Smoked and Smitten (The Titans of South Side Book 1)

by Carson Mackenzie

  “Why, Dad, yes, they are.”

  “God, I hope none of my friends from the station come with their wives. Never going to live this shit down.”

  “As long as their wives come and shop, I’m good with that.” We worked in silence for a while as I set out the items.

  “Honey, did the insurance company finally close out the claim from the fire? I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “Yes, it only took them three months but I got the check last week. I have a feeling it was you who helped when you went down to the fire inspector’s office and asked what the holdup was on the case being closed.”

  “Ana, I didn’t do anything special. Sometimes the labs move slow and it just takes the inspector to ride them a little and they get it done. When I spoke with Inspector Richie, she explained the lab had lost the samples she turned over originally, luckily she keeps her own set from every case until she gets the results back from the lab. Not the first time the lab has lost samples. A pyro got off on a case she was building one time, said that taught her to be more diligent. Smart woman.”

  “Yes, Ms. Richie was very nice to me while she was doing the investigating. Told me not to worry that she’d been doing it long enough to tell if it was intentional, no signs, just my crappy luck.”

  “Sweetie, I know you don’t want to talk with your old man about this, but when are you going to get out and meet someone, have some fun.”

  “Dad, I don’t have time with trying to get the boutique up and running. I will get back to having a life sooner or later.” From the look on my dad’s face I knew what was coming, the same talk we’d had after Ray had died.

  “I never hid the fact I never liked Ray, you know that. The only thing he did right was having a life insurance policy set up with you as the beneficiary.”

  “You only met him twice, Dad?”

  “He was twenty years your senior, Ana. In my books he will always be the man who took advantage of one of my girls.” I stayed quiet because I didn’t want to get into this now but he was on a roll. “He was a sleaze, not all men are like that, sweetie. But your mother and I got Lily and for her that is the only thing I can’t be mad at him for.”

  “You were at first.” I looked at him and raised my eyebrows.

  “Fine, I wanted to cut his balls off. I’m just glad you were smart enough not to marry him.”

  “Okay, enough about Ray. He died a horrible death and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. But I told you before, I didn’t marry him because I didn’t love him. We’d only been seeing each other every once in a while. And I know you are my dad and probably don’t want to hear this. However, you are also the father that growing up made it that Grabby and I could talk to you about anything. So going with that, I am going to tell you like I told Mom, it was sex, that was all. I broke it off after three months because I caught him out with another woman. I can’t use the word unfortunate when I talk about knowing him because of Lily, but after the breakup was when I found out I was pregnant. I only told him because he was the father and had a right to know. Six months later, several proposals later, which I turned down, and he was dead. That I feel bad about. Nothing else. When his attorney found me and told me Ray left an insurance policy, along with a trust for his unborn child, I was shocked. So I may not have loved him, and he may have been a player, but he did right by his child in the end and I will always be thankful for that.” My dad wrapped me in his arms and hugged me tight, then kissed the top of my head and let me go.

  “You’re right. No more bashing the dead.” I cringed at his words but that was my dad. “Love you, Ana. Your mother, you, Gabby, and now Lily, mean the world to me.” I could feel the tears forming in my eyes.

  “Dad, I love you too.”

  “Gonna take a helluva man to be good enough for you and my granddaughter.” I knew he was serious but I laughed.

  “Who, a cop?” His eyes squinted. It was an ongoing joke of sorts with him and my mom since Gabby and I were little.

  “Please, nothing is better than a fireman. You don’t see your mother married to a cop do you. Nope, none of those flat foots caught her eye. Can’t go wrong with a fireman, Ana. We do know how to stoke a fire and bring the heat.” I slapped my hand over my face and started laughing.

  “Really, you couldn’t just leave it at fireman.” He laughed too.

  “Come on, sweetie, let’s get this stuff unpacked so we can head home. I’m missing my other girls. Plus, I’m hungry and Dana should have dinner ready.”

