Under Control

by Shannon Stacey

  Lydia had been the first to disappoint him. Her unwillingness to give the alcoholic serial cheater just one more chance had been the first blow, and then her leaving Kincaid’s and moving to New Hampshire had really pissed him off.

  Sometimes she wondered how their lives would have turned out if their mom hadn’t died of breast cancer when Lydia and Ashley were just thirteen and fourteen. Scotty had been only nine, but he was his father’s pride and joy. Joyce Kincaid hadn’t taken any shit from her gruff, old-school husband, and Lydia thought maybe she would have pushed hard for her daughters to dream big. And then she would have helped them fight to make those dreams come true.

  Or maybe their lives wouldn’t have turned out any different and it was just Lydia spinning what-ifs into pretty fairy tales.

  After carrying her bag upstairs to the guest room, Lydia brushed her hair and exchanged her flip-flops for cute little tennis shoes that matched her dress and would be better for walking.

  “Are you sure you want to walk?” Ashley asked. “It’s a bit of a hike.”

  “It’s not that far, and I won’t have to find a place to park.”

  “I’d go with you, but...”

  But her not wanting to be at Kincaid’s was the entire reason Lydia had uprooted herself and come home. “I get it. And I won’t be long. I’ll be spending enough time there as it is, so I’m just going to pop in, say hi and get the hell out.”

  Ashley snorted. “Good luck with that.”

  It was a fifteen-minute walk from the Walsh house to Kincaid’s Pub, but Lydia stretched it out a bit. The sights. The sounds. The smells. No matter how reluctant she was to come back here or how many years she was away, this would always be home.

  A few people called to her, but she just waved and kept walking. Every once in a while she’d step up the pace to make it look like she was in a hurry. But the street was fairly quiet and in no time, she was standing in front of Kincaid’s Pub.

  It was housed in the lower floor of an unassuming brick building. Okay, ugly. It was ugly, with a glass door and two high, long windows. A small sign with the name in a plain type was screwed to the brick over the door, making it easy to overlook. It was open to anybody, of course, but the locals were their bread and butter, and they liked it just the way it was.

  Her dad had invested in the place—becoming a partner to help out the guy who owned it—almost ten years before his heart attack hastened his retirement from fighting fires, and he’d bought the original owner out when he was back on his feet. Once it was solely Tommy’s, he’d changed the name to Kincaid’s Pub, and Ashley and Lydia had assumed their places behind the bar.

  After taking a deep breath, she pulled open the heavy door and walked inside. All the old brick and wood seemed to absorb the light from the many antique-looking fixtures, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

  It looked just the same, with sports and firefighting memorabilia and photographs covering the brick walls. The bar was a massive U-shape with a hand-polished surface, and a dozen tables, each seating four, were scattered around the room. In an alcove to one side was a pool table, along with a few more seating groups.

  Because there wasn’t a game on, the two televisions—one over the bar and one hung to be seen from most of the tables—were on Mute, with closed-captioning running across the bottom. The music was turned down low because Kincaid’s was loud enough without people shouting to be heard over the radio.

  Lydia loved this place. And she hated it a little, too. But in some ways it seemed as though Kincaid’s Pub was woven into the fabric of her being, and she wasn’t sorry to be there again.

  “Lydia!” Her father’s voice boomed across the bar, and she made a beeline to him.

  Tommy Kincaid was a big man starting to go soft around the middle, but he still had arms like tree trunks. They wrapped around her and she squealed a little when he lifted her off her feet. “I’ve missed you, girl.”

  She got a little choked up as he set her down and gave her a good looking over. Their relationship could be problematic at times—like most of the time—but Lydia never doubted for a second he loved her with all his heart. Once upon a time, he’d had the same thick, dark hair she shared with her siblings, but the gray had almost totally taken over.

  He looked pretty good, though, and she smiled. “I’m glad you missed me, because it sounds like you’ll be seeing a lot of me for a while.”

