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  This was her new normal, she thought, as Cal and Amelia dropped her off at the Devil’s Rock airfield and Travis Sullivan greeted her and Lane. Everyone came on board the G-9 jet and Cal showed her where everything was. She’d brought food with her from home because she hadn’t known if Lane would get hungry or not.

  “I can’t believe it’s only been three hours since Finn called. I swear I’ve never done anything at the drop of a hat.”

  Amelia started laughing and hugged her. “I know the feeling. These Delaney men don’t wait around when they make up their minds.”

  “No they don’t,” she said. “Uh, it’s not like you and Cal, though. Finn and I are just friends.”

  Amelia just shook her head and shrugged at her. “You might see it that way, but he called you and not his brothers to come help him out.”

  “I think he just considers me a lost soul, like he is,” Lancey said.

  “It looked like more than a lost soul the other night at the saloon.”

  Lancey fiddled with her duffel bag, trying to fit it under the seat. “That night…wasn’t the norm. It was just me trying to not be me.”

  Amelia sat down beside her and lifted Lane onto her lap. “I know what you mean. Coming back to Last Stand…it’s coming home but it’s also facing everything that you ran away from. You are so much more together than I was. But still, it’s always hard coming home.”

  Lancey looked up at the other woman who’d been a supermodel and was the daughter of two of the most respected people in Last Stand. “I don’t for a second believe that you’re more of a mess than I am.”

  “Well, believe it. You were so efficient getting ready for this trip. I wouldn’t even have had my toothbrush packed yet.”

  “I am used to moving out quickly when I get orders,” she said, then chuckled. “Do not tell Finn I said that. I think it’ll go to his head.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Amelia said.

  Cal came out of the cockpit where he’d been talking to the pilot. “I know Finn won’t want you to keep me updated—he thinks I’m trying to be controlling…” Cal said. “But if you don’t mind checking in from the road, I’d appreciate it.”

  “We will FaceTime every night like we usually do. Lane’s going to want to chat with you both. Thank you for allowing me to keep him this weekend,” she said, knowing how much Cal and Amelia loved having Lane with them.

  “Finn doesn’t ask for much,” Cal said. “It’s the least I could do.” Then he turned to his nephew. “See ya soon, buddy,” he said, hugging Lane. “You keep an eye on Auntie and on Uncle Finn for me.”

  “I will, Unca.”

  He passed Lane over to Amelia who hugged him and then set him in his booster seat on the plane. They buckled him in and Lancey stood there in front of these two people who were the closest thing she had to family these days, and didn’t know what to say. She was afraid this was going to be super awkward, but Amelia beat her to the punch by hugging her and Cal patted her shoulder.

  “Be safe,” Cal said.

  The plane took off, and in a few short hours, they were back on the ground. And when she stepped out, Finn was waiting.

  He was leaning against a big old Chevy truck, his legs crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest and dark sunglasses on. He straightened as Lane, restless after being on the plane for so long, ran toward him.

  “Unca!”

  Finn scooped him up and by the time she’d gotten to his side, he had put Lane back on the ground. She stood there awkwardly a few feet from him, waiting for some sign from Finn about how to act. But he wasn’t giving her anything but the hots. He looked better than she should be noticing. She thought he was sick, but he sure didn’t look like it. He looked sexy.

  She noted the boot on his left foot and then glanced back up to find him watching her with that gray gaze of his. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too,” she said. “Is this the vehicle we will be using for the next few days?”

  “Wow, straight to business,” he said.

  “What do you expect from me?” she asked, realizing that all the calm she’d felt from the moment he’d called her was a lie. “You left without a word, and the next time I hear from you, you’re asking for a favor. I’m not sure how to handle this,” she said.

  “Fair enough. Let’s clear the air first,” he said. “But how about we do it from the hotel suite I booked for us for the night. Lane can play and you can tell me everything that’s on your mind.”

