The High Price of Secrets(45)
She was going to be prepared for every eventuality tonight. Come what may.
Thirteen
Finn approached the cottage slowly. His visit to Wellington had gone well, businesswise, but not so well when it came to Ellen. For the first time, she hadn’t recognized him. He’d expected it, thought he’d been prepared for it, yet when it happened it hurt far more than he’d ever anticipated.
Lorenzo had been apologetic, Alexis understanding, but none of it made up for the fact that Ellen was slowly but surely slipping away from them all—and that included Tamsyn. She was running out of time to meet her mother. It put him between a rock and a hard place. Lorenzo remained adamant that Tamsyn be kept from finding Ellen.
In some ways Finn totally agreed. He knew that the woman Tamsyn would see was not the mother she had hoped to find. Ellen was far past the point of being able to answer the questions Tamsyn carried. Perhaps it would have simply been easier for everyone if Tamsyn continued to believe her mother had passed away. Rare now were the days when there was even a glimmer of understanding in Ellen’s faded brown eyes.
Lorenzo was never far from her side, constantly on the alert for the opening of those precious windows in her mind—each one a gift beyond price. While Finn warred with Tamsyn’s right to at least see her mother, could he honestly deny Lorenzo those moments? What if seeing Tamsyn sent Ellen hurtling away into the far reaches of her dementia? Her last days would be nothing more than hours of emptiness for those who loved and cared for her. Finn couldn’t do that to another human being.
He pulled his SUV to a halt at the end of the driveway and pulled himself together. He probably shouldn’t have accepted Tamsyn’s invitation tonight. He doubted he’d be good company, but when he’d heard her voice mail issuing the offer, he knew he couldn’t deny himself the respite of her company.
Finn grabbed the wine carrier, with its two chilled bottles of wine nestled inside in one hand, and the bunch of tulips he’d bought at the florist’s after getting Tamsyn’s call in the other. The soft pink long-stemmed blooms reminded him of her—their exquisite smooth petals a perfect shield for their additional beauty when they opened to the sun. She was just like that. Guarded smooth walls of perfection on show to the rest of the world, and yet when she was given warmth and affection she flourished.
He nudged the car door shut with his hip and covered the distance to the house in long strides. Now he was here, he was eager to see her again. She opened the door before he could juggle his items and knock.
The sight of her knocked the breath clean out of his lungs. She had her hair up in some twisted knot on top of her head, exposing the slender arch of her neck and making her look divinely feminine and impossibly fragile at the same time. Every male hormone in his body rose to the occasion, making him ache to be her knight—to be that one man to protect her from all wrongdoing, from all sorrow. He swallowed hard. No woman had ever made him feel this way, so desperate to be her valiant defender. The sensation was primal and dark, yet uplifting and filled with warmth at the same time.
“Good evening, are those for me?” she asked, reaching for the tulips that he’d forgotten the instant he’d laid eyes on her.
“Yeah, I hope you like them.”
“I love them, thank you so much. Come inside.”
She stepped aside to let him in and as he walked past her he caught a whiff of her fragrance. Subtle, like her, like the way she’d inveigled her way into his psyche, the blend of sweetness and spice wound around him in a sensual spell of promise.