The Girl Next Door

Chapters 21-24

-21-

Despite her mounting exhaustion and Finn's efforts to wear her out, Emma did not sleep well that night, nor for several nights thereafter. Every night, nightmares plagued her, and she'd wake to find her pulse racing and her heart in her throat, on the verge of screaming. Sometimes, to her mortification, she did scream, waking Finn and sometimes even Catie. She hated to spoil their rest. More often when she woke, she slipped out of bed and went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea and read until she felt calm enough to attempt sleep again.

She read Finn's manuscript during these sleepless, solitary hours. She was impressed with his writing style, his ability to paint vivid images and capture complicated emotions with words, the depth of his characters and his sympathy with their motivations, but he was right: something about the book was just off. Finn's manuscript was well planned and well organized, but somehow the chapters didn't quite seem to fit together: something crucial and indefinable was lacking.

Wilbur Tyson, the man who'd served a life sentence for the Cartwright murders and whose prison journals were Finn's main source material, had clearly been damaged and dangerous. Finn had interspersed lengthy excerpts from the Tyson journals into his narrative, and the dark passages revealed a tortured and twisted soul. The decades he'd served in prison had done nothing to cure him of the urge to kill and destroy, and even in the last months of his life, when he'd been a sickly old man in a prison infirmary, Tyson had recounted his evil fantasies in lurid detail. The problem was that his journals were so graphic, so disturbed, that the actual facts of the Cartwright murders—horrid as they were— seemed tame by comparison.

At first, Emma thought the problem might be that Finn had picked the wrong journal passages to include in his narrative. Perhaps in his eagerness to expose the darkest recesses of Tyson's twisted psyche, Finn had been drawn to the most sensational journal entries, and inadvertently allowed the tragedy of the Cartwright family to seem insignificant in comparison. The next night, Emma asked Finn for permission to read Tyson's journals herself. She hoped to be able to flag for him some alternative passages that, while perhaps less explicit, might better fit with the narrative of the Cartwright murders.

She didn't tell Finn, yet, why she wanted to read them. She hadn't shared her thoughts on the manuscript, yet. Who was she to criticize an experienced, published, successful author? -And until she could offer some useful, concrete suggestions, what would be the point?

Finn gave permission grudgingly. He was already worried about her and her inability to sleep, and he was sure the Tyson journals would only make her nightmares that much worse. "He really was a sick bastard, Em," he worried. "Not just the Cartwright murders, either: he wrote about awful stuff. Rape, incest, pedophilia, necrophilia... it's all there."

"I know. You included all that in your manuscript," she said, keeping to herself her suspicion that his choice to include all the worst parts of the journals had not served the true crime narrative well.

Finn just shook his head. "Not all of it, I didn't."

After Catie went to bed that night, though, Finn led Emma into his office and settled her in the leather upholstered recliner in the corner. He pulled a box of dog-eared notebooks out of the closet and set it down beside the chair. "Don't leave these lying around where Catie might find them," he warned. "That kid'll read anything, and I don't want her anywhere near these."

"I won't," Emma promised. "Thank you."

"This isn't a good idea," he grumbled, but he left her to her reading and headed to bed without her.

It didn't take her long to realize that she'd been wrong: Finn hadn't pulled out the worst entries, not by a long shot. Wilbur Tyson's soul was even blacker than she'd known, and Finn had chosen his excerpts with care, leaving out the accounts of gratuitous gore and violence unless it was somehow relevant to the Cartwright story. Reading the journals, Emma soon grasped that Tyson was more of a sexual predator than Finn's excerpts had revealed. Yes, he fantasized about torture and murder, but it was the sex that came before the killing that really revved him up. Tyson was a pedophile. He wrote in chilling detail of choosing his targets, observing them from a distance first, stalking them, ingratiating himself into their circles to gain the trust of their caregivers, laying the groundwork weeks or even months before he made his move. Then he'd strike, subjecting the children to increasingly terrible violations, terrifying and shaming them into silence, until death was the only escape.

Tyson's writings were rambling and convoluted, and it was impossible to tell what accounts were based in truth and which were only fantasy. Perhaps it was all fantasy, or perhaps everything had been true, in part, once, and Tyson had spent his incarceration reliving his memories, embellishing the details with each retelling. Finn seemed to presume the latter: his narrative explained away the inconsistencies between the crime scene evidence and Tyson's journal entries about the Cartwright murders by suggesting that Tyson had revised the details in his mind, correcting imperfections, improving his murderous technique.

Emma supposed that was possible, but if Tyson had really been so fixated on the Cartwright killings that he wanted to improve upon reality in his journal accounts, he would have written about them more. Finn had compiled an exhaustive index of all of the journals, and Tyson had written about the night of the murders only twice, in thousands of pages written over the span of decades. He wrote far more often about molesting children, and he told those stories (or recounted those fantasies, if fantasies they were) again and again.

These accounts were also embellished with each retelling, but some of the basic details were consistent enough that Emma had the crawling suspicion that they were based in truth. She was sure Tyson had molested his own sister throughout his childhood and adolescence, the abuse only ending when he'd strangled her (accidentally?) during a particularly abhorrent sex act. Tyson also recounted several variations in which he went to work for a farmer with several young daughters. He'd molested the oldest (who was not yet ten when Tyson met her) and had plans for her sisters, but those plans were disrupted when the oldest girl hung herself in the haymow. After that, the farmer had never seemed to trust Tyson the way he had before, so Tyson soon moved on. There were also several accounts of Tyson's fascination with a neighbor's pre-pubescent daughter, a pretty, pampered little girl. He'd been particularly excited because the girl's father had been a police officer, and so gaining the man's trust and, thus, access to Tyson's prey, had been especially thrilling and challenging.

There were other accounts of child rape and torture throughout the notebooks, dozens of them, but these three stories were particularly detailed, and Tyson recounted each of them at least a dozen times. Some of the details — descriptions of various sex acts, different tactics for ensuring his victims' cooperation and silence, details about time and place — changed in each telling, but the victims' general character sketches were constant, at least for these three, poor girls: the sister, the farmer's daughter, the cop's little girl.

Emma spent nearly a week of sleepless nights trudging though Tyson's journals. Finn was right: they did not improve her nightmares. Now when she closed her eyes and tried to relax, she was just as likely to dream of terrified, hunted children as she was to dream of fire and mob enforcers. Finn urged her to leave the notebooks alone, but she felt compelled to read every ugly, horrid word, hoping to stumble upon the key that would reveal the truth of Wilbur Tyson's crimes, including the Cartwright murders.

Perhaps she was just reaching a level of fatigue that made her delusional, but Emma felt like she was getting close, like there was some important idea beginning to take shape in the back of her mind, too vague yet to explain or explore. She put off Finn's questions and concerns and kept going, though often Tyson's remorseless ramblings made her physically ill.

*****

Finn rolled over and reached out to the other side of the bed, but the sheets were cold and empty. He didn't think Emma had even tried to sleep last night, which wasn't okay. It had been nearly two weeks since the attack on her house, and he didn't think she'd gotten more than a few hours of sleep per night in all of that time. Worse, he feared her insomnia was getting worse instead of better. At first, she had at least let him coax her to bed, though it never took long before nightmares woke her. Now, she wouldn't even lay down. He wished he'd never let her near the Tyson journals, or even his own manuscript about the murders. The last thing she needed in her life right now was more evidence of evil in the world.

She'd agreed to stay with him and Catie, even after they'd finished fixing her living room, because she was afraid to be alone. It wasn't as if Finn could offer any actual comfort or help, he thought with bitter frustration. She needed to sleep, but she wouldn't listen to him. She probably needed counseling, but he hadn't dared to suggest it. For all that they were sleeping together (or, in Emma's case, not sleeping), they were still almost strangers: Finn didn't know how to delicately venture his opinion that she might need professional therapy without offending her, or worse, pissing her off so much that she left.

The thought of Emma leaving made his mouth dry and his palms damp. If she just moved back next door, he might be able to deal with it — he'd still be able to see her, and maybe they'd be able to build their relationship slowly, the way they might have done if her house hadn't been vandalized. Unfortunately, though, he doubted she'd do that. Even though the damage was fixed and the cottage actually looked better than it had before the fire, Finn didn't think Emma's fear would let her stay there alone. He didn't know what other choices she had. He didn't think she'd go stay with her mother, though the woman lived right across town. Finn didn't know Helen Fisher well, but she had a reputation for being shallow and self-important. From all that Finn had observed, it seemed that Emma rarely saw or even spoke to the woman. Furthermore, it had to be significant that there hadn't been any discussion of Helen taking Emma in when the vandalism first happened, right?

Finn also doubted that Emma would be willing to stay with George Hazen, though he'd probably be willing to have her. He knew that Emma was self-conscious about relying so heavily on George's help, both with the house and with his photography equipment, and Finn doubted her pride or independence would let her accept anything else from him.

She didn't have any other friends nearby, and she hated her job, so there was nothing else keeping her here. This was Finn's deepest fear: that if she left, she would leave, just pack up her little Jetta and disappear from his life as quickly as she'd arrived, and he'd never see her again. He couldn't stand to even think about that, and so he'd been walking on eggshells for days — knowing their arrangement wasn't working, that Emma was getting worse, that her health and possibly her sanity hung in the balance — but terrified to speak up for fear of scaring her off for good.

His thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of Catie's alarm, across the hall. School was back in session, as of last week, and Finn needed to get up and make sure his daughter got ready and out the door in time. (Not that that had ever been a problem for Catie. She liked school, and wasn't the type to dilly dally in the mornings in an effort to put off the inevitable.)

He rose from bed, put on jeans and a t-shirt, and stepped into the hall in time to see Catie ducking into the bathroom, her school clothes tucked under her arm.

"'Morning, Dad," she said cheerfully.

"Good morning, kiddo. How'd you sleep?"

"Good." Catie lowered her voice and pointed toward Finn's office door, which was ajar, and through which they could see Ludo curled up, asleep, on the floor. "Emma?" she whispered, concerned.

Finn shrugged. "I'll go see," he replied, and Catie nodded, went into the bathroom, and shut the door behind her.

He peered around the office door. Emma was dozing in his reading chair, one of Wilbur Tyson's notebooks open in her lap. Finn was relieved to see her sleeping. He considered carrying her to bed so she'd be more comfortable, but he knew she slept so lightly that there was no way he'd manage the relocation without waking her. He didn't even dare to move the notebook or turn off the reading lamp that still glowed beside her, its light washed out by the morning sun.

