Ryan jolted at the sound of Fin’s voice from behind him. He twisted around, shielding his eyes in the sun as he looked up at her. She was wearing a thin, yellow dress with tiny straps that were slipping off her bony shoulders. A pair of brown sandals dangled from her right hand as she focused her eyes on the letter clutched in his fingers.
“I love the two of you. I just want you both happy, you know what I’m saying, don’t you?”
“He gave me you,” Ryan said softly. He folded the letter carefully and returned it to the envelope, trying not to notice how his hands shook slightly with the action.
“You’ve always had me,” she said simply as he tucked it into his back pocket.
“Come here,” he told her, patting the rock surface between his legs.
Fin walked gingerly over to the rocks and settled herself between his legs. He urged her back until she relaxed against his chest, her forearms resting on his thighs.
“How did you know I was here?”
Fin’s head fell back, resting in the crook of his neck. “Rach rang. She saw your car and thought we were at the beach. I came down because I was worried about you,” she admitted.
“I’m okay.”
“Then why are you sitting here alone?”
Ryan tilted his head and pressed a kiss against her temple. “Because I went to see my parents today.”
“Oh, Ryan.” Her fingers dug into his legs. “Tell me?”
“My sister died when I was seven,” Ryan told her, tired of keeping it to himself. For too long the loss had weighed him down.
“What?” she breathed. She tried to turn, but he locked his arms around her so she couldn’t move.
“Just … let me get this out.”
She nodded mutely against him.
“There were only two years between us, but she annoyed the crap out of me. She’d take my toys and draw on them in bright coloured texta and it wouldn’t come off. Everything of mine she touched, she would break. Not purposely. She was just careless and clumsy. She was so much like you, Fin, with her big eyes and sweet smile. She would have been your age now, but she didn’t make it past five years old.”
“It sounds like she spent a lot of time trying to get your attention. She looked up to you, just like I do, Ryan.”
“She did look up to me,” Ryan whispered thickly. “It’s so easy to see that now.”
“What was her name?”
“Kassidy.”
“Kassidy Kendall,” Fin repeated.
His sister’s name sounded so beautiful coming from Fin’s lips, as though it somehow brought Kass back to life.
“What happened to her?”
He closed his eyes and told her.
“Mum!” he yelled loudly, grabbing the football as he flew out the front door. “Going outside to kick the footy around.”
“Don’t go far,” she called out from the kitchen. “Dinner won’t be long!”
“Can I come too, Ryan?” Kassidy hollered.
“No, Kass. You can’t catch properly. You’re all thumbs.”
“Mum!” Kassidy wailed. “Ryan won’t let me play.”
“Ryan,” she replied, the warning evident in her tone. “Let your sister join in or you can go straight to your room.”
“Fine!” he shouted angrily.
Seconds later Kassidy came flying out the front door with a big grin on her face.
“Keep an eye on her, Ryan,” his mum yelled.
Ryan kicked the ball hard and laughed when she fumbled and it dropped to the ground. “Good catch.”
Kassidy pursed her lips and grabbing the ball, she kicked it back hard and Ryan’s mouth fell open. “Hey, that wasn’t a bad kick.” Instead of ditching her like he planned, Ryan returned the ball back to her, more gently this time. “Let’s see you do that again.”
Kassidy did it again, and again.
“Wait!” Ryan told her when she went to kick it back. “Let’s see who can kick it the farthest.”
“Okay.” Kassidy grinned, glowing under the attention. “Watch this, Ryan!”
She lined up the ball and stepped back a few paces. She looked at Ryan and smiled happily before running at the ball, putting her boot hard into the underside. It flew wide, out over the lawn. Ryan’s eyes watched as it curved and fell down with a loud thwack onto the street.
He turned to Kassidy. “Wait here, I’ll go get it.” But he was talking to air. “Kass! No!” he called out when he saw her little legs pumping hard towards the street to retrieve the ball. “Kassidy!” he screamed.
His pulse racing, he took off after his sister, hearing the squeal of tyres and the sickening thud of her body slamming hard into the ground before he saw it.
Ryan’s legs flew across the thick grass, barely noticing the stones cutting into his feet. His heart lodged in his throat when he knelt by her twisted body. She was covered with so much blood it hurt just to look at her.
She blinked her eyes open. “Ryan? I don’t feel so good.”
Someone was shouting behind him, but the loud roar in his ears blocked it all out. He looked into her big brown eyes. “You’re gonna be okay, Kass.”
She tried nodding and winced. “Did you see my kick?” she whispered.
“I did,” he replied, tears falling thick and fast down his face. “You kick a ball better than I do.”
She coughed and flecks of blood spattered his shirt.
“Oh God,” he moaned as he heard the wail of sirens in the distance.
