Sweet Little Lies Part 40

"I know," he said quietly.

Pru stared at the tiny place like it was a sight for sore eyes, like it was Christmas and Easter and every other holiday all in one. "I haven't been here in so long . . ." She looked at him again. "It's ours for the weekend?"

He took both of her hands in his so that she faced him. "The owners had it in a beach rental program." He slipped a key into her right hand.

"You rented it for me?" she breathed.

"Yes." He paused. "Except I didn't rent it. I bought it. It's in your name now, Pru."

Her mouth fell open. "What?"

"The owners live on the other side of the country. They instructed the management program to sell it if the opportunity arose." His heart was pounding and he hoped like h.e.l.l he'd done the right thing here, that she would take it in the spirit he intended. "The opportunity arose."

Looking shaky, she took the few steps and unlocked the front door. Then she stepped inside. He followed, slowly, wanting to give her time if she needed it.

The place was furnished. Shabby beach chic. Tiny kitchen, two tiny bedrooms, one bathroom. He already knew this from his previous visit to scope everything out, but he followed as Pru walked through, quiet, eyes shuttered.

The postage-stamp-size living room made up for its tininess with the view of the Pacific Ocean about three hundred feet down a gra.s.sy bluff.

Pru walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out.

Finn waited, willing to give her all the time she needed. He was prepared for her to be mad at him for overstepping, but when she turned to him, her eyes didn't hold temper.

They held emotion, overfilling, spilling down her cheeks.

"Pru." He stepped toward her but she held up a hand.

"Finn, I can't accept this. We're just dating, it's not right-"

"Yeah, about that just dating thing." He tugged her into him-where he liked her best. Cupping her jaw, he tilted her face to his. "I don't want to just date anymore."

She blinked. "You bought me a house and now you're dumping me?"

"I bought you a house and now I'm asking you to take us to the next level."

She just stared into his eyes in shock and he realized something with his own shock. "You expected me to change my mind about you," he said.

She shook her head. "More that I'm afraid to want more from you. I don't want to be greedy."

Finn cupped her face, keeping her chin tilted so that she had to look at him. He needed her to see how serious he was. "Pru, don't you get it yet? I'm yours until the end of time."

She relaxed against him with a small smile. "Okay, that's good," she said a little shakily. "Seeing as I want whatever of you that you're willing to give me."

He let out a low laugh. "Everything. I want to give you everything, Pru."

Her eyes shined brilliantly. "You already have," she whispered and tugged his mouth to hers, kissing him with all the love he'd ever dreamed of and more. So much more.

When they broke for air, her eyes were still a little damp but also full of affection and heat. Lots of heat. "Did you really mean everything?" she asked.

"Everything and anything." To prove it, he pulled a small black box from his pocket where it'd been sitting for a week and flipped it open.

With shaking fingers, she took out the diamond ring. "Oh my G.o.d."

"Is that oh my G.o.d yes I'll marry you, Finn O'Riley?'" he asked.

She both laughed and cried. "Did you doubt it?"

"Well, I still haven't heard yes, Finn.'"

With a laugh, she leapt into his arms and spread kisses over his jaw to his mouth. "Yes, Finn!"

Grinning, he slid the diamond ring onto her finger.

She admired her hand. "So how pushy would it be of me to ask for something else right now?"

"Name it," he said.

She put her mouth to his ear. "I'd like some more of what you gave me last night. Right here, right now."

Remembering every single hot second of last night, he smiled. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She bit her lower lip again, which didn't hide her smile. "Please?"

"Babe, anything you want, always, and you don't even have to say please."

Read on for a sneak peek at Willa's story in Coming soon from #TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest She hadn't even had breakfast yet and Willa Davis found herself elbow deep in puppies and poo. As owner of the South Bark Mutt Shop, she spent much of her day scrubbing, cajoling, primping, hoisting-and more cajoling. And she wasn't above bribing either.

To that end, she had a pet treat in every pocket of her cargos, which meant she smelled irresistible to any and all four-legged creatures within scent range.

Too bad there wasn't a biscuit guaranteed to make two-legged male creatures roll around at one's feet, begging for a kiss.

But then again, she'd been the one to put herself on a Man-Time-Out so she had no one to blame but herself for that.

"Wuff!"

This from one of the pups she was bathing. He wobbled in close and licked her chin.

"That's not going to b.u.t.ter me up," she said but it totally did and unable to resist that face, she returned the kiss on the top of his cute little nose.

Stace, one of her regular grooming clients, had brought in her eight-week-old heathens-er, golden retriever puppies.

Six of them.

It was over an hour before her nine a.m. opening time but Stace had called in a panic because the pups had rolled in horse poo. G.o.d knew where they'd found horse poo in the Cow Hollow district of San Francisco. Maybe a policeman's horse had left an undignified pile in the street.

Two puppies, even three, were manageable, but six was bordering on insanity. "Okay, listen up," she said to the squirming, happily panting puppies in the large tub in her grooming room. "Sit."

One and Two sat. Three climbed up on top of both of them and shook, drenching Willa in the process. In the meantime, Four, Five, and Six made a break for it, paws pumping, ears flopping over their eyes, tails wagging wildly as they scrabbled, climbing all over each other like circus tumblers to get out of the tub.

"You little ingrates," she said, unable to keep from laughing at their antics. "Rory!" she called out. "Could use another set of hands." Or three . . .

No answer from her employee. Either the twenty-one-year-old had her headphones cranked up to make-me-deaf-please or she was on Instagram and didn't want to lose her place. "Rory!"

