Page 36 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

“Just great, like I didn’t have enough to deal with. Now my mind is going,” Finch muttered, though his heartbeat hadn’t yet caught up with the fact that there was no threat. It was still thumping hard in his chest.

Squatting down, he scratched the cat’s head, as she’d appeared from somewhere near the porch steps. “You doing okay there, Mabel?”

The cat purred, low and steady, so he guessed that was an affirmative, though it did little to settle the unease he was still feeling. After checking the back door was locked, Finch studied the ground in front of it, crouching to get a better look at the soft dirt bordering the path. There, pressed clear into the soil, was a single small footprint. Too small to be his own, so it had to be Nina’s.

He walked back to his car, berating his overactive imagination, and climbed in. With a final look at the little white house, he drove home.

Chapter 11

After parking in front of the cottage, he headed inside and found his brother dressed in black trousers and a grey sweater.

“Hurry up, or we’ll be late to the service, Finch.”

“Did we discuss going and I missed it?”

“I thought it was a given seeing as Nina is a friend,” Lynx said.

“Not a given considering I’m pretty antisocial these days,” Finch said.

“Boo fucking hoo, now get moving. Wash off that building stench, and hurry.”

“Manly stench, do you mean? Sweat and sawdust—something you candy-ass rock stars don’t understand.”

Lynx, who was putting on his watch, stopped to look at him. “Did you just have a crack at me?” He smiled. “And there he is, my shithead older brother. I missed you. Now, go wash. Do you need to borrow something that isn’t khaki, or denim?”

Finch grunted something uncomplimentary and raised a middle finger as he walked away. While he was showering, he thought about the past few days and realized his time at Klaus’s had started him thinking about the future, something he’d thought he wasn’t ready for.

He wanted to be more than what the military had shaped him to be. He just needed to work out what that looked like. How his skills could transfer into something that actually excited him.

After drying off, he pulled on boxers and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He then headed to the closet and found a pair of gray cargo pants and a black sweater. After lacing his feet into leather boots, he left his room.

“Ready?” Lynx said when he reappeared in the living area.

“Yeah.”

His brother studied him. “Maybe run a brush through your hair, which, by the way, needs a cut.”

Finch finger combed his hair. His brother sighed but didn’t add anything.

They pulled on jackets and headed out to his pickup.

“I’m thinking it’s going to snow later,” Lynx said, looking up. “You forget how cold it gets here when you live far away, surrounded by high rises,” he added as Finch drove the pickup toward town.

“Do you miss it?”

“When I’m here, I realize just how much. Life’s busy most of the time. Here, I get to just be quiet and still for a while,” Lynx said.

“The thought of all those people wanting a piece of me makes me shudder, bro,” Finch said.

Lynx shrugged. “You get used to it, and they’re the reason we do what we do, or why else would we?”

“True,” Finch agreed.

“You sometimes forget the peace this place gives you, though,” his brother said, looking at the scenery.

“Do you need peace, Lynx?” A stab of shame told Finch he hadn’t asked about his brother’s life because the focus had been on his. “Is everything all right?”

“Sure. Busy, but okay.” Lynx was looking out his window, not meeting Finch’s eyes.