The Girl Next Door

(Chapters 9 - 12)

-9-

Finn had expected that Emma would clean the house: that's what he'd hired her to do. What he had not expected was to find himself stepping from the bottom of his staircase unto the wood floor in his sock feet and skittering like bald summer tires on glare ice across his own foyer. Clearly, she was trying to kill him. He grabbed at the banister to stop himself from sliding ass over teakettle, only to hear the crack of splintering wood and fall anyway, the broken remains of a railing spindle clutched uselessly in his hand. 

When he recovered the breath that had been knocked out of him, he let it out in a spate of curses foul enough to turn the air blue. Emma appeared in the kitchen doorway, her pert eyebrows raised over those too-large, too-innocent eyes, her lips pressed tightly together, but twitching. The bitch was laughing at him. (Well, trying not to laugh, but he could tell.)  

He pointed at her with the stair spindle, a very small, very violent part of him wishing he were close enough to run her through with the jagged wooden edge. He glared daggers at her and hissed, "You."  

Her eyes only widened more, until her brows completely disappeared beneath her hair and he could see almost all around the purpley-grey irises. "Me?" she echoed. "How can you possibly blame this on me? I wasn't even in the room." She paused dramatically and then inhaled, her nostrils flaring slightly as she exclaimed, "I know! You think I loosened the banister spokes as a booby trap, because I'm just that nefarious. Well, that's right, I confess. Take me away. Shoot, McCaffrey: clearly my evil little plots are no match for your genius."  

He rolled his eyes and stood gingerly, his hip and backside sore from the impact from the fall. "Hardy har har," he grumbled sarcastically. "You greased the floor." 

She shook her head. "I did not grease it: I waxed it. I thought that was what you were paying me to do." 

"You think I'm paying you to turn my foyer into a death trap?" he snapped. 

She put her hands on her hips and looked at him like he was an idiot. With exaggerated patience, she said, "You hired me to look after the house, yes? Well, that floor looked like it hadn't seen the business end of a broom or mop since the Clinton administration." 

Finn gritted his teeth. "I vacuum," he said defensively. He hated feeling the need to defend himself to her, but he did. He felt her judging him, as if she had the right. She looked at his less-than-stellar domestic skills and thought that meant he wasn't a good parent, as if just because he didn't scrub the bathroom every day he didn't take care of his daughter. "Shut up," he growled.  

Emma just looked at him, the pink bow of her lips tied up in a thin, fake, infuriating smirk. 

"You couldn't have put up some kind of sign to warn people that the floor would be slippery?" 

She shook her head. "This isn't a department store. Besides, I thought you'd notice the lack of clutter, the just-cleaned shine, or perhaps the pine wax smell...?" 

Again, she was insulting him. Now that she'd pointed these things out, they were obvious, but at the time he hadn't been paying attention. He'd been headed to the kitchen with just one thought in mind: coffee, so that he could stop falling asleep at his desk. Feeling foolish, he changed the subject.  

"Where's Catie?" he demanded, only to remember as he did that she'd knocked on his door a few hours ago to ask to go to a friend's house. "Oh, right." 

Emma reminded him anyway. "She went to Mandy Peterson's birthday party." 

Finn had been about to turn to examine the damage to the stair railing, but at this his head snapped back to Emma again. Catie had mentioned going to Mandy's, but she'd said nothing about a birthday party. "A party? Who else will be there?" 

Emma shrugged, unconcerned. "I don't know." 

She didn't tell me this was a party. Where are Mandy's parents?" he demanded. He had visions of Catie at a rave, wending her way through a crowd of stumbling, drunk and drugged teenagers while deafening, pulse-pounding music drowned out all other sound and seizure-inducing strobe lights flashed in the darkness. 

Emma strode into the kitchen and pulled down a colorful sheet of cardstock that had been stuck to the fridge with magnets. Finn followed on her heels, so when she turned to bring it back to him, she walked right into him. Her mouth opened, soft, petal-pink lips forming a perfect, sexy O as she gasped. 

Finn closed his eyes, but the split-second image of that sweet, perfect mouth felt like it would be forever burned into his retinas. Following her had been a mistake: he could not be this close to her. She smelled like vanilla. He caught her elbows and set her back, all by feel, since he could not look at her. He could not look at those long dark lashes curling around those unearthly huge, purple eyes, the marble-smooth skin, the delicate flush of surprise blooming in those cheeks, and he definitely, absolutely, positively could not look at that porn star mouth. 

"Here," she said, putting the cardstock note in his hands. Finn opened his eyes and looked down at the invitation: a reassuringly innocent pastel pink printed with girlish hearts and stars, with the details of the party written in childish, over-large handwriting. Mandy Peterson filled in her o's with little smiley-faces and dotted her i's with tiny stars. Finn's fears of Catie at a rave faded, replaced with a more soothing image of a cluster of little girls in filmy, fluffy sundresses, wearing plastic tiaras and eating pink cupcakes. His shoulders relaxed in relief. 

Emma said, "I don't know when the invitation came, but it's been on your fridge since the day I started here. Maybe Catie thought she didn't need to remind you that it was a party." 

"Right," he said quickly, not wanting to admit that this was the first time he'd noticed the invitation. As he thought about it, though, other doubts bloomed. A little girl's birthday party was a comforting alternative to some of the other destinations a parent could imagine, but it required some preparation: a gift for the birthday girl and perhaps food or some sort of hostess gift for the girl's mother. "Did Catie have a gift?"  

To his (slightly begrudging) relief, Emma nodded calmly. "We picked up a Team Edward t-shirt in Claremont yesterday and wrapped it this morning."  

Finn frowned in confusion. Team Edward? It didn't sound like one of the ball or hockey teams Catie followed. 

Emma smiled. "From Twilight?" Finn shook his head, so she elaborated further. "It's a series of books and movies about teenage vampires in love. It's like crack cocaine for girls." 

"What?!" Finn choked, horrified. 

She licked her lips (something else he would have been better off not seeing) and explained, "Not really. It's all very chaste, don't worry, but it's quite a phenomenon. You'd be hard pressed to find a girl between the ages of eleven and twenty-one who hasn't read the books, Catie included." 

"And these books are about vampires?" he asked doubtfully. This didn't sound like his daughter's usual reading fare. 

"And werewolves," Emma confirmed. 

"Like Harry Potter?" It bothered him that Emma seemed to know more about what young girls were reading these days, and he wanted to show he wasn't completely out of the loop. He'd read the Harry Potter books with Catie, and he'd enjoyed them a lot. 

"Sort of," she replied, with an uncertain shrug. "Less epic, though. Twilight isn't a quest; it's a romance." 

"You seem to know a lot about it," he noted bitterly. 

A faint blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. "Perhaps I should have said you'd be hard pressed to find a girl of any age who hasn't read them." She turned toward the counter and started working on a half-constructed lasagna: apparently, the project she'd been in the middle of when he'd come downstairs. 

Finn narrowed his eyes. "You've read these books. -And you're embarrassed about it. Should I be concerned that Catie reads them?" he asked suspiciously. 

She looked up and shook her head quickly. "No. Like I said, they're very chaste. It's just... well, they're for kids. I know lots of grown women read them, but it's a little silly," she confessed, her blush deepening. 

"I want to read them," he announced. 

To his surprise, Emma laughed. "Oh, God, you'd hate them," she said. 

"If this is what my daughter is reading, I want to read them," he insisted. "Does she have them here, or should I get them from the library?" 

"They're in her room," Emma replied. "You can read them, but I'm warning you, you won't be impressed." 

"Why?" Finn asked. "Catie has pretty good taste in books: she always has." 

Emma's brow knit as she considered her words. Finally, she said simply, "There are books you read to improve your mind, and then there are books you read to give your mind a rest. Twilight is definitely in the latter category. Read them if you want, but don't be judge-y. They weren't written for you." 

"Judge-y?" Finn echoed, offended. 

She just looked at him for a moment before turning around and spooning pasta sauce over the lasagna. 

"You're one to talk," he grunted. He remembered what he'd come for in the first place and pulled the coffee out of the freezer. 

"Me?" she asked innocently, as he crossed to the sink and filled the coffee carafe with water. 

This time, he was the one to pin her with a disbelieving stare. "I know you think I'm a slob and that I don't look after my daughter," he said acidly. "The thing is, it's real easy for people without kids to look at those of us who do and think they could do a better job, but I'd like to see them try it." 

Emma put down the sauce jar and stared at him. "You've got me all figured out, huh?" 

He shrugged. "I see the way you look at me." 

She widened her eyes at him. "Yes, you're a slob. Do you really disagree? If you weren't, you wouldn't have hired me, and for the time being, I need this job... so why would I judge you for that? But no, I never said-or even thought-that you don't look after Catie. She's a great kid, and you made her that way. So don't go pinning your insecurities on me." 

Finn wasn't sure he'd heard right. Had Emma really just offered a compliment? He measured the coffee into the filter and started the coffee maker, feeling disoriented and caught off-guard. He'd been spoiling for a fight, and she'd praised him. He was too suspicious to let this pass. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "You've got my kid snowed, obviously, but I don't trust you." 

She dared to laugh. "Really? Gee, I never would have guessed." 

He balled his fists at his sides and inhaled deeply, resisting the urge to throttle her. He said, "No, I don't get it. Why would you want to work for me? You know I don't like you, so what's in it for you? Do you get some twisted thrill out of being here and pushing my buttons?" 

She chuckled sourly and retorted, "Like you don't enjoy pushing mine? -Reminding me at every opportunity just how much you don't like or trust me? We had a deal, Finn. I can walk at any time, or you can fire me. If you're sick of me, say so. Otherwise, I'm here because I want to be here." 

He shook his head. "No. I know why I hired you: because Catie asked me to, and there isn't much I wouldn't do for that kid. -But why would you want to be where you aren't wanted?" 

