The discrepancy could hardly have been greater.
Kayleigh simply didn’t do feminine. Her own explanation for this fact was that life with four brothers had led to a pronounced lack of interest in pink dresses and ballet lessons, thanks to a focus on tinkering with car engines, climbing trees, and playing baseball in the driveway, all while arguing with one brother over who would get the uber cool Spiderman t-shirt that another brother had grown out of. She would have made such a great boy.
Of course, Kayleigh did own dresses and makeup, too. She also liked to read romance novels, though she did that in private, not wanting to give her brothers any ammunition for their relentless teasing. She knew, however, that she was a bird of a completely different feather than the women who seemed to be Alec’s preferred quarry.
Had she been one of those women who would readily bend and change for a man, she’d have let her short hair grow longer, dressed more femininely, and made sure to curb her big mouth. But Kayleigh didn’t think she should twist herself into anything she wasn’t just to accommodate a man. Why would she? Not to brag, but she thought of herself as a funny, intelligent, and friendly enough person, a woman who had a lot of friends, great hobbies, and a family that loved her. She wasn’t an ugly old hag either. Thanks to the unshakable self-confidence that all Fitzpatricks possessed, she told herself that, by and by, even Detective Alec Anderson would see that. Until that day came, she would swoon over him from a distance, not let on, and hope he’d grow sick of all those spruced-up, prettified dolls eventually.
When he approached her a moment later, all Kayleigh could think of was that, thankfully, Stephanie was married, because her beautiful colleague was exactly the type of woman Alec would go out with. The ring on her finger would make sure he kept a respectful distance.
Hoping she’d appear perfectly casual and he wouldn’t see that his presence was accelerating her heartbeat, she merely gave him a curt nod when he stopped in front of her.
“Hey, Kayleigh. How are you?”
“Fine.” She scrawled her signature on the bottom a form, looking busy, before she frowned up at him. “And how are you?”
“Good,” he answered with a laugh, his eyes twinkling and his hand raking his blond hair, looking scandalously handsome in his dark suit. “I’d be much better if my lazy partner wasn’t get married soon, because he’s leaving all the work to me while he’s engrossed in wedding preparations.”
Surprised, she raised her head, which enabled her to look straight into his amazingly handsome face. “I didn’t know Shane had taken time off work.”
“He hasn’t,” Alec answered with a shrug. “But while I’m here interviewing your colleagues regarding one of our cases, your brother is picking up cake samples from a bakery four blocks down the road. I’m about to drive by there, and then we’re going by his place to deliver the samples to Thorne.”
She grinned and put the file down, burying her hands in the pockets of her pants, ignoring Stephanie, who seemed to be listening in with great interest. “And here I thought it wasn’t allowed to waste taxpayer money on private pursuits.”
The good-humored detective, shining star of the homicide squad, burst into sonorous laughter, a sound that made her wish she could join in with a belly laugh of her own. “Of course it’s not allowed! I hope you’re not thinking of telling on us.”
“Well, seeing as I’ve profited from this kind of thing once or twice …” Kayleigh replied with a wink. “Once, when Ryan was still on the beat,” she admitted, “he delivered pizza to Hayden and me—with all the lights blinking away.”
“I see.” He gave her an amused look. “The Fitzpatricks really are the worst, aren’t they?”
Kayleigh could hardly deny that, so she simply lowered her voice and whispered conspiratorially, “You don’t know the half of it!”
“That’s what I feared, yes. I know from experience how hotheaded your brothers can be, after all.” He winked at her, alluding to the fight he’d had with Heath, after he’d gone out with Hayden. Kayleigh didn’t like to admit it, but at the time she’d tried to talk her now sister-in-law out of going on a date with the good-looking detective. And not just because she’d wanted to remain loyal to her brother, and not because she’d known that Heath and Hayden simply belonged to each other, either. But because, even then, she’d been slightly jealous that Alec had not asked her out instead.
She wanted to distract herself from that thought, so she said casually, “Shane should count himself lucky that you agreed to help fill in as his wedding planner.”
“I’m not doing this for completely unselfish reasons, you know. Your brother promised me I can sample all the cakes, too.” He pushed up the sleeve of his sports coat to glance at his watch. “And speaking of that, I should really be going now. Otherwise Shane will have finished all the munchies without me. I know him. See you soon, Kayleigh.”
“Yeah,” she replied as nonchalantly as she could manage, nodding as he turned and left.
She wasn’t surprised at all when, mere seconds later, Stephanie cleared her throat and whispered, “Nice guy. Is he single?”
Kayleigh threw her an irritated glance. “And what does Parker think of your interest in other men?” she asked acidly.
Stephanie waved her hand in front of her face and grinned. “I’m not asking for myself, silly. I was thinking of you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” Stephanie insisted gleefully. “He seems to be a great guy, and he’s got a nice butt. That was visible even through his suit pants. I thought you were looking for a date for your brother’s wedding. So tell me: Is he single?”
She didn’t want to admit to her happily married colleague that she had a major crush on a man who had been treating her like a pal and nothing else for the last three years. So she shrugged and tried to appear as disinterested as possible. “No idea. It seems to change on a weekly basis. Say, do you happen to know whether the patient from room five has come back from his x-ray?”
