Chapter Seven
Ulysses
Ihad Finn here now. I intended to get him talking and to not let him stop. I’d texted Spring to bail on our planned lunch so she wouldn’t show up. “You’ve noticed an uptake in fires? Small towns rarely see this many—”
Finn held his left index finger in the air—effectively cutting me off. “Food first. I’m starving. It’s been hours since breakfast.”
Despite the fact he wasn’t wrong—we were well past noon—I wanted to argue. Since I was paying for this meal myself, I wanted answers. I would’ve loved to use my nearly nonexistent expense account, as I would’ve in Vancouver in a heartbeat, but the damn thing was well, nearly nonexistent. Saving those few dollars for a rainy day felt like a good idea. Plus, as a reporter, I didn’t generallypayfor tips. And after last year’s clusterfuck, I was even less inclined to do so.
In the past. Nothing to see here. Don’t rubberneck as you drive past the catastrophe that is my life…
Before I could come up with a coherent argument—like the fact Iwaspaying—Sarabeth was back with our food.
Finnhadordered a steak along with a baked potato and a side of broccoli.
Pretty healthy compared to my deep-fried French toast with cream cheese and strawberry sauce. Just an explosion of sugar-and-fat goodness.
“So, what’s life as a small-town reporter?” Finn asked—then proceeded to take a big bite of his steak.
I cut a piece of my French toast and dipped it in real Canadian maple syrup. “Same as being a reporter anywhere, I suppose.”Big fat liar.
He swallowed. “So you’ve been a reporter elsewhere?”
I squinted. “I didn’t just come into the world fully formed in July. Yes, I’ve had other jobs.”
“As a reporter.”
“As you say.”
Finn waved his fork at me. “You’re evading.”
I shrugged. “You have a search engine. You know my full name—”
“I do now. Once I found out you were the new editor. Unlike in July.”
I held his gaze. “Unlike July.” The best and worst half-a-night-stand of my life.
“What if I said I didn’t want to search you?”
The frown came quickly as I again regarded him. “Why would you not search me?"Do you really want to be encouraging him? Nope. Probably not.Still, I couldn’t resist the urge to poke him. Sort of like poking the bear. God only knew what would happen. How he’d interpret theofficialstory of what happened.
“Maybe I see you as a gift at Christmas. I want to savor the unwrapping rather than ripping all the paper off at once.” The firefighter grinned.
“Something tells me, as a child, you ripped plenty of paper.”
“That might or might not be true. Sometimes, though, I like to savor. Have things last more than a few hours.”
Another jab at the fact I left him in the middle of the night and hadn’t told him how to find me. I still didn’t know the exact moment he’d discovered I was the new editor of the Mission City Gazette. I’d thought that might’ve brought him to my doorstep. If only in anger.
Even that news hadn’t drawn him out. Nope. Took running into each other at a bar in Langley to finally bring on the confrontation I’d been expecting. “Sometimes a few hours is all we’re capable of in that moment.”
“Oh?” Finn sipped his coffee. “I think you can do better than that.”
I wasn’t convinced—but I also wasn’t going to argue. “So…fires.”
He gestured to his plate. “Not while I’m eating. I want to properly digest my food.”
I held in the eye roll. Barely.