"Are you sure I'm not wanted?" she asked so confidently it became Finn's turn to blush. Could she know how his body responded to her? The thought horrified him. -But when she went on, she clarified that she'd been talking about Catie. "Catie likes having me around. -And I told you already: I need a job. I have applications out, so with any luck I'll be out of your hair soon, but for now, I'm stuck." 

Finn considered this, but he couldn't believe it. "What have you done with your life that this isn't a step down for you, cleaning house for minimum wage, at your age?" 

She put a hand on her slim hip and regarded him steadily. "Judge-y, judge-y, judge-y," she chided. "Do you really care? You said the day I started that you liked the idea of having me at your beck and call. If this is a step down for me, so much the better for you, right? -And maybe you're entitled to a little bit of revenge. I didn't lure or seduce Phoebe away the way you think I did, but I didn't try to convince her to stay with you, either. She was depressed. She was sick, and maybe I should have warned you when she first mentioned leaving so that you could talk her out of it. Maybe I should have tried to get her some help, instead of going along with her plans. -But it was in my best interests to leave, and she made that possible, so I didn't. We left, and you and Catie got hurt, and for that, I'm sorry. That's what that big chicken dinner was for, the other night: that was an apology, my apology. But I'm not as guilty as you think I am, and I'm not that sorry, either." 

Finn watched her, watched the way her speech animated her face and lit up her eyes, and he had to tear his gaze away. He turned to watch the coffee trickle slowly into the carafe, her words echoing in his mind. -An apology. Did she really think a chicken could make up for the life he'd lost with Phoebe? At first, he shrugged off her denials, which did not square with what he'd believed for such a long time. Yet among the anger and regret and guilt he'd read on her features before he'd had to turn away was another emotion: conviction. She was telling the truth, at least as she understood it. -And once he allowed for that possibility, all of the pieces began to shift and move and fall into place, until suddenly his understanding of that chapter of his life formed an entirely different picture. 

It was an uncomfortable thing, having one of the central assumptions of his life revealed as fiction. For so long, he'd been certain he understood the circumstances of Phoebe's leaving, and it was hard to consider that his assumptions might be wrong. As much as it had hurt and angered him, the long-held belief that Phoebe had abandoned him for Emma had been easy enough to wrap his mind around. It had given her defection a sense of purpose and reason that, much as it infuriated him, also gave Finn something to hold on to. -But if there was no seduction, no other lover, nothing but the urge to flee, then the fault was his own, and his alone. 

He didn't want to accept it, but the excuses and explanations he'd told himself for years rang hollow when confronted with Emma's alternate version of events. Phoebe had been sick. He'd known that, and he'd encouraged her friendship with Emma precisely in the hope that it might help her get better. He'd known that taking care of Catie, just a baby then, had been too much for her. He'd known their engagement had not been her idea. She had felt trapped, but because marriage and parenthood had been right for him, and because he'd loved her so much, he'd thought that eventually she would come to want those things, too. He'd thought love and time would be enough. 

An affair had never made sense; he could see that now. There had been no seduction. Phoebe had never shown any of the joy or excitement that heralded a new relationship. She hadn't talked about Emma with the constant, obsessive, giddy fervor of a new lover. Phoebe hadn't been interested in sex or romance since before Catie's birth. She hadn't been interested in anything: not the baby, or Finn, or wedding plans, nor even in clothes or food, and it didn't make sense that she'd suddenly fall in love with the barely-legal girl next door when she'd never shown the slightest sexual interest in women before. Finn should have known that a person so depressed wouldn't have the interest or the energy for an affair, but he'd seen what he'd wanted to see. 

The silence must have stretched too long, because Emma asked, "Finn? Are you okay?" 

He looked up from the coffee maker-which had finished brewing without his notice-and turned to her. She looked concerned, and this time he didn't wonder if it was an act. "I believe you," he announced, so quietly he wondered if she could hear. He cleared his throat and said it again, more volubly, "I believe you." 

Emma's eyes rounded. "You do?" she breathed, stunned. 

Finn nodded slowly, still adjusting to the realization himself. 

She put her hand over her heart. "Oh, God, thank you. All this time, I've been telling myself I didn't care what you thought of me, but it wasn't true. It's such a relief that you know I didn't -" She interrupted herself to ask, "What changed your mind?" 

Finn reached into the cupboard for a coffee mug. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just realized it didn't make sense. Phoebe was too unhappy to fall in love with someone else." 

"Exactly!" Emma agreed vehemently. Then, perhaps fearing she'd sounded too pleased at the memory of Phoebe's abject misery, she added gravely, "I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sure that was a terrible time for you." 

He nodded. "Coffee?" he asked, holding up the pot. 

She shook her head. "Oh, no thanks. I've been having trouble with insomnia, so I cut out caffeine." 

Finn's lips twitched. He had been having trouble with insomnia, too, but he'd stop taking caffeine about when he stopped taking oxygen. He carried his cup to the counter and sat down. Now that he'd decided to believe Emma, there was a lot he wanted to know. "What did happen, when you and Phoebe left together?" he asked. 

She told him what she'd told George. "It was winter, cold, so we went south. We stopped in Washington D.C., Nashville, New Orleans, and lots of little places in between. We did touristy stuff." 

"On Phoebe's dime, I expect," Finn noted. He believed she hadn't been sleeping with Phoebe, but that didn't mean Emma hadn't taken advantage. 

To her credit, she didn't try to deny it. "I didn't have any money. Phoebe said she didn't mind. She said she liked having company. I minded, though." 

"Well, don't feel too bad," Finn told her, surprising himself. He'd been angry with her for so long, it felt unnatural to be offering her reassurance, but he went on. "Phoebe's trust fund supported us while I was in grad school. It paid for this house. My books didn't start making money until years later." 

Emma still looked chagrinned. "It's different. You were engaged. I was just a scared, broke kid who'd just dropped out of college. I didn't have any right to let Phoebe support me, so when we passed through Georgia and I found a restaurant that was hiring, I took the job. Phoebe was upset because we were supposed to be on our way to the Florida Keys, but I didn't like being so dependent. That's how we parted ways: I stayed and worked, and Phoebe kept going. She never came home?" 

Finn shook his head. "We didn't hear from her for more than a year, and then she sent back the engagement ring." More than a decade later, he could still remember the note that had accompanied the ring word-for-word: 

I am so sorry, but it's better this way. 

I will always love you, and Catie, too ... 

but I can't be what you need.

It was so brief, so inadequate an apology for all of the broken promises. Finn had been devastated and so, so angry that any relief he might have felt at finally knowing that Phoebe was alive and safe didn't even register. The package had been postmarked in New Zealand, but it hadn't included a return address. Phoebe must have known that Finn's impulse, at that time, was still to try and find her and convince her to come home, so she had made that impossible.  

"I'm sorry," Emma apologized. "I thought she'd come home. If I'd known..." She let her voice trail off, shaking her head. Finn didn't ask her to finish, because he thought he knew what she hadn't said, and why: she couldn't promise that she wouldn't have gone with Phoebe anyway, even if she'd known that Phoebe didn't plan to come home. Surprisingly, that didn't piss him off as much as it should have. 

"Catie says you came back here because your house burned down?" he asked. 

"Mmm," Emma murmured vaguely, abruptly turning back to the lasagna construction. 

Finn watched while she layered grated cheese and herbs over the top of the noodles and sauce and then covered the pan with a sheet of tin foil. There was something untrustworthy about her avoidance of the subject, which he knew on a gut level was something other than the simple desire to avoid discussing such a tragedy. "Now I don't believe you," he said shrewdly. "Your house didn't burn down, did it?" 

She stood tall, her delicate shoulder blades shifting beneath the thin fabric of her blouse. She carried the lasagna to the oven and put it in before she turned to look at him. To his horror, her eyes were filled with unshed tears. "It did," she insisted quietly. "But it didn't 'burn down': it was intentionally set on fire." 

"Not by you, I hope?" he asked automatically, only realizing how very rude the question was when it was too late to call back the words, but the rudeness made her smile. 

"No, not by me: by my fiancé's bookie's money collectors," she said, as plainly as if she'd been relating the color of the house, or something similarly insignificant. -A simple fact, like any other.  

Finn set down his coffee mug before her next revelation could shock him so much that he dropped it. "You're kidding." 

Emma shook her head. Her lips pinched tight, her chin wobbled, and her eyes kept filling until the tears overflowed. 

Finn winced and looked down at the counter. If there was anything worse than seeing a beautiful woman cry, he couldn't think of it. He wasn't sure he even liked this woman-until just a few minutes ago, he had actively loathed her-but her tears pricked him almost as much as Catie's or his sister's. In some ways, Emma's tears were worse, because he could have hugged Catie or Julie. He didn't even know what to say to comfort Emma. "I'm sorry I asked if you set it," he apologized, feeling like a jackass. 

"I didn't even know Gary had a gambling problem," she told him, wiping her eyes with a paper towel. "In retrospect, I should have. There were signs, believe me; I just missed them. Until I got home from the vet to find two thugs throwing Molotov cocktails through my windows." She shuddered at the memory. 

"I didn't tell Catie that part," she added. "I figured she was a little young." 

"Thank you," Finn said, appreciating her discretion. Catie was a precocious kid, but he still liked to shield her from the uglier sides of human nature. "What happened to your fiancé?" 

Emma raised her hands, palms up, and shook her head. "Who knows? He emptied our bank accounts and skipped town." Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "I know what you're thinking: just desserts, right?" 

Finn shook his head. Yesterday, he would have thought exactly that, but now he was less blood-thirsty. "No one deserves that," he said, then asked as delicately as he could, "I hesitate to bring this up, but are you sure he emptied your accounts?" 

"You mean, am I sure the enforcers didn't get him?" she asked, rendering his diplomacy a moot point. "Yes, I'm pretty sure: he'd cleaned the accounts and left town the day before. I think his bookie knew it, and that's why he sent the enforcers: as revenge and a warning to me, in case I was tempted to help him. As if!" she scoffed bitterly. 

Finn frowned. "He was gone for a whole day, and you didn't notice?" he asked, and once again wished he'd thought it through before opening his mouth. "I'm sorry. Did you not live together?" 