Ludo opened one eye and peered at Finn as he started to leave the room. Finn leaned down to pat the dog's head. He'd never considered himself an animal person, and Lord knew Ludo wasn't much to look at, but Finn was beginning to understand why Emma kept him around. He was utterly devoted to her, following her from room to room, spending most of his time dozing in her lap or by her feet. He wasn't yappy at all, though he'd emit a low, warning growl, or even a deep, booming bark, if anyone got too close to Emma. Finn appreciated the canine's desire to take care of his mistress, and he had to admit that Ludo seemed to be better at it than he was. Ludo could convince Emma to sit and rest by the simple expedient of curling up in her lap, whereas while Finn could often lure Emma to bed with the prospect of sex, he couldn't keep her there once the loving was over.

Ludo, fully awake now, rose awkwardly to his feet. His round little body was still wrapped in bandages to protect his healing ribs. He looked around and padded to Emma's side, whimpering and pawing her leg.

Finn didn't want Ludo to wake her, so he scooped the dog up gently, hoping Ludo wouldn't bark. "Shhhh. Come with me, buddy," he whispered. "I'll let you out."

Ludo blinked at Finn, but didn't growl or bark. Finn carried him downstairs (Ludo still couldn't manage stairs on his own, so early in his recovery) and out the front door before setting him down in the grass. It was a gorgeous, sunny morning, just a little bit cool. Emma had the day off, and Finn wondered if she'd like to go for a paddle on the river when she woke. Maybe if they got away from everything, away from Emma's house with its fresh-paint odor a too-strong reminder of that terrible night, away from poor Ludo and his bandages, away from Wilbur Tyson's dark, demented journals, away from town and all of the staring busybodies who were always watching and judging, maybe Emma could finally relax and feel better.

Ludo finished his business and trotted back to Finn's side, looking up expectantly, ready to be picked up. Finn carried him back upstairs and set him down just inside the office door, and Ludo turned around in several tight circles before curling up at Emma's feet, settling down with a noisy sigh. Emma slept on, to Finn's relief.

Finn went downstairs to make coffee, and Catie joined him there, fresh from her shower and dressed for school. She poured herself a bowl of cereal and asked how Emma was doing.

"She's asleep, thank goodness," he replied.

"Is she going to be okay?" Catie asked worriedly.

Finn could only shrug. "I hope so."

"Did the police catch the guys who did it yet?"

"I think we'd have heard, if they had."

She frowned. "Do you think they will catch him? Or them, or whoever?"

"I don't know, baby. I hope so," he said. "We'll all feel better if they do."

Catie nodded in agreement. She finished her cereal and rinsed out her bowl, then gathered her school things into her backpack. Finn reminded her to brush her teeth. He walked her out to the garage and gave her a hug, then stood watching as she pedaled down the street on her bike.

He watched until she turned the corner, then headed inside. He planned to shower and maybe even do some housework (shudder) while waiting for Emma to wake, but that was not to be: when he returned to the kitchen, Emma was there, pouring herself a cup of coffee. She was too pale, and dark shadows like bruises stained the hollows around her eyes. -And yet, for all her evident exhaustion, her face lit up when she saw him: her eyes danced, and her mouth curled up in an eager smile. Finn stood a little bit taller as he returned that smile. It was damn good for a man's ego to have such a beautiful woman be so happy to see him.

Emma set down her coffee cup and hopped into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips. There was nothing timid about Emma's style of loving, at least when they were alone. No tepid embraces for her, not when she could hug him with all her limbs and enthusiasm. The first time she'd leapt into his arms this way, in her kitchen that night just a few weeks ago, it had seemed like too much, too fast, but he'd come to love her no-holds-barred approach to affection.

He was vaguely aware of items clattering to the floor as he swept her onto the counter, but he didn't check to see what had fallen. He only cared about the sweet welcome he found in her mouth, and the sweeter welcome he'd find at her core. He was revising his plans to go out for the day when he realized she was trying to tell him something, pulling back from the kiss to form words that his lust-fogged brain couldn't absorb.

Finn took a ragged breath and stepped back, shaking his head to clear it. "What? Sorry."

She slid him a grin that nearly had him on top of her again, but she put her hand on his chest to hold him back. "Listen, I figured something out," she said urgently. "I almost woke you up to tell you, I was so excited, but it was, like, 3:00 in the morning and I didn't think you'd appreciate it."

"What?" he asked, hoping that whatever she had to say, it would be quick so they could get back to what they'd been about to do.

"Wilbur Tyson didn't do it."

"What?!" he choked, his hopes for a brief interruption evaporating. This was earth-shattering. "Of course he did."

Emma shook her head with certainty. "He did a lot of other evil shit, but he didn't kill the Cartwrights. He was framed."

Finn stepped back, his arousal doused as if he'd been dipped in cold water. "What are you talking about?"

She slid off of the counter and reached past him to retrieve her coffee mug. "That's why you can't get the manuscript right: Tyson didn't do it." Her tone was excited but matter-of-fact, as if she had no idea that her words were hitting him with the force of a giant wrecking ball, smashing to shreds the project he'd spent the whole past year working on.

"Emma, he confessed. He wrote about the killings."

"That's just it," she insisted. "He only wrote about them twice, and with nothing like the detail he wrote about all the other stuff he did. -And the details aren't right. You know they're not right. He wrote about raping Dorothy and Mrs. Cartwright, but there was no evidence of sexual assault."

"They didn't have DNA evidence back then, though," he argued, trying to be reasonable. "You read those journals: you know how Tyson's mind worked. I think he did rape them. The police just didn't have any way to prove it."

"If he'd done what he said he'd done, the police wouldn't have needed DNA evidence to prove it. All of the Cartwrights were fully dressed, each shot only once. The women still had their stockings and undergarments on. Tyson liked to torture his victims: he wrote about tying them up, strangling them, striking and biting them. He liked to leave marks, especially marks that would have been covered by clothing. That's not what happened to the Cartwright family. Mrs. Cartwright was the only one who had any marks, and she had a fat lip and a black eye that the ME said were several days old when she died. Tyson couldn't have done that."

"Maybe he didn't leave Mrs. Cartwright's bruises, but so what? Maybe he didn't rape them. It doesn't matter. You read the journals, Em: it's so hard to know what's true and what's bluster." Finn leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms defensively. He didn't want to hear ugly words like 'rape' and 'torture' coming from Emma's beautiful mouth. "No," he said, pleading with her to stop.

She didn't understand, and plowed ahead as if he hadn't spoken. "Think about those bruises, Finn: a fat lip and a shiner. Those are standard-issue signs of battering. Mr. Cartwright left those marks. Everyone said he was a bastard and a drunk. It makes sense that he'd beat his wife: it wasn't even against the law back then."

"Tyson confessed, Emma," Finn repeated. "Who cares if Cartwright did beat his wife? That's not what killed her."

Emma nodded, practically vibrating with the excitement of her conviction. "No, she was shot in the heart, once, there in her kitchen. Dorothy was shot in the back of the head in the yard, probably as she tried to run away. That poor little boy, the brother, he was shot execution-style, in the barn, hiding."

Finn glared at her, impatient. He knew all of this. He knew more about the Cartwright murders than anyone still living, and the fact that Emma presumed to talk to him as if he didn't was beginning to piss him off.

"And Mr. Cartwright, he was shot in the kitchen, too. The bullet entered beneath his chin and blew off the top of his head. Doesn't that sound like suicide, Finn?"

"Tyson was six inches shorter than Bob Cartwright."

Emma scoffed. "And nearly sixty pounds lighter. You think Bob just stood there in the kitchen while Tyson killed his family, patiently waiting his turn to die?"

"No, I think Bob was killed first," Finn bit out.

Finally, Emma caught on that he was getting angry. Her expression softened, and she had an concilliatory tone as she said, "You grew up knowing this story, Finn. That's what everyone always said, and so you assumed -"

"And we all know what happens when you assume," he sneered, his temper snapping.

She bit her lower lip and slumped. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "Please, just hear me out."

He gestured for her to get on with it. "By all means."

She winced at his acidic tone, but she continued. "I think Bob Cartwright killed his family. The wife first, then the kids as they tried to get away. Then, when he realized what he'd done, he went back to the kitchen to kill himself."

"Really? And how, after blowing off the top of his head, did Bob dispose of the murder weapon so that it was never found?" Finn demanded coldly.

Emma sipped her coffee with infuriating patience. She set down the mug, straightened her spine, lifted her chin stubbornly, and said, "I know you don't want to hear it, but here's my theory: the police chief framed Tyson, because Tyson was diddling his daughter."

For one terrible span of time, Finn lost track of his place in the world. His vision blurred, and he was no longer aware of the counter behind him, holding him up. Emma's voice kept speaking, her tone insistent, but Finn stopped hearing her as his head filled with the rush of blood. In an instant, everything he knew about the Cartwright killings shifted and rearranged itself in his mind, and he knew without question that Emma was right. It made perfect, terrible sense. Suddenly, the inconceivable seemed so obvious, he couldn't believe he'd never seen it before.

Police Chief Samuel Greene had been in charge of the Cartwright investigation. He'd been the first on the scene, the first in the house. A farmhand from the village, Eli Barker, had shown up to work in the early morning and discovered Dorothy's body in the dooryard, but he'd fled down the hill to summon police without ever going looking for the rest of the family, without ever finding the parents in the kitchen or the boy in the barn. Greene had eventually summoned officers from nearby communities to help with the investigation — there had been no centralized State Police force back then — but he'd gone up to the farm alone, first.

Greene could have taken the murder weapon. He could have made a garden variety domestic-violence-driven murder-suicide into something far more sinister. (Though no murder was 'garden variety' in small-town Vermont, not in the late 1930s, and not today.) Confounding as it seemed, Finn suddenly believed Chief Greene not only capable of such a deception, but guilty of it.

Eleven months prior to the Cartwright murders, in the late fall of 1937, an out-of-town bachelor named Wilbur Tyson bought the house next door to Chief Greene's growing family. He was an uncommonly helpful neighbor, helping the sickly Mrs. Greene keep up the property while the Chief's duties as the first and only lawman in a rapidly-growing mill town kept him too busy to do the work himself. -Too busy to keep close tabs on Tyson's evil designs on his daughter... but evidently not too busy to realize that Tyson was a threat, and not too moral to use his position and influence to put him behind bars.

Finn had a daughter, too. He understood, with absolute clarity and a twinge of fierce admiration, exactly what Chief Greene had done.

******

"Finn?" Emma ventured nervously, when she finally realized that he wasn't listening to her. His Irish heritage meant he was always pale, but now his complexion had taken on a damp, sickly pallor. Sweat beaded at his temples, and his dark eyes were glazed, unseeing.

She hopped off the counter and crossed to him, cautiously. She set her hands on either side of his face and wiped the sheen of sweat with her thumbs. She placed herself directly in his line of sight and held his head until his gaze finally focussed and held hers. "Are you okay?" she demanded, when she thought he was listening again.