  A scowl drew his thick eyebrows and the corners of his mouth downward. “That sister of yours. I don’t know what’s going through her mind.”

  She gave him a bright smile. “Plenty of time for that later. Right now I just want to see everybody and have a beer.”

  A blonde woman who was probably a few years older than her smiled from behind the bar. “I’m Karen. Karen Shea.”

  Lydia reached across and shook her hand. “We really appreciate you being able to help out.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Lydia went to the very end of the back side of the bar and planted a kiss on the cheek of Fitz Fitzgibbon—her father’s best friend and a retired member of Ladder 37—who was the only person who ever sat on that stool. She supposed once upon a time she might have known his real first name, but nobody ever called him anything but Fitz or, in her father’s case, Fitzy.

  There were a few other regulars she said hello to before getting a Sam Adams and standing at the bar. Unlike most, the big bar at Kincaid’s didn’t have stools all the way around. It had once upon a time, but now there were only stools on the back side and the end. Her dad had noticed a lot of guys didn’t bother with the stools and just leaned against the polished oak. To make things easier, he’d just ripped them out.

  About a half hour later, her brother, Scotty, walked in. Like the rest of the Kincaids, he had thick dark hair and dark eyes. He needed a shave, as usual, but he looked good. They’d talked and sent text messages quite a bit over the past two years, but neither of them was much for video chatting, so she hadn’t actually seen him.

  And right on Scotty’s heels was Aidan Hunt. His brown hair was lighter than her brother’s and it needed a trim. And she didn’t need to see his eyes to remember they were blue, like a lake on a bright summer day. He looked slightly older, but no less deliciously handsome than ever. She wasn’t surprised to see him. Wherever Scotty was, Aidan was usually close by.

  What did surprise her was that the second his gaze met hers, her first thought was that she’d like to throw everybody out of the bar, lock the door and then shove him onto a chair. Since she was wearing the sundress, all she had to do was undo his fly, straddle his lap and hold on.

  When the corner of his mouth quirked up, as if he somehow knew she’d just gone eight seconds with him in her mind, she gave him a nod of greeting and looked away.

  For crap’s sake, that was Aidan Hunt. Her annoying younger brother’s equally annoying best friend.

  He’d been seventeen when they met, to Lydia’s twenty-one. He’d given her a grin that showed off perfect, Daddy’s-got-money teeth and those sparkling blue eyes and said, “Hey, gorgeous. Want to buy me a drink?”

  She’d rolled her eyes and told him to enjoy his playdate with Scotty. From that day on, he had seemed determined to annoy the hell out of her at every possible opportunity.

  When her brother reached her, she shoved Aidan out of her mind and embraced Scotty. “How the hell are ya?”

  “Missed having you around,” he said. “Sucks you had to come back for a shitty reason, but it’s still good to see you. I just found out about an hour ago Ashley had called you.”

  “She just called me last night, so it was spur-of-the-moment, I guess.”

  “It’s good to have you back.”

  “Don’t get too used to it. It’s temporary.”

  She’d always thought if she and Scotty were closer in age than four years apart, they could have
been twins, with the same shaped faces and their coloring. Ashley looked a lot like both of them, but her face was leaner, her eyes a lighter shade of brown and her hair wasn’t quite as thick.

  Scotty was more like Lydia in temperament, too. Ashley was steadier and liked to try logic first. Scott and Lydia were a little more volatile and tended to run on emotion. Her temper had a longer fuse than her brother’s, but they both tended to pop off a little easy.

  They caught up for a few minutes, mainly talking about his fellow firefighters, most of whom she knew well. And he gave her a quick update on their dad’s doctor not being thrilled with his blood pressure. It didn’t sound too bad, but it was probably good Ashley had called her rather than let him try to take up her slack.

  Then Scotty shifted from one foot to the other and grimaced. “Sorry, but I’ve had to take a leak for like an hour.”

  She laughed and waved him off. “Go. I’ll be here.”