  “I have a lot to say,” she warned him. She hadn’t realized, until she saw him now, how mad she was at the way he’d left. Sure, she’d known it would be just one night. And with his reputation, she hadn’t expected more than that. But to wake up alone…

  “I think you have a right to say it. I shouldn’t have left that way,” he admitted.

  “Why did you?” she asked.

  She probably didn’t want to know. It was just his MO and she should leave it at that.

  “I left because I knew if I didn’t go while you were sleeping, I wouldn’t go at all,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you, Lancey. I’m not used to still wanting to stay after a night like we shared.”

  Then, without another word, he scooped up her duffel bag and Lane’s small GOING TO GRANDMA’S suitcase and walked away.

  *

  Lane was exhausted after his day of travel and the bath they gave him in the garden tub in the hotel suite rejuvenated him briefly. He curled up next to Lancey, who lifted him onto her lap while they searched the channels for something suitable for a toddler to watch. Finn ordered room service, wondering what exactly Lancey was going to say to him once Lane finally fell asleep.

  He knew he deserved whatever anger she had to direct at him. It wasn’t as if leaving had been a great idea. He’d known the moment he’d left her sleeping in her bed that at some point, he was going to have to deal with both the woman and the feelings she’d stirred in him. But he needed to prove that nothing had changed.

  Had he ever been more stupid? He was pretty sure he had been. After all, those hours in his Mustang, driving from Last Stand to California and then to a private airport in the Sonoma area north of the Laguna Seca racetrack had just worsened his DVT issues and it hadn’t really helped him escape the feelings he had for Lancey. Just watching her holding Lane and talking quietly to him was enough to make him realize how much he cared for her.

  “I’ve ordered chicken nuggets for Lane and the chef’s special for us,” he said, coming back over. “Did you find a TV show?”

  “No,” Lancey said. “He wants us to read him a story.”

  “Great. I have his favorites stored on my tablet,” Finn said. “I’ll grab it.”

  He noticed the surprised look on Lancey’s face. He just shot her a smile as he turned to go get the tablet. When he’d been growing up, his mom had always made story time special for him and his siblings. And when everything happened with Rose, reading to Lane was the only way he could sit with his nephew without losing it. So he’d downloaded all of his old favorites and all of Rose’s, too. When their mom got sick, she’d made him promise that he would read to Rose every night, so he knew which ones his sister had liked.

  He might be an outlaw at heart, but he always kept his promises.

  He came back into the living room and Lane’s little face lit up when he saw the tablet. The cover had his team’s logo on it, and looking at it gave Finn a pang. He knew that unless he got the DVT under control, there was a pretty good chance that he might never drive again.

  “Which story should we read first?”

  “Dinosaur.”

  “Got it,” he said, scrolling down the list until he found DANNY THE DINOSAUR by Syd Hoff. “I loved this story as a kid.”

  “Me too,” Lancey said. “TJ did, as well.”

  “Yay!” Lane said, clapping his hands as the brightly colored cover popped up on the screen. Then his nephew
scampered onto Finn’s lap and he wrapped his arms around him, holding the tablet with one hand.

  “Can you help me out by tapping to turn the page?” he asked Lane.

  “Yep,” Lane said.

  Finn settled in to read the story and tried to pretend that this was okay. That life was okay. He needed to be his cool uncle self. Not the freaked-out guy who, since Rose’s death, felt like his life was falling apart. He couldn’t get into a fight because of the DVT, and he had to avoid any accidents that might cause bleeding. He couldn’t enjoy reading to Lane because it made him miss his baby sister. And he couldn’t have mindless sex with someone who would walk away, because the only woman he wanted was sitting three feet away on the couch and glaring at him when she thought he wasn’t looking.

  F—him.

  Lane asked for another story and Finn let him pick the next title while Lancey got up to open the suite door for the room service delivery. He tried not to notice the way her jeans cupped her ass and made her legs seem like they went on forever. She had dinner set up on the table and Lane maneuvered himself off the couch and walked over to her.

