Chances Are (16 page)

“You don’t like her.”

“She irons newspapers before she reads them.”

“So she’s neat.”

“She’s psychotic. I think she irons Dad’s jockey shorts.

Aidan’s eyes were twinkling with amusement. “He’s getting more action than either one of us.”

“Dead people get more action than I do,” she shot back, and then his words sank in. “Wait a minute! What do you mean, he gets more action than you do?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. That man’s a rock star at the senior center.”

“That’s not what you said. You said, ‘He’s getting more action than either one of us.’ What did you mean? You’re engaged to Maddy. You two should be burning up the sheets.”

“Figure of speech, kid. Don’t go thinking you’re onto a news flash.”

He sounded relaxed, mildly amused even, but she wasn’t buying it. Was Maddy secretly a Rules Girl, holding out for the wedding vows? It seemed strange, considering the fact that she had lived with Hannah’s father for years without marriage, but stranger things had happened. Besides, wasn’t it always the girl who played hard to get who got the final rose on
The Bachelor
?

“I’d better move.” Aidan pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “Mark said he’d close tonight. I figure I’ll swing by the bar on my way home and make sure he’s okay.”

“Just don’t let him hit the alarm again,” Claire said with a groan. “I swear the entire Paradise Point police department showed up last time.”

“Yeah,” said Aidan with a chuckle. “Both squad cars and the chief.”

He reached for the crutch leaning against the wall. It was a bit of a stretch for him, and she noted the way he winced as he shifted the weight from his left leg to his right, then back again. She could easily have brought the crutch to him, but you didn’t try to help an O’Malley. Not if you wanted to live another day. An O’Malley man would rather fall flat on his face than ask for help from anyone. She wondered if Maddy had figured that out yet or if that would be one of those little postwedding surprises nobody ever tells you about.

If not, Rose’s daughter would find out soon enough.

She followed him to the front door, trying hard not to notice that the limp he had worked so hard these last two years to overcome was more pronounced than ever.

He opened the door, then turned to her. “You’re being straight with me about Kel, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know if there’s anything wrong or not. I’m just saying you should make a point of talking with her.” She had never pulled her punches with him before. “Sooner rather than later.”

“Based on—?”

“She didn’t seem to be feeling too great this afternoon. I asked her what was wrong, and she brushed me off.”

“She’s stretched too thin. I told her to drop one of her jobs, but she’s stubborn.”

“Gee,” said Claire, “I wonder where she gets that from.”

The crutch was wedged under his right arm, but he gathered her to him with his left and hugged her close. They weren’t touchy-feely as a rule, and the hug surprised her. His chest was broad and muscular, more so now than a few years ago. His prolonged physical therapy had turned his already impressive proportions into something downright unnerving. God, how long had it been since she had been held by a man? He smelled so good, of soap and faintly of sweat and leather, that she closed her eyes and just let herself drink in the sensation of being close to another human being who didn’t share her genetic code.

But he shared Billy’s. It was there in the powerful chest, the silky chestnut hair, the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine it was Billy who held her close. She felt that way sometimes behind the bar. Aidan would turn his head a certain way or laugh at one of Mel Perry’s jokes, and for a second time would stand still and it would be Billy standing there near the ancient cash register with that slightly lopsided grin that all of the O’Malley men possessed.

She didn’t need to squirrel away old ticket stubs and Valentine’s Day cards in order to keep Billy’s memory alive. She couldn’t escape him if she tried. He was in every story told at O’Malley’s, every Guinness pulled, every woman who looked away when Claire walked into the room.

“Get going,” she said, pushing him gently away. “Mark needs a steady eye on him.”

“I thought he was doing pretty well,” Aidan said, repositioning his crutch.

“Better,” Claire said, “but not well. Not yet. He still freaks every time he has to pull a draft, and considering we’re an Irish bar, that could become a real problem.”

“I’ll give him a refresher course after we close up.” He met her eyes. “Anything I should tell Kelly?”

