“Are you busy, Mr. Kavanagh?” The little girl turned his direction, but her gaze just seemed to miss his own.
“I’m not busy at all,” he told her, “but call me Kieran. Mr. Kavanagh is my father, and I’m a lot more handsome than he is.”
“Shea, I don’t think—” Fiona bit her lip nervously, her hands fidgeting as she tried to come up with an excuse not to invite him.
“Come on, I know a great place a couple blocks from here,” Kieran interjected before she could say anything further, then he ushered them toward the exit.
Fiona shot him an unconvinced frown before finally following him.
Chapter 5
“Which flavor are you going to get?” Kieran asked Shea as they stood in front of the ten different frozen yogurt dispensers and tried to decide.
“No-sugar-added vanilla yogurt,” Shea responded automatically.
Kieran wrinkled up his nose. “Really? You like that?”
Shea shrugged as Fiona grabbed a paper bowl off the shelf and handed it to her. She was doing her best to ignore the fact that Kieran was here at all or that this felt way too much like a date.
And she didn’t date.
“Here, hold on a second.” Kieran took the bowl out of her hand and instead handed Shea several tiny little paper sampling cups. “Let’s try a bunch of different flavors and see what you like.”
“Kieran, she always gets the vanilla. Just let her get what she wants.” Fiona had been here enough times with Shea to know that Shea wasn’t going to change her mind about what she ate. Her routines were too ingrained to be changed now, and honestly, it just wasn’t worth a possible public meltdown.
“How’s she going to know what she wants in life if she doesn’t give something new a try?” Kieran’s sea-blue eyes looked at her pointedly. Fiona looked away, suddenly aware of the fluttering sensation in her stomach as she considered the meaning behind his words.
“I like the vanilla flavor,” Shea said again, her voice less sure this time. She took the sample cups from him anyway, and he helped her fill them with various different flavors.
“I’m going to go get a smoothie,” Fiona told them as she walked to the front of the shop and placed an order with the clerk, keeping note of the two of them out of the corner of her eye.
Slowly, Shea tried each one and her smile grew as she did. Fiona tilted her head to the side and watched with confusion as her little sister laughed, actually laughed, as Kieran made a funny face at a sample he’d just tasted. Between laughs, they were talking in hushed tones conspiratorially, and Fiona wondered what he was saying to her. Shea looked happy, like any other child you’d see in a frozen yogurt shop.
The moment warmed her heart. She wanted for Shea everything that other kids had. They were already at a disadvantage with the loss of their mother and the fact that their dad had not stuck around for more than a few days after Shea’s birth, so Shea’s autism only added to the difficulties. Fiona frowned at the thought, sipping her smoothie after the clerk handed it to her.
As the cool drink slid down her throat, she turned back to watch Shea and Kieran. They were finished with samples and were now filling up regular bowls. Shea’s was already loaded high with toppings, and Fiona pursed her lips, worrying about the consequences of too much sugar.
She decided she could overlook it today. After all, despite whatever difficulties had been placed in their lives, Fiona didn’t want Shea to be any different. Her disabilities aside, Shea had the most gentle and sincere spirit of anyone she’d ever known.
She’d never want that to change.
“Look, Fi!” Shea called her by her nickname, and Fiona’s brows raised. She hadn’t heard that name in a while. She hadn’t even realized it until now, but she had really missed it.
“That’s a lot of ice cream, Shea.” Fiona smiled at her little sister.
“It’s not ice cream. It’s frozen yogurt, but it tastes kind of the same. I didn’t get the vanilla flavor today. I got cookies and cream with caramel and Oreos and peanut butter cups and cookie dough pieces.” Shea proudly held the bowl out in front of her, surveying it from all sides.
“Wow! Sounds delicious,” Fiona said as Shea triumphantly marched out of the store and sat at a patio table out front. She pulled her earmuffs over her ears and dove into her bowl of sugar, causing Fiona to smile again at the seriousness on her sister’s face.
Kieran walked up to where she was standing at the cash register and the clerk rang up a flat rate for all three of them.
“Let me get this,” he said.
“Oh, no, don’t worry about us. I can pay for mine and Shea’s.” Fiona opened her purse to find her wallet as she put her smoothie down on the counter.
“Not a chance, flower girl. The man always pays on a date.” He handed the clerk a large bill and accepted the change, then the duo headed toward the exit to join Shea.
“This is not a date, Kieran,” she informed him, her head held high as she tried to avoid direct eye contact with those mesmerizing blues. It certainly felt like one, though.
“Then why’d you let me pay for you? Sounds like a date to me.” He smirked, glancing sideways at her.
“I said not to!”
“Oh, yeah, you really fought me on that,” he teased, his smile as wide as ever. “That whole let-me-dig-around-in-my-purse-just-long-enough-to-look-like-I’m-going-to-pay scheme. I’m onto your games, flower girl.”
“I didn’t—” she opened her mouth to say something more because she was definitely not that kind of girl and had every plan to tell him so, but the words vanished from her tongue. His close proximity and the hungry way he looked at her—it unnerved her. Forgetting what she was going to say, she shot him a dirty look instead as he held the door open for her and they stepped outside.