The girl finally poked her head around the corner, the tips of her ears red with embarra.s.sment.

Yep. Instagram.

"Holy c.r.a.p," Rory said, eyes wide at the sight of Willa, prompting her to look down at herself. Yep, her cargo pants splattered with suds and water and a few other questionable stains, at least one of which included cat yak from an earlier incident.

It didn't take a mirror to tell her that her short strawberry blonde hair had rioted and probably resembled an explosion in a mattress factory. "Give me a hand here?"

Rory dug right in, not shying from getting wet or dirty. She took on half of the wayward pups, and in a few minutes they had all of them out of the tub, dried, and back in their baby pen.

One through Five had fallen into the instant slumber that only babies and the very drunk could achieve. Six stayed stubbornly awake, climbing over his siblings trying to get back into Willa's arms.

Laughing, Willa scooped up the little man. His legs bicycled in the air, tail wagging faster than the speed of light, taking his entire hind end with it.

"Not sleepy, huh?" Willa asked.

He tried to lick her face.

"Oh no you don't," she said. "Don't think I don't know where that tongue's been." She carried him out front to the retail portion of her shop and set him into a baby pen with some puppy toys. "Now sit there and look pretty and bring in some customers, would you?"

The puppy pounced on a toy and got busy playing.

Willa shook her head and moved around, flipping on the lights out here. As she did, the shop came to life, mostly thanks to the insane amount of holiday decorations she'd put up the day before.

"It's only the first week in December and it looks like Christmas threw up in here," Rory said, coming into the room behind her.

Willa looked around at the shop that was an absolute dream come true for her. "But in a cla.s.sy way, right?"

Rory sucked on her lower lip as she eyed the myriad of strings of lights and more boughs of holly than the North Pole could ever have. "Um . . . right."

Willa ignored the doubtful sarcasm. One, Rory hadn't grown up in a stable home. And two, neither had she. For both of them, Christmas had been a luxury that, like three squares and a roof, had usually been out of their realm of possibility. They'd each dealt with that differently.

Rory didn't need the pomp and circ.u.mstance of the holidays.

Willa did, desperately. So now at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, when after five years she finally had her shop in the black-well, mostly in the black-she went just a tad bit overboard for the holidays.

"OhmiG.o.d," Rory said, staring at their newest cash register display. "Is that a rack of p.e.n.i.s headbands?"

"No!" Willa said on a laugh. "It's reindeer antler headbands for cats and small dogs."

Rory stared at her.

Willa grimaced. "Okay, so maybe I went a little crazy-"

"A little?"

"Haha," Willa said, picking up a reindeer antler headband. It didn't look like a p.e.n.i.s to her, but then again it'd been awhile since she'd seen one up close and personal. "These are going to sell like hotcakes, mark my words."

"What are you doing-don't put it on," Rory said in sheer horror as Willa did just that.

"It's called marketing," Willa said, rolling her eyes upward to take in the antlers jutting up above her head. Huh. "Do they really look like p.e.n.i.ses?" She paused. "Or is it peni? What's the plural of p.e.n.i.s?"

"Pene?" Rory asked, and they both grinned.

"Clearly I'm in more need of caffeine than I realized," Willa said. "Tina's caffeine."

"I'll get it. I caught sight of her coming through the courtyard at the crack of dawn this morning wearing six-inch wedge sneakers with her hair teased to the North Pole, making her like eight feet tall. Can't wait to get a closer look at the perfection up close."

Tina used to be Tim, and everyone in the five-story, offbeat historical Pacific Heights building had enjoyed Tim-but they loved Tina. Tina rocked.

"I'll take one of her It's-Way-Too-Early-For-Life's-Nonsense coffees," Willa said, pulling cash from her pocket. Puppy treats bounced on the floor.

"And to think, you can't get a date," Rory said.

"I can get a date, I just pick the wrong ones. Hence the man-embargo. You know what? Tell Tina to make mine a double, I'm bonking already and the day hasn't even started."

Nodding, Rory headed toward the back door, where she'd run through the courtyard to Tina's coffee shop.

"Oh, and grab us each one of her m.u.f.fins too." Willa paused. Tina made the best m.u.f.fins on the planet. "Wait, make it two each. Or three. No. s.h.i.t, that's like the entire day's calories. One," she said firmly. "And make mine blueberry so it counts as a serving of fruit."

Rory was grinning. "So a coffee and a blueberry m.u.f.fin to go, and a straitjacket on the side then?"

"You'd be in it right alongside of me, babe," Willa responded and Rory laughed in agreement.

When she left, Willa's smile faded. Each of her four employees were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, and they all had one thing in common.

The foster system had churned them up and spit them out, leaving them alone in the world.

Since Willa had been one of those lost girls herself, she collected them. She gave them jobs and advice that they only listened to about half the time.

She figured fifty percent was better than zero percent.

Rory had been with her the longest. The girl put up a good front of being wry and stoic, but she was struggling. She still had the faded markings of a bruise on the right side of her jaw where her ex-boyfriend had knocked her into a doorjamb.

Willa clenched her fists. Sometimes at night she dreamed about what she'd like to do to the guy. Castrating him was high on the list. She had a deal with one of the local vets so she could afford it too.

In any case, Rory deserved better. The girl was tough as nails on the outside but a tender marshmallow on the inside, and she'd do anything for Willa.

It was sweet but also a huge responsibility because Rory looked to Willa for her normal.

A daunting prospect on the best of days.

She checked on Six and found him asleep sprawled on his back, feet spread wide to show the world his most prized possessions.

Just like a man for you.