Page 21 of Unintentionally Yours

Finn’s large hand enveloped hers as if reading her thoughts, his calloused palm warm and comforting against her own. “Cold?”

Layla shook her head, a smile playing about her lips. “Not with my own personal furnace beside me.”

“Glad to be of service.” Finn lifted their joined hands, brushing a kiss over her knuckles. The simple gesture, so sweet and unguarded, had Layla’s heart stumbling in her chest.

As they climbed steadily higher, the trail narrowing and growing rockier underfoot, they fell into companionable conversation. Finn finally opened up a little about his military service. He briefly shared about his last mission. She didn’t push him, knowing that, too, would happen when he was ready. Layla spoke of her mother’s plan for her. “She always had this vision for my life, you know?” Layla huffed as they navigated a particularly steep section of the trail. “The perfect house, the perfect husband, the perfect society life.”

She shook her head ruefully. “Joke’s on her, I guess. Turns out her perfect daughter is more at home traipsing through the woods than attending garden parties.”

Finn’s hand tightened around hers, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over her knuckles. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with knowing your own mind, with wanting something different than what others expect of you.”

His words, spoken with such quiet conviction, settled deep in Layla’s chest. She thought of Finn, of the strength it must have taken to have to walk away from the life he’d had.

“You’re one to talk,” she teased gently, bumping her shoulder against his. “The big bad military man, living off the land like a mountain monk.”

Finn chuckled, but there was an edge to it, a tightness around his eyes that had Layla instantly regretting her glib remark. She opened her mouth to apologize, but Finn was already speaking.

“After my last tour, I just...I couldn’t go back to that life. Couldn’t pretend to be the same man who’d left, you know?” He blew out a heavy breath, his gaze fixed ahead on the trail. “I’d seen too much, done too much. The things we had to do over there, the things I saw...”

He trailed off, jaw working as he visibly struggled for words. Layla’s breath seized at the raw anguish evident in every line of his rugged face. Acting on instinct, she tugged him to a stop, turning to face him fully.

Layla forced Finn to meet her eyes. The pain she saw swimming there made her eyes sting with unshed tears.

“I’m so sorry, Finn. I shouldn’t have said that, not so callously.”

Finn’s large hands came up to cover hers, his thumb stroking over the delicate skin of her wrist. “It’s okay, Layla. You couldn’t know.”

“But I want to,” she insisted, holding his gaze intently. “I want to know you, Finn. The good, the bad, all of it.”

Something flickered in Finn’s expression, vulnerable and achingly hopeful, before he leaned down to capture her lips in a searing kiss. Layla sighed into the contact, sinking into the solid strength of his embrace.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing heavily, Finn rested his forehead against hers. “You’re something else, Layla Goldilocks. You know that?”

Layla grinned, swiping playfully at his chest. “You’re not so bad yourself, mountain man.”

With another hard kiss to her smiling mouth, Finn laced his fingers back through hers and set off again. They continued in comfortable silence, the only sounds the crunch of their boots against the dirt and the distant cry of a hawk flying overhead.

Layla couldn’t help but steal glances at Finn’s chiseled profile, admiring the way the dappled sunlight through the trees played over the angles and planes of his handsome face. The worst of the storm had passed sometime during the night, just as he’d said it would. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or not.

God, how was it possible to feel so much for someone in such a short amount of time? To ache at the very thought of leaving his side?

Because that was the reality, wasn’t it? This thing between them, this soul-deep connection, was born of stolen moments out of time. But Layla had a life waiting for her back in the city, responsibilities and expectations that couldn’t be shirked. As much as she longed to just say ‘screw it’ and hide away in Finn’s strong arms forever, she knew it wasn’t possible.

As perceptive as ever, Finn seemed to sense her thoughts’ melancholy turn. He pulled her closer to his side, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

“Almost there,” he murmured. “Just up ahead.”

They crested a small rise, and Layla’s smiled at the sight spread out before them. A small, grassy plateau dotted with early summer wildflowers stretched to the edge of a sheer granite cliff face. But what lay just beyond was what she knew Finn had brought her to see.

There, not fifty yards away, was a family of wolves. His wolves. Two adults. One with a dark pelt the other a light grey, almost silver. They lounged on a rocky outcropping while two pups tumbled and played.

“Oh my God,” Layla breathed, hardly daring to move lest she shatter the magical scene. “Finn, they’re incredible.”

Pride and quiet satisfaction shone on Finn’s face as he removed his ever-present camera from around his neck. “I wanted you to see them. To share this with you.”

Tears pricked the backs of Layla’s eyes at the simple sincerity of his words, at the weight of offering her this glimpse into a world so personal to him. Blinking rapidly, she followed Finn’s lead and crouched behind a scrubby juniper bush, never taking her eyes from the wolf family.

They simply watched for long, wonderstruck moments. Finn occasionally lifted his camera to snap a photo when one of the animals paused in a shaft of sunlight, and the pups’ antics proved too adorable to resist.

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