Page 50 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

“Sheriff Dans can’t be sure that my father won’t come looking for me. I have a different name, but there’s a chance he may try. I’m his only child.”

“Does Sheriff Dans know where he’s living?”

“Arizona, but unlike when he was in prison, they can’t track his movements as easily.”

She watched Finch as he worked through what she’d just told him. There was something steadying about the way he did it. No reaction, no alarm. Just quiet consideration. She’d have been pacing the room and talking really fast if one of her friends had come to her with this news.

“Did your mom leave with much stuff? Would she have anything that he may come after besides you?”

A chill ran down her spine at his words. “Wh-why would you ask that?”

“My mind is always full of what-ifs. It’s how it works,” he said. “Your father may just want to see his daughter, you, which is understandable, but there could be other reasons. I’m just speculating, but⁠—”

“Wild speculation,” Nina added.

“Maybe.”

“Sheriff Dans wants me to go through Mom’s things and see if there’s any documentation of where she filed the name change. Because that’s a way my f-father could find me.” The words my father sounded weird on her tongue. “But I’m sure I would have known if Mom was hiding something. My earliest memories here in Lyntacky are that we didn’t have much, and what I packed up from her house were things like photos, books, and knickknacks. Mom always told me there wasn’t much money when she was with my father, which I now realize may have been a lie, because Sheriff Dans said he had money, as did his family.”

“Okay, well, that’s good. So maybe your father won’t be a problem. He did close to thirty years inside, right?”

She nodded, not avoiding his eyes as he studied her.

“So maybe if he wants to find you, it’s because he wants to connect.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s a lot, with your mom passing and then finding out about all this other stuff.”

His words didn’t offer sympathy, exactly, and didn’t come close to what she’d heard today, but Nina felt the tears again. It was exhaustion, she told herself.

“Hey.” He took her mug and placed it beside his on the table. “Come here.”

“N-no.”

“Yes.” He picked her up and lowered her onto his lap.

She didn’t fight him because it felt good to be pressed to his solid warmth. She turned her face into his neck and let the tears come, ugly and silent, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt.

“I-I can’t stop crying,” she whispered.

He said nothing. Didn’t rub her back in that circular, mechanical way people did when they didn’t know what else to offer. He just held her, one hand heavy and warm against her back, the other resting on her hip, and let her fall apart against him.

She didn’t know how long they sat like that.

At some point the crying stopped, not because anything was better, but because Nina simply ran out of tears.

She lifted her head.

He was looking at her, but she didn’t see pity. There was something else in his eyes. Something she felt her body respond to.

“Finch—”

“I know,” he said. His voice was low.

“We shouldn’t.”

“No.”