He shook his head, shaking free of her grasp, and slowly crossed the room to the kitchen table. He pulled out a seat and sank, wearily. "Oh, God. All that work..." He slumped over his knees and cursed.

"I'm so sorry," she apologized. For the first time, her excitement at having finally figured out the mystery faded, and she could see that, for him, this was no eureka moment. If she was right — and she was certain she was — he would have to re-write the whole book. He'd have to start over. No wonder he'd sounded so angry with her.

During the heat of their debate, she'd been so bent on convincing him that she was right, but now she felt no joy in victory. Finn had put so much time into researching, writing, organizing and reorganizing his manuscript. Emma remembered all those summer nights when she'd sat up late, watching the lights burning in his office until the wee hours of the morning; all the days he'd been so busy with his work he'd barely remembered to stop and eat the meals she'd brought him. All that work, and she might just as well have taken a match to his only draft.

"You must hate me," she realized, stricken.

Finn didn't disagree. He didn't even look at her.

"I'm so sorry," she said again, wishing she knew what to say.

"I need to think," Finn announced, standing up so quickly Emma had to step back out of his way. He burst through the kitchen door, and she didn't follow.

Finn hopped in his truck and spun out of the driveway as though he had demons on his heels, without a word about where he was going or when he'd be back. Emma showered and dressed. She packed away Tyson's notebooks and put them, and their box, back in the closet where Finn kept them. She wished she'd never read them. She left her copy of the manuscript, with her notes and suggestions, in a neat stack on his desk. She shouldn't have read that, either. Finn had done so much for her, and she had hoped to be able to return the favor, at least in some small measure, by helping with his manuscript. She'd never meant to wreck the work he'd already done. 

*****

-22-

She was folding laundry, trying to keep busy, when the doorbell rang. Her heart leapt, and she was halfway to the door when she realized it couldn't be Finn: he wouldn't ring his own doorbell. Recent events had made her jumpy and suspicious, and her footsteps slowed with dread. She peered through the window beside the door, her heart pounding, but it was not a shovel-faced thug waiting on the porch. It was, quite possibly, worse.

Emma opened the door with numb fingers. "Phoebe," she said in stunned recognition, her voice flat, desolate.

A strikingly lovely blonde, tall and graceful, with tanned, flawless skin and high cheekbones, flashed her a sunny smile. Her clear green eyes looked Emma up and down, and after an unflatteringly long pause, comprehension dawned. "Emma? Emma Wyatt? What are you doing here?"

Emma swallowed bile. Her thoughts spun wildly. She couldn't pick out words to answer, but could only echo, "What are you doing here?"

"Catie wrote to me."

It felt as if a painful, bleeding hole had just opened in Emma's chest. It hurt to breathe. Catie had sent for Phoebe. Phoebe was Catie's mother, and Catie wanted her here. Emma understood that whatever fledgling claim she'd staked for herself within the McCaffrey family meant nothing compared to this. Phoebe had been Finn's fiancée, and Finn had carried a torch for her for all this time. Emma didn't believe that torch had gone out, not even in these last few weeks when he'd been so kind to Emma. He'd been trying to move on because he hadn't believed Phoebe would ever come back, and because Catie wanted a mom. -But now Phoebe was back, and Catie wouldn't have to settle for just any mom: she could have her own.

"Come in," Emma said, stepping back from the doorway, stepping back from Finn's life. "Let me pack my stuff and I'll be out of your hair."

"Wait, what?!" Phoebe called after her, as Emma ran up the stairs.

*****

Finn noticed how quiet the house was as soon as stepped inside, but he hoped the silence meant Emma was sleeping. He checked the downstairs rooms then tiptoed upstairs, expecting to see Ludo snuffle around a corner at any moment, keeping a watchful eye for intruders while his mistress napped. -But Emma wasn't on the couch, or in his room, or in the reading chair in his office, and Ludo was nowhere to be found. He was about to head back downstairs and check the wipe board by the phone, where they took down messages and wrote notes for each other when they went out, but then the manuscript on his desk caught his eye. He was sure it hadn't been there that morning. He picked it up and flipped through it, seeing that Emma had made tons of notes on his draft in her small, neat script. She'd made notes on several sheets of lined notepaper, too, and left them on the top of the pile, but everything he skimmed had to do with the draft and not with her current whereabouts.

He turned back toward the door, and noticed that the box of Tyson's notebooks was gone, too, no longer beside his reading chair. His heart banged against his ribs. She wouldn't have done anything to those notebooks, would she? He hated them, but he needed them for this book, especially now that he'd have to re-write the damn thing. He opened the closet and was relieved to find the box there on its shelf. He chided himself for wasting even an instant thinking Emma would take his notebooks without his permission: she knew better than that.

But where was she?

He was going to go back downstairs to look for a note when he stopped. Something didn't feel right. Something was wrong. He went back into his bedroom and looked around. The closet door was ajar, and he pulled it open, unease crawling up his spine with icy fingers.

In the weeks she'd stayed with Finn, Emma moved a few belongings in from next door piece by piece, retrieving things as she needed them rather than packing to move in. However, once she brought things, they'd taken up residence among his belongings: a cosmetic bag on his bathroom counter, her laundry washed and put away in his closet and a drawer he'd cleared for her use, a small collection of costume jewelry left in a small bowl on the night stand on her side of the bed.

Her clothes were gone. The bowl on the night stand was empty. The bathroom counter held no cosmetics. There was no third toothbrush in the holder between his and Catie's. Ludo didn't come when Finn called. She'd left nothing behind but her scent, that warm vanilla sweetness that lingered in the sheets and distracted his senses.

He looked out the bedroom window toward her house, and he thought he saw a shadow cross the living room, behind the white linen curtains they'd hung to replace the heavy, dusty, outdated drapes that had been burned in the fire. He ran downstairs and across the yard without a plan. He didn't know why she'd moved out, but he knew he'd say anything to get her back.

"Emma!" he called as he leapt up her porch steps, not trying to hide the desperation in his voice.

-But it was not Emma who came to the door.

"You," he choked, as Phoebe stepped out of Emma's living room. She looked calm and cool and unsurprised, as if she belonged here and not on the other side of the world.

"Finn!" she exclaimed delightedly, opening her arms. In his shock, Finn was slow to react, and she'd caught him in a tight embrace before he knew what was happening.

Fierce, hot anger burned through him. He caught her waist and pushed her back, firmly. "No, don't touch me," he snapped. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Phoebe pouted prettily. "Catie wrote to me. She asked for my help, so I came."

Finn didn't believe her. "Catie never writes to you, not unless I hound her about it, and I gave that up ages ago." He didn't care if his words hurt her: she hadn't cared about hurting him when she left.

She shrugged. "Ask her if you don't believe me. I can't wait to see her. Is she at school?"

Finn closed his eyes and rubbed his face, hard. Catie would be home all too soon, and he wasn't ready to explain all of this to her: he didn't understand it himself. "Where's Emma?"

Phoebe's green eyes glittered and narrowed speculatively, and Finn sensed her trying to measure his interest. "She left. Rented me the house for the month, actually. I'd hoped to stay with you and Catie, but I suppose it's good to have a backup plan... especially since you don't seem that happy to see me."

Finn's fists tightened at his sides as his frustration mounted. "If you're waiting for me to disagree, don't hold your breath. Did Emma say where she was going?"

She shrugged innocently. "She seemed in a hurry to go, though."

He could just bet she had. Poor Emma. What must she have thought when Phoebe showed up, especially on the heels of their argument this morning? He heard her voice in his memory: "I'm so sorry. You must hate me." Christ Jesus, he hadn't even denied it.

He turned and ran back to his truck, and drove directly to George Hazen's. No one answered when he pounded on George's door, but Emma's mother — a petite, birdlike woman whose only resemblance to her daughter was her diminutive size—came up the walk from her apartment to investigate. "What in the world? George isn't here. Finn?" They'd never met, but apparently she knew who he was.

"You're Emma's mother," he noted, letting her know that he knew her, also. "Do you know where she is?"

Helen's eyes widened. "You don't? I'd heard she'd been staying with you."

He cursed, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Do you know when George will be back? I really need to talk to him."

Helen shook her head. "He's out of town. He has a new... friend, and they've gone away for a few days."

"Leo?" Finn asked, hoping not. Leo was the only other person he could imagine Emma might have spoken with, not that Finn knew how to reach him.

"You've met him, then?" Helen asked, surprised. She pursed her lips and confessed jealously, "George only introduced me last night, and I think only because I arrived home as they were leaving. I don't know why he thinks I'd care: as if I didn't already know he was gay, right?!"

He had no patience for soothing Helen's bruised ego. "Excuse me. I really need to find Emma."

Belatedly, Helen seemed to appreciate his distress. Her face went white beneath her carefully-applied makeup. "Wait, she's really missing? What happened? Shouldn't we call the police?"

He sighed. He barely knew this woman and didn't want to tell her anything about his personal life, but he could understand her fear, since Emma had apparently been threatened and attacked by criminals twice in one summer. Tersely, he laid out the facts. "We fought this morning. I left to cool my head, and when I came back, she was gone. I know she left on her own, because she packed, and because she apparently rented out her house for a month. I need to know where she's gone."

Helen shrugged helplessly. "Emma... I've never understood that girl. She's so impulsive." She shook her head sadly. "Do you know how she came to live with Aunt Olive, all those years ago? Her father and I put her on a bus headed back to her second semester in college, and she just stepped off it when the bus rolled through town and walked up to Olive's front door, without any warning or explanation. Never mind that she was throwing out her future, walking away from a college education. Never mind that we were out all that tuition money. And then she ran off with your fiancée, and-"

"She did not run off with Phoebe," Finn bit out angrily.

Helen blinked at his ferocity. It still felt a bit odd to Finn, too, to be defending Emma on that front after believing the worst of her for so long. "No, of course not, not like that," Helen agreed, absently. "But they did leave together, without a word to anyone. Poor Olive, she was so hurt. I can't believe she left Emma that house, after Emma did that to her."

Finn felt sick. "You think she's gone," he said grimly.

She patted his arm sympathetically. "It wouldn't be the first time. That's all I'm saying."

******

Finn might have spent the rest of the day combing the streets for Emma, but he couldn't risk Catie going home and running into Phoebe when he wasn't there to mediate. When he left Helen, it was just a few minutes after the end of the school day, so he drove toward the school, hoping to catch Catie before she started home.

He parked in the lot and saw Catie almost immediately, running laps around the field with her soccer team. He'd forgotten about soccer practice.

Catie must have seen him drive up, because she signaled to her coach and then veered from the cluster of running girls to run toward his truck.

