As one of the middle Haven girls, Macdidget it. It was what made the two of them so close. Rory soared far above her sisters, the picture-perfect woman in their daddy’s eyes, married to her college sweetheart and raising two flawless children. And Nat, their youngest sister, hadn’t given a damn about this town or what their daddy thought, soaring in a different way and getting the hell out as soon as she’d graduated high school.
Willow and Mac stopped on the front stoop, both of them staring at the door. The blare of a television, interrupted sporadically by murmured voices, seeped out from inside.
Finally, after standing for long moments, Mac squeezed Willow’s hand. “Ready?”
Not even a little bit.
“Yeah,” Willow managed to get out through the invisible fingers wrapped tightly around her throat. She didn’t have to actuallydoanything tonight, but at least when she left there, she’d have a plan one way or another.
Mac raised her fist to knock but paused and glanced over, giving Willow one last chance to back out. When Willow didn’t speak up, Mac brought her knuckles down on the door in a quick rap.
“It’s open,” someone called from inside.
“No going back now.” Mac turned the doorknob and stepped over the threshold.
While Willow was friendly with everyone in town, she wouldn’t exactly say she and Ty were friends. As such, the last time she’d been to his house had been ten long years ago, and he’d done some upgrading since then, moving on from the trailer he used to have to a small ranch home. It was cleaner than she’d expected it to be, nicer too. A TV mounted on the far wall blared a video game, and as large as it was, it looked nearly minuscule compared to the massive couch that took up the majority of the room.
Ty sat sprawled out on one side, and Willow lifted her hand in a wave before glancing to the other occupant. Her hand froze in midair along with the smile on her face, her feet refusing to move.
Lord, couldn’t she catch a freakingbreak?
The person sitting all the way on the other end, smiling up at her, was none other than the man who’d dominated nearly all of her thoughts. FinnfreakingThomas. He looked so relaxed there reclined against the back cushions, his legs spread, fingers loosely wrapped around the neck of the beer bottle resting on his knee, like he hadn’t teased her with his body and his words earlier in the day. Like he hadn’t rocked his erection against her ass on the dance floor mere days prior.
Willow’s stomach bottomed out, seeing him there as if he didn’t have a care in the world when the tornado of butterflies in her stomach just got kicked up to a Category five hurricane. She tightened her grip on Mac’s hand until her sister let out a squeak of protest and dug her fingernails into Willow’s skin in retribution.
“Looks like I picked the right night to stop by,” Finn said, his eyes stuck to Willow.
Willow blinked and shook her head. “Stop by…” She narrowed her eyes at Finn, who only returned her glare with a smile. Of course, she’d known Ty and Finn were friends—they had been their whole lives. Really, it was her own damn fault she hadn’t anticipated this, especially considering the past few days. Ropers may have been a coincidence, but there was no way this was. No freaking way. She had half a mind to stomp her foot right there and cuss Ty out.
Instead of doing that, she settled on shooting daggers his way, a finger jabbed in his direction. “Tyler Owen Kenning Junior, you traitor. Your momma know what you get up to with boys like him?”
Ty laughed, resting an arm against the back of the couch as he tipped his beer bottle toward her. “My momma thinks I’m an angel and doesn’t listen to nothin’ anyone might say otherwise.”
“Mm-hmm,” Willow said, dropping Mac’s hand to cross her arms over her chest. “So this is the kind of professional you are, huh? When someone asks for an appointment, you invite all your friends to the show?”
“Appointment for what?” Finn asked, watching her like a hawk. Did she imagine how his eyes flicked down to the vicinity of her hip and the black bird hidden under layers of clothes?
Ty held up his hands in surrender and spoke as if Finn hadn’t said a word. “Hey, you said you just wanted to talk about your options. Didn’t think it’d be a problem when Finn said he was gonna stop by, too.”
“What kind of options?” Finn asked.
She couldn’t tell if he was playing dumb, or if he really didn’t know her reason for being there. Either way, ignoring him was in her best interest. To Ty, she said, “And I bet his stopping by had nothing at all to do with me being here, huh?”
Ty looked away from her, focusing on the TV. “I don’t know nothin’ about that. That’s between y’all.”
“Idon’t know nothin’ about what you’re doing here,” Finn said. “Someone wanna fill me in?”
Willow ground her molars together. “I told you earlier, you weren’t gettin’ anything out of me, Griffin.”
He clenched his jaw, no doubt over the use of his full name. Good. It was dumb and childish, but at that point, she needed to hold on to every bit of distance she could put between them. “You thinking of getting some more ink on that pretty skin?”
She ignored the shiver his words sent down her spine. “How do you know I haven’t already?”
His gaze heated even more, and she wanted to slap herself for being such an idiot, for walking right into his trap. He lifted one eyebrow and did a slow sweep of her from head to toe. “Guess I don’t. You offering to show me, Willowtree?”
Those handful of words coming from Finn’s mouth—the seductive, almost lilting way he said them—had the temperature in the room rising at least ten degrees. And she wasn’t the only one who felt it if Mac’s reaction was anything to go by.
“Oooookay.” Mac side-stepped Willow and plopped down next to Ty on the couch. “You two kids work out whatever you need to work out. I’m gonna play this game until you’re done.”
