Hooked

worked out well for you.”
    “It’s been good.” She nodded emphatically. “I don’t know how I’d get along without the family. Don’t know how I ever did.”
    For a moment her words hung between them.
    The food arrived just then and she was able to sink her attention into her omelet and fruit. Steph and Finn managed a little small talk, but twice while they were eating she looked up to find him staring at her with an expression that was somewhere between curiosity and intensity. She had the oddest feeling that he could see inside her, that he could tell something about her was different. It was all she could do to keep from crossing her arms over her breasts.
    She tried not to think of his sister, Janice, whom she had met and liked a great deal. She tried not to imagine him wiping Janice’s brow or holding her while she cried, or feeding her when she didn’t feel like eating. But every image Steph tried to dodge seemed to slide around the barriers she put up, and bring three others with it.
    To combat the emotions crowding her lungs, she started to talk about her nieces and nephews and birthdays and family holidays. She inquired enough to realize that Finn was truly feeling estranged from his daughters, who lived with his ex, and didn’t know how to fix their relationship. And then it happened.
    Somehow her forearm was on the tabletop and his big, callused hand closed over it and slid down to her hand, enfolding it, cradling it…making a connection between them that was devastatingly strong and familiar. That warmth, that solid, vital presence… She wanted to curl up in his arms and have him hug her back to health and hope and life itself. But that was too much to ask of anyone; that was a task she had to undertake herself. The task she’d been running from for almost nine months now.
    Escape is not an option.
    “Whoa! Look at the time,” she said, glancing at her watch and springing to her feet. “I have to get on the road if I’m going to catch my flight.” She reached for her purse, but Finn rose and insisted breakfast was on him. For a moment they stood two feet apart, looking at each other, not quite sure what to do.
    His arms moved at his sides, ever so slightly. She wanted to feel them around her so badly….
    Panicking, she took a big step backward, fearing that both her anxiety and the reasons for it were written all over her. “Well, it was wonderful catching up with you, Finn. If you’re ever in Atlanta…”
    She turned on her heel and, through the rush of blood in her ears, caught something about “a couple of weeks.” Unable to stop herself from taking one last look, she turned by the hostess station to toss him a brisk wave and a tight smile. There he stood with his broad shoulders and long, muscular legs…his big, capable hands and sorrow-shaded eyes…
    It was fifteen minutes later, as she floored the pedal of her rental car along the state highway, that she realized it was tears that kept making the road hard to see. Buckets of them. She was sobbing.

Chapter Three
    The air on the way back to Atlanta was clear and smooth, which was good, because there was enough turbulence in Steph’s emotions to make the flight bumpy indeed. She kept looking at her right hand, feeling again the warmth of Finn’s touch and the skin hunger she felt in his presence. He was so big, so solid and comforting…no wonder they wanted him as a volunteer on those fishing weekends. His hugs were probably therapeutic gold.
    And she’d just ducked one as if it were a death lock.
    What was the matter with her? What was she so afraid of?
    Yeah, well…the list of her fears right now would take longer than a three-hour plane ride to recount. Ditto the list of her regrets. When she broke it off with Finn Hartley because she was moving to Atlanta, she had been sure she was doing the right thing. She had known for some time that it wasn’t working between them; they were headed different directions, wanted different things out of life. With his brain and personality and vision, he could easily have gone straight to the top of Damon’s Sporting Goods, been president or CEO of the sprawling corporation.
    But he was content to be a store manager and to spend his extra time fishing and camping—poster boy for the outdoor life Damon’s was famous for outfitting. It had taken her a while to realize that no matter how manly and desirable he was, she would never achieve her dream while moving along in his