"Dad? What's wrong?" she asked, already anxious. Finn rarely showed up at practice, though he tried to attend every game.

"Hop in," he suggested, leaning across the cab to unlock the passenger side door.

Frowning, she went around the truck and climbed in on the other side. "Is Emma okay?"

Finn swallowed painfully, not sure where to begin. He'd always shielded Catie from the ups and downs of his relationships, but she'd been part of his connection with Emma since the beginning. He turned the truck off and turned to give Catie his full attention. "I think she's fine, love, but I'm not sure where she is," he began, honestly.

Catie squinted at him. "What do you mean? What happened?"

He recounted the basic facts: the argument, his leaving, and the fact that Emma had packed and gone by the time he got back.

"She's not at her house?" Catie asked, her sun-browned complexion turning ashen.

Finn shook his head. "I checked. Phoebe is there, hon. She says Emma rented her the house, and that you asked her to come."

Catie's eyes and mouth rounded in surprise. "What?! No!"

He frowned. There was a defensive, nervous edge to her tone that made him think Catie knew more than she was saying. "Why would she say that, then?"

She shook her head vehemently. "I wrote to her, weeks ago. I asked her to talk to you, to help, because I wanted Emma to stay and you to stop being mad at her. But that's all: I never asked Phoebe to come here!"

Finn rubbed his cheeks wearily. He hadn't shaved, and his face felt hot and itchy.

"Dad, she'll ruin everything!" Catie protested, bursting into angry, frustrated tears. "You and Emma were happy, and now Emma's gone! This isn't what I wanted at all!"

As always, the sight of his daughter's tears cut Finn to the quick. He hooked his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a sideways embrace. "Ah, sweetheart," he sighed. "I will do everything I can to find Emma, I promise. –But Phoebe's here, now, and maybe that's a good thing. You should get to know her."

Catie tried to push him away. "No! I asked her to help fix things with you and Emma, but the only reason she'd actually come here— out of nowhere, after all this time—is because obviously she doesn't give a damn about what I want. She came to mess things up, not to help!"

Finn frowned. He doubted Phoebe cared about his relationship with Emma, not after so many years, but Catie was right that the timing was unfortunate.

"Don't fall for it, Dad," Catie urged. "Maybe Phoebe was the love of your life, but don't take her back. I don't care if she's my mom: Emma's a better mom than she is."

"Honey," he objected. "You've never given Phoebe a chance."

"She wasn't here, and whose fault is that?!" she demanded. "Stop defending her! You're always trying to push her on me, make me write to her and pretend we're close, as if she's ever shown the slightest interest in me. She's not my mom, and the fact that she showed up now just proves that she doesn't actually give a flying fuck about me: she just wants to make sure you don't find anyone else."

"Catie! Language!" he chided, but it was half-hearted. He didn't feel like defending Phoebe the way he might have in the past. Catie was entitled to her feelings, and Finn was plenty angry himself.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccckkkk!" Catie yelled defiantly, kicking out at the dashboard. Her voice carried through the open windows and across the fields, so that most of her team turned toward the noise.

"Stop! This is school; you can't talk like that here," he reminded her. "Put your belt on; we're leaving."

"I don't want to go anywhere with you," she muttered darkly, but she slid across the seat and fastened her seatbelt.

"Tough shit; I'm your dad. We'll look for Emma. Any ideas where she'd go? I already checked at her mother's and George's."

Finn and Catie drove all over town and into the neighboring communities as well. They went everywhere that Emma had ever mentioned going and everywhere she'd ever expressed an interest in going. Finn cruised slowly up and down every shopping center parking lot in a thirty mile radius, while Catie searched for Emma's car.

"She has to go to work tomorrow, right?" Catie fretted, the first words she'd spoken to Finn after hours of angry sulking.

"I hope so," Finn replied, trying not to think about Helen's warning that Emma might have left town. Her job was the only other place he could think to look for her, and if she'd quit, he might not find her. His gut clenched painfully at the thought. She hated that job, he knew. If that was all that kept her here, it wouldn't keep her long.

"Can I stay home from school tomorrow and we'll go see her there?"

He sighed wearily. He knew Catie was just as worried as he was, and that she wouldn't be able to concentrate on school or anything else until they found Emma. Even so, he couldn't bring her along when he went to visit the camera shop in the morning. If Emma was there, he needed to talk to her along, and if she wasn't... well, that would make the kind of wreck of him that he didn't want Catie to witness.

"You need to go to school. I promise, though, I'll call you if I have any news," he told her.

Catie folded her arms across her narrow chest and scowled darkly, but she didn't argue.

Finn took Route 5 back to Wellsboro, slowing as they passed George Hazen's house, but Helen Fisher's car was still the only one in the driveway.

It was almost 11:00 when they finally got home, defeated. Grimly, Finn realized they hadn't eaten. He wasn't hungry, but he should have fed Catie.

When he apologized for the lapse, though, his daughter shrugged listlessly. "I don't want anything."

Nonetheless, Finn opened the fridge when they got inside. "There's leftover stirfry," he noted. "I could microwave it."

He glanced at Catie to see if she was tempted and caught her wiping away tears instead. Abandoning the refrigerator, he crossed the room and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Emma made that stirfry!" she sobbed, burying her damp face in Finn's t-shirt.

He sighed in sympathy and stroked her hair. "I know, love," he murmured, his voice breaking. He bit his lip painfully, trying to hold back his own tears. How could he comfort Catie when he wanted to cry, too?

Just then, a forceful pounding on the kitchen door made them both jump. Exchanging a hopeful glance, they practically raced each other to the door.

Catie opened it and visibly deflated when they saw Phoebe—not Emma—on the other side.

Phoebe's annoyed, impatient expression transformed into a bright smile when she saw Catie, even as the light of hope in Catie's eyes dimmed and sputtered out. "Look at you! My God, you're so big!" Phoebe exclaimed, opening her arms to hug her daughter.

Rudely, Catie spun out of the would-be embrace and fled the kitchen, sobbing loudly.

Finn watched her go, debating whether or not to follow. He feared if he did, Phoebe might follow too, and that wouldn't help. He turned back to Phoebe and sighed heavily. "It's not really a good time," he said, as if perhaps she hadn't noticed.

Phoebe's green eyes flashed. "I've come from the other side of the world to see my daughter. My. Daughter," she hissed. "I don't give a damn whether or not it's a good time."

"It's not as if you called first," he retorted. "You show up out of the blue for the first time in twelve years, without a word of warning, and expect Catie and I to drop everything that's going on in our lives to cater to your whims?"

For a long moment, they just glared at each other. Angry as he was, Finn noticed more than he wanted to. Phoebe looked exhausted, with dark shadows under her eyes. He wondered if she'd slept since leaving India. Other than looking tired, though, she looked untouched by the passing years: there were a few faint, tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and her hair was cut in a more modern fashion (still long but with layers to give it more shape) but otherwise she looked just as she always had—beautiful, healthy, free-spirited, confident. –A tall, blonde goddess of a woman, almost untouchable in her perfection. He wondered if that polished, perfect exterior had made him underestimate the depth of her misery after Catie's birth. He'd known she was unhappy, but she had always seemed so untouchable, so strong and invulnerable. Back then, he had assumed she would shake off the baby blues and emerge unscathed, but she hadn't.

Belatedly, he realized that because Phoebe didn't wear her moods on her sleeve the way he did, he'd somehow assumed she didn't feel things as strongly, as if her emotions didn't really touch her soul.

... What an ass he'd been.

"What?" Phoebe snapped, squinting at him suspiciously as these revelations played out across the canvas of his face.

He shook his head, too weary to try to put his epiphany into words. Instead, he shrugged off the last vestiges of his annoyance and said, "You look good, Phoebs."

She relaxed a little at the compliment, her chin losing some of its pugilistic tilt. "I look like I haven't slept in two days," she grumbled. "You don't look much better. I flew halfway around the world. What's your excuse?"

"Emma's missing."

Phoebe pursed her lips. "You and Emma...?" She let her voice trail off, speculatively.

Finn nodded, watching Phoebe for a reaction, but she was impassive. "Catie said she wrote to you to ask you to help 'fix things' between me and Em," he ventured.

"She said Emma had worked for you and quit," Phoebe clarified. Finn thought he detected a little edge of defensiveness in her tone, but he couldn't be sure. "Maybe I should have read between the lines..."

"You didn't?" he asked skeptically. Catie thought Phoebe had come to mess up his relationship with Emma. It made no sense that Phoebe should care after all this time, but then nothing about Phoebe's sudden appearance made sense.

She shrugged and looked toward the archway through which Catie had fled. "Is she okay?"

Finn knew a conversational dodge when he saw one, but what did it mean? Was Phoebe's evasion a tacit admission that his relationship with Emma had something to do with her return, or did that shrug just mean something like, 'I should have thought of it, but I didn't, and now it's too late'?

"She loves Emma," he said simply. "So do I." –Better to set the record straight from the outside, no matter what Phoebe's intent.

Phoebe heaved a weary sigh. "Look, I'm sorry about Emma. My timing sucks I guess. –But I've come a long, long way to see my kid, and I'm here for a month, so... What's the plan?"

Finn raked his fingers through his hair. "It's good you're here... for Catie. You guys should spend some time together."

"Yes," Phoebe agreed, a bite of impatience in her clipped response.

"I don't know what you're expecting, but you might find Catie... well, you've got work to do, to make things right with her," he warned.

"Does she hate me?"

"She doesn't know you. She hates being the only kid in town without a mom. –And she loves Emma, and the way Catie sees it, you chased her off."

Phoebe frowned. "I didn't. Emma didn't say anything to me. She didn't take anything from the house when she left. You think she's... gone?"

Phoebe was perhaps the last person on earth Finn wanted to talk to about Emma's absense. Apparently, Finn was an easy man to leave, as Phoebe's own defection proved too well. He bit out, "She rented you her house. I don't know where else she'd go."

"Doesn't she have a job?"

"I'm going there tomorrow. It's my best hope." –Maybe his last hope, he knew. If Emma had already quit her job, she was almost certainly gone.

Phoebe nodded. After a pause, she said, "I get that tonight is a bad time, but when will I see Catie?"

Finn's eagerness to change the subject led him to volunteer Catie's time more freely than he ordinarily would have. "Tomorrow, after school," he promised.

"What if—?" Phoebe broke off with a grimace. She hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and forced out her question on her exhalation. "What if you still haven't found Emma?"

His throat closed as he contemplated the possibility, but he answered. "Then expect Catie to be very, very upset."