  Finn knew he needed to join them but he just tipped his head back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure what he had been thinking when he’d called Lancey. Thinking she was the safest person for him to travel with had been delusional at best. He admitted he wanted her again—he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her—but did that make this move even dumber?

  He hoped not.

  For both of their sakes.

  “Dinner, Unca,” Lane said.

  Finn stood up, forgot he had the compression boot on his foot and stumbled before catching himself. But he cursed, which made Lane’s eyes go wide.

  “That’s a no-no word,” Lane said.

  “Well, I hurt my foot,” Finn snapped at Lane.

  The little boy moved behind Lancey’s legs and she frowned at him as she rubbed Lane’s back.

  “I’m sorry,” Finn said, going over to Lane and stooping down. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper.”

  Lane just nodded and sucked on his thumb. Lancey scooped him up and cuddled him to her. “Uncle Finn isn’t feeling good.”

  “Do you have a boo-boo?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, kiddo,” he said.

  Lancey handed Lane to him. Finn held out his arms and Lane came to him. He had to be careful—he didn’t want to do any more damage to Lane. His nephew needed to be surrounded by people who loved him and took care of him. Not people who easily lost their tempers.

  He would do better, he promised himself.

  Lancey put Lane’s booster seat on one of the chairs and secured it before lifting him up into it and buckling him in. “Dinner will probably help him feel better.”

  “I’m not hangry.”

  “I know,” Lancey said as he joined them at the table and sat down. “I think you’re just angry.”

  “Not tonight,” he said. “Not while I’m eating dinner with two of my favorite people.”

  Chapter Eight

  Lancey tucked Lane into the crib that Finn had requested and left the door to the bedroom ajar before going back into the main room of the suite. Finn had been subdued after snapping at Lane, but made it a point to act like the doting uncle for the rest of the evening. But she could sense the tension in him.

  He wasn’t a man who was used to being sidelined. She remembered what he’d been like when they were kids—he’d always been racing somewhere. He started driving go-carts from the time he was old enough to sit behind the wheel. The Delaney clan had their share of outlaws in their past, and they were all still a little wild, something Police Chief Highwater had warned her about when she’d applied for a job. Obviously, he’d heard about her night at the saloon with Finn.

  Finn had the need for speed built into his DNA. She’d never understood that. TJ had had the same need to burn through life, whereas she’d always taken the slower, steadier route. It suited her.

  “He went down easy,” Finn said when she came back into the room.

  She noticed he had an unopened bottle of tequila on the table in front of him and a shot glass next to it. She wasn’t too sure, but she didn’t think drinking while on blood thinners was a good idea.

  “He did. Um…listen I don’t want to be your mom and you can do whatever you want but…should you be drinking while you are taking medicine?” she asked. “I know that Cal will kill me if I let anything happen to you.”

  He nodded and twisted to sit more in the corner of the sofa, the same way he had in her place that night that felt like a lifetime ago. He lifted his foot that wasn’t in the compression boot and set it on the glass coffee table.

  “I’m not drinking. I pulled it out of my bag before I realized I couldn’t have it, that’s all. Then I put it there to remind myself that things had changed. But I can’t seem to get my head around it. I’ll tell you right now, darling, I’m a mess.”

  She almost smiled because Finn Delaney wasn’t what she would describe as a mess. As an MP, she’d seen her share of people who had lost their shit, and he wasn’t anywhere close. But it was clear he didn’t like his new circumstances.

  She had promised herself she’d take him to task for what he’d done to her. The anger she’d felt when she’d first seen him at the airfield had surprised her, but it was genuine. She knew herself well enough to realize she had to say something, or her anger would continue to fester inside her. She just wasn’t the kind of woman who could ignore it.

  “You’ll figure it out,” she said. “I mean you turned the thing with Lane right around tonight. You’re smart enough to get through this.”

