Page 21 of Shattered Hearts
“She wanted us all to seePeter Pan, which had just opened. It was her favorite book when she was young, and the boys were wild for it when they were small…” Shane recalls with a fond lilt in his voice. “But the week we were scheduled to go to the show, Finn lost his temper on the playground and hit one of his classmates. He was a real hothead back then.”
A hothead?Finn? Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen him lose his cool, but it’s difficult for me to picture him as an angry little kid. If anything, he’s always seemed aloof and self-contained.
Today, in fact, is the only day where I’ve seen even a slighthintof a crack in that mask he always wears. His anger at me in the limo ride over here…his expression when I pulled our hungry lips apart…
I force the memory of that insane kiss away before lust overtakes me for the second time today.
“Well, what could we do? We didn’t want to reward bad behavior, so we agreed Finn would stay home. I was up to my ears work-wise, so I stayed back with him, and Kath and Oran went to the show.”
Oran Gallagher?Never heard his name spoken before now.
“I never found out if they enjoyed the show or not because they never came home.”
My heart careens through my chest. I draw back to meet Shane’s eyes, which swim with untamed emotion. “What do you mean?”
We stop moving to the music, and Shane takes both of my hands in his. “Finn doesn’t like to talk about the past. But…that night, Kath and Oran died on their way home from the show. The weather was terrible, and their cab driver lost control on a patch of black ice.”
My throat swells. I cannot breathe. I cannot say a single word.
“You can’t have been more than a baby back then.” He gives me a smile meant to ease my hurting heart, but the comfort doesn’t work. “Finn and I lost everything that night. He lost his mother and his best friend, and I lost the love of my life and my youngest son.”
Nothing could have prepared me for having my heartstrings twisted around Shane’s fingers.
“There’s no hope for me,” he admits, dropping his eyes to our hands, melded together between us. “Kathleen was and is the only woman I’ll ever love, but I always hoped Finn would start a family one day and find some way to be happy. And he got close once…” Shane’s expression darkens like storm clouds in the sky. “In the end, he followed in my footsteps and had to learn the pain of burying his love.”
A throbbing ache fills my chest, and my eyes burn.
“That broke him,” Shane continues.
Those three words act as a punch to the gut.
I’ll never forget seeing Finn a few days after his wife died, more crushed than I knew a person couldbe.
“He’s been downtrodden and ashamed, blaming himself, haunting his own life like a ghost…” Shane shakes his head, pained. “When I saw the opportunity for a fresh start for him, I jumped at the chance. I hoped a girl like you might teach Finn how to smile again.”
My heart twists. “You mean a girl like Harper,” I mumble.
He ignores my reply as the song around us begins to fade to a close. Instead of a new one drifting into the dying silence of the former, only quiet comes out of the speakers.
“Promise me,” Shane urges.
The full force of today steamrolls me at once.
The jumbled ball of yarn that is my mind comes undone, the threads unwinding from one another. I see it now.The puzzle I’ve been trying to solve in my mind since I saw through my father’s bullshit…the pieces are coming together.
The shipment. Harper and Finn’s engagement. My dad needing me to fill in. Dancing with Shane clarified things.
And the picture forming in my mind tells me I should run.
Right now. Book it the hell out of here, while I still can.
The fact that I escaped this family once was a total fluke. I feel in my bones that I won’t be so lucky a second time.
I never want to be used again. And still, a crazy voice inside me dares to ask,but what if I let myself be used for the sake of a guy like Finn?
I need psychiatric attention. Because despite my better judgment, despite the fact that Finn is Harper’s betrothed and not mine, my heart has been stirred into the mix. I hurt notonly for Finn but for Shane as well and want to do what I can to reassure him.
That’s why when I open my mouth, a promise tumbles out.