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Her instinct was to come right out and ask, but since Bill had told her that Finn didn’t like talking about it, she didn’t want to bring it up and perhaps hurt him even more.
She bit her lip, watching him instead.
When she’d first met him, she’d thought him a very still man, especially in contrast to the much more intense kinetic energy of his brother. Like a lake on a calm day, the surface smooth, hiding deep, dark depths.
But she realized now she’d been wrong. Because while he might be perfectly still, he radiated tension, almost vibrating with it like a telephone wire in a high wind.
“Sorry,” she said into the silence. “I suppose that was kind of blunt.”
“Yes.” Finn’s voice was curt.
Beth waited, but he didn’t say anything more, his gaze firmly on the road.
Great, this was going well. Getting conversation out of Finn Kelly was like getting blood out of a stone.
Maybe you could have started with something less contentious straight out of the gate?
She let out a small sigh. Okay, yes, she should have. After all, hadn’t she told herself that she had to handle this carefully? Bill had mentioned she should take it slow with Finn, so perhaps she should start doing that.
Beth automatically reached for her silver koru pendant, holding it, feeling the silver warm against her palm. It fitted perfectly there, as she’d designed it to, the reassuring warmth of the metal easing her own tension and the little sliver of doubt that had begun to crack the shell of her positivity.
She couldn’t afford doubts. Couldn’t afford second-guessing. That way lay a path she didn’t want to go down, not again. She had to keep looking forward to the future, be confident in the new path she’d chosen for herself.
Being here, in Brightwater Valley. Where no one knew her and she could be whoever she wanted to be.
Bright. Happy. Fearless. Strong.
She took a breath. “Okay. So if you don’t want to answer that question, how about this one instead? I’d like to get Evan’s paintings for the gallery. They could really draw in the crowds and since he’s a local—”
“He won’t agree,” Finn interrupted. “He hates showing his paintings. He also hates people.”
For some reason that amused her and she smiled. “Hates people? No wonder you’re friends then.”
Finn glanced at her, his gaze a flash of intense darkness in the bright sun coming through the front window of the truck.
For some inexplicable reason, it made her breath catch.
“My advice?” he went on, ignoring her comment. “Don’t even ask. You’re not the first person who’s tried to get to his paintings and you probably won’t be the last, and you’ll only end up disappointed.”
Beth’s amusement faltered. There was something fierce about Finn she hadn’t noticed before, a kind of intensity that she found both compelling and disturbing at the same time.
He had the darkest eyes, almost black, which was strange when his brother’s eyes were so light. Yet it was a fascinating darkness. She’d always been drawn to the bright and shiny, like a magpie, but there was something deep and dark in Finn Kelly that she couldn’t deny was…magnetic.
“Wow.” She tried not to sound as breathless as she felt. “I got a whole three sentences this time. I must be doing something right.”
Finn’s expression smoothed and he glanced back at the road ahead. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Okay, message received.” She waited a moment. “Actually, though, that’s the help I was talking about. You’re his friend, right? Perhaps you could—”
“No.”
“Seriously? Just flat-out no?”
He didn’t reply, slowing the truck down and then pulling off into a small, narrow gravel driveway. A rickety wooden farm gate stood across it, and without a word, Finn got out, strode to the gate, and unlatched it.
Beth watched him from the front seat of the truck, thinking.
He really was being quite rude, and if Bill hadn’t let slip that piece of Finn’s past the way he’d done, then she might have been annoyed. But he had let it slip, and it was awful, and so she didn’t feel annoyed. She felt…sorry for him.