*****

-23-

Emma was perusing a photography magazine when the bells on the front door jingled, signaling the arrival of a customer. It had been a slow week—so slow, even the boss hadn't come to work—and that meant Emma had too much time alone with her thoughts. She'd been trying to read an article comparing barrel distortion in various lenses for the last hour, but the words on the page hadn't been able to penetrate her distracted brain. She looked up toward the door, welcoming the opportunity to help a customer just so she'd have something to do... but this wasn't a customer.

Without warning, without a word, Finn vaulted over the counter and wrapped her in his arms, hugging her so tightly she could barely breathe.

She tried to push him away, knowing if she didn't keep her distance, she'd totally fall apart. "What are you doing here? I'm at work!"

"Thank you, Jesus," Finn breathed prayerfully, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

She shoved harder, wrenching free. "Finn!"

His eyes were damp and full of pain, and he was too pale. Guilt churned in Emma's gut.

"I thought you'd gone," he said, his voice low and unsteady, as if he couldn't get enough air. "I was so afraid... If you weren't here, I didn't know where else to look for you. I was so afraid I'd lost you."

Emma felt her own eyes heat and fill. She looked down at the counter, because it hurt too much to look at him. "Phoebe's back," she said, wondering if he knew already. Surely, Phoebe must have made her presence known. She wondered how that reunion had gone, though she didn't really want to know.

Finn squeezed between her and the counter and lifted her chin so that she met his gaze. "That doesn't change anything between us."

She shook her head sharply, breaking his hold. "Are you kidding? It changes everything!"

"Not for me," he insisted. "Come home, Em. Please."

"I don't have a home," she said sullenly.

"You have my home."

"Phoebe's back," she repeated.

Finn gritted his teeth. "I. Don't. Care," he said slowly, biting off each word and spitting it out as if it tasted foul.

Emma sighed and stepped around the counter, away from him. She started straightening items in the display case near the door, needing something to do. She couldn't think with Finn standing so close. She'd made up her mind to give him—and Catie—the space they needed to make their family whole, but it was so hard to walk away. If Finn pushed, she feared her resolve would waver.

"She said Catie asked her to come," Emma noted, still not able to look at Finn. This was the critical point, as she saw it: if Catie wanted her mother, Emma had no right to interfere with that.

"No," Finn disagreed. "Catie wrote to her—ages ago—and asked her to talk to me so that I'd forgive you for leaving with her. Catie did it for you, not Phoebe."

Emma's hands shook as she tidied boxes of frames into orderly stacks. Her throat felt tight and scratchy. "Catie wrote to her about me?" She was afraid to believe it.

"That's what Catie told me," he confirmed. "She's mad at Phoebe—she thinks Phoebe being here will ruin everything."

It did ruin everything, Emma thought grimly.

As if he sensed her thoughts, Finn said "It doesn't have to ruin anything unless you give up, Emma. I love you. I don't care that Phoebe's here. It doesn't matter, except that I think it would be good for her to spend some time with Catie. Please, please don't give up on us."

She swallowed painfully, fighting tears. "I'm not giving up," she choked. "I don't have a claim. She's Catie's mom. She was your fiancée. I'm no one."

"Was, Emma. She was my fiancée, a million years ago. It's ancient history."

Finally, she steeled herself to turn to look at him. It wasn't as easy as he made it out to be: he had to know that. "A few months ago when I came to town, you hated me because of her. Less than two weeks ago, I stupidly blurted out 'I love you,' and you couldn't say it back. That's not ancient history. Phoebe's back, and you need time to figure out what you want."

Finn scowled. "I know what I want. I love you. I should have said so that night, but I'd already ruined the moment. –And I know I was an ass, running out on you yesterday morning, but if you knew how hard I worked on that stupid book..."

To her immense surprise, this was what finally broke Emma's composure: the memory of how she'd devastated him by tearing down the central premise of his manuscript. She'd been blinking back the heat of emotion since the moment Finn walked in, but she lost the battle now: that heat flared and boiled over, and she had to swipe away the flood of tears in order to see. "I do know. I'm so, so sorry..."

He waved aside the apology. "You were right," he said simply. "I can't believe I didn't see it myself."

Emma shuddered, taking no pride in being right. "You'll have to start over."

"Not quite. Revising—even a huge revision like this—is easier than writing from scratch. Besides, this is my first attempt at true crime nonfiction, and thanks to you, I finally understand the crime."

She didn't answer. His words were small comfort, and she still felt wretched.

"Thank you," Finn continued. "I've been struggling with this book forever, making myself crazy because I couldn't get the story to come together, and not knowing why. I was an ass yesterday because all I could think about was all that wasted work. That and my stupid ego, which couldn't handle the fact that it was all so perfectly obvious once you pointed it out, but I couldn't see it."

Emma hiccoughed on another sob, and Finn hastened to get to the point. ''Really, though, you did me a huge favor. All that work doesn't matter, because the story was wrong. Rewriting will be so much easier, and the book will finally come together and be so much better. It's a good hook for sales, too. People around here are so sure they know what happened, as I was. Now they'll get a surprise plot twist that they're not expecting. How cool is that?"

She wiped her eyes again, trying to decide if he really meant what he said or if he was just trying to make her feel better. Either way, she believed it would be a better book if he wrote the events that she was convinced had happened, but who was she to say so? It wasn't her story. She hadn't grown up in the shadow of Cartwright Hill, hearing about the murders all her life, the way everyone in town had. "What do I know, Finn? What if I'm wrong, and you had it right all along?" she fretted.

He cocked his head and leveled her with a steady, uncompromising gaze. "Don't. Come on now, don't do that. Don't second-guess yourself. You're not wrong, and you know you're not... or at least you knew yesterday."

Emma chewed her lower lip anxiously. He was right. Yesterday, she had been sure, but today, everything was different. Her confidence had been shaken.

"No one needs an editor who only tells them what they want to hear. You were right, and the book will be better because of you," Finn insisted.

"I'm not your editor, I'm–" she started, before regret slammed into her and choked off her breath. –Nothing. Now that Phoebe was back, she was nothing to Finn. –A distraction. –An interloper.

"You're quite possibly the best editor I've ever had," he argued. "I read your notes on the manuscript: they're fantastic."

She smiled weakly, glad he'd found them useful. She'd put a lot of effort into critiquing his draft, and it had been fun—the most intellectually challenging activity she'd enjoyed in ages. –But her smile was short-lived, because she wasn't his editor.

Finn watched the fleeting spark of joy flit across her face and disappear, and his shoulders slumped. He turned his head to look out at the parking lot, and his Adam's apple leapt in his throat as he swallowed audibly. "Shit," he cursed, and when he turned back to Emma, his expression was bleak.

"You're giving up," he said flatly. "You're not listening."

"I am listening," she insisted. "I'm so glad you liked my notes. I was glad to do it."

"But...?" Finn prompted.

"Phoebe is back," she replied simply. Surely, he could see how that changed everything.

He growled in frustration. "We've been over this. I don't care. You're not listening."

She sighed. "I am listening, and I want to believe you... but you held a torch for her for all these years, and that doesn't just disappear because you and I–"

"I was not holding a torch for Phoebe," he interrupted. "Setting aside the fact that we've now established that I was wrong to think she ran off on me with you, another woman, all this time, I did believe that, and I wasn't inclined to forgive and forget. Moreover, she didn't just walk out on me: she walked out on our daughter, and for the past thirteen years she's barely kept in touch. I try to keep some communication going between them because she's Catie's mom, sorry excuse though she is, but I can't forgive that. As long as I've known her, Phoebe has put her own wants and needs above everyone else's, and why would you think I could want that?!"

Emma's heart beat a little faster at the vehemence, the certainty in his tone. Everything he said made sense, and she wanted to believe... but this was too important to get wrong, and as much as he denied it, she knew he'd loved Phoebe long after she'd left. "She's here. You don't know her anymore. Maybe she's changed."

"If she has, maybe she and Catie can build some kind of connection, finally," he allowed. "I hope so, but I'm not going to hold my breath or let Catie get her hopes up. –But, Emma, even if Phoebe has finally grown up, it doesn't change anything for me."

"I can't get my hopes up," she tried to explain. "I can't trust this—us—"she gestured to the space between them, "unless I give you a chance to fix things with Phoebe. Everyone in this town thinks I broke up your family. I'm not about to do, now, what I got blamed for back then. She's here for a month, and at least for that month, I'm stepping aside."

Finn's lips pursed in a petulant scowl. "And it doesn't matter what I want."

Emma grimaced but didn't disagree. They were talking in circles: she wouldn't convince him, and he wouldn't convince her.

"God damn you, Emma," he cursed, anger radiating from his rigid posture, tense expression, and dark, flashing eyes. "What happens in a month? What if I don't want to wait?"

She closed her eyes, not wanting to see him glaring at her. His anger stung, another sharp pain on top of the constant ache of missing him, and his words stirred the gnawing fear that she would lose him permanently. She'd known that was the risk when she'd given Phoebe the keys to the cottage yesterday, but she wouldn't be able to trust Finn's love if she didn't give him a chance to sort out his baggage with his ex-fiancée.

"I'm not asking you to wait," she said quietly. "If you and Phoebe find you still have... chemistry–" She forced the word out on a painful breath, but she couldn't continue.

"That's not going to happen," Finn vowed. "I don't want to play this fucking game, Emma. You're not stepping aside; you're pushing me aside. Don't be so sure I'll be waiting to take you back when you come to your senses."

His words struck like blows, and she cringed, but she couldn't back down. She'd always been perversely stubborn. They were alike in that.

"I'm not asking you to wait," she repeated stiffly.

Trying to vent his frustration, Finn brought his fist down hard on the glass display cabinet by the register.

"Stop it! I'll be fired if you break that!" Emma cried, trying to push him away, but the store was small enough that anywhere he stood, there was plenty to wreck if he lost his temper. Desperate to calm him, she changed tack and tried to explain her motivations from another angle.

"I'm not playing a game, or trying to push you away," she promised. "I love you, but everything is so wrong, and it all happened so fast... My house got firebombed, again, and all of a sudden I was living with you, but we'd really only been together a few hours at that point. I'm a mess, Finn, and it has nothing to do with you. I was supposed to get married this summer, and instead I lost everything, and nothing has happened the way I planned. I feel like my life is out of control, and I need some time to regroup and get my bearings. When Phoebe showed up yesterday, it felt like a sign."

Finn slumped back against the wall. His fists were still clenched at his sides, so Emma kept a wary distance, though she couldn't imagine that he'd hurt her. He bit out a string of muttered curses, but he sounded more frustrated than angry.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, hugging herself against the misery that was churning in her gut.

His head rolled against the wall until he faced her, his eyes still narrowed, his jaw still set. "Fuck you, Em. Now I feel like a dick for getting mad at you."

