The Mckennas: Finn, Riley and Brody: One Day to Find a Husband. Shirley Jump

“Yes. I agree.”

      “Oh, I’m sorry, do you want some?”

      “Yes,” he said. Then jerked to attention when he realized she meant the bagel. And not her. “Uh, no, I already ate this morning.”

      “Let me guess.” She popped a finger in her mouth and sucked off a smidgen of butter. Finn bit back a groan. Damn. He wanted her. Every time he saw her, desire rushed through him.

      “You had plain oatmeal,” Ellie went on. “Nothing fancy, nothing sugary.”

      “No. Muffins.”

      Her brows lifted and a smile toyed with the edge of her mouth. “Not ones from the floor, I hope?”

      The words brought the memory of that day in her kitchen rocketing back. Their first day as a married couple. The sexual tension sparking in the air. The desire that had pulsed in him like an extra heartbeat.

      He cleared his throat. “Freshly baked and boxed,” he said. “From a bakery down the street from my apartment. I rarely eat at home and usually grab something on the way to work.”

      “This bagel is delicious.” She took another bite. Butter glistened on her upper lip, and Finn had to tell himself—twice—that it wasn’t his job to lick it off.

      Except she was his wife. And that was the kind of thing husbands did with wives.

      Unless they were in a platonic relationship.

      But were they? Really? How many times had he kissed her, touched her, desired her? Had he really thought he could have a friends-only relationship with a woman this beautiful? This intriguing? A woman who made him forget his own name half the time?

      And that was the problem. If he let himself get distracted by Ellie, he’d make a foolish decision. Finn was done making those.

      “Why not?” Ellie asked.

      “Uh … why not what?” His attention had wandered back to the bedroom, and he forced it to the present.

      “Why not eat at home?”

      It was a simple question. Demanded nothing more than a simple answer, and Finn readied one, something about hating to cook and clean. But that wasn’t what came out. “It’s too quiet there.”

      Her features softened, and she lowered the bagel to the napkin. The room around them swelled with people, but in that moment, it felt like they were on an island of just two. “I know what you mean. I feel the same way about where I live. The floors echo when I walk on them. It’s so … lonely.”

      Lonely. The exact word he would have used to describe his life, too.

      A thread of connection knitted between them. Finn could feel it closing a gap, even though neither of them moved. “Have you always lived alone?”

      “Pretty much. Even when I was younger, my parents were never there. My dad worked all the time and my mom …” Ellie sighed and pushed the rest of her breakfast to the side. “She had her own life. In college I did the dorm thing, but after that, I had an apartment on my own. I used to love it in my twenties, you know, no one to answer to, no one to worry about, but as I’ve gotten older …”

      “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” He wondered what had made him admit all this in a coffee shop on a bright spring day. He’d never considered himself to be a sharing kind of man. Yet with Ellie, it seemed only natural to open up. “Though it was nice to share your space for a couple of days.”

      Her face brightened. “Was it? Really?”

      “Yeah. Really.” The kind of nice he could get used to.

      He ignored the warning bells ringing in his head, the alarms reminding him that the last time he’d allowed a woman to get this close, it had cost him dearly. He couldn’t live the rest of his life worried that someone was going to steal his business. Riley and Brody were right. It was time for him to stop taking care of everyone else and focus on himself for a little while. Just for today.

      “I agree.” She toyed with the bagel. “I guess my priorities have shifted, too. I built all these houses for other people and after a while, I realized I wanted that, too.”

      “What?”

      “You were right the other day.” She lifted her gaze to his and in her eyes, he saw a craving for those intangible things other people had. “As scared as I am of falling in love, of having the kind of bad marriage my parents had, I really do want the two-point-five kids. The block parties. The fenced-in yard. Even the dog.”

      His coffee grew cold beside him. He didn’t care. People came and went in the busy coffee shop. He didn’t care. Time ticked by on his watch. He didn’t care. All he cared about was the next thing Ellie Winston was going to say. “What … what kind of dog?”

      “This is going to sound silly and so clichéd.” She dipped her head and that blush he’d come to love filled her cheeks again.

      “Let me guess. A Golden retriever?”

      She gave him an embarrassed nod. “Yeah.”

      He shook his head and chuckled.

      “What?”

      “When I was a kid, I asked Santa for a dog. My mother was allergic, so it was never going to happen, but I kept asking. Every Christmas. Every birthday. And the answer was always the same. No.” He shrugged. “They got me a goldfish. But it wasn’t the same.”