"Oh, we did," she confirmed, "but Gary's a surgical resident, so there were plenty of nights when he had to work. I didn't think much of it until that morning, when I tried to use my debit card to pay Ludo's vet and it got turned down. When I got home, the creeps were already at the house, and they said Gary owed them a quarter of a million dollars. Later, I found out Gary hadn't been to work in days, and he'd emptied the bank accounts the day before. I assume he left town, but no, I guess I don't know." She shuddered again, her mouth turning down as she considered that most ugly possibility. 

Finn was very sorry he'd brought it up. As furious as she must be with this Gary, if they'd been engaged, she must have loved him. "I'm sure he's fine," he told her quickly, though of course he could not be sure. "Please, please don't cry anymore." 

Emma bit her lower lip and squared her shoulders, breathing carefully. She nodded stiffly. "I'm alright. Sorry. Um, well, you must have work to do, and -" Her voice cut off on a choking gasp, and she turned around and gripped the counter top, her shoulders heaving as her composure crumbled. 

"Oh, Christ," Finn sighed, horrified. He didn't know what to say or what to do, so he sat helplessly by, cursing himself for being such a useless idiot. 

Suddenly, the front door banged open, shaking the whole house. "Dad!" Catie called sharply. She sounded upset, and she wasn't due back from her party yet, so something must have happened. 

"In here," he called back, rising to meet her. 

He heard footsteps, and then a yelp. "Whoa! Hey, the floor's slippery!" she cried. 

"Told you," he muttered to Emma, but she was still standing with her face to the wall, her head bowed, her shoulders still quivering, so he wasn't sure she heard. He left her and met Catie in the archway from the foyer, where she'd slid across the floor but hadn't lost her balance. "Emma mopped and waxed the floor," he explained. 

He only had time to notice a blur of tangled hair and damp cheeks before Catie hid her face in his shirt and flung her arms around his waist. Fan-friggin-tastic, he thought. Now he had two crying females to contend with, which was a personal first. "This is hell. I'm in hell," he muttered to himself as he hugged his daughter. 

"What happened, Katydid?" he asked. "I wasn't expecting you until suppertime." 

To his surprise and dismay, she lifted her teary face and asked, "Is Emma still here?" 

Despite their newly-reached armistice, the idea that his little girl would prefer to talk to Emma, an almost-stranger, about her troubles rather than discuss them with him made him burn with jealousy, but he tried to keep the hurt out of his voice as he asked, "What about me? I'm here." 

Catie hugged him and rubbed her cheek against his sternum, but she shook her head. "It's a girl thing," she whispered apologetically. 

What could he do? He stepped aside and steered her into the kitchen, keeping his arm around her shoulders. 

Emma had turned around and was pulling herself together, but her eyes were still damp and she still had the paper towel she'd used to mop her tears in her hand. Her voice shook a little when she said, "Hey, Catie. What's wrong, kiddo?" 

Catie started toward her, but stopped after a few steps. She frowned at Emma. "You're crying," she realized, and then she turned to Finn, her brown eyes full of accusation. "You made her cry, Daddy?!" 

Finn slumped against the doorframe in defeat. "All I wanted was a stinkin' cup of coffee! Jesus!" 

Emma moved around the counter and pulled Catie into her arms. For the first time, he realized that they were both about the same height, which bothered him. He still thought of Catie as a little girl, but Emma was very much a grown woman. In his mind, they should not have been the same size. 

Emma assured her gently, "No, hon, he didn't make me cry. I just did to him the same thing I did to you, the first time you came to visit me: I got to thinking about all I'd lost in the fire and I just fell to pieces." 

"Oh," Catie said softly, turning her head to look back at Finn. "Sorry, Dad." 

Finn shrugged dismissively. 

Emma rubbed gentle circles into Catie's back. "What's wrong?" she asked again. 

Catie eyed Finn nervously, and then, cheeks blooming with embarrassed color, she whispered something directly into Emma's ear. Finn tried to hear, but he was too far away. 

Emma's eyes widened. She hugged Catie again and then stepped back, keeping hold of Catie's hand. "Finn, we're going to run next door for a few minutes," she announced. "Will you excuse us?" 

Finn shook his head, confused and annoyed. "Why should I? What is this? I want to know what's going on!" he blustered. 

Emma sighed. "Please... just trust me." 

"This is my daughter!" he protested. "Why should I be kept out of it?" He tried to catch Catie's gaze, but she kept her head down and she had Emma's fingers in a death grip. That's why he stopped protesting: whatever this was about, Catie was the one who was excluding him, not Emma. 

"We'll be back in a little bit," Emma promised, leading Catie out the back door.

-10-

"Oh, kiddo, it's okay," Emma crooned as they crossed the lawn.  

Catie leaned against her side and shook her head. "Dad's mad." 

"He'll get over it. Let's just take care of you right now, okay?" Emma took out a key ring and unlocked the front door. Ludo had been sleeping on a pile of old towels in a corner of the living room, and when the door opened, he lifted his head. Upon seeing them, he rose awkwardly to his feet and padded over to greet them, wriggling and dancing and head butting their shins with his flat face. 

Catie leaned down to pat the dog. She wished her father would let Emma bring Ludo to work with her, but the one time she'd mentioned it, he'd shot down the idea pretty quickly. 

"Does he need to go out?" 

"Probably, but he can wait a minute," Emma told her, steering her down the hall toward a small bathroom. Catie watched in misery as Emma opened a drawer in the sink cabinet and removed a box of tampons. Just the sight of them was embarrassing. 

Catie couldn't believe her rotten timing. She'd been having a good time at Mandy's party, when she hadn't been sure she would: she wasn't really part of any of the close-knit cliques of girls in her class, though she liked the girls well enough. Catie found it easier to hang out with the boys, because they could talk about baseball and hockey and they didn't care so much about silly stuff like hair and clothes and who was the cutest member of One Direction, and because boys didn't seem to notice or care as much that Catie didn't have a Mom. Girls made Catie nervous: she never knew what to talk about, and she always felt wrong and unfashionable, because she didn't know how to do anything pretty with her hair, and she didn't wear makeup, and all of her clothes were pretty boring and basic. 

-But today, at least, the party had been going well: they'd watched the latest Twilight movie on Mandy's huge flat-screen TV, and that was fine because Catie had read the books and so, for once, she knew what all the fuss was about. Besides, watching a movie doesn't require much talk anyway, which suited Catie just fine. 

After the movie, they'd had cake and opened gifts, and Catie had been glad because, in light of the movie, the Team Edward t-shirt she'd picked out for Mandy had been the perfect choice. Mandy's mom had suggested they head outside to the pool, which had sounded like a good idea at the time. Catie knew the Petersons had a pool, so she'd come prepared, bringing her suit and a towel in her backpack. 

She'd joined the throng of girls heading to Mandy's room to change, and that's when her luck had run out. When they had entered sixth grade and started having to change for gym, changing with classmates had been a simple enough thing, but in the two years since, it had become the thing Catie dreaded more than anything else about school. Back then, the girls had all been more concerned with their clothes than with their bodies, and the challenge for Catie had been learning which colors she could not wear together and what kinds of outfits were Fashion Don'ts, because God knew her father didn't pay attention to such things. But now, the girls were just as obsessed with their bodies as they were with the clothes that covered them, if not more so. 

Worse, they were obsessed with everyone else's bodies, too, and every time they changed for gym Catie felt like she was under a spotlight. She caught the shielded, sidelong glances of her peers and could feel them assessing, measuring, judging: noticing who wore bras and what kind and how well they filled them out, who had thunder thighs and chicken ribs and knobby knees and elbows, who was fat and who was skinny and who was just right (no one). Most alarming to Catie was not just that these comparisons and assessments were being made, but how easily and openly the rest of the girls discussed them. 

Suddenly, nothing was private, nothing was off-limits, and Catie was screwed, because she had enough trouble trying to keep up with fashion trends so she wouldn't humiliate herself by wearing the wrong jeans to school, and now on top of that she had to worry that her hips were too narrow and her ass too bony and that her chest wasn't filling out as quickly as the other girls'. At least she had some measure of control about what to wear, but how was a girl supposed to make her boobs grow faster? 

And then, in the midst of the already stressful circumstance of changing with the others, today Catie had begun to pull her shorts off and just happened (thankfully) to look down and notice the smudges on her underwear. She'd have died if someone else had noticed before she did. She knew they all would have talked about it: it seemed like lately, the girls she knew talked of nothing else but who among them had gotten her period and who hadn't. 

She'd pulled her pants back up abruptly with only one thought in mind: she needed to get home, right then and there. There was no way she would tell the rest of those busybody girls what was going on. She hadn't bothered to say a word to Mandy or any of the others: she'd just stuffed her suit back into her backpack and fled the room. Mrs. Peterson had been in the kitchen, and Catie had hastily thanked her and mumbled something about having forgotten something she had to do, and then she'd run outside and pedaled away on her bike. 

On the way home, Catie realized that her abrupt departure would cause nearly as much gossip and speculation as telling the truth would have, but at least this way they wouldn't all know her private business. A few blocks later, she'd realized that Emma might not be home, and the thought of telling her dad about this was almost as horrifying as it would have been to wave her bloody underpants around in front of her classmates. That's what had finally made her cry. Ever since the girls in her class had started getting their periods, Catie had worried about what would happen when hers arrived, since she didn't have a mom at home to help her. She knew the basics from health class-she wasn't one of those girls you read about who sees the blood and thinks she's dying-and she'd seen pads and tampons for sale in the grocery store, but they didn't have any at the house. She couldn't imagine mentioning to her dad that she might need such things some day. He was so squeamish about that kind of thing: Catie was sure that he still thought of her as a little girl with skinned knees and pigtails. (Of course, she still wore pigtails sometimes, and even now, her left knee was skinned from a spill off of her bike a few days earlier... but never mind.) 

