Chapter 3
Chapter Three
K atie wasn’t hung over. But that didn’t mean her eyes weren’t bloodshot and her brain didn’t feel like it was wrapped in cotton puffs stained with last night’s black eyeliner.
Nope.
She’d spent the night staring at her ceiling and had greeted the day with both eyes still wide open. Why? Because every time she closed them, she saw Frank Hartigan in her rearview mirror, watching her until she turned onto Jackson Street. Fine. That was a lie. Sometimes she saw him without his shirt on…or pants…or?—
She shook that thought out of her head before she fell down that rabbit hole again.
This was not the time for that—and he was not the man for it, either.
He was the guy men wanted to be friends with, and women flocked to.
She was not that kind of woman. Not even close.
She was the loud mouth who scared off potential dates with—of all the scary things—her own opinions. The nerd who’d stayed home reading Princess Daisy on New Year’s Eve while everyone else danced the night away in Harbor City. The woman who’d left working class Waterbury to see the world, only to come home a year later with her tail tucked between her legs.
Frank had never left. He probably never would. And he liked it that way. He was Waterbury itself.
She hated Waterbury, but had accepted that she’d never get out.
Wow. Wasn’t that a cheery fucking thought to have on a Saturday morning while standing in the tiny galley kitchen of her apartment mixing the Madigan Hangover Cure for Connie.
Her sister sat bleary eyed on the couch in their living room, with the Afghan blanket Granny had made pulled around her like bubble wrap.
“Hey Katie,” Connie said, wincing at the volume of her voice even though it was barely above a croak. “A man is breaking into your car.”
Now that news was a record scratch.
Someone was breaking into her car?
Who in the world would break into a 1971 Ford Pinto that leaked more oil than she put in (don’t ask, she didn’t know that was possible either) and made weird noises when she got it up over fifty on the Harbor City Bridge?
Hurrying into the living room, Katie shoved the family hangover cure concoction (two raw eggs, a scoop of frozen orange juice concentrate, and a Coke) into Connie’s hands and then rushed to the front window.
Their apartment had the breathtaking view of the complex’s asphalt parking lot and, if she leaned to the left and squinted hard enough at the sliver of space between two buildings, a glimpse of the Harbor City skyline. Usually, the most exciting thing she spotted when she looked out the window was the neighborhood stray cat tormenting Mrs. Murati’s mutt while they took their Sunday morning stroll. However, this time the cat wasn’t hissing at Rover. Instead, it was on the roof of her car, calmly watching as a man opened up the passenger door.
A giant of a man.
A redheaded giant of a man.
A redheaded giant of a man in a Waterbury Fire Department T-shirt and acid washed jeans.
Her heart sped up and her insides felt like they’d been filled with fizz. “Frank Hartigan.”
Clutching the blanket around her with one hand and the drink with the other, Connie looked toward the window. “Why would he break into your car?”
“He’s not, he’s…” Katie looked closer as Frank pulled a blue can out of a Hazel’s Auto Parts bag, shook it, and took aim at the hinge, “spraying something on it.”
Connie shot back half the drink, her face turning appropriately green, and then asked, “Why would he do that?”
“Do I look like an encyclopedia?” she asked her sister because she was too distracted by Frank’s ass in those jeans to formulate any kind of guess.
“You look like someone who stole my banana clip.”
Katie’s hand went up to the bright yellow plastic hair accessory she’d snagged out of Connie’s drawer in the bathroom. “Borrowed it.”
Connie shrugged and said, “Whatever,” before downing the rest of the hangover cure and leaning back.
Ignoring the totally grody belch her sister let out, Katie watched as Frank shut the passenger door, opened it, shut it again, and then repeated the process three more times. “What is he doing?”
Connie snuggled more deeply into the Afghan and closed her eyes. “There’s one way to find out.”
Yeah, she could open up the window and holler down. But the landlord had painted it shut like an asshole. The only other option was?—
Katie flinched, her hand going to her stomach that was suddenly swishing its contents like she’d just ingested the Madigan Hangover Cure. She whirled around to glare at her sister. “I’m not going down there.”