She shook her head. "You can be mad. You said you were all in, and you took a chance on us even though you were afraid Catie would get hurt... and here I am, flaking out on you just like you were afraid would happen. I didn't mean to do this. I thought I was all in, too, but Phoebe threw me for a loop."

Finn took a deep breath. He reached out and laid his palms on Emma's shoulders, and she froze, not sure whether he meant to hug her or throttle her. He did neither, but just held her there, the weight of his hands heavy on her slim shoulders. "What a fucking mess," he said finally.

She nodded unhappily.

"For the last time, I don't care that Phoebe's here. It doesn't change us," he insisted, and cut her off when she would have argued. "No. You don't get to tell me how I feel. Whatever she and I had, it's been gone a long time.

What you really want—and you should have led with this, and left Phoebe out of it—is space and time to work out your own feelings. I don't like it, but I can respect that. I can work with that. Okay?"

A spark of hope flickered, low in Emma's belly. She nodded slowly. "Okay," she agreed, and her shoulders relaxed a bit under his palms. "What do you mean, you can 'work with that'?"

"It means we talk. –Hopefully negotiate some parameters, rather than you unilaterally cutting ties and going into hiding," he answered.

"Negotiate," she echoed doubtfully.

He nodded. "You want time. Is a month a firm timetable, or was that just what you settled on because that's how long Phoebe's here, so it fit your cover story?"

"It's not a cover story," Emma objected. "Yes, I need time to work on my issues, but Phoebe's arrival does change things."

"Not for me," he said firmly. "How much time?"

She considered. She couldn't stay in the cheap efficiency she'd rented without Phoebe's rent payment to cover the cost, so at the end of the month, she'd need to have a plan: either stay with Finn, or put the house on the market and hit the road. Without Finn and Catie, and George, and maybe even her mom (just a little), there was nothing to keep her here in New England.

"A month is fine," she agreed.

A shadow chased across Finn's features, and he squeezed her shoulders. "A month then. –But please, if you decide sooner, don't leave me hanging. I know you'll leave town if–" His voice broke, and he tore his gaze away to glare out toward the parking lot again.

Emma reached up, lifted his palms from her shoulders, and laced her fingers through his. She squeezed his hands and promised, "I'll tell you... if I decide anything. I won't just leave."

He nodded tersely, straightened his spine, and turned to look at her again. "So that's 'time' settled. What about space?"

She frowned, not understanding.

"I get that moving in with us was too soon, but during this month, can we not see each other at all? Could we go to dinner sometimes? –Talk on the phone, at least?"

Emma pulled back, trying to drop his hands, but he wouldn't let go. "Space... Space is space," she stammered, flustered.

"Space is not space. Your cottage and George Hazen's manse are both 'houses', but there is a question of degree," he said dryly. "–And what about Catie? She wants to see you, too."

She tried again to pull her hands from his grasp, and this time she succeeded. She wrapped her arms around her chest and hugged herself tightly. "I thought you and Catie should spend your time with Phoebe."

Finn clenched his jaw so hard she could hear his teeth grinding. "We've been over this and over this," he ground out, impatiently. "Catie and I will no doubt see plenty of Phoebe, but we both want—strike that, we both need—to see you, too."

"No!" Emma exclaimed, sharply.

Finn waited, staring her down until she had to explain.

"It's just... If I see you, I won't be able to think," she confessed weakly.

His brows arched incredulously. "I've never known you to have any trouble keeping your wits about you in my presence."

"No, but..." She sighed and admitted, "If I go to dinner with you, I'll want to go home with you. If I go home with you, I'll want to go to bed. If I go to bed with you, I'll want to stay the night. If I stay one night, what's so wrong with two...? And then there goes the month, with nothing settled."

For the first time since he'd walked through the door, Finn's features relaxed into a smile. "If you give a pig a pancake..."

Emma blinked. "What?"

He grinned. "Nothing. –A book Catie loved when she was a kid." He reached out and pulled Emma into his arms and ducked his head to kiss her neck.

She shivered as her nerves endings came alert and clamored for his attention, even as she tried to hold herself aloof. "Please don't," she begged.

His thumb rubbed the spot he'd kissed, as if pressing his love into her skin. "I love that you want me. I want you, too... but I get it. No sex, okay. What about dinner? I won't invite you home, even though I'll want to. What if we slow things down and go out on a few old-fashioned, totally chaste, totally respectable dates?"

Emma frowned. "The good people of Wellsboro will crucify me if you take me out to Stubs now that the sainted Phoebe is home," she warned him. "I'll be run out of town."

He considered, still rubbing her neck absently. "I don't want to sneak around with you. Phoebe isn't a saint, and you're not a dirty secret. People will come around if we just give them time."

"I just have to hope no one gets mad enough to kill me first, I guess," she muttered darkly. "What if they firebomb your house next? It's better—safer—if you and Catie don't have anything to do with me."

Finn's embrace tightened once more. "Not an option."

She shrugged out of his arms, though it hurt to do it. Finn's arms offered the only safety she'd felt in months. "Why not? Do you not get that I've had people try to burn down my house twice in one summer? I don't understand it, but I'm not kidding myself. People hate me, Finn. That doesn't scare you?"

"It terrifies me," he admitted quietly. "That's why I need you to tell me where you're staying. What if something else happens?"

After a few seconds hesitation, she gave him the name of her motel. Someone should know where to look for her, just in case 'something else' happened... She had a sudden, chilling apprehension of what might happen if the person—or people—after her found her there, alone. Nausea roiled in her stomach, so strong she had to put her hand over her mouth and take shallow breaths.

Seeming not to notice her distress, Finn frowned darkly. "Really? That place looks like a dump."

She shrugged, unable to argue. The motel was dingy and run-down, but it was cheap and reasonably clean. It had locks on the doors and windows, and it was close to work.

"That can't be safe," he grumbled.

Emma glared, her annoyance temporarily stronger than fear. "I told you where I am and I didn't have to. I'm not asking for your opinion, Finn."

He held up his palms in surrender. "I'm sorry. Thank you for telling me," he said soothingly. "I worry about you. You haven't been sleeping."

She hadn't slept at the McCaffrey's house, either. "I can not sleep anywhere. What's the difference?" Finn opened his mouth, but she cut off whatever he would have said. "Spare me the lecture. You don't sleep any better than I do."

"I sleep just fine, so long as you're with me," he countered, offering a warm smile that threatened to curl Emma's toes.

She couldn't let herself think about that, but she didn't have the willpower to stop the image from forming in her mind: Finn in bed, relaxed and sated, his limbs sprawled loosely among the rumpled covers, his thick, dark hair mussed enough to need its own zip code. Longing made Emma's chest ache and her eyes prick with heat.

The chimes over the door rang out, and Emma swiped frantically at her eyes before forcing a smile to greet the woman who'd just walked in—the first real customer of the day.

The stranger's gaze darted between Emma and Finn uncertainly. She paused in the doorway. "Should I come back?"

"Yes, please," Finn said, and Emma elbowed him.

"No, come in, come in" she invited warmly, before hissing to Finn, "I'm working. I can't do this now."

"I'll wait," he offered.

"No, you need to go. I'm busy." She looked back at the customer, who still hesitated by the door, looking uncomfortable. Emma smiled and told the woman, "I'm so sorry. My friend is just leaving. How can I help you?"

Emma hoped the woman would be in the market for camera equipment, so that she could busy herself with a long conversation about the technical features and relative merits of different cameras and lenses, but no: she just wanted to pick up some film.

Ignoring her attempts to get rid of him, Finn waited silently while Emma completed the sale and the customer left the store.

"Where were we? Still negotiating the meaning of 'space,' I think," he said when she'd gone.

Emma whirled on him, irritated. "No. I know you don't care, but this job is all I have right now. This is unprofessional. If that lady complains to my boss, I'll be fired. We're done talking. Go."

His shoulders slumped in defeat. "Fine," he relented, with a heavy sigh. "It doesn't help my cause if I piss you off, so I'm going. –A month, we agreed. If you're willing to see me in the meantime, call me. –And if you're not willing to see me, at least see Catie. She adores you."

Emma knew it would be hard to see Catie. She'd ask questions Emma wouldn't know how to answer, and spending time with her would only make Emma miss being with Finn—being part of Finn's and Catie's family—more than ever. He was right, though: it wasn't fair to bail on Catie. "Have her call me here at the shop," she allowed. "We'll make a lunch date."

Finn pulled Emma back into his arms, tilted her chin up, and pressed his lips to hers. His kiss was both hot and sweet, full of longing and promise, and so much harder to resist than all of his arguments. Emma's knees were weak and her pulse was throbbing in her ears (and elsewhere) by the time he pulled back.

"I love you," he told her again, his dark blue eyes boring into hers as if to hold her by the force of his gaze alone. "Don't give up on us."

She took a shaky breath and pushed him toward the door.

*****

-24-

For the second day in a row, Catie ditched soccer practice when her dad arrived to pick her up right after school. She leapt into the truck and flung her arms around Finn, hugging him as tightly as she could. 

He blinked, startled, as he hugged her back. "Didn't you get my text? I found her."

Catie nodded against his neck. "I got it. Thank you. Thank you for the text, and thank you for finding her." She squeezed him even harder before letting him go. She sat up and buckled her seatbelt, asking, "Is she okay? Can I see her?"

Finn started the truck, turned on his blinker, and joined the slow-moving throng of traffic pouring out of the school's parking lot. "Yes. She said you should call her at the camera stop and make a lunch date."

Catie's joyful relief dimmed slightly. "A lunch date?" she echoed, disappointed. It was so weirdly formal, so much less than the easy, spontaneous relationship she and Emma had developed over the summer. "I want to see her now."

Her father frowned, and Catie realized he wasn't happy with the situation, either. "She says she needs some space, Katydid. She's staying in West Lebanon--"

"You guys broke up?!" she interrupted, horrified.

Finn shook his head. "No, not exactly. I guess you could say we're taking a break." He pursed his lips, as if the idea annoyed him. "She said everything has happened too quickly, and she needs some space." He sighed and his annoyance seemed to seep out of him. "She's had a rough summer. Remember: she lost everything in Savannah, and then the fire here..."

"That wasn't our fault!" Catie snapped.

"No," he agreed mildly. "None of this is your fault at all. It's no one's fault, but Emma's been through a lot. She says she just needs some time... but she wants to see you in the meantime."

"For a lunch date," she grumbled, unhappily.

"For now," Finn confirmed. "Take heart. She's not sure she wants to see me at all."

That didn't make Catie feel any better. It sure sounded like they'd broken up, and Catie's disappointment was so strong it made her throat ache with swallowed misery. "This sucks."

He reached over and squeezed her knee. "Yeah, it does."

