He was always there, she realized. Always.
She went through the motions that evening, serving up big bowls of beef stew, laughing at Richard's jokes. If someone had peeked in the kitchen window, they would have seen a jolly group of friends sharing a meal. Attractive people, comfortable with one other. It would have been difficult to spot any tension, any discord.
But Finn was a trained observer. Even had that not been the case, he could judge Deanna's moods by the flick of an eyelash.
He hadn't questioned her about the tension he sensed, hoping she would tell him on her own. As the evening wore on, he accepted, impatiently, that he would have to push. Perhaps he would always have to push.
He watched her settle down in the living room, a smile on her face. Unhappiness in her eyes.
God, the woman frustrated him. Fascinated him. For almost two years they had been lovers, as physically intimate as it was possible to be. Yet no matter how open she was, how honest, she managed to tuck away little pieces. Closing them off from him, locking them tight and hoarding them.
She was doing it now, he realized.
Her hand might reach for his, holding it with comfortable familiarity. But her mind was elsewhere, methodically working through a problem she refused to share.
Her problem, she would say in that reasonable tone that by turns infuriated and amused him. Nothing she couldn't handle on her own. Nothing she needed him to deal with.
Hurt, Finn set his glass aside and slipped upstairs.
He built up the fire in the bedroom, brooding over it. He wondered how long he could wait for Deanna to take the next step. Forever, he thought, with an oath. She was as much a part of him as his muscle and bone.
The need that had been growing in him for family, for a steady, rooted life, was nothing compared with his need for her.
What was much worse, as well as totally unexpected, was that he wanted, quite desperately, for her to need him.
A new one for Riley, he mused, and wished he could see the humor in this realization. The need to be needed, to be tied down, to be… settled, he realized, wasn't a particularly comfortable sensation, and after several months, he understood it wasn't going to go away.
And he was beginning to hate the status quo. She found him crouched at the hearth, staring into the flames. After closing the door quietly at her back, she crossed over, brushed a hand through his hair. "What the hell is going on,
Deanna?" He continued to stare into the fire. "You've been edgy since we got here last night, and pretending not to be. When I came in before dinner, you'd been crying. And you and Fran are circling each other like a couple of boxers in the tenth round."
"Fran's angry with me." She sat on the hassock and folded her hands in her lap. She could feel his tension in the air. "I guess you will be, too." Lowering her eyes, she told him about the note, answering his terse questions and waiting for his reaction.
She didn't wait long.
He stood where he was, with the fire snapping at his back. His gaze never left her face and was calm, entirely too calm.
"Why didn't you tell me right away?" "I thought it was best to wait until I'd sorted through it a bit."
"You thought." He nodded, slipped his hands into his pockets. "You thought it was none of my concern."
"No, of course not." She hated the fact that his cool interviewing skills always put her on the defensive. "I just didn't want to spoil the weekend. There's nothing you can do anyway."
His eyes darkened at that — the wicked cobalt Angela had described. It was a sure sign of passion. Yet his voice, when he responded, didn't alter so much as a degree in tone. That was control.
"Goddamn you, Deanna, you sit there and make me treat this like a hostile interview where I have to drag the facts out of you." Fear and fury burned through him. "I'm not tolerating this. I'm fed up with your tucking things away and filing them under "For Deanna Only."" He stepped forward then and, with a speed that had her blinking, pulled her to her feet. She'd expected him to be angry, but she hadn't expected the rage she saw on his face.
"Finn," she said carefully. "You're hurting me."
"What do you think you're doing to me?" He released her so quickly she staggered back a step. He spun away, shoving fisted hands in his pockets. "You don't have a clue. Don't you know how badly I want to get my hands on this creep? That I want to break him in half for causing you one minute of fear? How useless I feel when you get one of those goddamn notes and the color drains out of your face? And how much worse it is, how much harder it is, because after all this time you don't trust me?"
"It isn't a matter of trust." The violence in his eyes had her heart jumping into her throat. In all the time they'd been together, she'd never seen him so close to the edge. "It's not, Finn. It's pride. I didn't want to admit that I couldn't handle it alone."
He was silent for a long time, the only sound the spit of flames eating steadily at dry logs. "Damn your pride, Deanna," he said quietly. "I'm tired of beating my head against it."
Panic welled up inside her like a geyser. His words were a closing statement, a segment ender. With an involuntary cry of alarm, she grabbed his arm before he could stalk out. "Finn, please."
"I'm going for a walk." He stepped back, holding palms up, afraid he might cause them both irreparable damage if he touched her. "There are ways of working off this kind of mad. The most constructive one is to walk it off."
"I didn't mean to hurt you. I love you." "That's handy, because I love you, too." And at the moment, his love felt as though it were killing him. "It just doesn't seem to be enough."
"I don't care if you're mad." She reached out again and clung. "You should be mad. You should shout and rage."
Gently, while he could still manage it, he loosened her grip. "You're the shouter, Deanna. It's in the genes, I'd say. And
I come from a long line of negotiators. It just so happens I'm out of compromises."
"I'm not asking you to compromise. I only want you to listen to what else I have to say."
"Fine." But he moved away from her, to the window seat in the shadows. "Talk's your forte, after all. Go ahead, Deanna, be reasonable, objective, sympathetic. I'll be the audience."
Rather than rise to the bait, she sat again. "I had no idea you were this angry with me. It's not just about me not telling you about this last note, is it?"
"What do you think?"
She'd interviewed dozens of hostile guests over the years. She doubted if any would be tougher than Finn Riley with his Irish up.
"I've taken you for granted, and I've been unfair. And you've let me."
"That's good," he said dryly. "Start out with a self-deprecating statement, then circle around. It's no wonder you're on top."
"Don't." She threw her head back, the firelight glinting in her eyes. "Let me finish. At least let me finish before you tell me it's over."
There was silence again. Though she couldn't see his face when he spoke, she heard the weariness in his voice. "Do you think I could?"
"I don't know." A tear spilled over, glimmering in the shifting light. "I haven't let myself think about it until recently."
"Christ, don't cry."
She heard him shift, but he didn't move toward her.
"I won't." She brushed the tear away, swallowed the others that threatened. She knew she could weaken him with tears. And that she would despise herself for it. "I've always thought that I could make everything come out in order, if I just worked at it diligently enough. If I planned it all carefully enough. So I wrote lists, adhered to timetables. I've cheated us both by treating our relationship as if it were a task — a wonderful task — but a task to be handled." She was talking too fast, but couldn't stop, the words tumbling over each other in their hurry to be said. "And I suppose I was feeling pretty smug about the job I was doing. We fit so well together, and I loved being your lover. And then today, I watched you outside, and I realized for the first time how badly I've botched it all." God, she wished she could see his face, his eyes. "You know how I hate to make mistakes."