“I’m just messing with you, Fiona,” he said, before lowering his tone and whispering softly in her ear. “Plus, I like to take care of my woman.”
Fiona shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold drink in her hands. Kieran stepped around her and joined Shea at the patio table.
“How’s the chocolate explosion?” he asked her. She looked at him in confusion before pulling her earmuffs off.
“What?”
“How’s the chocolate explosion?” Kieran patiently repeated his question.
“I like this much more than the one I used to get. I’m going to get this every week.” Shea spooned another heaping bite into her mouth.
“Uh, I don’t know about that,” Fiona intervened, wondering if this was going to backfire on her.
“Every week?” Kieran’s face held a look of mock surprise. “Then it won’t taste as good.”
“What do you mean?” Shea’s eyes went wide, and her mouth was full of cookie dough bites.
“This much chocolate is only yummy if it’s a treat every once in a while. If you have it every week, it’s going to be boring.”
“It’s yummy right now,” she challenged him, taking another large bite. Fiona smiled, knowing Kieran was never going to convince Shea not to eat sugar. She might have her off moments, but she was still a child.
“Because it’s new. Have you ever had the same food over and over and it starts to taste the same each time?” Kieran asked her.
“I eat the same things all the time,” Shea said slowly, seeming to put a lot of thought into it as she did. She looked like she was rethinking everything she’d been doing, and it made Fiona nervous they might be pushing her too far.
“So how was school, Shea?” Fiona hoped to change topics. Kieran looked at her questioningly, but she ignored him.
“I don’t like math. I’m no good at it,” Shea announced.
“I can help you with that,” Kieran said.
Fiona looked at him with lifted brows. “You want to do homework?”
“Sure, I’ve always liked math. I’ve got a degree from NYU in economics and finance,” he said as Fiona sipped the last of her smoothie.
That impressed
her. She hadn’t given it much thought until then, but she was surprised that this man who did simple construction work had also gone to college. He looked like he took more time chiseling every muscle on his rock-hard abs than he ever did reading a textbook. The revelation made her slightly self-conscious about her lack of higher education but even more intrigued by him. “You went to NYU? Wow, that’s quite the accomplishment.”
He just shrugged like it was nothing, which irritated her a bit, because it would have been everything to her to have that kind of background.
“Where did you go?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t. Had to work.”
“You have definitely done well without it,” he said simply before turning back to his yogurt and finishing the last few bites. “So, why flowers?”
This time it was her turn to shrug. “They make people smile just by being there. They don’t have to try or perform—they just exist, and that’s enough. I like the idea that something can be so loved just for being itself.”
Fiona looked over at Shea as she thought about how much she loved the little girl exactly the way she was.
“I’m finished. Can we go home?” Shea asked, dropping her spoon into her empty bowl.
“Sure, let’s throw away our trash.” Fiona stood and helped Shea drop her empty bowl into the trash can. Kieran followed closely behind them as if this was a date. She’d warned him she didn’t date, and she wasn’t about to change her mind even though she definitely wanted to run her fingers across the ripples on his biceps. “Well, thank you for the yogurt. It was very nice of you. I’m sure we’ll see you around.”
“Oh, you will, especially since I’m walking you home.”
Fiona paused on the sidewalk. Shea had already opened her e-reader, walking and reading at the same time.
“We’ll be fine, there’s really no need. Thanks for the offer, though,” she told him, but he just shook his head and smiled.
“I would never hear the end of it from my mother if she found out I’d let two ladies walk home unescorted. So I’m not asking you, flower girl, I’m telling you. I’m going to walk you home.” He walked past her with a charming smile and caught up to Shea.
She’d never let anyone take care of her before, and his insistence was both irritating and exciting. It made it that much more difficult to stick to her no-dating rule, though. Fiona scurried to catch up to him and Shea as a warmth began building in her that she hadn’t felt in a long time.
—
“So you’re walking us home because you’re afraid of your mom,” Fiona said with a teasing smile a few minutes later as they turned a corner and headed in the direction of her apartment. At least he’d assumed that’s where they were headed. He found himself wondering why she didn’t live closer to the flower shop and the youth center, since she was at both so often and would want to be near Shea. Instead, they were headed in the opposite direction.
“She’s a scary woman to cross,” he admitted with a grin.
“Oh.” He studied her face for a moment, and she actually looked disappointed. Maybe she was hoping for some sappy answer from him, but he wasn’t going to give it to her. He’d already put himself out there enough; it was her turn.
“So, you work construction during the day and tutor at youth centers, but somehow you also graduated from New York University,” she said after a moment of silence.
“Is there a question in there, or are you just summing up my life?” he asked.
“Everything about you is a question.” She was clearly flirting with the idea of giving him a smile back, but it came out as just a small curve at the corner of her lips.
Maybe she’s finally flirting with me, he thought.
He looked both ways before ushering Shea and Fiona across a busy intersection. “You seem to have all the answers, so it sounds like we’re the perfect match.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Is everything from you always a pickup line?”
“Depends on who I’m talking to.”
“Everything you say to me is a pickup line.”