“So you’re just going to let Frank Hartigan steal your car?” Connie didn’t even bother to open her eyes. “Interesting way to keep yourself away from him. Because he’ll be in jail, or worse, if I tell our brothers.”
“I am not keeping myself away from him and you better not tell our brothers anything.” She glanced back out the window at the man in question. He’d shut the passenger door and was now repeating the squirt, open, shut process with the driver’s side door. “Our paths just don’t cross.”
Connie cracked one eye open and managed to shoot a Katie a you’re-full-of-shit look. “Because you make sure of it. Except last night.”
What she wouldn’t give to tell her sister she was full of shit. The problem? She wasn’t. Oh yeah, she’d told herself it was all for a free beer last night. But it was hard to lie to yourself in the morning light—even when it was overcast. Not that she would admit this to her twin. Yeah, Connie knew. But knowing and having confirmation were two different things.
“Oh my God,” Katie said, turning away from the window and heading toward the front door. “Talking to Frank is better than trying to make sense of you.”
Ignoring her sister’s mumbled reply (which sounded suspiciously like a Shakespeare quote about protesting too much), she marched out the apartment door, down the three flights of stairs, and out into the cool, crisp November air to find a man she most definitely did not want to see again was… replacing her taillight?
Yeah, no. She couldn’t have him being helpful two days in a row. She would not, could not, be one more in the long line of Waterbury women trying to snag Frank. Really, even to imagine it was to admit that the snobs at the university had been right. She was just a working-class, Waterbury stereotype, because there wasn’t anything more Waterbury than falling for Frank Hartigan.
So she wouldn’t.
There.
Crisis averted.
Brain set straight, and libido back in check, she walked across the parking lot to her Pinto. Did she wish she’d taken the time to swipe on some sour grapes Bonnie Bell Lip Smackers? Yes, but only because her lips were chapped. It was nearly Thanksgiving. The air was dry.
Crossing her arms, she gave Frank her best I-don’t-like-you glare. “My sister called the cops.”
He scoffed and went back to screwing in the new taillight bulb. “No she didn’t.”
“What makes you say that?” Sure, she hadn’t but he didn’t know that. How could he?
“Because you’ve been watching me for the past five minutes and the precinct is on the corner.” He closed her trunk and dropped the burnt-out bulb she’d been meaning to replace into the Hazel’s Auto Parts bag. “Someone would have been here by now.”
How rude of him to use logic on her like that. “Why did you change my taillight?” she asked, because if there was one thing she’d learned growing up with a dozen siblings, it was to switch directions when your argument wasn’t getting the job done.
“It was out.” Frank rested his way-too-grabbable ass against her trunk and crossed his arms.
Yeah, he was probably mimicking her current stance, but it also drew her attention to his biceps and that just wasn’t fair. She’d spent way too much time thinking about his arms and how strong they were last night, after he’d carried Connie to the car.
“So,” she said, her smart mouth running on automatic since her brain was otherwise occupied in fantasy land. “I could have done that.”
“Never said you couldn’t.” He adjusted his black Ray-Bans and gave her a lazy smile that did things to her insides that she would not acknowledge. “And now that it’s done, I gotta get over to the firehouse.” He glanced down at his watch. “My shift starts in fifteen.”
Katie wet her lips with her tongue, trying to push down the realization that this little bit of news disappointed her. It shouldn’t. Why would she care that he had to go to work where he’d probably spend the next twenty-four hours rescuing the cats that Waterbury’s population of single women had left in trees in hopes he was on shift? “I’m not interested in going out with you.”
He pushed off her car and took a few steps forward, stopping right on the edge of being too close, and lowered his sunglasses just enough to see over the top. “Why not?”
“Because.” Okay, even with her heart beating like she’d just gotten done with the annual Waterbury Turkey Trot while carrying a Pyrex of her grandma’s scalloped potatoes, that sounded dumb.
“That’s it?” He took a step closer. “Just because?”