“Just that I hope she’s feeling better.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

He leaned down and pecked her on the cheek. “I’m glad you went with Maddy today.”

“You don’t say no to Rose DiFalco.”

“Sure you do,” he said. “You just don’t say it twice.”

“Rose DiFalco, mother-in-law.” Claire pretended to shiver. “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

He grinned good-naturedly. It was no secret that he had grown very fond of Maddy’s mother. “She’s a force of nature.”

“I hope her daughter’s good enough for you,” she said fiercely as she straightened the collar of his shirt. “If Maddy doesn’t treat you right, she’ll be answering to me.”

“You worry too much.”

“Your daughter told me that already today.”

“Who knows? You might find yourself setting up house with David Fenelli one day and dealing with his—”

“Aidan!” She smacked him on the arm. “Where the
hell
did you get that idea?”

God, that wicked twinkle in his eyes reminded her so much of Billy. “I saw Fenelli in the school parking lot. He was there to pick up Will after freshman wrestling.”

“What did he say?” Damn her Irish genes. She could feel her face burning with embarrassment.

“He asked if you were seeing anyone.”

“He did what!?”

“You heard me. He wanted to know if you were seeing anyone seriously.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him to ask you.”

She exhaled loudly. “Right answer.”

“Then I asked him why he wanted to know.”

Wrong question.
“And he said—?”

“That he’d asked you out for pizza, and you said yes.” Now his wicked grin matched the wicked twinkle in his eyes. “I asked if Potsy and the Fonz were going to tag along.”

She belted him in the shoulder again. “Jackass.”

“Hey!” He rubbed his arm. “Since when can’t you take a joke, Red?”

“We’re going to take Ryan and Billy out for pizza one day. That’s it. Don’t go reading more into it, or I’ll kill you.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “No crime in moving on,” he said softly. “We all do, sooner or later.”

A violent surge of emotion crashed over her, a powerful mix of anger and regret and yearning so intense she couldn’t speak. God, please don’t let her cry. Not in front of Aidan. She hated weakness, hated seeming needy and helpless, even if she was both of those things and more in ways not even the people who loved her best ever suspected. Maybe she was more O’Malley than she had realized.

It took a few moments, but she managed to gather up all of those unruly emotions and beat them into submission.

“Don’t you have a bar to run, O’Malley?” The old Claire took over, the sarcastic, funny sister-in-law who wouldn’t know sentiment if it bit her in the ass.

“Throwing me out?”

“You got it, pal.”

He chucked her gently under the chin, then called out a loud good-bye to her father, who grunted something in return. He made his way down the front steps and toward his truck. She waited until he had crossed the driveway before she turned off the porch light and closed the door.

Her father was standing at the kitchen end of the hallway.

“Aidan says good-bye,” she said as she lowered the hall light. “And thanks for the stories.”

“He’s a good guy. Got a real good head on his shoulders. I like what he’s done to O’Malley’s. His grandfather would be proud of the place.” He nodded his head. “No doubt about it: Rosie D.’s girl got lucky.”

Claire moved a plate from the sink to the dishwasher. “I don’t think anyone in town thought he’d ever marry again.” Much less marry a DiFalco.

“You missed the boat,” her father said, lowering himself onto a chair. “Sometimes I think you married the wrong brother.”

Funny thing, Pop,
she thought as she poured herself another cup of coffee.
Sometimes so do I.

 
AIDAN EXHALED LOUDLY in relief when he pulled into the driveway behind Kelly’s car. It wasn’t that he had expected her to be anywhere else but home, but Claire’s suggestion that something wasn’t quite right had unnerved him. Maybe more than he had been willing to admit until this moment.

He let himself into the house and tossed his keys on the desk in the hallway. “You down here, Kel?”

She wasn’t in the kitchen. He checked the den in the back of the house and the living room. No dice. He called out her name. No answer. His heart began to thud painfully against his ribs as he climbed the stairs. Her door was closed, but a puddle of light seeped through the crack, and he heard the faint thudding beat of music he no longer understood.