“That’s because I definitely want to pick you up.” He smiled before glancing over to check that Shea wasn’t listening. He didn’t really think he had to worry about that, though, because she was absorbed in her reading and was wearing her heavy-duty, pale pink headgear. He spent most of their walk stopping Shea before they neared an intersection, or moving her to the side if something was in the sidewalk, because otherwise she’d plow right into it without hesitation.
“We may have accidentally spent some time together during the last three days, but you’re still a mystery to me,” Fiona explained.
Kieran shrugged and glanced at her sideways. “Well, what would you like to know?”
She tapped her index finger to her lip like he’d seen her do a few times before, a unique motion to her that made him want her even more. He tried to push further thoughts of her perfect pink lips away and concentrate on her as she looked at him closely.
“All right, well, why do you work construction? You’re definitely smart, so I’m sure you could be doing something else if you wanted,” she asked.
“I’m helping out my older brother. He owns the rescue, and they’re renovating the entire thing, making it much bigger and adding a clinic. It’s scheduled to be done in a few weeks. He and his girl love dogs, so they take in ex-fighter dogs and rehabilitate them. He needed the extra help, and I had some time on my hands.” He knew full well that he wasn’t exactly telling the truth, leaving out anything that related to his time in prison, but he wasn’t lying, either.
“You’re just helping your brother? Oh, that’s kind.” She seemed pleased with his answer, and he loved the warm smile that appeared on her face. “Then you’ll go back to finance or something in a few weeks?”
“Probably, haven’t really decided yet. I’ve got plenty saved up to give me a little time to figure it out.”
“Figure what out? What were you doing before this?” she pried further.
Kieran looked away from her and saw Shea climbing the steps up to a small stoop in front of a ratty, run-down building.
“Is this your house?” he asked, avoiding her question.
“One fourth of the top floor is, yeah.” She opened her purse to fish out her keys and follow Shea up the steps. She turned when she got halfway up. “Thanks for walking us, and for the yogurt. That was really kind of you.”
“Anytime, Fi,” he said, and was rewarded with another wide smile. Note to self, she likes the nickname.
“Shea, say thank you,” Fiona instructed her little sister, pulling on one side of her earmuffs to talk to her.
“Thank you, Kieran.”
Fiona beamed down at her sister, unmistakable pride on her face, then she turned to give him a small wave before they both went inside.
Kieran turned to head back toward the youth center, where his car was parked. He glanced around the neighborhood they were in, and he didn’t like what he saw. He worried about the two of them here but tried to push away his discomfort. That only led to more questions in his mind.
He’d known this woman for three days, and he had already seen her more times than he’d seen his own family. Not even on purpose—she just kept popping up everywhere he was. And he loved it. He was looking forward to it, hoping to run into her again and again.
He had to wonder if he was feeling this way only because he’d been locked away from all women for two years. Maybe it was possible that he’d literally picked the first woman he met out of prison and clung to her, as if she was some symbol of the freedom he’d lost the last few years of his life.
Somehow, he knew that wasn’t the case, though. This woman was different, and she made him feel different. Maybe because she didn’t know he was a felon, a topic he’d barely dodged tonight, or maybe it was because she didn’t know what a screwup he was. Or maybe it was in the way Fiona smiled at her sister, as if the world started and stopped with her. Whatever the
reason, he knew that having her sparkling eyes look at him was a privilege, one he wanted to earn again.
Chapter 6
“Holy fuck! Look whose sorry ass just walked in,” announced Tate, a beefy fighter Kieran had once been friends with, as he walked into Legends that evening for the first time in over two years.
“Tate, good to see you, man,” Kieran replied with a nod, in hopes that would be the end of it.
Tate wasn’t having it, though. He came bounding over and slapped a hand on Kieran’s shoulder. His face resembled that of a lonely puppy, begging for someone’s approval.
“Damn, Killer, it’s been a minute. Everything looking a little brighter without bars in front of it?” He called Kieran by his fighting name, half teasing, half provoking.
“Shut up, asshole.” Kieran walked farther into the gym, but Tate followed.
“Hey, Killer!” Another fighter called out to him, raising one hand in the air.
Kieran waved, not changing his path. Men stopped to look at him but kept their distance. Some people made side comments to one another just out of his range of hearing; others looked nervous; and a few even looked impressed.
“I’m serious, Killer! We’ve been missing you around here. Go wrap up—let’s spar for old time’s sake,” Tate suggested, quickly resembling a parasite stuck to Kieran’s side.
“I’ll think about it,” Kieran told him, although he had already decided yes. He’d been dying for years to get back in the cage. “Let me check the place out first—I just walked in.”
“Nothing’s changed,” Tate said with a shrug. “It’s the same as it’s always been since your pops first opened it twenty years ago.” He walked off.
Kieran looked around at the large open-floor gym, with one large cage in the center and several smaller octagons on the outskirts, and he knew what Tate claimed wasn’t true. This place was as modern as they came. His father took precision-like care of all the octagons, and every weight machine was top of the line. Some of the decorations on the walls were a bit outdated—like pictures from old fights back in the day—but they just added to the ambience of the place.
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