Page 74 of Sometimes You Stay

He tried to shut them up and fill in the space with a joke. “That’s rich coming from someone who tried to refuse help when she had a twisted ankle and was dripping from head to toe.”

Cretia didn’t laugh. She didn’t even smile. “But I did accept your help.”

“You were forced to let me help you that day because you couldn’t manage on your own. I can do this alone.”

“No one doubts that. But—”

“Yes, they do.”

Cretia’s mouth snapped shut, whatever argument she’d been trying to make dying on her pursed lips. Slowly she put her hands on her hips and looked him up and down. “Who?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he spat out.

“I beg to differ. I’ve never seen you so upset.”

“Yeah, well.” He swung his head around and turned his back on her as his heart thundered. “You’ve known me for all of two weeks and some change. What do you expect?”

She sucked in a small gasp, and he turned around, expecting her to be halfway across the barn and headed back to the Red Door. Instead, she was right in front of him, two fingers pressed to her mouth, failing to cover a ridiculous smile.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because I like fighting with you.”

“You like it when I’m mad?”

She shook her head as she stepped into his arms, which automatically wrapped around her back. “I don’t like that you’re upset, but I like that I know you’re always going to turn back to me. I like that you don’t walk away. I like that even when you’re mad, you still hold me.” She pressed her forehead against his breastbone. “I like that you still let me hold you.”

He stared up at the open rafters as the backs of his eyes began to burn. He didn’t understand how she could know him so well, but she did. So he held on to her and let her hold on to him. And together, maybe they could make sense of the things that didn’t.

Like the feelings that were supposed to be easing with distance but were only growing.

For several long minutes, only the sounds of the barn filled the space—the munching of hay and the bleating of goats and the yips of eleven baby Newfoundland pups.

Just as his heartbeat returned to its normal pace, she whispered against his shirt, “What happened to make you think you have to do this all alone?”

He’d never told a soul. Not his best friend or his cousins.Especially not his dad. Yet Cretia asked with such sincerity and certainty that she seemed to know there was something to tell. She’d opened up to him about her mom. This was the least he could do.

“Growing up, I always knew that this business had been passed down from father to son. But my dad told me many times that I didn’t have to take it if I didn’t want it, that I could choose any career. He said he’d be proud to pass it along to me, but he’d never force it on me. When I was seventeen, I told him that when he was ready to retire, I’d be ready to take it on. He told me I didn’t have to decide yet. There was still time to change my mind, and he wouldn’t blame me if I wanted to pursue something else. But I told him I would do whatever it took to keep our family’s legacy going strong. He just smiled at me and said he had no doubt that I would.”

Finn swallowed the lump that lodged in his throat at the surprisingly emotional memory. He could still feel the weight of his dad’s hand on his shoulder and see the trust in the older man’s eyes.

“That’s really sweet,” Cretia said. “But I don’t—”

“A few years later Dad started getting stiff, and he couldn’t do some of the physical parts of the job. He was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. It’s not terminal. It just makes it harder for him to get around. Harder to get on the ground with the puppies. Harder to be on the move all the time. I think he’d planned on working the business until he was eighty, but his body just gave out. And Mom told him in no uncertain terms that they were going to retire and move to Summerside, where she’d grown up. I think she missed the convenience of living in a city. And more than that, I thinkshe wanted to be near a hospital in case something happened. It was probably best for Dad, and I knew I was going to miss them, but I was sure that I could handle things. I’d watched my grandpa and my dad run this business since I was a kid. I knew what I was doing.”

Cretia nuzzled her head against his chest. “What changed? Because as far as I can tell, you do know what you’re doing, and the business is doing well.”

“One morning I came outside, and I saw a truck in the driveway. It was a friend of my dad’s—a guy named Milo McGinniss. He used to live on the farm right next to ours. I didn’t see him and my dad around, so I headed toward the barn to do morning chores, and I was in the tack room when they walked in. I know they didn’t see me there, and I know I wasn’t supposed to hear what they said, but it’s seared into my brain now.”

She didn’t speak, but her back became tense even as she pulled him closer. Almost like she thought she could spare him the pain again.

“Milo told my dad that I wasn’t up to running the business. ‘You know your son can’t handle it. Are you ready to see everything your family has worked for go down the drain because you left it to a kid?’” Finn sucked in a stabilizing breath. “I couldn’t see them, so I don’t know what my dad did, but I know he said, ‘You think you’re the first to say that?’”

Finn swallowed hard before forcing out the rest of the memory. “My dad said he didn’t expect much out of me. I was barely twenty at the time, but I felt like I’d shown that I was worthy by working hard all through my childhood. In that moment, I knew I hadn’t.”

“So you’re here—working all by yourself, refusing to ask for help—because you’re trying to prove your dad wrong?”

“Something like that.”

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