“Kel.” His voice was low. “I’m home.”

No response. He could feel the gathering rush of adrenaline in his bloodstream.

He tapped on the door. “Kel,” he repeated. “I’m home. Just want to make sure everything’s all right.”

Okay, so she didn’t feel like talking. No crime in that. She could be so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t hear him. Or maybe she had conked out over one of her schoolbooks and was dead to the world. It wasn’t like that hadn’t happened before.

He made it halfway down the hall to his room when Claire and her goddamn worried expression came back to him, and he wheeled and made his way back to her door.

“Kel, open up.” He knocked twice. “We need to talk.”

He was about to do something he hadn’t done since she was ten years old and open the door without her okay, when the door swung open, and he looked down into the yawning face of his only child.

“I’m asleep,” she said, looking like she was about to fall over into a heap. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

Considering the fact that he didn’t know what the hell he wanted to talk to her about, it could wait until next year. He cupped her face with his hand and tilted her chin up until she met his eyes. “Is everything okay, Kel?”

She bit back a yawn and struggled to appear wide awake. “Sure it is,” she said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Damned if he knew but, looking at his daughter, he started to think Claire might be onto something.

“Go back to bed,” he said, fighting back a rush of bittersweet longing for the days when a hug and a bedtime story were enough to slay the world’s dragons. “It’s late.”

She looked at him with the same speculative expression she had developed as a toddler exploring her ever-expanding world, a blend of intelligence and curiosity that he had never seen before or since on another child.

“I love you, Dad,” she said then disappeared behind her bedroom door.

He stood quietly in the hallway for a few moments as memories came out of hiding, crowding into the small space, vying for attention. It all went by so fast. Too fast. He was closer now to the end than he was to the beginning, and that celestial clock was ticking away, counting down his days.

He blinked once—he must have because how else could he have missed it?—and Kelly turned into a woman with secrets of her own. He turned away for a second, and Billy was gone and Grandma Irene, too. So many things left unsaid. So many things he should have done before it was too late.

He had seen something in Maddy’s eyes this afternoon, a look of puzzlement mixed with hurt that he still felt in his gut. He knew life didn’t always play fair. It didn’t send up warning signals before it knocked you to your knees. Maybe she really meant it when she said she didn’t give a damn about the cast on his leg or the fact that he couldn’t sweep her up into his arms and carry her to bed or that sometimes it hurt so fucking much he woke up in a sweat, hanging on to the edge of the bed and praying to die.

Then again, maybe she didn’t.

A man didn’t want the woman he loved to see him as anything less than a man. He wanted to be bigger than life in her eyes, strong and brave the way he had felt when he was eighteen and ready to take on the world. The trouble was, he wasn’t eighteen any longer. He knew the world could kick his ass any time it wanted to, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He would never be the man he was before the warehouse accident. Hell, he would never be the man he had been before he slipped on the ice in February.

She knew that, knew it all, and she claimed she wanted him anyway. Bruised, battered, down but not out. Not yet. Not as long as they had each other.

He glanced at his watch. A little after ten. Rose stayed up late. He had her private number. Once he had things worked out with his future mother-in-law, he would get on the Web and make reservations. Then, after he stopped back at the bar to make sure Mark could handle things on his own, he would swing by The Candlelight and sweep the woman he loved off her feet.

Metaphorically speaking.

 
ROSE TAPPED ON Maddy’s door just before midnight. “Aidan’s on the phone,” she said, peeking inside. “He wants to talk to you.”

Maddy, who had been playing Super Collapse II on her laptop while downloading some files, leaped up from bed. “Why didn’t he call me directly?”

Rose grinned and gestured toward the laptop. “You’re on-line, right?”

“Oh damn!” She had forgotten she was using the dial-up while their high-speed connection was awaiting repair. “The office phone?”