  “Dad, why didn’t you just say you were hungry?” He smirked and I imagined the look I was witnessing was what hooked my mom, it was one of pure mischief.

  “Because I’m hoping you will tell your mother about the sweet thing I said and maybe your old man will get lucky.” His deep laughter when I dropped the panties to cover my ears made me smile.

  “Oh my God, how has Mom put up with you for so long.”

  “She likes the heat.” I shook my head.

  “No wonder Gabby and I are nowhere close to normal,” I picked the panties up and began placing them on the display and my dad started to help.

  “‘Cause normal is overrated and not as much fun.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. You know what, Dad, this can wait until morning. Let’s go see your other girls.”

  “That a girl!”

  It didn’t take us long and we had the lights out, doors locked, and were on our way home. I felt lighter than I had in months. Maybe my dad was right and it was time to jump back into life.

  Chapter Two

  Kian

  Locked in an SUV for twelve hours and fifty-two minutes with my parents and aunt and uncle was all that was needed to drive a person insane. That didn’t include the stops along the way for: food, bathroom breaks, more food. Which was why the trip to Bronx, New York, had taken two days and the trip back to Chicago, Illinois, had taken the same. It was why I had previously suggested we fly and then rent a car when the plans were being made to attend our cousins’ weddings. But oh no, a road trip would be so much more fun my parents said. Fun for who was what I was still trying to figure out.

  Never. Again. I glanced over to the passenger seat where my sister, Fiona, sat with her head back and her eyes closed. Sleeping my ass. And really, did she honestly think that was going to stop the torture.

  “I don’t know why you are in such a hurry to get home, Kian,” my mother, Serena, said as she sat in the second row with my dad, Ronan, while Aunt Milana and Uncle Sal sat in the third row.

  “Ma, we are only forty-five minutes away from home, so does it really matter now?” I focused on the road and calculated in my head if I kicked the speedometer up five or six more miles per hour, how much of that forty-five minutes could I cut off?

  “Boy, don’t use that tone on your mother.” I rolled my eyes because Ronan O’Malley, my dad, always stepped in when any of his children, which consisted of four boys, including me, and one girl, Fiona, talked back to our mother. I looked in the rearview mirror and smiled when my dad pulled my mother closer and kissed her forehead. No one could argue with the fact he loved my mother with everything he had in him. God knows we’d been subjected to the displays over the years to the point we’d joked about the therapy bills we were going to incur as we got older.

  “Sorry, Ma.”

  “It’s okay, Kian. I know you are tired from all the driving and when we get back you have to go back on shift tomorrow. A shame the others had to work and couldn’t make the wedding.”

  I waited for her to continue, ‘cause I knew what was to come.

  “But that’s okay too, between Milana and I, we took loads of pictures to show them at next Sunday’s dinner.” And right there was what was going to make that Sunday’s dinner worth it. The rest of my brothers and my cousins weren’t able to make the trip due to their jobs, but I knew come that Sunday...anything Fiona and I endured would be shared.

  “I’m still shocked at how, in such a short time, most of t
he children have found that special one...or two in some cases.” Aunt Milana chuckled.

  “Woman, I don’t know why you laugh every time you say that. Your and Olivia’s uncles, if I recall, where in one of those man-age a twats,” my uncle Sal said, which started the discussion that had been going on the entire trip home.

  “Huh?” my dad said and I was wondering if I could go any faster.

  “You know, the three-way thingy. Man-age a twats,” my uncle said again, butchering the words. I was so not going to correct him.

  “I don’t think that is how it is pronounced,” my dad said.

  “Well you know what I mean,” my uncle said impatiently. “In the old days we called it a devil’s three way.”

  “Son, you ever been in one of those?” my dad asked then an “Ouch” followed.

  “Why would you ask that, Ronan?” my mother’s voice carried a shocked tone.

  “Probably because I wanted to know, Serena?” Dad replied.

  “Hey, I would like to know too. Do you know if my boys have, Kian?” Uncle Sal couldn’t let it go without adding to the awkwardness.

