Shirley Jump - The Mckennas - Finn, Riley and Brody

But it wasn’t enough. No matter how much time Finn spent in the gym, tension still knotted his shoulders, frustration still held tight to his chest. He’d been unable to forget Ellie—or bring himself to go home to her.

Home. To his wife.

Already he was getting far too wrapped up in her, he’d realized. They’d had that conversation at lunch about marriage, and he had found himself wanting to tell her that he felt the same way. That he had never imagined himself getting married, either.

Then he had come to his senses before he laid his heart bare again, and made the same mistakes he’d made before. He’d watched his parents locked in an emotional roller coaster of love and hate, then repeated those mistakes at the end of his relationship with Lucy. No way was he going to risk that again with Ellie. She saw him as a means to an end—a father on paper for her child—and nothing more.

He pulled on the lat bar, leaning back slightly on the padded bench, hauling the weights down. His shoulders protested, his biceps screamed, but Finn did another rep. Another. Over and over, he tugged the heavy weight down.

It wasn’t just the distraction of getting close to Ellie that had him sweating it out in the gym. It was the growing reality of the child she was about to adopt.

No, that they were about to adopt. He’d promised Ellie that he would go along with her plan, but now he was wondering if that was the right thing to do.

How could he be a temporary husband, temporary dad, and then, at the end of the hospital project, just pack up his things and go? If anyone knew firsthand what losing a parent suddenly could do to a child, it was Finn. He’d gone through it himself, and watched the impact on his younger brothers. They’d been cast adrift, emotional wrecks who took years to heal, even with the loving arms of their grandparents. How could he knowingly do that to a child?

He gave the lat bar another pull, his muscles groaning in protest, then lowered the weight back to the base. He was finished with his workout, but no closer to any of the answers he needed.

He showered, got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, then hailed a cab and headed across town toward Ellie’s townhouse. Night had begun to fall, draping purple light over the city of Boston. It was beautiful, the kind of clear, slightly warm night that would be perfect for a walk. Except Finn never took time to do that. He wondered for a moment what his life would be like if he was the kind of man who did.

If he was the kind of man who had a real marriage, and spent his life with someone who wanted to stroll down the city streets as dusk was falling and appreciate the twinkling magic. But he wasn’t. And he was foolish to believe in a fantasy life. His mother had been like that—full of romantic notions that burned out when she saw the reality of her unhappy marriage. Finn was going to be clearheaded about his relationships. No banking on superfluous things like starry skies and red roses.

He paid the cabbie, then headed up the stairs to Ellie’s building. He paused at the door and caught her name on the intercom box. Ellie Winston.

His wife.

Already, he knew they had a connection. It wasn’t friendship, but something more, something indefinable. A hundred times during the meeting today, he found his mind wandering, his gaze drifting to her. He wondered a hundred things about her—what her favorite color was, if she preferred spring or fall, if she slept on the left side of the bed or the right. Even as he told himself to pull back, to not get any deeper connected to this woman than he already was. This was a business arrangement.

Nothing more.

As he headed inside, he marveled again at the building she had chosen—the complete opposite to the modern glass high-rise that housed his apartment. Ellie lived in one of Boston’s many converted brownstones. Ellie’s building sported a neat brick facade and window boxes filled with pansies doing a tentative wave to spring adorned every window. The building’s lobby featured a white tile floor and thick, dark woodwork. The staircase was flanked by a curved banister on one side, a white plaster wall on the other. A bank of mailboxes were stationed against one wall, lit from above by a black wrought-iron light fixture that looked older than Finn’s grandmother, but had a certain Old World charm.

He liked this place. A lot. It had a … homey feeling. At the same time, he cautioned himself not to get too comfortable. They weren’t making this a permanent thing, and letting himself feel at home would be a mistake. He’d get used to it, and begin to believe this was something that it wasn’t. He’d fooled himself like that once before.

Never again.

He found Ellie in the kitchen again, rinsing some dishes and loading them into the dishwasher. “Hi.”

Kind of a lame opening but what did one say to a wife who wasn’t a real wife?

She turned around. “Hi yourself. I’m sorry, I ate without you. I wasn’t sure what your plan …” She put up her hands. “Well, you certainly don’t have to answer to me. It’s not like we’re really married or anything.”

There. The truth of it.

“I grabbed a bite to eat after the gym.” He dropped his gym bag on the floor, then hung his dry cleaning over the chair. “Did you find out when the interview would be?”

“In a couple days. Linda’s trying to coordinate all the schedules.”

“Okay. Good.” The sooner the interview was over, the sooner they could go their separate ways. And that was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

“After this morning, I think we should work on our story,” she said. “You know, in case they ask us a lot of questions. I don’t want it to seem like …”

“We barely know each other.”

She nodded. “Yes.” She gestured toward a door at the back. “We can sit on the balcony out back if you want. It’s not a rooftop terrace, but we’ll be able to enjoy the evening a little.”

They got drinks—red wine for him, iced tea for her—and Ellie assembled a little platter of cheese and crackers. Finn would have never thought of a snack, or if he had, it probably would have been something salty, served straight from the bag. But Ellie laid everything out on a long red platter, and even included napkins. The night air drifted over them, lazy and warm. “You thought of everything,”

She shrugged. “Nothing special. And it’s not quite the evening you planned.”

“No, it’s not.” He picked up a cracker and a piece of cheese, and devoured them in one bite. “It’s better.”

She laughed. “How is that? There’s no musicians, no twinkling lights, no five-course meal. It’s just crackers and cheese on the balcony.”

“Done by you. Not by others. I don’t have that homemaking touch. At all.”

“I’m not exactly Betty Crocker myself. But I can assemble a hell of a crudités platter.” She laughed again. “So I take it you can’t cook?”

“Not so much as a scrambled egg. But I can order takeout like a pro. My grandmother is the real chef in the family. She doesn’t cook much now, but when I was a kid, she did everything from scratch.”

Ellie picked up her glass and took a sip of tea. “Where are you parents? Do they live in Boston?”

The question was an easy one, the kind people asked each other all the time. But for some reason, this time, it hit Finn hard and he had to take a minute to compose the answer.

“No. They don’t. Not anymore.” Finn was quiet for a moment. “My parents … died in a car accident, when I was eleven. Brody was eight, Riley was just six.”

“Oh, Finn, I’m so sorry.” She reached for him, and laid a soft hand on top of his arm. It was a simple, comforting touch, but it seemed to warm Finn to his core. He wanted to lean into that touch, to let it warm the icy spots in his heart.