  “Yeah, I know I will. I just hate feeling this way. It’s been a long year so far and it’s only June,” he said. “Tonight is the kind of night that I’d usually get drunk and then get in a fight or get laid. Only I can’t. Those aren’t options anymore.”

  Those words just fanned the spark of anger that she’d banked to be the supportive friend he needed. “Oh, sorry. I’m watching Lane, so if you want to go out, feel free.”

  Honestly, she knew the kind of man he was. He’d warned her before she’d climbed onto his lap and then invited him to stay the night in her bed. He wasn’t a forever kind of guy. He lived life at full throttle and even a serious disease like DVT wouldn’t keep him on the sidelines. Not for long.

  “Darling, I don’t want another woman. I want you,” he said, his voice low and laconic, all Texan drawl and smooth summer heat.

  She turned away from him. Why was he saying this now? Because he was ill and unsure of himself?

  Hell, why wouldn’t he think of her as a sure thing? She’d immediately flown to his side, just hours after he’d asked. But she hadn’t come to be his booty call. Surely, he knew that. “I’m not here for sex.”

  “No, you’re not,” he agreed, surprising her. “Hence me saying… Hell, I sound like Bray. I can’t believe I said hence.”

  She smiled, knowing he was trying to make her more relaxed. “That is something he’d say. He’s so fussy with his words sometimes.”

  “He thinks it makes people forget he’s so young. One of the downsides to being uber smart like my little brother is that no one takes him seriously,” Finn said.

  “Yeah, until he drops the hence bomb,” she said smiling. “I am still mad about the way you left, though.”

  “I know. Let me have it. I deserve it. Don’t let the fact that I’m not one hundred percent stop you in any way,” he said, giving her what she could only describe as his most charming look.

  “Oh, I won’t,” she said, but as she moved around to the armchair across from where he sat, she wasn’t sure she could berate him. Her anger wasn’t the explosive kind. No, it was more quiet, because she knew that the hurt he’d given her went deeper than she wanted to admit—to him, or her.

  He shifted to face her and then used his hands to lever his booted foot up next to his other one. “Don’t hold back.”


  She sighed. “I know we had said one night—that was the arrangement—but the way you left…it made it feel cheap. And I was left worrying about how I would react when I saw or talked to you again. We should have said goodbye as lovers that morning so that we could move on to being friends. You stole that from me and now I can’t see a way to move forward.”

  “I can.”

  “How?”

  *

  Finn knew he had to make changes. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what came next. There wasn’t another race to be won, but there were definitely decisions to be made. That bottle of tequila was just Step One in becoming a different man, Finn 2.0, a better version of himself. One who didn’t curse and fight and…hell, one who didn’t leave. He’d hated that about himself, but he’d never been able to stick around. He was going home, back to Last Stand. He didn’t know if he’d ever race again, and the only thing he’d experienced that came close to that high, was being with Lancey. Maybe starting something with Lancey was part of the answer.

  She was a better person than he’d ever be. He knew that from that one night they’d spent together but also from all the stories he’d heard about her since the accident in April that had killed both of their siblings. She’d left her job—a career that she had loved, according to Braden—to come back and raise her nephew because she knew that Lane needed her. That was something he might be able to learn from her.

  “I’m waiting,” she said.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “What if we don’t say goodbye? What if it wasn’t just one night?”

  “What if? Are you asking me for something more or waiting to see if I want more?” she asked. “I’m not guessing what you are thinking. I want to know that you want me. I don’t want to have to guess if I’m some sort of distraction while you can’t race. Be honest with me, Finn.”

  Honesty.

  Just the blunt way she spoke made him sweat. She was the kind of woman who didn’t mince words and he was feeling around in the dark, trying to find his way out of this deep, dark hole where he couldn’t do the thing he’d always done, couldn’t be the man he’d been for way too long. And she was asking him…