She had had a tentative plan to talk to Aunt Julie when the time came, but Aunt Julie and her family were away on their annual camping trip in Maine this month. Catie had never been entirely satisfied with that plan anyway. Aunt Julie was a girl, obviously, but she didn't have any daughters of her own, and sometimes she made up for it by going over-the-top with girly stuff for Catie: every gift she'd ever bought her niece was either pink, covered in ruffles, or had something to do with Disney princesses (and sometimes all three). Aunt Julie would have made this into a huge, crazy deal, with lots of hugs and tears and embarrassing hysterics. Catie was relieved to have Emma's help, instead. Emma didn't have daughters either, but at least she wasn't freaking out the way Aunt Julie would have. 

Emma set the box of tampons and a box of panty liners on the edge of the sink, and to Catie's relief, neither box was pink. She explained the basics in a calm, patient voice, opening a tampon and demonstrating how to slide it out of the applicator. Catie's cheeks just burned hotter and hotter and hotter, and it was hard to listen over the mortified pumping of blood in her ears. 

"You okay, kid?" Emma asked with a gentle smile. "Any questions?" 

She had so many questions, all of them unbearably stupid, each more embarrassing than the last. Catie wanted to puke. She shook her head. 

"Do you want to try a tampon? I know they can be intimidating, and I bet one of the panty liners will work for now if you want me to run to town and pick up some pads," she offered kindly. 

Catie bit her lower lip nervously. 'Intimidating': what an understatement. She'd never put anything inside... well, down there. She swallowed thickly. "Do you like tampons better? Is that why you don't have pads here?" she managed to ask. 

Emma nodded. "I do, but every woman has her own preferences. It may take you a while to decide what works for you. If you want to start with pads, I'll go get you some." 

'Woman', Emma had said. Catie had never been called a woman before, but that's what this meant, right? She was a woman now, even if she still felt like a scared and silly little kid.  

"Why do you like tampons?" she asked, glancing nervously at the 'practice' tampon on the edge of the sink. It looked huge and scary, even though Emma said it was the smallest size she had. 

"For me, they're easier. -More discreet. Pads can feel bulky, and they don't fit as well in your pockets, so you'd have to carry a purse or your backpack," Emma explained. "But as I said, it's up to you, sweetheart. Lots of girls are more comfortable with pads at first." 

Catie liked the idea of being discreet, especially since she didn't want all of the girls in school to know her business. -Or the boys: she already felt weird enough having a locker room to herself while the boys on her hockey team changed together. She looked at the tampon again.  

"Does it hurt?" 

"It can be a little uncomfortable to put in sometimes, but usually, once it's in, you don't even feel it," Emma assured her. 

"I guess I'll try that," Catie decided uncertainly. 

Emma smiled and took another tampon from the box. She left the paper instructions unfolded on the sink counter where Catie could see the creepy cartoon pictures. "I'll be right outside the door if you need me," she promised. 

Catie nodded grimly, and Emma let herself out. 

Catie's hands shook as she pushed her underpants down and unwrapped the tampon. She studied the pictures on the instruction sheet one last time and then reached down. To her relief, it was not as dreadful and difficult as she had expected. Emma was right: it felt a little awkward and dry going in, but after she stood up and wiggled her hips a little bit, it seemed to settle into place. If not for the little string, she might have forgotten it was there. Oh, God, what if she forgot it was there?! Did people do that?, she wondered fretfully. 

She unwrapped a panty liner and settled it over the rust-brown stains on the gusset of her panties, and then she rose and refastened her shorts. It was almost a relief to be fully dressed again, protected somehow, the way she imagined police must feel when they put on a bullet-proof vest. It really hadn't taken any longer to insert the tampon than it would have to pee, but the process had been much more mortifying. Catie washed her hands and folded the instructions back up and tucked them into the box. She opened the bathroom door and found Emma waiting outside, true to her word, sitting on the floor and rubbing Ludo's belly. Catie sat down beside her, and Emma tilted sideways to put her head on Catie's shoulder. 

"How'd it go?" 

Catie gestured so-so. "It went." 

Emma patted her knee. "Good. Are you okay?" 

Catie nodded. "Thank you... for being here. I couldn't talk to Dad about this." 

Emma didn't lift her head from Catie's shoulder, but she said, "I think we're going to have to tell him what's going on. He's worried about you." 

Catie chewed her lip anxiously, wanting to cry all over again. She remembered how upset her father had been when she and Emma left the kitchen without telling him anything, and she knew Emma was right: he wouldn't let it go without an explanation. Right at this moment, he was probably busy imagining all sorts of dreadful things, and whatever he imagined would surely be worse than the truth. -But Catie just couldn't tell him. She was already queasy: if she had to tell her father she had her period, she'd surely throw up all over herself. 

"Will you tell him?" she begged. She knew she was pushing her luck: Emma had already been so nice to her, and Catie knew Emma and her father didn't like to talk to each other. 

Yet to her vast relief, Emma patted Catie's knee again and promised, "Sure, baby."

When Emma and Catie returned twenty minutes after they'd left, Finn was pacing the kitchen, going crazy trying to figure out what was going on. When they came through the door, he tried to pull Catie into a hug, but she sidestepped him and headed upstairs without a word. She had stopped crying, but clearly something was still very wrong. He turned to Emma and demanded an explanation. He was prepared to force the story out of her (though he had no idea how), but to his relief, she answered readily.  

"Catie got her period," she said frankly, opening the oven to check on her lasagna. 

Finn rocked back on his heels, stunned. Of the parade of horrors that had occurred to him while he trying to guess what was going on, this was totally unexpected, and both a relief (he'd been torturing himself with visions of Catie being abducted and molested on her way to the party) and a new torment. Should he have been prepared for this? "Isn't she too young? Is that normal, at her age?" he asked Emma. He felt unprepared and a little overwrought. 

She smiled reassuringly over her shoulder. "It's perfectly normal, yes." 

"Is she okay?" 

Emma slipped the foil off of the top of the pan and adjusted the oven temperature as she replied, "She's fine. It can be scary the first time, even if you understand what's happening- which Catie did," she added quickly, before Finn had a chance to berate himself for leaving his child open to the terror of being entirely uninformed. 

He was filled with guilt anyway, because whatever information Catie had on the subject hadn't come from him. He'd intended to talk to her about such things-menstruation and dating and sex and all of that-but he'd thought he would have more time. He'd planned to have that talk when she started high school. "Is she..." He paused and swallowed thickly, tasting bile at the back of his throat. "Does she have what she needs?" he asked awkwardly. 

Emma nodded. "For now. Tomorrow, I'll take her to the drug store and get her set up for the long haul." She threw out the foil and glanced at him. "You're white as ash. Why don't you sit down?" 

She pulled out a stool and Finn sank into it gratefully. His knees were not entirely steady. He shook his head and muttered, "This is wrong. It's too soon, too fast. She's growing up too fast." 

Emma shrugged. "She's not in as big a hurry as a lot of girls her age," she opined. "You're doing a good job, Finn. Don't beat yourself up because this one slipped past you. Catie's embarrassed enough about this without talking to her dad about it." 

Finn scowled. "She can tell me anything," he vowed defensively. 

She laughed. "Oh, buddy, that has not been true of any girl and her daddy in the whole history of the world, so don't you go thinking you're going to be the first," she retorted. "There are some things a girl just needs to talk over with another woman, just like I'm sure there were things going on with your body at that age that you would not have mentioned to your mama, no matter how much you loved her." 

He suddenly had a vivid memory of sitting in his room doing homework one day when his mother came in to change his sheets. He'd been thirteen or fourteen, and when she gathered the sheets up, an old sock had fallen to the floor. Finn and his mother had reached for it at the same moment, Finn's face burning with shame, his mother's eyes all wide innocence. He could not look at her, and he could not let her touch that filthy sock. He'd reached it first and kicked it under the bed, and then, afraid she'd ask questions, he'd hollered at her to get out of his room. He could do his own damn laundry, he'd said, and from then on, he had. 

An echo of that twenty-year-old blush crept up his neck now, and Emma's eyes sparkled, too understanding. "Exactly," she said. "The point is, Catie knew how to find someone to trust with this. You did your job, and she'll be okay." 

"Well then," he said stiffly, still unnerved, "I guess it's a good thing you showed up when you did." 

Emma shrugged dismissively. "She would have been okay without me. She's got an aunt in town, right? She's mentioned her before." 

"My sister is away on vacation," he admitted, feeling as though that was somehow his fault, too, as if he could have predicted this. 

"Oh. Well, maybe I do have good timing," she said lightly.

-11-

That day marked a seismic shift in relations between Finn and Emma. The next day when Emma arrived to work, Finn had not yet disappeared into his office for the day, and his tone was quite civil when he said good morning. When she brought his lunch upstairs, he thanked her and carried the tray back down so he could join Emma and Catie as they ate on the porch. Emma let Ludo out of her house next door, and they watched the pudgy dog plod along on stubby legs, sniffing trees and shrubs and lifting his leg on every hump in the grass, and Finn didn't get mad even though some of those shrubs and grass were on his side of the property line. After lunch, Emma put Ludo back inside and Finn went back upstairs. Hours later, Emma knocked on his office door, and he didn't snarl at her for interrupting him, but rather got up to let her in.  

"Coffee," she announced, holding up a travel mug. 

"Thanks," he replied. "I'd been thinking about heading downstairs to brew a pot." 

She smiled. "Now you don't have to." 

Every afternoon from then on, if she was working, Emma brought him coffee at half past three o'clock. It was not the only thing she did that anticipated his needs and went beyond the obvious tasks he'd had in mind when he hired her. She screened his calls, sorted his mail and hired a carpenter to come and fix the broken banister. She brought him snacks before he realized he was hungry. Sometimes when she visited his office, she'd open a window before he even noticed that it was stuffy. 

Even more surprisingly, in the days that followed their truce, Finn found that she could be helpful with his writing. One day when she brought his afternoon coffee, Emma happened to ask how his work was going. Someone who knew him better might have known not to ask, but she did, and so he answered. He told her that he'd been stuck on the same section of narrative for days, about how Dot Cartwright's engagement to Wilbur Tyson came about. He'd been writing and rewriting the same scene over and over, but he could not get it right. 

