“She likes it here, too.”
“But I have the right to see her.”
“You can visit whenever you’d like. There are cabins you can rent all over the area, but it’s a popular place, so be sure to book well in advance.”
“Visit. Rent a cabin to see my own wife and child. This is crazy. I should never have let you leave in the first place.”
“Let me?” she echoed. “It wasn’t up to you.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to go if I hadn’t paid for it.”
Stunned, Lorelei steadied herself by putting one hand against the tree she’d been picking at. “How dare you. You wanted me to quit my job. You preferred I stay home with Lucy. You understood what that would mean financially. And yet...now you resent me for not earning money of my own?”
He was obviously struggling to reel in his emotions. “I don’t resent you, no,” he said. “I’m just trying to hang on to you—with everything I’ve got.”
“And you think siphoning money from our joint account is the answer?”
“I don’t want you to leave!”
“You don’t want me to leave? Or you want to be sure you get the bulk of the money if we split?”
“If we don’t split, we won’t have to worry about it.”
“You know what?”
He waited.
“You should move in with Francine while I’m gone, or have her move into our house. Just throw all of my stuff in boxes and shove it in the garage. That’s what she’d like, isn’t it? To take my place? She’ll be happier, and maybe you will be, too. It’s certainly worth a try.”
“Oh, God,” he said. “This is going too far. I don’t want to be with Francine!”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should’ve thought of that before,” she said and disconnected.
Because she had to be so stoic in front of Lucy and, for once, Lucy couldn’t see or hear her, Lorelei allowed herself to cry out and slug the tree.
It felt so good, she hit it again. But once she’d started venting the anguish inside her, she couldn’t seem to stop. She punched the tree until she was sobbing uncontrollably, her knuckles were scraped and she was so exhausted she could hardly stay on her feet.
“Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
As soon as she heard the voice behind her, she turned, blinked rapidly and sniffed, trying to pull all that emotion back inside. But it was too late. She could see the concern on Finn’s face as he hurried over.
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s happened?”
“It—it’s nothing,” she tried to say, but she choked on the words before she could get them out, and the next thing she knew he was holding her as she cried, rubbing her back and telling her everything was going to be okay.
* * *
finn
Finn could feel Lorelei trembling in his arms. “What is it?” he murmured. “Has someone been hurt?”
Eventually, she managed to pull herself together enough to step away and wipe her face. “No. I’m sorry. I...I don’t know what got into me.”
He was surprised she’d allowed him to comfort her. The way she’d behaved yesterday suggested she wasn’t someone who opened up about her problems. “Obviously, something’s happened.”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about. With your brother’s accident, you have enough to deal with. What Davis is going through—that’s a real problem. This is...this is just a cliché.” She tried to laugh as she wiped her nose with her forearm. “Have you heard from Davis today? Is his temperature back to normal?”
He noticed her attempt to swing the conversation back to him and his interests and suspected it was her way of dodging uncomfortable questions. “What kind of cliché?” he asked instead of answering.
When her smile wobbled, he could tell she’d expected him to take advantage of the opportunity to talk about himself instead. “Oh, you know, the typical cheating husband. Mine happened to have an affair with my best friend, which is even more of a cliché.”
He immediately felt protective of her. There was a fragile quality about Lorelei. She seemed determined not to lower her guard, not to let herself be hurt, which was why he felt so bad that her husband had managed to hurt her so deeply. “Whether it’s a cliché or not doesn’t make it any less painful. Is this the first time your husband’s been unfaithful?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to say yes, but it’s possible he only told me about Francine because she’s pregnant.”
“Holy shit.” Finn had been able to tell that something wasn’t right in Lorelei’s marriage. He’d caught on to that yesterday when they’d all been talking about staying for the summer. Now he understood the extent of it.
“It’ll be okay.” She attempted a shrug. “I can’t believe you caught me throwing a tantrum like a child. It’s embarrassing.”
He bent his head to catch her eye. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. Life is messy. For all of us. And you would’ve had the privacy you thought you did, except I was coming over to see if you, your sisters and Lucy would like to go sledding before all the snow melts. I came across some sleds in the storage under the cabin and figured we could enjoy a few hours before it’s too late.”
She infused her voice with more energy. “Thank you. That sounds like fun.”
He scowled at her.
“What?”
“Will you stop being so polite? Makes it hard to get to know you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know myself right now.”
Considering her background, he could understand why. “It’s okay that you feel like shit. We don’t have to go sledding. So we miss the snow for this season—no big deal.”
“Not going sledding won’t fix anything,” she said. “Besides, I have a daughter to think about. And she’d love to do that.”
Hoping to cheer her up, he grinned. “Great. Let’s go see if everyone else is interested.”
She’d just started to trudge to the cabin alongside him when he said, “Has your friend decided what she’s going to do with the baby?”
“She’s keeping it, of course. She made that clear from the start. Her ex refused to entertain even the possibility of children, which was what caused a lot of the fights between them. So...I guess this is her way of getting a child.”