  He left and Lydia looked up at the television, sipping her beer. She only ever had one, so she’d make it last, but part of her wanted to chug it and ask for a refill. It was a little overwhelming, being back.

  “Hey, gorgeous. Want to buy me a drink?” What were the chances? She turned to face Aidan, smiling at the fact she’d been thinking about that day just a few minutes before. “What’s so funny?”

  She shook her head, not wanting to tell him she’d been thinking about the day they met, since that would be an admission she’d been thinking about him at all. “Nothing. How have you been?”

  “Good. Same shit, different day. You come back for a visit?”

  “I’ll be here awhile. Maybe a couple of weeks, or a month.” She shrugged. “Ashley wanted to take some time off, so I’m going to cover for her. You know how Dad is about having one of us here all the damn time.”

  His eyes squinted and he tilted his head a little. “You sound different.”

  “I worked on toning down the accent a little, to fit in more at work, I guess. Even though it’s only the next state over, people were always asking me where I was from.”

  “You trying to forget who you are?” It came out fuh-get who you ah. “Forget where you came from?”

  “Not possible,” she muttered.

  He gave her that grin again, with the perfect teeth and sparkling eyes. They crinkled at the corners now, the laugh lines just making him more attractive. “So what you’re saying is that we’re unforgettable.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “You’re something, all right.”

  Aidan looked as if he was going to say something else, but somebody shouted his name and was beckoning him over. He nodded and then turned back to Lydia. “I’ll see you around. And welcome home.”

  She watched him walk away, trying to keep her eyes above his waist in case anybody was watching her watch him. Her annoying brother’s annoying best friend had very nice shoulders stretching out that dark blue T-shirt.

  Her gaze dipped, just for a second. And a very nice ass filling out those faded blue jeans.

  Chapter Two

  Aidan was just having a beer. Shooting the shit with the guys. Figuring out when they could get in some ice time at the rink. What he wasn’t doing was checking out his best friend’s sister.

  That was Lydia over there, for chrissake. Scotty’s sister. Tommy’s daughter. She was bossy and sarcastic and pretty much the last woman on Earth he could mess around with. Except Ashley, who was all of those things and married to Danny, which put her one rung higher on the off-limits ladder. But he’d never been attracted to her the way he was to her sister.

  Last he knew Lydia didn’t even like him very much.

  So why had she given him a look that said she might have mentally stripped him naked and was licking her way down his body?

  He took a slug of his beer, trying to work it out in his head. She’d definitely been looking at him. The only other person in range had been Scotty, and she sure as hell hadn’t been looking at him like that. And he hadn’t imagined the heat, either. That woman had been thinking some seriously dirty thoughts. About him.

  Yanking his T-shirt out of his jeans in the hope it would be long enough to cover the erection he was currently rocking seemed a little conspicuous, so he turned his body to the bar and rested his forearms on it. He seriously needed to get a grip.

  He couldn’t disrespect Tommy Kincaid by lusting after his daughter. The man was not only a mentor of sorts and a second father to him, being his best friend’s dad, but he was the reason Aidan was a firefighter.

  He’d been eleven years old when his family’s minivan got caught up in a shit show involving a jackknifed 18-wheeler, two other cars and a box truck full of building supplies. His memories of the accident itself were hazy. Screeching tires. Shattering glass. His mother screaming his father’s name.

  But the aftermath imprinted on his memory so clearly it was like a movie he could hit Play on at will. A police officer had gotten them all out of the vehicle and Aidan had held his little brother’s hand on one side and kept his other hand on his little sister’s baby carrier.

  A firefighter was working on his dad, whose head had a lot of blood on it. Aidan’s mom was dazed and sat leaning against the guardrail, holding her arm. When his little brother called out to her, she didn’t even look at him.

  Then a woman started screaming and there were a lot of shouts. The firefighter who was holding some bandaging to his dad’s head looked over his shoulder and then back to his dad. Aidan could tell he wanted to go help the woman who was screaming, so he stepped forward.