  “Sal, do you think they have?” Aunt Milana asked.

  “I don’t know, Milana, it’s why I asked Kian. Kian?”

  To answer, or not to answer. Two days’ drive to the Bronx. Two days in the Bronx. Two days back to Chicago. Six days of hell. I smiled inwardly, it would be so easy to let the bastards feel the pain Fiona and I have felt.

  “Sorry, folks, not something I keep up with.”

  “Well, I will say this, the women had smiles on their faces, so it can’t be that bad.” As my mother continued, I again wondered who this trip in the car was to be fun for. “Not that I would want to have to take care of two men. God knows you are enough, Ronan.” Shit, all joking aside, I was surprised that we didn’t have therapy bills.

  “I agree, Serena, Sal is a handful on his own,” Aunt Milana added.

  “Ah, sweetheart, I’m more than a handful,” Uncle Sal answered while I worked to get them off that subject.

  “Wasn’t that something about Aunt Sonia and Uncle Anthony adopting the grown woman?” In times of need, you do what you gotta do.

  “Oh, please, Sonia is the middle child, she has always been competitive. Between Maria hooking up with the cop who already has a son, and then adopting Bob, giving her another grandbaby, it put her even with Olivia, Reilly, and Madeline, plus she has the oldest.” My mom, Serena, was Sonia Roark’s younger sister while my uncle Salvatore Russo was her older brother. Our family dynamics confused everyone at first. My dad, Ronan, was my uncle Reilly’s twin. And to top it all off, Aunt Milana was Olivia O’Malley’s younger sister. What it all boiled down to, the Bronx’s O’Malleys and Roarks where the Chicago O’Malleys’ cousins, which was my family, and the Russo’s cousins too, making us double cousins.

  “Reilly and Anthony Sr. are in heaven with the grandkids they are getting. They had to take us to their shops and show us their charts,” my dad said and I didn’t have to see them to know my mom patted his leg, it was what she always did when he showed any sign of getting upset. But at least I’d gotten their focus off the ménages and innuendos.

  “Oh, Ronan, your children will settle down soon and you’ll catch up with Reilly and be able to have your own lineup,” my mother said and my dad “hmphed” and I ran my hand down my face and stayed quiet.

  “Not if the boys don’t find themselves steady women, I won’t. They’ve done their share of practicing on how children are made, now it is time actually use that expertise. We aren’t getting any younger. Kian, you and your brothers need to quit chasing skirts and catch one. Your mother needs babes to look after.” I was not inclined in the least to remind him it was he who said he wasn’t getting any grandkids and now he blamed it on my mother.

  “Your cousins need to get on the stick too. It is not written anywhere that you have to sample all of the available product in Chicago before settling down. You boys could leave a few women for the other single men,” Uncle Sal said and the other parents agreed.

  It probably wasn’t a good time to bring up that we liked sampling, nor a good idea to say I had no plans of getting hitched or contributing to the grandparents’ ‘carrying on the family line gene pool’. At least not anytime soon.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Fiona bite her lip to keep from laughing. But being the loving older brother, I had no problem throwing Fiona’s faking ass under the bus.

  “What about Fiona? That Agent Briggs seemed like a really nice man. Mom, you seemed to like him.” I glanced over and Fiona was wide-eyed and giving me the death stare. I smirked and she sneered.

  “Oh, he was and how wonderful it is that he is being transferred to Chicago.” I smiled at my mother’s words.

  “Seemed nice to me too, Serena. Then anything would beat the losers she seems to pick.” I felt the heat from Fiona’s glare after our dad put his two cents in and it made me smile wider.

  “I think you have him confused with someone else at the wedding. I don’t remember him being the least bit nice, and by the way, it is ménage à trios,” Fiona gritted out.

  “Oh, honey, how did you miss the way the young man looked at you? And how do you know that word, young lady?”