She considered this for a moment, her brow furrowed thoughtfully, and then she suggested, "Maybe you just need a different perspective. What if you tried writing it from someone else's point of view?" 

Finn thought about that, but he had doubts. "I thought it should be Wilbur's point of view because he's my source: I have his journals. He talks a little bit about the engagement." 

"Well, you can't ask poor Miss Cartwright for her side of the story, but then again," she paused, her grin widening, "neither can anyone else." 

She gave him a wink and slipped out the door, and Finn spent the rest of that day and the next imagining and then telling the story in Dorothy Cartwright's words. It got him out of a rut that had been frustrating him for days, and when he re-read the chapter later, he thought it was the best work he'd done on the Cartwright book so far. 

Of course, the end of hostilities was not an unmixed blessing, at least from Finn's perspective. He had struggled to keep his baser impulses in check with Emma even when he thought she'd stolen his fiancée, and now that he was beginning to know her better and actually like her, the struggle became yet more difficult. Now, it wasn't anger or annoyance that distracted him whenever he saw her: it was her sweet, spun-sugar vanilla scent lingering in the air after she left the room, the sound of her laughter drifting up the stairs as she talked to Catie below, the crazy, sexy halo of black curls that wreathed her head when the weather got humid, the delicate curve of her neck and the sweet, dangerous V of perfect, ivory flesh pulling his gaze down to the soft swells of her lovely breasts. 

At first, it had bothered him to think of her doing his laundry, to think of a woman he disliked and distrusted having such intimate access to his life, even in the role of a servant. He'd resented that her job made her privy to such deeply personal details such as what kind of boxers he preferred and how often he changed his sheets. Now, when he thought of her small hands folding his t-shirts and boxers, he pictured those same hands stripping the clothes from his skin. He raised the clean laundry to his nose and inhaled, hoping she had left a trace of vanilla on his sheets. He wondered if all of her smelled so sweet, and if she would taste as sweet as she smelled. Now, there were times when he could not get the door for her when she knocked, because the mere sound of her footfalls on the stairs was enough to capture his attention and, like a randy teenager, he needed the cover of his desk to hide his arousal. 

Of course, his impulses were as inappropriate as ever. He'd hired Emma to humiliate and punish her for something he now understood she hadn't done... but she was still his employee. So long as she worked for him, he could not act on these feelings: it would be too crudely cliché, like Mr. Rochester seducing the governess Jane Eyre, or like modern-day businessman sniffing after his assistant's skirts. 

Plus, Catie was so fond of Emma. Perhaps this should have been a good sign, but it made him nervous: Finn always kept his sex life (what he had of one) strictly separate from his daughter. He didn't like to bring women home to Catie until he was very sure of them and of the relationship. With Emma, everything was all out of order. Catie adored Emma, but Finn still wasn't sure how he felt. He was attracted to her, certainly, but that didn't mean they would make a good couple. What if he acted on that attraction and things ended badly? He would not want Emma around anymore, and Catie wouldn't forgive him.  

Catie was his first priority. Her feelings and her happiness were more important than his own. That was the way it had to be.

Emma was relieved when Finn finally came to believe the truth about her and Phoebe. It was nice to be able to work around the house without having to tiptoe around, avoiding him. It was nice to visit his office without fear that he'd snap at her or insult her. She liked that now, rather than eating lunch in his office every day, he usually came down to the kitchen or the porch to eat with her and Catie. She liked to watch him with his daughter: they had an obvious connection that she'd never seen before, and it gave her hope that a parent-child relationship could be more nurturing and respectful and less full of guilt and petty resentments and obligation than the complicated relationships she had with her own parents.

More than his improved manners or the glimpse of his uncommon affection for his daughter, Emma was coming to like Finn himself. He was definitely moody, especially when his writing wasn't going well, and when it was going well, he was sometimes so consumed with his work that he became thoughtless and self-absorbed... but he was also smart and funny and shy and very, very attractive. 

She found herself captivated by details she had no business even noticing: the fact that his eyelashes were so long they brushed the lenses of his glasses when he blinked, the way the rust-red hair at the back of his neck curled over the collar of his shirts, the strong blue veins that wrapped around his wrist and stood out beneath the skin of his neatly-groomed hands, his fingers as long and delicate as a musician's, with a small, white callus on the first knuckle of his right middle finger from long hours spent gripping a pen (because while he typed up each scene so he could edit and shift them around with a word processing program, he wrote his notes and large sections of first drafts out longhand on the yellow legal pads that littered his office). She tried to remind herself that he was her boss and her neighbor, and therefore very much off-limits. Besides, just a few weeks ago she'd been engaged to marry another man, and it was way, way, way too soon to be looking for someone else. 

Now that Finn finally believed her, it was easier to go to work each day, but the chilly reception she got from the rest of the citizens of Wellsboro didn't improve. She was still unwelcome at Cooper's Market: one day she waited in the parking lot while Catie ran inside to buy a chocolate bar, and she could feel Mr. Cooper giving her the stink eye through the big front windows. The women at the Clip Joint wouldn't cut her hair, claiming they were too busy to accept walk-ins, even though they obviously weren't busy at all: the only customer in the shop was an old woman sitting under a dryer. (Emma didn't try to make an appointment: she knew their schedule would be booked solid for months.) She couldn't get a library card because the librarian said they had a policy that people had to live in town for two years before being considered residents eligible for library membership, despite the fact that the printed application only required a driver's license or two pieces of post-marked mail with a local address. 

Apart from Finn and Catie and her own mother (of course, though Helen was only intermittently friendly), the only person Emma had met who was the least bit welcoming was her mother's landlord, George Hazen. Often when she wasn't working for the McCaffrey's, she'd stop by to see her mother, and if Helen wasn't home, she'd knock on George's door instead. He was always good for a cup of herbal tea, a delicious lunch, and lots of steaming hot gossip. 

Emma rarely knew the people he talked about, and she wasn't much of a gossip-hound (particularly since the gossip mill in Wellsboro had not served her well), but since George was the closest thing she had to a friend in this town, she kept her mouth shut and let his words flow past her. Once in a while, he had gossip about Finn, and though she felt a twinge of guilt, Emma couldn't help but listen closely. 

According to George, Finn had spent much of the spring researching the Cartwright murders in the company of a female state trooper, one Detective Sergeant Andrea Greene. Andrea was a local girl who was particularly well-chosen to help Finn with the case, because her grandfather, Samuel Greene, had been the Chief of the Wellsboro Police sixty years ago when the Cartwrights were killed. Thus, Andrea not only understood the area and the ins and outs of police procedure, she had an insider's understanding of the case. 

George claimed there was wide speculation that Finn and Andrea's association had not been purely professional. He had heard from "several reliable sources" that the two had been seen having dinner together in Claremont and Brattleboro, and they'd certainly spent a lot of time together: Finn had spent what seemed like weeks riding along in the passenger seat of Andrea's cruiser and sitting in the conference room at the State Police barracks reviewing the Cartwright files. 

All that had stopped, George reported, right about the time school let out for summer vacation. Most people in town believed that Finn hadn't wanted his daughter to know that he was seeing Andrea, because everyone knew how he protected that little girl, and how he pretended to live like a monk for her sake. Why else go out of town for those romantic dinners, George asked suggestively, when there were perfectly good restaurants here in town? 

Emma refrained from pointing out that the only restaurants she'd seen in town were a diner, an equally cheap Chinese place improbably named "YumYum House", a café that only served breakfast and lunch, a barbecue joint that served meals on picnic tables on the lawn, and a pizza parlor, none of which were conducive to a truly romantic dinner. She did suggest that perhaps Finn had stopped hanging around with Andrea not because of any dramatic falling out, but because his research had run its course.  

George shrugged, his face aglow with interest. "We may never know," he said, then asked eagerly, "Does he talk about it? Has he mentioned Andrea, or anyone else he's seeing?" 

She shook her head. It occurred to her that George's speculation with Finn's dating prospects might stem from a more personal interest. 

When she asked, he licked his lips lasciviously and sighed, "Oh, girlfriend, you're not wrong. If he showed the slightest inclination to bat for my team, I would be first in line for batting practice, if you know what I mean." 

Emma rolled her eyes. "Yeah, George, I think I can keep up," she assured him with a wry chuckle. 

"Anyway," he went on, returning to his story. "I don't know about Finn, but word on the street is that Andrea definitely has some unresolved feelings for that man. I heard from Barbara at the Clip Joint that Andrea had been telling anyone who'd listen that she was going to be the one to get Finn to the altar, and you know she's not just going to let that go just because he's apparently moved on. You don't let a guy like that slip through your fingers if you can help it, and Andrea Greene is one determined, stubborn lady." 

The idea of Finn standing at the altar, waiting for some other woman to walk down the aisle, bothered Emma on a level she didn't want to think about. She told herself that Finn's personal life was none of her business, and pushed all of George's speculations to the back of her mind.

Luckily, George was good for more than just good food and gossip. A few weeks into their acquaintance, Emma and George were sitting on George's patio drinking iced coffee. Helen wasn't home: she was attending a garden party at one of the manors up the street (though before she left, she'd snidely mentioned to both of them that her garden put today's hostess's blooms to shame.) 

In her absence, Emma and George were enjoying the morning sunlight, trying to do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. Without warning, George put down the paper and announced, "That's it. I have a limited attention span, and we have reached the end of it." 

Emma shrugged and reached for the paper, planning to keep working on the puzzle herself. 

George held it out of reach, shaking his head. "Nope, you're done, too. I have something else to show you." 

She eyed him uncertainly. Usually when a man said something like that, Emma's guard went up, but George wasn't like other men. 

He grinned widely. "Your mother tells me you're a photographer." 

Emma shrugged unhappily. "I was, until my studio burned up," she said grimly. 

George's grin didn't fade. "I looked up some of your work online. You've got an amazing talent, and I have a proposition for you." 