He wasn’t touching her, but somehow that made it even worse. Instead of feeling his hands on her suddenly overly stimulated skin, she had to imagine them. The heat of his touch. The weight of his fingers. The press of his palms against her waist, her ass, her breasts. Looking up at his face, because he was so damn tall, she could see the way the sun turned some strands of his red hair to gold, and notice the small pale scar on the underside of his chin. Worst of all, she couldn’t ignore the sizzle of attraction that made the little bit of air between them crackle. The urge to act on it had her pulse jackrabbiting as she struggled to remember what he’d asked her.
“Yes,” she said, the word coming out less than one hundred percent sure. “Just because.”
He pushed up his sunglasses and stepped back. “Interesting.”
No it wasn’t. It was boring—sorta like her life in Waterbury, which is all it ever could or would be.
Still, she couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”
“Because,” he said as he picked up the bag with a can of WD-40 and her old brake lightbulb inside. ‘I think you are interested.” He straightened and looked right at her. “You’re just scared because of the way that douchebag Adler cheats on your sister. You think that I’d do that to you.”
The Creep couldn’t keep his zipper shut if his life depended on it, but that didn’t mean Frank was right. In fact, he couldn’t be more wrong. If some idiot cheated on her, well, that was about him, not her and she could give a flying fuck about getting rid of a loser like that. No, she knew not all men were like The Creep.
She also knew that, no matter how much she fought it, her life was just going to be one boring day after another until she died. She wouldn’t get to travel the world. She wouldn’t get to have adventures. She wouldn’t wake up in the morning not knowing what wild pitch life would throw at her that day. She had sixty, maybe seventy, years of the absolutely expected ahead of her.
She knew what to expect with Frank Hartigan—if she told him she was interested, she’d become another name on his long list of conquests, and nothing more.
But instead of telling him that, she simply shrugged and said, “Oh you’ve got me all figured out.”
“Not even close,” he said in a low, gravelly voice that sounded way more serious than he usually was. “Well, guess I’ll be on my way.”
He turned and started to walk across the parking lot toward the corner. Katie watched, dumbfounded—but not so much that she missed the way his broad shoulders stretched his T-shirt, before coming to her senses. Let Frank Hartigan have the last word? Not in this lifetime.
“That’s it?” she called, stalking after him. She nearly caught up with him as words started tumbling out of her mouth. “You’re not going to turn on the charm? Pop your pecs? Do that grin thing you do with other women?”
She winced the second she could stop herself from saying more. There were times when that Madigan big mouth thing was too much truth, and not enough story.
Frank stopped only a single step in front of her. Slowly, he turned around, his lips curled into an all-too-knowing smile. “You been watching me?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Liar.” He closed the distance between them, flexing his hands but keeping them at his sides, before leaning down so his lips practically touched her ear and whispering, “But maybe next time we run into each other, I’ll do the grin thing.”
Katie couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She wasn’t sure what her own name was. But she did know that the giant jerk of a man had her entire being tuned into him. What would he do next? Would he kiss her? Nibble her earlobe? Hook his fingers into the belt loops of her jeans and yank her against him? She didn’t know. For once in her life, she had no freaking idea what was going to happen next. Whatever it was, she wanted it badly.
So.
Very.
Very.
Badly.
Eyes closed, lips parted in anticipation, she didn’t dare move. But the air around her did, and she opened her eyes to find Frank two steps back, his jaw clenched and his mouth in a grim line.
“Drive safe, Katie,” he said, his voice tight.
And then he left. He just turned around and walked down the street in the direction of the firehouse two blocks down, leaving Katie… well, wanting…and embarrassed…and overheated…and mortified…and—God so many damn things.
What had just happened? She was Katie Madigan. She always knew what someone was going to do next. She knew when her mom was going to sneak out into the alley to light up the Marlboros she’d sworn she quit. She knew when her brothers were getting ready to pull a prank. She knew when Connie was about to give in and let The Creep have another chance. She knew when her third graders were sneaking bubble gum in class. She knew. She always knew.
But not this time—and there was no way she was going to let Frank get away with that.