping out with all the businesses you guys already own, but I don’t know if I’m ready to be tied down to my own just yet.”
“It’s a lot of responsibility,” Finn agreed. “And if you’re not ready, nothing you start will work because your heart won’t be in it.”