Her brows rose. "Do I look like a lady who wants to be propositioned?" she asked primly, teasing. 

He wiggled his brows like a lascivious Marx brother, his eyes alight with mischief. "Do you really want me to answer that, cookie?" 

She rolled her eyes and didn't respond. Flirtatious teasing was fun, but it was never going to go anywhere: neither she nor George had the slightest romantic interest in the other. 

George mock-kicked her, putting no force behind the contact. "Anyway, it's not that kind of proposition, you pervy girl. Listen: you are a skilled photographer with no equipment, right? Well, I happen to have a basement full of photo equipment, but very limited skill." 

Emma's eyes widened. For a moment, her lungs seized. If George was serious-if he was suggesting what she thought he was-it could be the answer to her prayers. If she could just sell a few pictures and get her work out there again, it would be the first step to rebuilding her career. "Show me," she begged, when she could breathe again. 

George caught her hands and pulled her to her feet. He led her down to his basement, where he'd finished a large room into a photographer's dream space: shelves filled with cameras, lenses, filters, mounts and tripods, camera bags, lighting equipment, screens, flash boxes; cupboards full of developing chemicals and paper supplies; a light board and loupes for viewing negatives. He'd built a medium-sized darkroom. 

This was not an amateur hobbyist's hobbled-together studio: it was all professional quality. George didn't have quite as extensive a collection of cameras as Emma had had before the fire, but she'd spent a decade amassing her equipment and used it to make her living, while George's seemed brand new, barely used. She'd had more computer equipment for viewing, touching up, and printing digital images, but she liked making pictures the old-fashioned way, too, and George's basement was perfect for that. Everything she would need lay in readiness, perfectly-stocked but barely used. 

Emma had to hold onto the edge of the light board for support: she was actually dizzy with excitement. 

"Well, what do you think?" George asked proudly. 

She shook her head, struggling to believe that this could be real. "It's amazing. Why did you do this?" she gasped. 

He shrugged carelessly. "I'm wealthy, unemployed, and I get bored easily. I have a lot of interests, and photography has always been one of them, but apart from a class or two in college, I never really had anyone to show me the ropes," he explained. "When your mom mentioned your work, I saw an opportunity to benefit both of us. That is, if you're willing to teach me the tricks of the trade?" 

Emma blinked, stunned. "You did all of this as a hobby?" 

He shrugged again. "Well, as they say, you can't take it with you. All this was much cheaper than the yacht I bought to sail around the world." He flashed a sheepish grin. "Turns out I get seasick. I sold the boat in the Bahamas two weeks after I bought it." 

Her mouth dropped open. "You are..." She shook her head, unable to find the words to express her disbelief. "You're insane." 

He chuckled. "One way or another, aren't we all?" 

Emma stroked her palm over the smooth surface of the light board. She walked over to the shelf of cameras and picked up a Nikon F6 35 mm SLR, which was (according to many), the gold-standard of 35 mm photography. She'd coveted one since they'd hit the market a few years ago, but since so many of her clients preferred faster, cheaper digital images, she hadn't felt her business could justify the $2,500 investment. Her hands itched to take it out for a spin. 

"It's a beauty, isn't it? The guy at the camera shop said that's the best point-and-shoot money can buy," George reported. 

Emma nodded reverently. "He was right." She bit her lower lip to wake herself up and put the Nikon down. She could not afford to get too attached: this was not her equipment, and she didn't know George very well yet. 

She turned from the intoxicating row of cameras and looked at George. "What exactly is the proposition you had in mind?" she asked. 

"I thought you'd never ask," he replied cheerfully. "I'm thinking you should borrow whatever you need: you can pay me back for film and developing supplies, but the cameras and the darkroom are yours to use as you need them. All I ask in exchange is that you let me tag along with you sometimes when you go out to shoot and when you develop your prints, and teach me what you know. 

Emma nodded dismissively. "No problem: that's the easy part," she agreed, "but what happens if you decide you're not into it? Maybe you don't like the way the developer smells, or maybe looking through a viewfinder gives you a migraine." 

George's joking expression turned skeptical. "A migraine? I'm not that much of a Nancy." 

She waved off his levity and continued urgently. "This is a hobby for you, George, but this is my livelihood, my life. It would take me ten years working for Finn at minimum wage to be able to build a studio like this." 

"Finn only pays you minimum wage? That cheap bastard!" he interrupted, still not appreciating how important this was to Emma. 

She ignored the interruption and pressed on. "This offer is so generous I don't think I can refuse, but this isn't a lark for me. If you decide to move on to your next hobby and you sell all this off the way you did your yacht, I'm- I don't know if I could handle that." She swallowed thickly. Her eyes heated and filled with tears. 

She didn't have a right to put conditions on George's offer. These were his things, and she knew she couldn't keep him from losing interest and selling them off. -But for her, if he was going to do that, it would be better for her if she had never even known about this room, or this offer. 

"Emma, no, no, no," he crooned, finally appreciating her distress. "Don't worry. I won't leave you out in the cold like that, sweetheart. Trust me." 

She didn't know if she could trust him, but she didn't have a choice. She needed this. 

She missed her work as a professional photographer. She missed the creativity of it, the freedom of being her own boss and setting her own hours, and the modest income it provided. More than any of those professional perks, though, she missed the way the world looked through the lens of a good camera. She missed the way she could control the image, the interplay of light and shadow, the saturation of color, the clarity of focus. She missed the security she felt behind the camera, the sense of controlled isolation, of otherness, that a photographer enjoyed. She could organize and direct the image, but she was safely removed from the action by the barrier of camera and lens.  

George's offer would put all of that back in her reach. Even if it ended up breaking her heart, she simply couldn't turn down this opportunity.

-12-

Every year in early August, Wellsboro's town green hosted a craft fair that brought vendors and tourists from all over New England, and the townspeople turned out in force. In addition to the craft vendors, there were game booths, a petting zoo, and food vendors selling all manner of high-calorie indulgences: fried dough, french fries, blooming onions, pizza, pulled-pork barbecue, burgers and sausage and peppers. It was one of the highlights of the year for the townspeople. Almost everyone in town played some part in the organization, preparation, and execution of the fair, and everyone put in an appearance. 

Finn and Catie were no different. Catie's class ran a bake sale to raise money for their 8th Grade end-of-the-year, pre-graduation class trip-(she and Emma had spent the previous two days baking cupcakes to sell)-and Finn and several other local authors volunteered their time and talents to offer free readings and book signings. As the only truly resident writer, and thus connected to the organizers, Finn's reading was scheduled first. He'd planned it that way so that he wouldn't have to wait around at the fair all day, since big crowds really weren't his scene. 

There were a lot of familiar faces in the audience when Finn clipped the microphone to his shirt and stepped up to the podium in the gazebo in the middle of the town Green. Nerves crawled in his belly. Public readings were his least favorite part of the job, and for all he should have been used to them by now, he'd never been comfortable speaking in front of a crowd. This crowd was even worse than the smaller groups of fans who showed up at bookstores around the country to attend his readings, because these were not strangers. These were his neighbors and friends, people he worshipped with, classmates from high school, and older residents who had been friends with his parents and had watched Finn and Julie grow up. He knew they were proud of him and they turned out to support him, but he wished they'd stayed home: they put so much pressure on him not to let them down. 

His voice shook a little as he introduced himself and held up his latest mystery novel, the sixth in his Detective Kevin Lefebvre series, which had just come out in hardcover that spring and which would not come out in paperback until November. As he opened the cover to the section he'd marked for reading, he noticed Flora Roberts lean over to whisper something to Mary Alice Cooper, and he thought he noticed a flicker of disappointment ripple through the crowd. He knew they'd been hoping he'd read from his Cartwright manuscript, but though it was going more smoothly since he'd taken Emma's advice not to rely so heavily on Wilbur Tyson's diaries and to tell the events from other observers' perspectives (even though it sometimes meant straying from verifiable fact into the realm of conjecture), it was not nearly ready for public consumption. 

He wasn't sure if he imagined the crowd's disappointment or if it was real, but either way, he didn't want it to steal what little nerve he had. For this reading, he'd chosen one of several sections of the book that he'd read at book signings throughout his recent book tour, so luckily the words were familiar enough to slip easily off the tongue. Despite that familiarity, though, it was not a good reading. He read without looking up from the page, though he knew that it was important to glance up and make eye contact, to build a connection to his listeners. If he'd been at a book store signing, his agent or the shop owner would have been annoyed with him for his lackluster performance... but they weren't here, and he wasn't trying to sell books: he was just trying to get through the day without embarrassing himself. 

The onlookers applauded politely when he finished and closed the book, and Finn finally looked up. Though there were many faces he knew in the front few rows, his gaze shifted past these to a woman standing back and to the side of the group, looking back at him. He didn't know if she'd joined the crowd mid-reading or if she'd been there all along, but now his gaze was drawn to her like a magnet to lodestone. Emma had a camera in her hands, but she wasn't looking through it. When she caught his gaze, she smiled and waved, and he returned the gesture without thinking, causing several heads in the crowd to turn to see who he'd acknowledged. Now there was a definite ripple of disapproval, many heads bent to whisper to neighbors, many narrowed eyes and thinned lips, all directed at Emma. Her smile slipped, her head bowed, her shoulders drooped, and she turned and walked away, disappearing in the throngs of people milling among the craft vendors' booths. 

Finn's innards gave another uncomfortable lurch. He knew the townspeople didn't like Emma. When she'd first arrived, he'd been grateful when his neighbors expressed outrage that she'd come back, because he knew their anger was on his behalf. He'd let the women fuss over him at coffee hour after Mass, muttering angrily about how all of the Fisher women were selfish and flaky, and what had Olive been thinking leaving her house to that ungrateful little witch after all that she'd done, knowing that Finn lived right next door? Surely Emma would leave town soon, they all thought: she couldn't mean to stay where no one wanted her... and with any luck, she'd take her snooty mother with her when she left. When various shopkeepers in town assured Finn that they didn't need to do business with the likes of Emma Wyatt, Finn had told them it wasn't necessary to shun her... but secretly he'd been touched by their loyalty. 

