Page 28 of The Maverick's Homecoming

She nodded and then granted him a smile, one that belied the sadness in her eyes. He wondered about that ex of hers. Was she still in love with him?

He really wanted to ask her that question. But before he could work up the nerve to go there, she pushed back her chair.

Finn got the message loud and clear. He’d overstayed his welcome. He rose and fell in step behind her.

She led him to the door, where she turned to meet his eyes again and said almost tenderly, “Finn, I…”

He waited, barely breathing, in anticipation of whatever she might say next. The seconds ticked by and they just stood there, staring at each other. The moment was slipping away from him.

He dared to lift a hand and press his palm to her smooth, soft cheek.

“Finn…” A thrill surged through him as she tipped her face up to him. It was his chance and he seized it. His pulse roaring in his ears, he lowered his lips to hers.

She didn’t pull back. Instead, she welcomed him, sliding her arms up over his chest. He felt her sigh against his lips as she whispered his name again. “Finn…”

He gathered her close. And at last he was breathing in the sweet scent of her skin, feeling the roundness at her belly and the fullness of her breasts that brought him sharply to awareness of the baby within her…and also of the whole of her that he’d lost so very long ago.

The kiss took on a life of its own. He breathed her in, his tongue sparring with hers. She let out a soft and urgent little sound.

And then, he lifted his mouth from hers, but only to slant it the other way and get lost in the taste of her all over again. It felt right, as if it was meant to be—to hold her in his arms, to press his lips to hers, to run his hands down her back, feeling the soft shape of her beneath the silky dress she wore.

The past rose up, filling his head with the memory of her in his arms all those years ago, of the kisses they’d shared—so many, some innocent, fleeting. Others long and wet and endlessly deep.

He remembered the way she used to let him in the window of her upstairs bedroom at her parents’ house, pushing the window open with aching slowness in order not to make any noise, whispering across the sill at him as he clung to a high branch of the bur oak that grew close to the house.

Shh, Finn. Don’t make a sound…

Somehow, he always made it inside without falling and breaking his fool neck. Once he was in, she would lead him to her white cast-iron bed with the pink quilt covered in twining vines and purple flowers, and a mountain of pillows. So many pillows that he would shove half of them to the floor to make room for the two of them, entwined.

“Finn…” She breathed his name against his lips. He marveled that now, tonight, all these years later, he was holding her close in his arms once more.

He thought of how much he’d missed her after he’d walked away from her, of how often he’d had to remind himself that she was lost to him. That he’d made his choice and she would never be his.

Not ever again…

“Finn.”

He blinked down at her. “Hmm?”

She pulled away then…but gently. Slowly. “Good night, Finn.” She whispered the words like a secret, a covert message for his ears alone.

He said exactly what he was thinking. “I don’t want to go.”

She gazed up at him, starry-eyed, almost smiling. “Finn…” She was shaking her head. “Friends, remember?”

Reluctantly, he nodded. “I get it. I do.” He took his hat from the coat-tree by the door and put it on. “’Night, Kenz.”

“Drive safe, Finn.”

“I will.” Smiling now, he stepped out into the gathering darkness.

He drove home thinking how much he wanted to turn his crew cab around and go back.

But he didn’t go back.

They were friends and friends only, as she kept reminding him. So shoot him, he found it easy to imagine becoming a lot more than friends with her. He liked her. So much. She’d grown up to be everything he’d always known she would be. Plus, she was even hotter now than back in high school.

Kenzie Osborne was special, no doubt about it. She was the kind of woman who made a man glad he’d had sense enough to finally come home again.