  “Yeah, Fiona? How’d ya miss that? And where did you hear that word at?” Best brother award was all mine.

  “Fi, if Falon can find someone to put up with him, surely there’s a man out there for you, ONE man I might add,” Aunt Milana piped in and I wanted to laugh out loud.

  Fiona’s hand moved toward me and before I figured out what she was going to do, she pinched the skin on my side and twisted. I grimaced, it hurt like a mother but no way was I drawing attention back to me.

  I glanced at the clock on the dash, glanced up to see the sign for my exit with ten miles left, and a peace ran through me. I was going to make it. Twenty minutes max, and I would deliver everyone to their doors and be headed to my own. My own peaceful and single life righted.

  As a fireman, containing and putting out fires was my job, if that experience helped me deal with the family, all the better.

  After I dropped everyone off and pulled up in front of my home, I ignored the voice in the back of mind saying, When does anything dealing with the O’Malley’s or the Russo’s ever go smoothly.

  I couldn’t argue, I could only make sure it wasn’t me who got burnt.

  Chapter Three

  Ana

  I was exhausted, and still I needed to stop at the grocery store for my mom and grab some stuff for not only Lily but also for my parents. I had finally gotten them to agree to allow me to at least buy some food. Since the fire and until my apartment was fixed, I was staying with them, and I refused to be a burden.

  I pulled into a space and then sighed and got out of the car and smiled to Lily who was in the back clapping her hands, and singing to some song she had apparently learned recently from my dad, which I could have sworn was a bar song, but I couldn’t prove it. I opened up her door and reached for her.

  “Hey, sweet girl. Let’s go and get some food shall we. Then we can go home and kick our feet up, maybe take a bath and relax a little.”

  Lily smiled and hit my face as she babbled incoherently. While I walked into the store, I thought about everything I needed to get. So when I walked into a solid form I stumbled back and barely caught myself and Lily from falling backwards.

  “Shit,” I heard a deep voice say and I froze, I knew that voice. I had been dreaming about that voice for weeks, hoping to run into the lieutenant another time. Hell, I had even asked my father about him, which trust me, was completely embarrassing.

  “I am so sorry,” I whispered, looked up into his gorgeous green eyes. Shit, he was just a sexy as he had been that night. He was in his uniform carrying a bag of groceries while a group of firemen all laughed and walked by.

  “Hell no, I’m sorry, hey, guys, I will be there in a sec,” the large sexy man said and I smiled at him w
hen he looked down and continued, “Who is this?”

  “Lily, she is the reason I wasn’t in my apartment that night. My parents wanted to spend time with her, so I dropped her off and stayed for a while and ended up falling asleep on their couch, when I woke up I headed home. Their place is still where we’re staying for another few weeks, then our apartment will be done,” I said shyly.

  Lieutenant nodded. “Important reason. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were married.”

  I laughed. “I’m not married. Sorry, long story, but suffice it to say, I am single.”

  “Oh,” the man said and then added, “my name is Kian by the way. Kian O’Malley. No use calling me Lieutenant all the time, it is a pain.”

  Kian, I thought with a grin and then grabbed a cart and put Lily in the seat. “Well, you already know my name, and we had better get to shopping or little miss crabby pants is gonna get upset when she isn’t fed on time. I assume you are on duty, so I won’t keep you.”

  He nodded and then said, “Well, good to see you again, Ana. I’m glad you’re getting back into your place soon.”

  I smiled and then pushed the cart through the doors smiling down a Lily while waving at Kian as he walked away. If only, I thought and sighed and then began shopping.

  Going to be late, dammit. I really didn’t need this right now. It was bad enough I currently had spit up on my shirt. Poor Lily wasn’t feeling well at all. She had been teething, which made her crabby, so crabby she cried until she made herself sick. I hated that she was uncomfortable, and I had to leave her, but it was the last inspection before opening.

  I ran across the street ignoring the look on the Fire Inspector’s face as she paced in front of the shop. Crap, not making a good first impression was I.