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steady voice wobbling slightly. “So if you don’t want to do it, I totally understand. Don’t feel you have to do it just because you’ve already said yes.”
    “Jess.”
    “I mean it, Finn. It’s going to suck up a lot of your time and no doubt all of your patience and then some.” She was already stepping back, her foot reaching blindly for the first step as she spoke. “You know what, forget it. I’ll…I’ll figure it out.”
    “Jess.”
    She stopped moving, her foot hovering in empty air above the step.
    “Just tell me what it is,” he said. “You must’ve thought I could help, so let me do it.”
    “It’s not you I’m worried about,” she muttered, turning her face down and away from him. “I don’t know if
I
can do it. I thought I could, right up until I opened my mouth a minute ago, but now I’m…I don’t know.”
    “Seriously?” He leaned against the railing and chuckled. “Out of everyone here, you’re the one who can do everything, Jess; God knows you’ve proven that more times than either of us can count.”
    It took a couple of seconds, but finally she looked back at him, her brow raised, her mouth twisted to the side.
    “Not everything.”
    A second—no, a fraction of a second was all it took for those two words to register in Finn’s brain. There was only one thing he knew of that she’d never been able to do.
    “Holy shit,” he croaked, shoving off the rail and reaching for her arm to keep her from backing up again. “D’you mean…You wanna…Seriously? Yes! Absolutely yes!”
    “But—”
    “No. No buts.” He started to pull her up farther onto the porch, then stopped for fear his excitement would scare her off. “You can totally do this, Jess. And I’m…”
    He trailed off as the weight of what she was asking hit him square in the chest.
    “You’re what?”
    “I’m, uh…
wow
.”
    It was his turn to take a step back, and as he did, he laced his fingers behind his head and blew out a low breath. She could have asked anyone, but she’d come to him. After all these years of living with whatever terror had kept her out of the water, a terror she’d never shared with any of them, she’d chosen
him
to help her through it.
    That was…yeah, that was a hell of a
wow
.
    “I feel stupid saying it,” he muttered. “But, shit, Jess, I’m honored you asked.”
    A flash of something—panic maybe—streaked through her eyes. “Well it’s just that Ro’s gone and Liam’s shoulder’s all screwed up still, so…”
    “Oh.” The gust of pride that had ballooned through him three seconds ago popped and died as fast as it started. She hadn’t chosen him specifically; he was her only choice. “Right, okay.”
    “No, no,” she cried, reaching for his arm. “I didn’t mean it to sound like you were my last resort.”
    “It’s okay.”
    “No,” she repeated, stronger this time. “I just—I don’t know why I said that. I’m still kind of freaking out over the whole thing.”
    Did it matter why she’d said it? Sure, it was another blow to his ego, but that didn’t matter, because it wasn’t about him or either of his brothers. It was about helping Jess work through her fear, and Finn didn’t give a shit why she’d asked him; he was just happy she did.
    So before his stupid pride made her change her mind, he forced a grin as he shot her a quick wink.
    “Don’t sweat it. When d’you want to start?”
    “Soon,” she said. “Before I talk myself out of it again. But I don’t want to make a big deal about this in case I really can’t do it, so if you could keep it between us, that’d be great.”
    “ ’Course. Yeah. Sure.” Keeping it a secret wasn’t going to be easy, given the close proximity they all lived in, but if that’s what she wanted, Finn would do everything he could to keep it on the down-low. “Why don’t we meet tonight at the north-trail lake? Eight o’clock?”
    “Tonight?” More of a squeak than a spoken word, it seemed