Kassidy swallowed. “Ryan? Are there kittens in Heaven? Daddy never let me have one and it’s the only thing I ever wanted.”
He sniffed messily and wiped his face with his sleeve. “There are kittens in Heaven, but you’re not going there, you’re staying here. Stay here with me, Kass. I’ll get you a kitten, I promise.”
Fin’s chest heaved with sobs as she turned and grabbed him in her arms.
“She died before the ambulance arrived. That was the day I lost my entire family. My mother didn’t come out of her room for weeks and Dad blamed me for all of it. I let him. I wanted to take her place, just like I did with Jake.” He wrapped his arms around Fin and buried his face in her neck as the guilt flooded to the surface. “If I could take his place, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I would, Fin. Jake wasn’t meant to die. It should have been me.” His voice broke and he let the tears fall down his face and drip into her soft hair as he held her tightly. “It should have been me,” he whispered hoarsely.
Fin pushed him away and he forced himself to meet her eyes. They flashed with anger. “Don’t say that,” she ordered, her voice fierce. “Don’t you say that. It shouldn’t have been either of you ... but you came home, Ryan,” she choked out. “You came home and God help me, I’m so relieved you’re here that it burns me from the inside out.”
His heart beat wildly at her words and grabbing her face in both hands, he crushed his lips against hers. She responded frantically, clutching at his shoulders as he pulled her against him. Ryan squeezed his eyes shut at the sweet agony of holding her in his arms. He kept kissing her until he thought he’d pass out, knowing even then it would never be enough.
She broke away, breathless, and rested her forehead against his. “I love you so much, Ryan.”
“I love you too.”
“Will you come home now?”
Ryan wiped her tears away with his thumbs and nodded. “Of course.”
He held Fin’s hand in his as they walked towards the car park, and as he opened his car door, he paused to watch her.
She opened her own car door and turned. “Ryan?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have any photos of Kassidy?”
He nodded. “I have one I carry with me, but Mum gave me some today.”
“Maybe we could put them up on the living room wall next to Jake?”
Warmth flooded his body. “That would be nice.”
Fin gave him a brief wave and slid into her car, and as he pulled out of the car park behind her and onto the main road, a soft deep sigh breathed cool air through his body. He shivered because it almost felt like Jake was sitting right there in the passenger seat.
“Brothers forever, right, Kendall?”
Ryan grinned. “Brothers forever, Tanner.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Baby, I’m home.”
Despite sounding tired and gruff, a thrill of excitement at his words gave Fin goose bumps. Four weeks of having Ryan in her house and it still felt shiny and new. How easy it was to see now that her reason for pushing Ian away was because this was the dream she had buried deep inside her heart.
Hearing Crookshanks greet him in the hallway, Fin scrambled madly through the mess on the kitchen bench. Grabbing the tin she’d just filled, she flung open the oven door and tossed it recklessly in the direction of the wire rack.
“What are you doing?”
The words came from so close behind her she shrieked and jumped. Her pulse racing, she slammed the oven door shut and spun around to stand in front of it. Ryan was leaning casually against the entrance to the kitchen in his army fatigues, his arms folded and brow arched as he watched her.
“Nothing,” she lied, blinking her eyes wide in an attempt to salvage the surprise.
Fin meant to have all this done before Ryan got home, but she got held up at work. That’s what happens when you tell people you’re leaving work early, she thought crabbily. Suddenly everything becomes urgent.
Ryan looked over her shoulder at the disaster zone, and she shifted a little to the left. Her movement exposed the oven door, and he immediately turned and pointed at it, accusation making his eyes sharp. “You’re baking a cake.”
Fin tilted her head and shrugged. “Well, you know, it’s for Crookshanks.”
Her breath caught when a grin spread slowly across Ryan’s face and lit up his dark eyes. He lifted his chin at her. “Come here.”
Needing no further invitation, Fin launched herself at him. She twined her arms around his neck, and when he picked her up, she wrapped her legs around his h*ps and kissed him.
His fingers dug into her legs, a deep groan rising from his chest when she stroked her tongue against his. She broke the kiss when she couldn’t breathe. As her head fell back, he licked a pathway down her exposed throat and bit down on the tender skin of her neck where it met her shoulder.
“Oh,” she moaned, rubbing her h*ps against him.
“God I needed that,” he muttered, his voice muffled as he nibbled and licked his way back up. “Needed you. Been thinking about f**king you all day.”
Ryan’s eyes were heavy-lidded and hot when she looked into them and smiled. “Happy birthday, Ryan.”
“You remembered,” he murmured.
“I’ve never forgotten. I baked a cake for your birthday every year you were gone.”
He rested his forehead against hers and whispered softly, “Baby.”
Fin closed her eyes. “I didn’t know where you were, or what you were doing, but even if you weren’t here, I wanted to make sure you had a cake.”