“Oh my gosh, you have to see it! It’s beautiful!” Ari exclaimed, clutching the instrument case to her chest.
Her enthusiasm made it easier to find a genuine smile. “Well, let’s go into the family room and see.”
Pru was aware of Flynn’s eyes on her as she followed Ari. As the girl carefully laid out the case and opened it, he slid an arm around her waist, pressing a kiss to her brow in a wordless comfort that made her ache, even as it soothed.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Ari showed her the whole set up, describing every piece, showing how it fit together, and even drawing the bow very discordantly across the strings.
Pru tried not to wince.
“We’ll have proper lessons starting tomorrow,” Flynn promised. “When we’re sure no one is sleeping.”
Ari took no offense at that. “I can’t wait! Thank you, Flynn!” She threw her arms around him in a fierce hug.
“Why don’t you go put it away, then have some of that pizza we brought home?”
Home. Her home. Ari’s home. But could it be his home? Could he learn to love it here, as they did? Or would he reach a point where he felt trapped?
“Pru?”
She jolted. “What?”
“I asked if you’d eaten. We’re later than we planned.”
“I—” She glanced out the window, noticed it was coming on dark. “Good lord, what time is it?”
“Near nine.”
She hadn’t heard a peep from the Talbots. They must have gone into town for dinner. “No, I haven’t had anything for a while. I’m not really hungry.”
Flynn searched her face, and she had the sense he saw way more than she wanted him to.
“Come with me.” He pulled her outside, down the steps and toward the barn.
“Why are we going to the barn?”
“For some privacy.” He didn’t flip on the overhead lights, instead plugging in the twinkle lights they had yet to take down. “There now, tell me what’s wrong.”
She considered half a dozen things to do with the in
n. But that would just be a delay tactic, and she felt she owed him honesty. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
He didn’t ask which part. Maybe he just knew. Maybe it didn’t matter. But he took her hands in his. “I’m sorrier than I can say that I made things harder for you. That was never my intention. Tell me how I can make this better. Tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll do it.”
He’d try. And Pru loved that about him. She’d come to love so many things about him.
“I don’t know. We can’t hit the rewind button. There’s no way to undo what Lydia Coogan saw. If it had been Mae, it would have been fine. She pulled every string possible to keep Ari with us after Mom died. But it wasn’t Mae. We’re just going to have to do the best we can and hope it’s enough. I’m so damned afraid that it won’t be enough. That she’ll see through this charade.”
“Is it just the encounter with the Coogan woman that you’d undo, if you could?” His voice was carefully neutral, but she recognized the tension underneath.
“I don’t regret you, Flynn. I can’t. You’re a good, caring man or you wouldn’t have volunteered yourself for this lunacy.” She reached up to cup his face. “Thanks for being that guy.”
He bent brushed his lips to hers. “You’re worth all the crazy and more, agra.”
She sighed, pressing her brow to his. “You know one of the worst parts of all of this?”
“What’s that?”
“I hate what’s at stake and I hate that you’ve been trapped by circumstance and your own nobility, but there’s a part of me that’s so pitifully relieved that you’re not leaving next week.” The admission cost her. But she didn’t want to add to the lies any more than she had to. Between the two of them, she wanted only truth. She pulled back to look at him. “I know that’s probably not what you want to hear. It’s not what we agreed to. But there you have it. I’ve gotten…attached to you. And I don’t know how to face what’s coming without sliding deeper into that.”