just want to help.”
“Well, okay then. Thank you for coming, Connor. As for what you can do for me, you can get the hell out.”
“Love you and miss you. Lots. ’Bye, Sibbie.” Cat Santangelo hung up the phone.
Aly, nice and comfy in the wing chair by the window, with her feet propped on the plush ottoman, asked, “How’s Aunt Siobhan?”
“She thinks she needs to be here. I talked her out of coming. Your uncle Albert just had back surgery. She’s got enough on her plate taking care of him. She sends her love.” With a fond smile, Cat patted the empty side of her new king-size adjustable memory-foam bed. “Come on. It’s a giant bed and it’s super comfy. Get up in here with me.”
Aly pushed the ottoman out of the way, rose and went to stretch out on the bed with her mom. “Is he kicking?”
Cat rested a hand on the pillow next to Aly’s head. Aly felt her gentle touch as she fiddled with a lock of Aly’s hair. “He’s more of a puncher, I would say.”
Aly turned on her side—the good side, without the bandage—and rested her hand on her mom’s big stomach. “Nothing, not even a nudge.”
“Yeah, he never punches me except when we’re alone. I think he has a shy side.”
Aly stroked her mom’s belly, soothing Cat and herself and maybe the baby, too. It felt good, to spend time with her mom again. A lot of women had issues with their mothers. Not Aly. She and Cat had always banded together, presented a united front. With five strong-willed men in the family, they needed to have each other’s backs.
There was a hopeful whine from the floor on Cat’s other side. Aly and her mom chuckled together and Aly said, “Tuck wants up.”
“Come on.” Cat patted the mattress and up came Tucker, a wire-haired terrier mix her mom had adopted from the local shelter a few years before. The dog made himself comfortable, cuddling up close to Cat.
“Did it help?” asked her mom. “To see him, to talk to him?”
“In a way...” Aly indulged herself and pictured his face. His hair had darkened to a golden brown over the years and the dent in his sculpted chin was as sexy as ever. And those eyes. He could break her with those cool blue eyes.
Tuck’s tags clattered cheerfully as he gave himself a scratch.
“What way?” asked Cat.
Aly considered blowing off the question, but then couldn’t. “Don’t judge.”
“Never.”
“Seeing him made me more certain.”
“Of...?”
“That he loves me and I love him, and whoever’s fault it was, we should be together.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Are you kidding? He explained what a complete jackass he’d been, that he’d thrown me away—thrown us away. After he was finished, I mostly just wanted to punch him in the face.”
Her mom was watching her, a little smile teasing at the edges of her mouth. “And yet you’re still in love with him.”
“Smug, Mom. That’s how you sound.”
“I am smug,” replied Cat. Smugly. “I always knew that someday you two would get back together.”
“Ha! You ever tell Dad that?”
“Dear heart, there a few things your father just doesn’t need to know. Men are so simple.” She faked a deep voice. “Bring home the bacon. Protect the women.” She chuckled. “Connor hurt you and that makes him the bad guy in your father’s eyes. I see it more in shades of gray.”
“You always had a soft spot for Connor.”
“Your dad wants you safe. I want you to have what your heart most desires.”
Aly snuggled in closer. She whispered to her unborn brother, “Hey, handsome. How you doin’ in there?”
Cat asked, “So what are you gonna do about what your heart most desires?”
“We are so over, Connor and me.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t my question.”
“Fine. What can I do?”
Cat gave her a look both teasing and conspiratorial. “Your dad and your brothers are still worried you’re going to climb out a window and go after that man.”
Ever since her rude awakening in the dark hours of Sunday morning with her mind all turned around, the men of the family had repeatedly explained to her that she’d come home for one reason—to take care of her mom until after the baby was born. “Uh-uh. I’m here for you.”
Cat grunted as she shifted to her side. She pressed a kiss in the middle of Aly’s forehead and then retreated to her own pillow with a sigh. “Show me the law that says you can’t do two things at once.”
Connor spotted Alyssa as he turned into his driveway. She sat on the front step wearing a pair of those black, tight-fitting legging things that came to midthigh, silver sandals and a clingy white shirt that made her full breasts look even more spectacular than they had the day before. She was petting Maurice, who slinked in a figure eight at her side, arching his skinny back in pleasure, black tail held high.
The garage was under the house, with retaining walls on either side of the sloping driveway. When she raised her hand to him in a wave, Connor almost ran into the wall on the passenger side. At the last second, he straightened the wheel and rolled the Land Rover safely inside. The garage door glided down behind him and he let his head droop forward until his forehead met the steering wheel.
What’s she doing here? What’s going on?
He shouldn’t allow himself to be so stupidly happy at the mere sight of her beautiful, banged-up face—and none of his questions would be answered while he hid in his car.
He ran up the steps to ground level, growing breathless all out of proportion to the short climb. Dropping his briefcase on the bench in the block-glass window nook beside the door, he paused, swiped his hair back off his forehead and straightened his shoulders.
After yesterday he had figured he would never see her again—at least not on purpose, certainly not sitting on his front step waiting for him to come home.
She was standing at the threshold when he pulled the door open, Maurice at her feet. He noticed that the bandage on the side of her head was gone. She’d combed her hair over the bare spot. “I like your cat,” she said.
With a low, entitled “Reow,”