  “I can hold that,” he told the firefighter. “Just show me how hard to press.”

  The firefighter hadn’t wanted to. But the screaming and the voices grew more urgent and he had Aidan kneel down next to him. After making sure Bryan put his hand on Sarah’s carrier and wouldn’t move, Aidan took over putting pressure on his dad’s head wound.

  “You’re okay, Dad,” he said, looking into his father’s unfocused gaze. “Just keep looking at me and we’ll wait for an ambulance together.”

  He’d been the one to give the paramedics their information and tell them his father took a medication for his blood pressure. Then he’d given them a description of his mom’s demeanor since the accident. After asking them to retrieve Sarah’s diaper bag from the van, he’d cared for his siblings until his aunt arrived.

  The firefighter had shown up at the hospital and given him a Boston Fire T-shirt. “You did good, kid.”

  Aidan hadn’t really known what praise and pride felt like until he looked into the man’s warm eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Some people are born to take charge in emergencies. It’s a special thing and not everybody’s got it. When you grow up, if you decide you want to save lives, son, you look me up. Tommy Kincaid. Engine Company 59.”

  Aidan rubbed the Engine 59 emblem on his T-shirt and smiled. He’d been only sixteen the first time he showed up at the old brick building that housed Engine 59 and Ladder 37, looking for Tommy. He met Scotty that day and together they’d never looked back. Friendship. A little bit of trouble here and there. Training. Testing. They’d been inseparable. Aidan didn’t know if it was a favor to Tommy or if Fate played a hand, but when the station assignments went out, they’d even been assigned to the same engine company.

  His extremely white-collar parents hadn’t been able to reconcile their hopes for their oldest son with his drive to serve the public, and things were still rough between them. And maybe his old man was embarrassed to only have one of his sons working with Hunt & Sons Investments—Sarah being destined for more feminine pursuits, like marriage and motherhood, according to their father—but Aidan wouldn’t be swayed.

  Tommy had become his father figure. Scotty and Danny and the rest of the guys were his brothers. This was his family, and he knew they had his back, anytime and anyplace.

 
Messing around with Lydia Kincaid was a bad idea. Like a sticking a fork in a toaster while sitting in a bathtub cocked off your ass kind of a bad idea.

  “Earth to Hunt,” Scotty said, and Aidan felt an ugly jolt of guilt for even considering messing around with Lydia while standing right next to her brother, for chrissake. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. Wicked tired is all.”

  “What’s her name?”

  Aidan snorted. “I wish.”

  “Piper’s got a friend I could hook you up with. Her name’s Bunny, and she’s not bad.”

  “I’m too old for chicks named Bunny.”

  Scott shrugged. “I don’t think that’s her real name. At least I hope it’s not. But whatever, man. Your loss.”

  Aidan didn’t exactly wallow in regret. He was tired of it. He was tired of women who saw his face and didn’t look any further. He was sick of women who got off on banging firefighters and the women who saw him outside the rink with his bag and wanted to spend a little time with a hockey player.

  He didn’t mind at all if a woman wanted to use him for hot, dirty sex. But he also wanted her to laugh with him and enjoy a quiet evening on the couch. And he needed her to stroke his hair when the day was shitty and to hold him when the nightmares came.

  Lydia’s laughter rose above the noise of the bar, but Aidan didn’t turn to look. He just knocked back the rest of his beer and kept his eyes on the television.

  * * *

  The overly chipper chime sound that indicated an incoming text made Lydia very reluctantly open her eyes the next morning. Ashley’s guest room mattress had seen better days and it had taken her forever to fall asleep.

  With a groan, she reached over to the nightstand and felt around until she found her phone. She had just enough charger cord to read the message without picking her head up off the pillow.

  What the hell, girl?

  She had no idea what the hell, since she wasn’t even awake yet. But then she realized it was a group text, the group being her two best friends, Becca Shepard and Courtney Richmond. With Ashley as their fourth, they’d been inseparable growing up, and there was a group text going on more often than not.