Now he knew Emma better. Now that he understood that she hadn't done what he'd always accused her of doing, he found he actually liked her. She was smart and even-tempered, patient with Catie and even patient with him. Finn didn't hold any illusions about his prickly personality. He wasn't a social butterfly, and he'd never claimed to be a master of social graces. He knew he could be moody and unreasonable, and that frustration over lack of progress on the Cartwright book and fatigue from his ongoing insomnia didn't help. He tried not to take his moods out on Catie, but he knew he didn't always succeed: she had long been in the habit of staying quiet and out of the way while he was working, but still he remembered plenty of times when he'd had to apologize for unintended sharpness or unprovoked fits of temper. 

Emma was helpful in this respect: she helped to keep Catie occupied and out of his way when his moods made him truly unbearable company, but she wasn't so timid that avoidance was her only strategy. When he got out of line and started barking at people who didn't deserve it, Emma let him know with a glance or a cutting remark of her own. Sometimes that meant he fought with Emma, but perversely, he found he enjoyed that: the glint of temper in her eyes and the sharpness of her tongue left his body humming with excitement. -And when his temper cooled, he was grateful not to have to apologize to Catie for hurtful words blurted in the heat of the moment. 

He'd assumed that when his own relationship with Emma began to improve, the townspeople would fall in line, but it was very clear that Emma was as unwelcome as ever. He understood now that his assumption had been naive, for how were his neighbors to know about the thawing of animosity that had occurred slowly in the privacy of his home and mind? He hadn't discussed his feelings for Emma because they were new and novel and unexplored: he didn't really know how he felt about her, and he didn't have time to figure it out because he needed to focus on the Cartwright book. 

Now, though he'd smiled and waved back perfectly politely, he felt responsible for the icy reception she got from the townspeople. He knew their coldness stemmed from loyalty to him. Unfortunately, he also knew the small-town mindset of these people he'd known all his life: once they made up their minds about someone, they didn't change their opinions. Finn's forgiveness might not even make a difference to them: they might decide he'd been ensnared by Emma's seductive wiles, just as they believed Phoebe had been. Still, if anyone's good word for Emma could have a chance of mattering to these people, it was his. He couldn't make them like her, but he might make them curious enough to give her a second look, a second chance. 

He wanted to chase after her and apologize, but he wasn't free to do so: he'd agreed to answer questions following the reading, and there were a lot of hands in the air. He turned back to the crowd and called on an unfamiliar woman in the front row. She asked about the Lefebvre books, but she was one of the few who did. As Finn both feared and expected, most of the questions from local people were about the Cartwright story. He kept his answers as superficial as possible, not because he didn't want to give away the plot of an unpublished book (everyone in town already knew the story anyway), but because he didn't want them to know how much he was struggling to write the book. He could tell that they found his answers unsatisfying, and he was sorry to let them down, but he feared it would disappoint them far more to know that he was having so much trouble pulling together a story that all of them knew so well, so personally. The Cartwrights were their history, the biggest thing to happen in Wellsboro in three centuries, and the weight of doing the tale justice sat heavily on Finn's shoulders. 

It seemed to take an eternity, but finally the hour passed, and the next author came to wait by the steps of the gazebo. Deeply relieved, Finn introduced her, the State's most recent poet laureate, and stepped aside to mild applause. 

Mary Alice Cooper sidled up to him as he walked away, and he managed a thin smile in greeting. "Finn, that was wonderful... though I do wish you'd read from Wilbur Tyson's journals for us," she said. 

Finn reminded her, "But I didn't write Tyson's journals. I was asked to read my work." 

"Of course, dear," she agreed, "but we're all just dying to know what he wrote. I suppose we'll just have to wait for your book to come out." 

"Mm-hmm," he agreed vaguely. "Have you seen Emma Wyatt?" 

Mary Alice's dark eyes narrowed behind her thick glasses. "Oh, I did see her, of course, we all did! I can't believe the nerve of that woman, waving to you like that... as if you want to see her, of all people, when you look up! I think you handled it very well, Finn, very gracefully. Rise above, rise above." She patted his arm approvingly. 

He blinked at her, surprised that she'd so misinterpreted his reaction. Probably, a lot of people had made the same mistake, and guilt coiled in Finn's gut again. He knew he had to set the record straight, though his usual instinct to protect his privacy told him it wasn't Mary Alice's-or anyone else's-business. "I wasn't rising above, Mary Alice: I was glad to see Emma." 

"What?" she asked loudly, her expression of shock almost comical. 

"Emma and I have become friends," he said firmly, keeping his tone level as though this was not a stunning revelation. "She's been helping me out with the house and with Catie while she looks for another job." 

"She... works for you?" Mary Alice asked, shaking her head in disbelief. 

He nodded calmly. "She's looking for something more permanent, but while Catie's out for summer vacation and I'm tied up working on the book, it's been very helpful to have her around." 

The older woman's mouth fell open. "I had no idea," she murmured. "I'd seen Catie out with her-they came by the store a few days ago, though that woman waited outside in the lot-and I'd been meaning to mention it to you, in case you didn't know... well, but clearly you do." 

Finn nodded again. "I do," he agreed. "Emma and Catie get along well, and it's good for Catie to have more company while I'm working." 

Mary Alice nodded, but her forehead creased between her brows as she stammered, "You don't worry... well, that she might teach... Catie's such a good girl, and... Are you sure Emma is the right sort of example for a young lady?" 

Finn caught Mary Alice's gaze and held it as he said gravely, "I believe we have seriously misjudged Emma, and we have seriously misunderstood the past." 

Mary Alice's eyes widened. "You don't think...?" She shook her head, as if to clear it, and then grabbed his arm and asked urgently, "Finnegan, what are you telling me?" 

Finn held her gaze and said, "Emma and Phoebe were nothing more than friends." 

"But..." Her gaze turned shrewd. "Is that what she says? Is that what Phoebe says?" she asked suspiciously, clearly implying that neither woman was a trustworthy source. 

"Yes, that's what Emma says, and I believe her," he replied tersely, setting his jaw stubbornly before pointing out, "Emma was barely eighteen, and Phoebe was six years older. Now that I know Emma better, I don't believe blame needs to be laid at all, but in those circumstances, I no longer recall why it ever made sense to put the blame on Emma." 

"Well," Mary Alice gasped. "Oh, well, this is... Oh, my, you have certainly given me much to think about." 

Finn smiled stiffly. "Good. Tell your friends," he told her, perhaps more sharply than necessary, and left her staring mutely while he walked away. 

He walked as quickly as possible along the crowded aisles between the merchandise booths, trying not to get caught by well-meaning acquaintances wishing to discuss his reading, the Cartwrights, or (Lord forbid) Emma. When his pace and lack of eye contact were not enough to stave off interruptions, he cut them short as quickly as possible by saying he was looking for Catie. They all excused him and pointed him toward the bake sale booth, but he wasn't looking for Catie at all. He wanted to catch up with Emma, but after the conversation with Mary Alice, he didn't dare ask anyone else where she'd gone. 

He searched the entire green and all of the shops along it, but he didn't catch another glimpse of his new neighbor. He checked in with Catie at the bake sale booth and learned his daughter hadn't seen Emma in a few hours. He told Catie he'd see her at home and walked toward his street. He knocked on Emma's door, but her car wasn't in the driveway, and no one answered. 

He went home and took advantage of the quiet house to try to get some work done, but he had trouble concentrating. He kept getting up to look out the window to look for Emma's car, but it was never there. Catie came home from the fair hyped up on sugar, but she hadn't seen Emma since the last time Finn asked. 

He should have let it go, but he couldn't get out of his mind the image of her face when the crowd turned on her just for waving to him, the way her smile had frozen and then collapsed, the way her shoulders and neck had hunched, like a scared turtle retracting into its shell. Finn had been glad to see her, but then she'd been gone. 

Catie went to bed, and Finn tried to do the same, but he couldn't relax. He lay awake listening for Emma's car, but it was very late, almost midnight, when he finally heard it. Without thinking, he rolled out of bed and pulled his jeans back on. He found a clean t-shirt and walked downstairs in the dark.

Emma didn't bother to try to fasten Ludo's leash in the dark: it was easier just to carry him under her arm the short distance to her front door. She wished she'd left a light on for herself, since no moonlight made its way through the overcast sky. The clouds had been gathering all afternoon and evening, but so far the rain had held off. The sunset had been spectacular, all reds and golds and oranges lighting up the heavy clouds. She'd taken pictures, but film never seemed to capture that ethereal light as spectacularly as it appeared to the eye. 

She froze as she heard wood creak somewhere nearby. -A footstep? -Or just a creaky old branch shifting in the breeze? She couldn't tell. The soft sound cut through the silence of the night, and Emma held her breath, listening, her heart rate picking up. She'd been so afraid ever since the thugs had burned her house, especially after dark. She thought it would get better with time, and as she got comfortable in her new surroundings... and it was getting better, but she was still way too jumpy. She tightened her grip on Ludo and hurried toward the door, but before she reached it, she heard the scuffing of something in the grass, much, much too close. 

A scream rose in her throat, and in her panic to get to the door, she dropped Ludo. He yelped and then started to bark wildly. 

"Emma! Em!," a familiar voice spoke in the darkness.  

She spun around, still screaming, and at first saw only the outline of a man looming in the shadows a few yards behind her. It seemed to take ages for her to register that he was not moving, not trying to grab or overtake her. He had stopped and held his arms up, palms out, unthreatening. Finn. Relief stole the strength from her knees, and she sank to the porch steps, struggling to breathe. 

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, still not moving. "I see I frightened you. I didn't mean to." 

She shook her head, but it took a moment before she could speak. "It's just... It's so dark." 

Finn apologized again, and as Emma's eyes finally began to adjust to the shadows, she saw that he was looking down at Ludo, who was still barking at his knees. She rose and grabbed the dog and pulled him close, calming them both. 