As Finn turned onto their street, Catie remembered Phoebe. She'd probably be lying in wait for them to get home, the way she had been the night before, and Catie didn't want to see her. "You might as well take me back to school. If I can't see Emma now, I'd rather go to practice."

He sighed. "Phoebe has come all this way to see you."

"I didn't ask her to."

"She's your mom."

"She's a stranger," Catie countered sullenly.

"She wouldn't be, if you spent some time with her."

"I'm not in the mood."

Finn pulled into the driveway and parked the truck. "I'm not actually giving you a choice," he admitted with a grimace. "I sent Phoebe away last night, but I told her you'd see her today."

Catie fought the urge to kick the dashboard. "And if I refuse?" He could make her see Phoebe, but he couldn't make her talk, after all.

He sighed. "I know you're mad, kiddo, and you're entitled. But there's another way to look at this. After all this time, you have an opportunity to get to know her. She's here for a month, and spending time with you is her number one priority. You may not have this chance again, and if you don't take it, there may come a time when you regret it."

She doubted it, but it appeared she didn't actually have a choice. As she'd feared, Phoebe was already walking across the lawn toward the truck.

"Go on," Finn said. "Have fun."

Catie snorted. "Yeah, right."

"Try," he suggested.

She ignored him and got out of the truck. Phoebe was waiting by the passenger side door to greet her, wearing a bright, cheerful smile. She was so gorgeous, tall, tanned, and blonde, like a magazine fashion model or a movie star. Catie felt gawky and awkward just standing next to her. It made no sense that Catie--athletic, tomboyish Catie, who never really understood or felt comfortable around super feminine, girly-girls like Phoebe--should be this woman's child. They had nothing in common.

Phoebe opened her arms. "Can I hug you?"

Catie knew it would be rude to refuse, and her father would say she wasn't trying. She shrugged stiffly, and Phoebe pulled her into a soft, perfumed embrace. Catie didn't resist, but she didn't hug back.

Finn got out of the truck and shut the door, and Phoebe released her to say hello to him, but kept her arm slung across Catie's shoulders. He nodded politely in response, then announced, "I'm headed in: I've got some writing to do. Catie, remember what I said."

"Yeah, okay," she muttered, as they watched him go inside.

Phoebe squeezed Catie's shoulder. "I'm so excited to see you. Can we go to my place and talk?"

"Emma's place," Catie corrected, glumly, as they started to walk across the lawn.

Phoebe nodded. "Your dad told me he found her this morning. You must be relieved."

Catie glanced up at her, surprised -- and a little bit bothered -- that Phoebe and Finn had apparently talked about Emma. She didn't really want to spend time with Phoebe, but she liked the idea of her dad and Phoebe getting chummy even less. "Yeah, I'm relieved. Emma's great," she said, then decided to twist the knife. "Dad and Emma are great together."

Phoebe's expression gave away nothing. "Well, I'm glad he found her, then."

They reached the front steps of Emma's house, and Catie felt a wave of sorrow when Ludo wasn't there to great them as they came inside. She hadn't been into the house since they'd fixed the fire damage, and it was both a relief and a heartache to see that nothing had changed. It felt like Emma could walk back in the door at any moment, but the knowledge that she wouldn't -- that Phoebe was living here instead -- hurt.

"Have a seat," Phoebe invited, gesturing toward the couch (a castoff of George Hazen's that he'd insisted Emma take, since her couch had been destroyed the fire: the replacement, though second-hand, was far nicer than the one Emma had had before). Catie sat, and Phoebe went to the kitchen. "Can I get you something? I went to Cooper's Market to pick up some groceries this morning. That place hasn't changed at all, has it? Old Man Cooper is crankier than ever."

"You know everyone in town thinks you and Emma ran away together, right? The Coopers wouldn't even serve Emma until Dad talked to them, so if he served you at all, you're lucky," Catie said.

Phoebe's green eyes widened in shock. "They think we did what?"

"You left together. People assumed you were... well, together."

"No! We weren't!" she exclaimed, shocked. "We were just friends. -Not even close friends, really. We just both wanted to get away."

Catie hugged her arms across her chest. She didn't know what to say, especially since she was the thing Phoebe had been in such a yank to get away from. Her father never let Catie blame herself, but everyone said that having a baby had changed Phoebe. It was hard not to take that personally. She wondered if Phoebe had wanted a baby – had wanted her – in the first place. Had the pregnancy been an unwelcome surprise, the consequences of which Phoebe had fled at the first opportunity? Or had she looked forward to motherhood, only to find herself not up to the job? Catie didn't know how to ask, and even if she could have voiced the question, she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

She lifted her ponytail and frowned at the snarls and split ends that made the hair look frizzy and unkempt. Without Emma around to French braid it, Catie was back to wearing haphazard ponytails every day. Maybe she ought to just hack it off, since she didn't know what to do with it anyway. Sometimes, Catie felt like such a failure as a girl.

Phoebe came back from the kitchen carrying two glasses of iced tea. Her hair was a long, slinky sheet of blonde silk, falling gracefully over one shoulder, free of the tangles and flyaways that so plagued Catie. Catie bit the inside of her lip against a wave of bitter jealously.

Some fleeting expression must have warned Phoebe of her thoughts, because she paused in the act of passing Catie her tea, drawing back as if afraid the girl might snap at her like a rabid dog.

"You're glaring at me," she noted. "Don't you believe me? Did Emma tell you we-?"

"No!" Catie interrupted hastily, shaking her head. "I believe you. Emma said the same thing, that you were just friends."

"Then why do you look so mad?"

Catie blinked, not sure where to even begin to list her grievances. If she'd had time and inclination, she could have detailed quite a catalog of resentments stored up from all the years of growing up without her mother, but the simpler answer probably boiled down to the bitter soup of hormones and chaotic emotions that always seemed to roil and simmer inside her these days.

"Never mind. I know you've got plenty of reason to be mad at me." Phoebe handed Catie the glass and sat down beside her on the couch. She put her own tea down on the battered coffee table and tucked her feet up under her, each movement graceful and fluid. She sighed sadly. "Oh, Catie. I'm so bad at this. I don't know what I'm doing."

"What are you trying to do?" Catie asked suspiciously. "Because it feels like you're trying to screw things up for Dad and Emma, which screws things up for me, too, by the way. Why else would you show up here after years of ignoring us? The only thing that's changed is that I wrote and told you about Emma, which I'm really, really sorry I did, now. I never would have told you if I'd known you'd show up and wreck everything."

"Ouch," Phoebe said flatly. She rubbed her face wearily, and then admitted, "You're right. I came because of your email, but not for the reason you think. You said Emma worked for Finn and then quit. You didn't tell me they were together. I didn't come back here to screw things up for them, I promise. I didn't know there was a 'them.'"

Catie scowled, not believing this, but then she remembered that Emma and her father had really only been together since the day of the fire, which was only a few weeks ago. She couldn't remember exactly when she'd written to Phoebe, but it may indeed have been before the relationship started.

"Why did you come then?" she asked grudgingly.

"Because of the way you talked about Emma helping you when you got your period and talking to you about clothes and boys and... 'girly stuff' was the phrase you used. All of a sudden, it hit me that that's my job," she confessed.

Catie's breath caught, making her cough. When she recovered, she said acidly, "I hate to break it to you, but that's actually only a very small part of the job, and frankly, you've never seemed interested in doing it."

Phoebe winced, but she didn't make excuses for herself. "I know. I'm sorry. I just... When you were a baby, I was so overwhelmed. I don't know if it was just postpartum depression or if I'm just the world's worst mother, but it was awful. I didn't know what I was doing and I couldn't seem to learn. I couldn't get the hang of nursing, and you'd just scream and scream, and nothing I tried ever worked. I felt like such a failure, and I hated it, and ... I know it was cowardly, but all of this time, I really did feel like you and your dad were better off without me."

"Maybe we were," Catie said uncharitably. She knew it would've been kinder to disagree, but her manners didn't extend that far.

"No doubt," Phoebe agreed mildly, leaning forward to take a sip of tea. She set the glass back down and squared her slim shoulders. "You're not a baby anymore, and I'd like to think that I've grown up a bit, too. I thought—well, I hope—that I've got more to offer you now. If you need someone to help with clothes and boys and girly stuff... I'm actually pretty good at that kind of thing," she said, with a hopeful smile that only made her more impossibly beautiful.

Catie didn't smile back. She had no doubt someone as effortlessly gorgeous and graceful as Phoebe had no problem with style and dating, but Catie was gangly and awkward and tomboyish, and what worked for Phoebe would never work for her. More than that, though, she resented the presumption of it: that Phoebe could take no interest in her life up to this point, and then expect to show up and "fix" her with a few fashion tips and dating advice?

"I wrote you one email, and now you've somehow got the impression that my life is all about clothes and boys. That's not me at all, and even if it were, why you should you get to show up and give me a makeover, when all this time you've had no interest in me? So I was a fussy baby and couldn't feed me? So what? You do it anyway! That was your job. You have a baby, and you do the work—you stick around a feed her, and change her diapers, and take care of her when she's sick, and drive her to school and help her with homework—and then, after years of that, if you're lucky, you might have the kind of relationship where your kid wants your advice about fashion and dating... but you don't just get to show up for the 'fun' stuff after leaving other people to do all the work!"

Phoebe pursed her lips. "I know that, Catie. In my defense, it's not like Emma spent years doing all that stuff for you, either. She's only been here a few months, hasn't she?"

"No, but she didn't just show up one day and say, 'Oh, hey, I wanna be your mom now.'"

"Hey, kid, I am your mom."

Catie shook her head vehemently. "No. You're not. You're a... You're an egg donor, that's all. You're not a mom, and I'm out of here."

She got up and left, letting the screen door bang behind her, ignoring Phoebe's attempts to call her back. She hurried across the grass between the two houses, afraid Phoebe would follow her. She let the kitchen door slam, too, the noise and the force of it giving her some outlet for her anger.

Finn was at the kitchen table, making notes on his manuscript while his customary afternoon coffee cooled by his elbow. The sight of that mug made Catie's throat tighten and her eyes prickle with unshed tears. Her anger flared hotter. All summer, Emma had made coffee right around 3:00, which was just one example of the many, many ways she'd worked to earn her place here, rather than showing up out of the blue and assuming she had a right to Catie's and Finn's time and affection.

"What's wrong, Katydid?" Finn asked.

Catie's hands curled into tight fists in fury, and she was so mad her ears were throbbing with the pounding of her blood. "I hate that woman!" she yelled, tears boiling over. Her face felt hot, and she knew her cheeks would be blotchy and red. "I want EMMA!"

Finn rose and came toward her, his arms reaching out to hug her, his expression soft and sympathetic, but Catie didn't want to hear any more of his apologies and excuses. It was his fault Emma was gone, just as much as Phoebe's. She shoved past him and thundered up the stairs.