“Not so fast.” Stephanie shook her head with a small grin. “Why don’t you just ask him if he wants to be your date for Shane’s wedding?”
That was easy enough to answer, Kayleigh thought with a mental snort. She would rather have the earth open up and swallow her than ask Alec Anderson for a date. But she didn’t want to tell Stephanie that. “Alec is my brother’s partner,” she said with pretend outrage, “and nothing more than a pal. What would people think if we showed up at Shane’s wedding together?”
“Dear God, Kayleigh!” Stephanie swatted her arm. “If you’re that picky, you’ll never find a date for the wedding.”
Kayleigh made a face and grabbed a piece of candy from the glass bowl on the counter, normally reserved for the small patients. She threw the sour candy into her mouth and started chewing loudly. “You’re starting to sound like my mom. She keeps going on about my need to find a man and put little children into this world. I thought I was safe from that kind of debate here at work. I thought I could instead indulge in less embarrassing conversation topics … you know what I mean: hemorrhoids, the texture of people’s stool, venereal diseases …”
“Nobody was talking about getting married and having kids!” Stephanie snapped. Then she leaned forward and whispered eagerly, “You don’t need to marry him, you know, but I think an adventure with your brother’s partner wouldn’t be the worst idea you’ve ever had.”
Kayleigh rolled her eyes and groaned loudly, because the bitter truth was that she’d had enough of those meaningless affairs. If she was honest with herself, it was damned frustrating to see all these happy couples around her while she kept taking home guys she met at some bar and throwing them out the next morning—before or after a cup of coffee, as the case might be.
She was glad when the approaching siren of an ambulance outside excused her from giving an answer. Moments later, another accident victim was brought in.
Chapter 2
When Kayleigh put a large slice of meat loaf
on her plate and then topped it with a generous helping of sauce, her conscience wasn’t piqued by her mother’s look of reproach. She was far too hungry to mind her mom’s silent disapproval.
“You didn’t go to Mass last week, either.”
“Mom,” she replied patiently, “I was on that seminar last weekend, remember?”
It was their weekly family dinner, and in addition to her and her mom, all four brothers were sitting at the table, plus her sister-in-law, Hayden; her prospective sister-in-law, Thorne; Thorne and Shane’s six-year-old son, Brady; and Hayden and Heath’s little Joey and baby Kayla.
Her mother seemed very concerned with Kayleigh’s eternal soul, for she hastened to add in a scolding tone of voice, “But you should have come to Mass today! You had a day off!”
Even though four of her five children worked different shifts, Ellen Fitzpatrick always knew exactly who was working what days and when they had a day off. It was a mystery to Kayleigh how her mom was able to list the chaotic working hours of her kids while she struggled with remembering when she had to show up at work herself. It was almost as if she was some sort of psychic, who could look into her children’s heads. When Kayleigh was a teenager, she’d found it immensely annoying having a mother who could pinpoint each and every secret she harbored with a single, penetrating gaze. It had been an easy feat for her, for example, to find out that Kayleigh had cheated on a math test in fifth grade, even though her teacher hadn’t caught her doing it. Even today, Kayleigh was afraid her mom would see it in her face if she did anything scold-worthy.
“My last shift was really exhausting,” she explained, sinking her fork into her mom’s delicious meat loaf.
Ellen shook her head chidingly. “Father MacCallahan asked where you were today. He noticed your repeated absence. In only a few weeks, your brother is getting married in that church, so you could really put in an effort to—”
“Mom,” Shane cut her off gently, while simultaneously handing his son a slice of bread, which Brady pushed into his mouth greedily. “I doubt Kayleigh’s truancy is going to put our wedding in jeopardy.”
“Thank you, big brother,” Kayleigh said with a grin, nodding at Shane, who was sitting next to his fiancée like a satisfied sheikh and putting a slice of bread into his mouth in the exact same manner little Brady had just a minute earlier. Kayleigh looked at her mother and added, half appeasing and half mocking, “Are you afraid I’ll end up in purgatory just for not attending church enough?”
Instead of her serious mom, it was her big-mouthed brother Ryan who had to add his two cents to the usual Sunday banter. He looked up from his plate with a snort. “That’s where you’ll end up anyway, sis, don’t worry. Your church attendance certainly won’t sway the devil either way.”
“Ryan!” Ellen Fitzpatrick cried out and crossed herself before pointing out six-year-old Brady, who was following the conversation with lively interest. “It’s Sunday! Don’t speak of the devil on the day of the Lord. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“Aww, Mom …”
Kayleigh leaned back and watched her younger brother flinch under his mother’s deprecatory shake of her head. Kayleigh grinned contentedly, her mom’s scolding now directed away from her. This was a rather typical scene at the Fitzpatrick family table. Their dynamics were … idiosyncratic, one might say.
