Page 30 of Cabin Fever With My First Flame

Finn sips his cocoa. “I have the boys with me, Bailey. I’m not alone. We’re together, and that’s what matters. As far as myparents are concerned, we’ll celebrate together when they get back. I’ve had to work on Christmas before, and so did Josiah. The boys understand that it’s important to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but the day itself doesn’t matter.”

“Does that mean you’ll be coming to the Christmas Eve service if it hasn’t been canceled? Pops and Nana do a full spread before we go, and there’s plenty of food. You can always join us. Isn’t that what friends do?”

One side of Finn’s mouth lifts, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. “You know the town is going to gossip if we have dinner with your family. ‘Friends’ is not what they are going to assume when they see us together.”

I take another sip and eye Finn. “They can talk all they want, but it doesn’t make it true. It’s just two families sharing a meal together. Besides, rumors only seem to travel within a select few. I never heard a peep about what was going on with your sister, and I talk to my mom every week. Even if she knew not to talk aboutyouwhile I was married to Daniel, she didn’t tell me anything at all.”

Finn shrugs. “My parents mostly came out to visit us in California, and the few times we came home for the holidays, Jenny was doing okay. She specifically asked my parents not to say anything to the town folk because she didn’t want the looks of pity that would be thrown her way.”

“I miss her,” I say. “Because she was away at school, I wasn’t as close to her as I was to you. But we had some great talks when she would come home from college.”

“She adored you.” Finn glances down at his feet. “She never believed what Daniel said. She had more faith in you than I did. I’m so sorry.”

I set my mug in the sink now that the drink has gotten cold. I walk over toward the oven and check on the casserole. “What’s done is done, Finn, and I need you to stop apologizing. We wereboth young, and we both made mistakes. I could have fought harder for you or flown to California to confront you, yet I didn’t. But we have a clean slate now, right?”

Finn bobs his head. “Right. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“I know you were mad at me and hurt by what I had done, but why did you cut ties with Jenny? She wrote you a letter once, and you wrote back asking her never to write to you again. She loved you like a sister.”

I scrunch my nose, confused by what Finn is saying. “What are you talking about? Jenny never wrote to me, and I most certainly didn’t write to her telling her to stop all communication. Do you know what her letter said?”

Finn shakes his head. “No. I didn’t even know she had sent a letter until she received yours and was really upset. She threw it in the fire and said, ‘At least I tried.’”

I purse my lips in dismay. “I promise you, Finn. I never received a letter from your sister. If I had, I would have responded in kind—not coldly or harshly. I’ve always had too much respect for Jenny to do that.”

Ella walks into the room with Micah right behind her. They’re carrying the five remaining mugs, which are all empty. Micah rinses the cups and says with a great deal of hesitation, “Maybe it was your hubby?”

Ella begins to snap at Micah for insinuating her father could do such a thing and then thinks better of it. Her shoulders slump. “Micah might be right. Do you remember me saying that I learned of Finn’s existence because I overheard Dad talking to his friend Bryce? Dad wanted Bryce to keep you away from Finn. Maybe he intercepted Jenny’s letter and wrote back so that Finn wouldn’t learn the truth and come back for you.”

My heart breaks at the thought. After Daniel and I moved away from Lake George shortly after we were married, the phonecalls from the few friends I had stopped abruptly. Until this very moment, I thought it was an “out of sight, out of mind” situation and that we all were busy moving on with our lives. When they didn’t answer or return my calls, I eventually gave up and shrugged it off. Now, I have to wonder if it wasn’t for entirely different reasons.

“I don’t know how your father expected Bryce to keep Finn and me separated. The town only has 3,500 people living in it year-round,” I tell her.

Micah bursts out in laughter, then points at Finn. “Bryce has been trying to set up Finn with the single ladies in town. He even convinced Finn to participate in the New Year’s Eve Bachelor auction! Bryce’s sister, Amanda, is salivating over the chance to ring in the New Year with a kiss from Finn.”

Finn scowls at Micah. “You’re not helping. Don’t you have a video game to play or a brother to taunt?”

Micah smirks. “Not at the moment.”

“It’s all right, Finn. We’re friends, and you can date whomever you please,” I say, trying my best not to choke on my words. The timer on the oven starts beeping, giving me the perfect excuse to turn my back toward Finn.

I don’t look at him as I pull the bubbling casserole from the oven, but I can feel his eyes boring into me. “Bailey, the auction is for a good cause, and if I had known you were going to be here, I wouldn’t have committed to it.”

I face the two teens. “Please go and fetch your siblings. Make sure they wash their hands thoroughly. We don’t need sticky fingers on the table.” They take the hint and give Finn and me a moment of privacy even though we can see the kids sitting in the living room, situated around the coffee table.

Finn steps close so that his body is mere inches from mine. He lowers his voice so that only I can hear. “All you have to do is say the word, and I won’t do the auction.”

I place my hand over his heart and look up at him with resignation. “Finn, you made a promise. Don’t let me stop you from keeping it.”

Chapter eighteen

Finn

The smell of baconfrying coaxes me from my slumber, as do the sounds of children laughing and Christmas music blaring from the stereo in the living room. I groan when I see it’s only a quarter past seven and much too early to be awake, but I get up anyway.

I didn’t fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning; Bailey’s look of disappointment consuming most of my thoughts. Wasshe disappointed that I was willing to break a promise or that I was being auctioned off in the first place? I pray it was the latter because if it was, then I have a shred of hope that she might want more than to be friends and that we might have a future together. I can work with that.

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