Worth the Weight (32 page)

T
hen she looked at
Finn
. His eyes were on her hand that was still holding the napkin in place over the damning piece of hay. His gaze moved up her arm, pausing at her breasts, over her mouth, still swollen from his kisses, and rested on her dazed eyes.

His look said volumes. It said he knew what she was hiding under her napkin. It said he knew how that hay had gotten in her hair in the first place. And it said he wouldn’t mind repeating the act again - their literal roll in the hay - as soon as possible.

She gave him a scathing look but he only laughed and returned to his meal.

It had been three weeks since the first night they’d had sex. Three weeks from the night they had both thought to quench
their thirst for each other,
then put some distance between them.

They’d made love every day.

It hadn’t been easy. Sometimes
Finn
would come over to her parents’ house after Stevie and Annie were asleep, asking Clea to turn her monitor on, or even to sleep in the farmhouse for the night. A few times Clea took the kids somewhere for the evening and
Finn
and Lizzie would hurriedly come together in his bed. He was down to only one night a week at the
Mine Shaft
because of the berries being in prime season
, but
hey’d
made use of that one night, doing
it in the projection room after closing.

Just tonight, he’d cornered her in the barn while everyone else was inside getting dinner ready. While stretched out on a bed of hay, the sweet scent of strawberries lingering in the air, he’d given her the most satisfying orgasm she’d ever had.

That was the funny thing. It got better every time. Lizzie hadn’t seen that one coming. She knew she was becoming more comfortable with her body around
Finn
, though she still never allowed him to see her in the daylight or to have the lights on while they had sex. He understood her hesitancy and never pushed her. She knew that with her comfort level with her body rising, it would only make sense that her comfort level with sex would rise as well. But it was rising at a much faster rate.

She was good in bed! Well, maybe not good, but better than she ever thought she’d be. It was a shocking revelation for her.

But that was what she’d set out to do, so she really shouldn’t be surprised. Her plan had worked like a charm. She now felt able to begin an intimate relationship with a man suitable to her future.

Problem was, she didn’t really want to anymore.

Clea’s voice drew Lizzie from her thoughts. “I’m sorry, Clea, what did you say?” They were just finishing up the dishes, the kids had gone into the living room to watch TV and
Finn
was at the desk going over the newest figures Lizzie had put together on the fundraiser.

“Would you come out to the trailer with me for a minute, I’d like to show you something,” Clea repeated.

“Of course,” Lizzie followed
Finn
’s grandmother from the farmhouse and across the lawn to the trailer.

“Make yourself comfortable, dear, I’ll just go get what I wanted to show you,” she said and disappeared into what Lizzie assumed was Clea’s bedroom. Lizzie followed the woman’s directions and made herself at home on the couch.

Clea returned after only a short while holding a shoebox, joining Lizzie on the couch. She held the box on her lap, fingering the lid. “I’ve thought about showing you this for some time now, and I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to do it.” She paused, saw she had Lizzie’s attention, and continued. “Mind you, I’m not giving these to you - they’re not mine to give - and I ask that you don’t open them.” Again she waited, still running her hands, aged and withered from life and hard work, along the corners of the box. “But, I do think you should know that these exist, and you can do with that information as you please.” She handed the box to Lizzie.

“I found them in the back of the closet when
Finn
moved
out of here and
back into the farmhouse after he and Dana were married. I think he completely forgot about them. He’s certainly never mentioned them to me.” She nodded for Lizzie to open the box, sensing her trepidation.

As Lizzie lifted the lid off the box she was assaulted with the scent of cedar, probably from the closet where the box had resided all these years. Inside were sealed letters. More than twenty of them, none had postage marks or even stamps on them. They had never been sent.

Every single one of them was addressed to her at Michigan State.

She flipped through them, crushed that they were sealed and knowing she couldn’t break Clea’s request not to open them. But oh, how she wanted to know what they said. She noticed that ten of the letters were addressed to her dorm room her freshman year, seven to the dorm she lived in her sophomore year, and five to the apartment she lived in her junior year. None were addressed to her senior year apartment.

“I don’t understand? How...how did he know where I lived?” her voice was soft, and she cleared her throat to repeat herself, but it wasn’t necessary.

“I’m not sure about the other addresses, but I do know that he called your mother shortly after you left to go to college for your freshman year to get your address,” she said.

Lizzie pawed through the envelopes again, as if not believing what she saw the first time. “My mom? She never told me he called.”

“I happened to overhear that call, that’s how I know. He asked your mother not to tell you he called. He said he wasn’t sure if he’d write, wasn’t sure you’d be happy to hear from him, so it would be better all around if your mother didn’t mention it.”

Lizzie silently sat on the couch, stunned. He
had
written to her. He just didn’t send the letters.

“How he got the other addresses, I’m not sure. Probably the same way.”

“I...I don’t know what to say. I don’t really know what this means,” Lizzie said. Her hands were still funneling through the envelopes, the feel of the paper cool against her skin.

Finn
had written to her at college
.
Lizzie couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Had she meant more to him than she’d realized? It certainly appeared that way. “Why didn’t he send them?” she didn’t even realize she’d voiced the question out loud until Clea answered.

“Pride, I expect,” she quietly said.

Lizzie’s head shot up from the box, startled, “Pride? What do you mean, pride? He was the one who broke things off with me.”