When the family came together, things were usually loud, merry, and sometimes volatile to the point of getting explosive. Kayleigh couldn’t remember a single family dinner during which they had all remained silent. Even after the tragic accidental death of their dad a few years ago, they had never sat quietly through a meal. They were all far too loud-mouthed and lively for that. Her dad had always claimed that their noise level at the table—and elsewhere—had to do with the Irish blood of the Fitzpatricks, thus making staying quiet a genetic impossibility. Kayleigh was a physician, but she had to give it to her father: The members of this family were simply unable to shut up for a sustained period of time.
Her oldest brother, Heath, may have been a responsible husband and father, but it didn’t take much to send his temper through the roof. While he truly was the most patient dad you could imagine, and while he treated his two daughters and his wife with the utmost devotion and care, it was nigh impossible to calm him down when he got enraged or got into a fight with someone.
Shane, who was only one year Heath’s junior, was also known throughout his department for being somebody to not mess with once he got angry. Unfortunately for him, and others, Shane possessed an immutable self-confidence like all Fitzpatricks, and had a really hard time accepting criticism or even orders from his superiors. In his professional career, his hotheadedness had already caused him some serious problems. But ever since the charming, black-haired woman at his side had given him a second chance, and even agreed to marry him, he’d done his best not to screw up, and went to great lengths to ensure he kept his record spotless. Kayleigh thought it immensely amusing how determined Shane was to wait on Thorne hand and foot. In her opinion, he could have spent a little more time crawling at her feet to make up for all the things he’d done to the mother of his son seven years ago, but Thorne seemed to be as blinded by her love for him as he was for her. She had forgiven him everything and was even now smiling indulgently at her fiancé.
Kayleigh was still kind of mad at her older brother for fooling Thorne into believing he loved her all those years ago when he’d been investigating undercover, and for then disappearing suddenly and without explanation, leaving Thorne to give birth to their son, Brady, and raise him on her own for six years. On the other hand, it made Kayleigh happy that Shane was exuberantly happy now. Her idiot brother had been so lucky to find Thorne again and do right by her this time. And Brady was the cleverest and funniest little guy Kayleigh had ever met. She was utterly taken with her nephew and wanted to keep him every time he stayed overnight at her place. She was also rather sure that they were looking forward to another addition to their growing family, considering their quick wedding, Thorne’s sudden abstinence from alcohol, and Shane’s outright ridiculous behavior when it came to his soon-to-be wife’s carrying even her own plate to the table. Brady would have a little sibling soon, Kayleigh was certain.
She watched Shane load a plate for his beloved, set it down in front of her, and press a kiss to her temple. Kayleigh was anything but a sighing romantic, but she had to smile at this palpable proof of her brother’s love. Loading his own plate only after he’d taken care of his fiancée’s must’ve been hard, for he was a terrible glutton—just like the rest of the family.
This made Kayleigh look at her younger brothers, who were destroying the peaceful mood with their loud chewing and their ongoing argument about who was entitled to the end slice of the large loaf.
Kayleigh had never understood why her parents hadn’t stopped making babies after they’d had her. Did they really have to add the twins, who were unbelievably cocky and almost impossible to tame?
Ryan and Kyle were especially handsome, with their heads of blond hair, diverging in this respect from the three older Fitzpatrick kids, who were all dark-haired like their parents. The twins could also get on anybody’s nerves big time. Ryan was an especially unrestrained loudmouth, and now that he had made it to the rank of detective as well, he thought he was the pride of creation. Kayleigh loved her younger brother dearly, but that didn’t change the fact that she sometimes wanted to strangle him.
Kyle, on the other hand, was much easier to be with, for he was a little quieter and a lot more down-to-earth than his twin. He and Kayleigh also had a lot in common, since after his training as a paramedic he had decided to go back to school and study medicine, like her. She was sure he would make an excellent physician, and she was relieved to know that at least one of her brothers would have a job that didn’t make her worry he would be injured or killed during a shift.
“Aunt Kayleigh? Could you give me a corn on the cob?”
Brady’s request drag
ged her back to the present, and the boy looked at her with his large brown eyes in such an adorable manner that she simply had to give him a wide, indulgent smile as she placed one of the pieces on his plate.
“Here you go, love,” she said happily, and then suppressed a laugh as he made an exaggeratedly hungry face and clamped down on the corn dripping with butter.
“Brady,” Thorne immediately chided her son. “You know I expect better table manners from you. Especially at your grandma’s table.”
“But Mom,” the boy protested just as quickly, pointing at his dad, who was attacking a piece of corn on the cob in much the same way, and whose mouth was shiny with butter. “Dad’s eating it just like me!”
“Shane,” Ellen Fitzpatrick admonished her son. “What kind of example are you setting for the boy?”
“A hungry example, Mom,” Shane replied without even a hint of shame on his grinning face.
Ellen sighed as she looked at Ryan and Kyle, who were likewise digging into their food. “So I needed to turn sixty before I realized I’ve raised a bunch of barbarians?”
“What’s a barbarian, Grandma?”
Kayleigh was faster than her mom, explaining to her nephew with a sweet smile, “Just look at your Uncle Ryan, Brady. He’s the biggest of them.”
“Hey,” Ryan complained with a smack of his lips. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Kayleigh! You’re the one who eats like a pig whenever Hayden makes burritos!”
More Than A Feeling (The Boston Five Series #3) Page 2