*****

Finn listened to his daughter's heavy footfalls running upstairs. He winced when the whole house shook with the force with which she slammed her bedroom door. He wasn't at all surprised when, seconds later, Phoebe knocked at the kitchen door. He sighed wearily, about at his limit for emotional women, and crossed the room to let her in.

"I take it that didn't go well," he commented dryly.

Phoebe cut her green eyes at him. "You're not making things any easier," she snapped.

Finn shrugged. "I'm not doing anything to make it harder, either," he said levelly. "I warned you that you had your work cut out for you. Coffee?" He held up the carafe in offering.

She nodded, and he filled a mug.

"You still take cream and sugar?"

"God, no. I can't eat like that anymore. Just black, please."

Finn handed over the unadulterated coffee without comment. Phoebe looked great, but if her perfect physique came at the cost of such small pleasures as sugar in his coffee, he wondered if it was worth it.

"Is Catie okay?" she asked. She took a sip of the coffee and made a face at the bitterness—he liked his coffee very dark and strong—but she, too, forbore to comment.

He shrugged. "She didn't seem to want to talk." The kitchen windows were open, so he knew Phoebe must have heard Catie yelling.

She frowned. "I got off to a bad start."

"You think?" he retorted, but he immediately regretted the snark. Phoebe looked so defeated.

"Like I said, you're not helping."

He sighed and apologized sincerely. "I'm sorry. We're all feeling a little raw right now, with Emma gone."

She rolled her eyes. "I get that my timing sucks, but this is not about Emma."

"For you, it's not about Emma. For Catie and me, it is," he corrected, refilling his own mug.

"Look, I want Catie to have a chance to get to know you. You're her mom. But you can't expect this to happen overnight. You're here for a month. Try again tomorrow," he advised.

Phoebe gritted her teeth impatiently. "This is not how I pictured this."

Finn had to check the urge to roll his eyes. "Maybe it's time to adjust your expectations," he noted. "Teenagers are prickly at the best of times, and for Cate, this is hardly the best of times. She's worried about Emma, she's just gone back to school, and you know, even if she didn't have a thousand other things on her mind, you and she have your own baggage. Slow down. It's going to take time to unpack."

Phoebe slumped against the counter with a heavy sigh. "You're right. I know you're right, but I'm not a patient person."

"Never were," Finn agreed. When they were younger, Phoebe's impatience had most often manifested itself as enthusiasm: she was eager and excited about everything, bounding toward every new adventure with the glee of an excited puppy. At first, Finn had considered it part of her charm, as her childlike enthusiasm was in such counterpoint to his own cautious reserve. Only later had he realized the trait had a dark side: her total lack of patience with any situation she didn't like, and the tendency to jump ship when the going got tough.

"I don't know if Catie can forgive you," he admitted honestly. "I think she can: she's a forgiving kid, and she sees the best in everyone. But I do know that if you give up and run away again just because it's not as easy as you thought it would be, she's never going to give you another chance."

Phoebe seemed to consider this, her brow furrowed with worry. It was an expression he didn't remember from their years together: Phoebe had never bothered much with worry. Another charming trait, or so he'd thought at the time, until that lack of concern for those who would be left behind made it easier for her to walk away.

Her expression cleared and brightened, the change as evident as if she'd changed the channel on her thoughts. "This kitchen looks just the same," she noted. "Have you redecorated at all?"

Finn shrugged, glancing around. "I bought a new fridge two years ago when the old one died. I turned the front bedroom into my office, and a few years ago, Catie decided she liked purple better than the yellow we picked out for her room before she was born."

Phoebe's pale brows rose. "All that, in only twelve years?" she teased.

"You know I don't care about that stuff. So long as everything works, I barely notice creature comforts."

"So long as everything works and you don't run out of coffee," she amended, downing the last of hers with a grimace. "You must have an iron stomach. I've been all over the world, and nobody's coffee is as strong as yours. Blech!"

He smiled. "An acquired taste."

Phoebe washed her cup in the sink. She cleaned it more thoroughly than necessary, not because the fiestaware mug was anything special, but because she wasn't in a hurry to leave, Finn guessed. She hadn't had many friends in Wellsboro. Though it had been her trust fund that had enabled them to buy this house, they'd chosen to settle here in Vermont because it was close to Finn's family. He'd grown up here, but Phoebe had been a stranger, and she hadn't stayed long enough to build her own community.

"Will you be seeing your folks while you're back here in the States?"

She shook her head. "They spend most of their time in Italy now. I think they still keep a place in Manhattan, but they're never there," she said carelessly.

Finn had never understood Phoebe's relationship with her parents. She was an only child, and she'd always claimed she'd had a normal, happy childhood. Finn suspected her frame of reference for "normal" must be significantly different from his own, and not just because the Chase family's significant wealth made the most unimaginable luxuries seem commonplace to them. Phoebe had no bitterness or trauma connected to her parents, but little fondness for them, either. In the years he and Phoebe had been together, Finn had met Mr. and Mrs. Chase only once, when they'd come to see Phoebe graduate from college. Finn had been intimidated by the prospect of meeting his first serious girlfriend's extremely aristocratic parents, but the Chases had been polite and personable. That weekend had been uneventful, even pleasant, but then Finn had never seen them again. They hadn't come to visit when he and Phoebe had bought this house and settled in Wellsboro, not even when Catie was born. They'd been traveling somewhere, and they'd marked the birth of their first and only grandchild by sending a very expensive fruit basket.

By contrast, Finn's parents had practically moved in when Catie arrived. They'd spent the first month of Catie's life here, cooking and cleaning for the frazzled new parents and doting on the baby, and they'd only backed off when Finn (at Phoebe's request) had asked them to give them some space.

"Do you ever see them?" he asked.

She shrugged dismissively. "Sometimes. We were both vacationing in Corsica last fall—no, I guess it was the year before last—and we spent an evening together." She made it sound serendipitous, as if they'd happened to meet up on some foreign shore by complete happenstance instead of planning the visit, and for all Finn knew, they had.

He tried not judge what he'd never understood, but it was hard to hide his disapproval. He'd lost his parents suddenly ten years prior, and he still felt their absence every single day. Phoebe's parents were alive and well, but they couldn't be bothered with her, nor she with them. He wondered if the Chase's inexplicable family dynamic had been part of the problem in his and Phoebe's relationship. Would she have found it so easy to leave if she'd had a more realistic sense of what being a family meant?

It occurred to him, grimly, that Emma wasn't exactly close to her parents either. She rarely mentioned her mother, and so far as he knew, Helen hadn't come by to visit Emma even once all summer. Finn knew nothing at all about Emma's dad, except vague recollections of old gossip about a messy divorce. He'd paid no attention at the time because Emma had meant nothing to him then, as just the teenage kid staying with her aunt next door because her parents' marriage was in turmoil. Now he felt remiss for never asking her about her father and her childhood. What if she had no more notion of how to be a family than Phoebe had? Could he make that mistake again?

No, he thought firmly, shutting down that depressing line of thought. Yes, he and Emma still had a lot of getting-to-know-each-other to do, and if they stayed together, they would need to talk about their expectations about family and any number of other crucial subjects, but Emma was not Phoebe. Emma could have been raised by badgers, yet in just the six weeks she'd worked for the McCaffrey's, she'd demonstrated more maternal instincts than Phoebe had during the whole first year of Catie's life. Besides, when Emma's life had fallen apart in Savannah, she'd run home to family, not away, the way Phoebe had. That gave Finn hope.

"What are you working on?" Phoebe asked, calling his attention back from his thoughts. She'd wandered over to the table and was eyeing his notes with open curiosity. "Another mystery? I've read your books, you know. Your detective, Kevin Whatshisname?"

"Lefebvre," he supplied absently, fighting the urge to gather up his notes and manuscript and hide them from her prying gaze. That would have been unpardonably rude, but he felt especially vulnerable about his work just now, with Emma's epiphany about Wilbur Tyson still so fresh and all that re-writing still looming.

"I thought he'd remind me of you, you know, since he came out of your head, but... He's a lot crazier than you," Phoebe said, seeming to choose her words with care.

Even in the midst of his annoyance, Finn couldn't help but smile at this observation. "I'd make a dreadfully boring protagonist, I'm afraid," he noted wryly.

Phoebe smiled back, but he noticed she didn't disagree. He was boring, especially by her globetrotting standards. "So, another mystery?" she asked again, reaching to turn a page of the manuscript on the table.

This time, Finn did lunge for it, manners bedamned. He scooped the manuscript and his notes into a pile, turned them text-side-down, and pushed them toward the wall, away from Phoebe.

"Whoa, sorry," she said, holding up her hands innocently.

Finn apologized too, knowing he was out of line. "I'm really tetchy about my work when it's in the early drafts," he explained, "and this one... Well, it needs a lot of work."

"Sorry," Phoebe said again. "I didn't mean to snoop. I'm just... interested. In your work, in your life." She cast him a tired yet beautiful smile. "It's been a long time, Finn."

"It has," he agreed, feeling cagey. Not so long ago, he might have welcomed the chance to see Phoebe and catch up, or maybe even try to rekindle their old romance. Now, he had so many things he'd rather be doing—checking on Catie, trying to convince Emma to come home, rewriting the Cartwright manuscript—that he could barely summon the patience to participate in this conversation. He should ask about Phoebe's life—how she filled her time, whether she worked, whether she'd found whatever she'd been searching for when she left, was she happy—but the brutal truth was that he hardly cared.

Emma had accused him of carrying a torch for Phoebe, and now he knew with absolutely certainty that whatever spark he'd felt for this woman had long since been extinguished. Whatever echoes of old feelings had lingered all these years were gone. He looked at Phoebe now and felt nothing but impatience.

Maybe that wasn't fair. Her reappearance in their lives was inconvenient, but for the first time in Catie's life, Phoebe was here, having set aside everything else to reconnect with her child. He had to offer some encouragement, after pushing for so many years to keep Phoebe from losing touch entirely.

He went to the bulletin board by the kitchen phone and pulled down the printout of Catie's gave and practice schedule. He handed it to Phoebe, knowing he could print a new copy for himself. "This is Catie's soccer schedule," he explained. "She has a home game tomorrow afternoon, and that would be a good start to connect with her—get interested in her, in the things she cares about. Come to her game and watch your girl kick a little ass." He grinned, proud of Catie's athleticism.

Phoebe took the schedule and returned his smile. "She's good?"

"She's amazing, though honestly, she just uses soccer to fill the time between baseball and hockey seasons. You'll come tomorrow?"

"I wouldn't miss it," Phoebe promised. "Thanks, Finn."

"No problem. I'll see you tomorrow," he said, walking her to the door.