"Can I help you, Finn?" she asked. 

"It's late. I should have waited until morning," he said, his nerve abandoning him. 

"I'm up, clearly," she replied, knowing it would be awhile before she recovered from her fright enough to sleep. 

"Me, too. I couldn't sleep." 

Emma buried her nose in the stubbly fur between Ludo's ears and inhaled deeply before she admitted, "I'd invite you in for a cup of tea, but I think I'm still shaking too hard to get the door unlocked." 

"I'm so sorry I startled you. I didn't think," he apologized once again.  

She shook her head. "I've been kind of skittish since the fire. Being threatened by mafia henchmen will do that to a girl," she admitted grimly. 

"Would you like to come to my house? I can make tea," he offered. 

"I need to feed Ludo." 

"Well then, would you like me to open the door?" 

She handed him her keys. As she expected, her hands were shaking violently. "It's the shiny, new one," she told him, helping him separate the house key from the others on the ring. 

Finn hopped up the steps, pushed open the screen door, crossed the narrow porch, and unlocked the front door. He reached inside, found the light switch, and flipped all the switches to flood the porch and the living room with light. Emma stayed in the grass by the steps, clutching Ludo. Finn waited outside the door, watching her sympathetically. "I really did a number on you. Christ," he whispered. "I'm so sorry." 

She took a deep breath and climbed the porch. "Stop apologizing. It's me. I'm a basket case." 

He shook his head. "No, I should have thought.... I'm sorry." 

Emma stepped past him and put Ludo down on the living room rug. "Come in," she invited, feeling better now that the lights were on. Even though he'd scared her, she appreciated Finn's company, too: she didn't want to be alone in this still strange house, not until her heart stopped pounding against her ribs. 

He closed the door behind them and followed her into the kitchen. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and watched as she filled Ludo's food and water bowls, sloshing water on the floor because her hands were still shaking. When she reached for a dishtowel, he lifted it from her hands. "I'll do that. Sit and relax. I'll make tea." 

Emma managed a thin smile and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. He filled the teakettle (in plain view on the stovetop), and she pointed out the cupboard where she kept her tea. It was odd, after weeks of fixing his meals and brewing and serving his coffee, to have Finn in her kitchen doing for her. She liked the way he looked here, leaning against her counters in his faded jeans, his wrinkled t-shirt hugging his biceps. His hair was more mussed than usual, she noticed, flat on the back, as if he'd slept on it. He was barefoot, too: little green slivers of cut grass specked his long toes. 

"What brings you by at this hour... without your shoes?" she asked. 

Finn glanced at his feet as if he'd forgotten they were there. A flush crept up his neck. He shrugged. "It's stupid. I should have waited until morning, or Monday... but..." 

"But you didn't," she prompted, when he hesitated. "What's up?" 

"I saw you today," he admitted, his gaze on the tile floor. "I saw how they looked at you." 

"I'm used to it," Emma said tersely, but that wasn't quite true. It was what she had come to expect from many of the townspeople, true, but she'd hoped that today she would be able to blend in among the crowds of tourists. -And even though she'd come to expect it, the mass snub still hurt more than she liked to admit. She'd fled the fair on the verge of tears, and she'd spent the rest of the day hiking in the woods with George's camera. She'd cried then, but since no one had been around to see, she told herself it didn't count. When she'd run out of daylight, she'd gone back to George's and developed her prints in his cellar. George had been busy with guests from out of town, so he'd stayed out of her way, and she'd been grateful. 

Finn lifted his chin and met her gaze, his dark eyes full of guilt. "You shouldn't have to get used to it. It's wrong, and I'm sorry." 

She shrugged. "It is important to me that you believe me, but the rest of them are strangers. I don't care what they think of me." 

"They're strangers because you just got to town, but you live here now. This can't go on: you need to be able to run out and buy a quart of milk from Coopers, or stop by the post office to get stamps." 

"The post office is actually okay," Emma corrected, with an acerbic grin. "I can't get a haircut or a library card, but I can get stamps." 

Finn closed his eyes and grimaced. His jaw tensed. "I talked to Mary Alice Cooper. I told her to tell her friends that we'd all misjudged you. Hopefully, things will get better." 

Emma blinked, surprised and impressed. It was one thing to admit to himself that he'd been wrong about her, but admitting that mistake to the rest of the community took a different kind of decency. "Thank you," she whispered, truly touched. She bit her lip to stop an unwelcome flood of hot tears at the back of her eyes. 

"I don't know if it will work," he admitted. "People around here are stubborn and set in their ways. When you and Phoebe left, they told themselves a story to explain it-and, yes, I helped tell that story-and now it will be tough to get them to see the truth. I'm sorry." 

The kettle started to whistle, and while Finn lifted it off of the burner, Emma rose and opened the cupboard where Aunt Olive stored her cups and saucers. She had to stand on tiptoes to reach the shelf, and she felt silly and childlike beside Finn, who was tall enough to reach easily, had he known where to go. Her hands were steadier now: the china did not clatter as she set it on the counter top. 

Finn poured hot water into both cups, while Emma pulled the teabags out of their sleeves and dunked them in to steep. "Hey," he protested, "I'm supposed to be making your tea, to make up for scaring the bejesus out of you." 

Emma smiled up at him, and then-because he was so close and being so nice-she slipped her arms around his waist and gave him a hug. 

For the span of a few erratic heartbeats, she feared her instincts had been wrong. The muscles in Finn's back stiffened under her hands, his breath stopped, and his spine seemed to pull away from her. She was about to let go and apologize, face burning with embarrassment, when his arms wrapped around her and pulled her even closer. "Oh, God, Emma," he groaned deeply. 

She lifted her chin and his minty breath warmed her face, sweet and clean and very, very close. She found his mouth open, waiting to meet hers. Finn's hands gripped her waist, pulled and held her against his solid chest as his arms circled her shoulders. In other circumstances, Emma might have felt trapped, but though she was so much smaller than Finn and had little space to move, she didn't care. He felt solid and strong and safe, and Emma felt a shiver of happy anticipation zip along her spine. 

This was no cautious, gentle first kiss: Finn was not the least bit hesitant. He pressed her tender lips with his firm, strong mouth and jaw, taking and claiming the access Emma was only too willing to surrender. He seemed desperate, breathless, urgent... perfect. Emma gave herself up to the kiss, reached up and tangled her fingers in the shaggy waves at the back of his neck, holding him even closer. She rose on her toes again, but this time she didn't feel silly or childlike; she felt like a woman going after what she wanted. At that moment, she wanted Finn more than air. 

His hands shifted, the fingers of one hand slipping under her blouse to caress the soft divots at the small of her back while the other sank lower, drifting over the curve of her buttocks and adjusting her against the firm ridge pressed against her belly. He touched her like he knew what he was doing, like he knew how and where she needed him, like he knew how to wake her nerves and leave them humming with satisfaction. Her breasts grew heavy and sensitive, her nipples beading within her bra, eager for attention. 

Emma groaned and tried to rise even higher on her toes, needing to be closer, needing contact, pressure, heat. Finn's solid grasp helped, moving along the back of her thigh to pull her knee up to his hip. Needing no more invitation, Emma wrapped her arms around his neck and hopped aboard, climbing up his body to wrap her legs around his narrow hips. She pressed her aching breasts to his chest, cursing the layers of their clothes, needing to feel his heat and strength against her bare skin. 

Finn grunted and gasped, his knees buckling for an instant before he braced himself for better leverage. His hands curled around her buttocks and his hips rocked against hers, tearing a ragged moan from both of them. Emma answered his thrust with an eager wriggle of her own, loving the feel of him there at her core. She knew he would be good at this, the kind of good she had not known in a long, long time, if ever.  

"Emma, Emma," he breathed, between open-mouthed kisses so deep they left her dizzy. 

"Mmm, you feel so good," she purred, slanting her mouth to his, eager for more, eager for all. 

They were generating heat. Finn's hands pressed heat through the worn khaki of her shorts. His groin burned even hotter, and Emma felt her body responding, burning, and knew she was just as hot for him. She reached down and grabbed the hem of her blouse, pulling it up and out of the way. She broke the kiss, pulled it over her head, and flung it away, but when she turned back to Finn's mouth, she found it closed. 

Finn had frozen. His heart still pounded and his lungs heaved with each ragged breath, but otherwise he had gone completely still. His hands no longer moved on her skin, his hips had stilled, and his muscles had gone rigid. He closed his eyes, his jaw tense, his lips thin, his nostrils flaring with each tortured breath. 

Emma grunted as disappointment and annoyance surged. The son-of-a-bitch had an 'off' switch, apparently. What the fuck? 

As she expected, he reached behind his back to unhook her ankles from his waist. He lowered her to her feet and stepped away. "This is bad," he said, still not looking at her. 

She bent to retrieve her shirt and pulled it back on, humiliation flooding every cell of her body. A moment ago, she had wished for nakedness, and now her sleeveless blouse was not enough cover for her embarrassment. She bit her lip, still damp and swollen from his kisses, and wished she could disappear. "Thanks a lot," she muttered, bitterly, hurt. 

Finn's dark eyes flew open and he looked at her, startled. "No, I didn't... I meant 'bad' as in wrong, not as in..." he hastily corrected, shaking his head. "Emma, I'm sorry." 

She shook her head dismissively. He was just full of apologies tonight. 

"It wasn't bad that way. It was good, too good," he said, taking a deep, unsteady breath. His arousal still tented the front of his jeans, but he didn't reach for her. 

"Whatever," she retorted. "Clearly, it's over." 

He grimaced, but nodded slowly. "I'm sorry." 

"Stop apologizing," she said crossly. 

"Catie's asleep. I should ..." His voice trailed off as he glanced toward the door.  

"Go," she said impassively, though she wanted to scream at him to get the fuck out. 

He nodded and started out. Before he left, he turned and said, "I'll see you Monday?" Though phrased as a statement, his uncertain tone made it a question. 

Emma didn't answer. Right then, she didn't know.