“Something I believe he regretted soon after if the way he moped around here that summer is any indication. Steven,
Finn
’s father, my son, died when
Finn
was only ten. Linda tried to make a go of it, but she’d just had Phoebe, and…” her voice trailed off.

Lizzie knew that
Finn
’s mother was an alcoholic and that
Finn
’s father was dead. She didn’t know, until now, how young
Finn
had been when his father had died.

“That’s when they moved in here with you?” she asked.

“Yes. I sometimes wonder if Linda might have been better off on her own. If maybe having me close by to help didn’t allow her to…indulge more than she would have if she’d had sole responsibility of those kids.” It was obvious to Lizzie that Clea had replayed the scenario in her memory many times, looking for a different outcome.

“Or maybe something tragic may have happened if you hadn’t been around, Clea. You were a Godsend for
Finn
and Phoebe. I know
Finn
thinks so.”

Clea smiled faintly
. “Maybe, dear, maybe. We’ll never know, will we? We play the cards we’re dealt.

“Anyway, by the time
Finn
was fifteen, Linda was out of control and
Finn
took over with Phoebe. I know it was awful for him. There were times he’d come home after being out with
friends and they would have seen Linda in town, falling down drunk, going off with some man or another. It gave
Finn
a very jaded perception of women, I’m afraid. One that didn’t die when Linda did several years ago, and one that was certainly reinforced by that ex-wife of his.”

Lizzie only nodded, having had a similar reaction to the woman the one time she’d met
Finn
’s mother.

“When he met you, I thought he’d finally be able to let that all go. But, for whatever reason, he let you go instead. I always thought he didn’t want to bring you down to what he thought his level was.”

Finn
had said something similar to her and she hadn’t believed him, thought it was just a line to get her to forgive him for past sins and join him in a summer fling.

Clea took Lizzie’s hand in her own. “
You
do know
Finn
always thought he wasn’t good enough for you, don’t you?”

Did she? Yes, she guessed she did. She knew he
’d
always harbored a wrong-side-of-the-tracks mentality when it came to her, and that his prideful streak was a mile long. But she never expected it was of this magnitude. Enough that he wouldn’t ask her back after he’d let her go?

The memory of his blow up after she bought him that shirt confirmed to her that yes,
Finn
Robbins would have a hard time swallowing his pride and asking her to come back to him. Throw in that he never really thought he deserved her. It all added up to a box full of letters sitting in a closet for eighteen years.

What a waste. She could almost cry for the kids they were. Finding the love of your life so young, and not being mature enough to see it through. Letting things like pride and lack of esteem rule your heart. She was as much at fault as he was, adhering to some crazy life plan that ended up getting shot to hell anyway.

Lizzie froze, realizing what she’d just said to herself.
Finding the love of your life
. The epiphany was as strong and clear as the one she had the day she met Davis Cummings. She had loved
Finn
. She had fou
nd the love of her life at eigh
teen.

She took a deep breath, feeling her chest tightening with the knowledge. Why had she denied it back then? That was simple. As intense as her feelings for
Finn
were, she was practical enough, even at that young age, to think that it was only lust, that she could not possibly fall in love so young.

After all, she
’d
had a plan.

Besides, if she was in love with
Finn
, wouldn’t she want to show him off? Trot him out in front of the entire senior class of Hancock High? But she hadn’t. She didn’t like the way he dressed, was embarrassed that he worked at the
Mine Shaft
three years out of high school. And she lived in fear of being somewhere with other people and coming upon
Finn
’s drunken mother.

But Lizzie wouldn’t deny it to herself any longer. She had loved
Finn
. Deeply, and with a conviction that had not faded after eighteen years. And if she were really honest with herself, she’d admit that she loved him still.

Damn. Damn. Damn. This was not part of her plan.

Chapter Eighteen

√ Buy more condoms

√
Do
something nice for Clea

Call Sybil

Finn
heard Liz call out to him and he directed her to the back of the barn where he was working. “What did Gran want?” he asked when she reached him.

He sensed, more than saw, her shrug. “Oh nothing. Just wanted to show me some pictures of you as a kid.”

Knowing there were no childhood pictures of him in the trailer - they were all in the family albums kept in the main house - but not wanting to push Liz, he let it slide. He wasn’t stupid enough to bang his head against the wall of a woman that didn’t want him to know something. “Mmm,” was all he said.

“What are you doing?” she asked. She was standing directly behind him. He could feel her knees graze against his back as he sat on his haunches patching a hole in one of the stalls. Damn, but even her knees could make him hard. And he’d just had her in this same barn a
couple of hours ago. Get a grip.

That was the problem, he’d lost his grip entirely where Liz was concerned. The promise he’d made to himself at the dance - to finally sleep with
her
then cool things down - had flown out the window that very night. And the idea of keeping his distance from her now was laughable.

When he held
her
in his arms, when he was buried deep inside her, his hands clutching her full hips, her hands cradling his face, he knew he was dealing with much more than a summer fling.

Thank God he was involved with Liz and not some traitorous bitch like Dana. Liz had been very up front about not needing any commitments from him. But this was Liz, and Liz was not the type to jump into flings. Though they had not yet spoken about anything beyond the summer,
Finn
knew Liz shared the same deep feelings as he did. He felt it when they made love. And that’s exactly how he’d come to think of his time with Liz, making love. He had another week at least - because no way would she leave before the fundraiser was over - to broach the subject with her.