More Than A Feeling (The Boston Five Series #3)

by Poppy J. Anderson

  He slowly crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared at the spot where she’d stood only a few moments earlier, munching on her apple. Kayleigh Fitzpatrick came from a loving family and seemed to be a genuinely decent person. She was also a doctor. He, on the other hand, had screwed up, wasted seven years of his life behind bars, and would maybe get back on track with lots of hard work and even more good luck—but he was still miles away from fulfilling his dreams.

  Well, God really did seem to be having a few laughs at his expense, putting a woman who was far too good for him right in front of his nose.

  Chapter 6

  “You didn’t have to take a day off because of me, Thorne.”

  “Of course not,” his sister replied, giving him a little shove as he stood next to her in the spacious kitchen of her new house, helping her prepare a large salad. “My brother comes home after six months in Canada, so I’m definitely going into the office to spend the day sorting files instead of listening to his stories. Really, Aidan!”

  He looked down at her, feeling awkward, but she winked at him, looking extremely satisfied. “But you’ll probably have to take a few days off for the wedding and all that, too.”

  “So?” She uttered a contented sigh and rested her head on his arm for a brief moment. “I’m so glad you’re here, Aidan. I wouldn’t have wanted to get married without you there.”

  He tried to sound as if he were joking as he asked suspiciously, “Are things so bad with the cop that you need my support?”

  “Don’t call him that,” she chided and then shoved him again. “It’s not that I need your support, but this wedding means a lot to me, and I want to have my family there.”

  He couldn’t help feeling bitter as she called him her family, because he knew she’d found a real family, a functional family. Last night he’d noticed the absolute harmony between Thorne, Shane, and his siblings. It had been obvious how well they all got along, notwithstanding the banter and bickering. It was purely playful. Thorne had told him before that Shane had a wonderful mother and four siblings who were all very close to him. They seemed to live in the same neighborhood and spend a lot of time together.

  Thorne and Aidan had never had anything like that.

  After the death of both parents, they’d still had each other, but the seven intervening years—during which they’d only seen each other a few times a year during his brief visiting hours—was a long time. It weighed heavily on his conscience that he hadn’t been able to be there for his little sister.

  “It makes me very happy that you agreed to be our best man, Aidan.”

  “Mm,” he replied lamely, tearing lettuce into small strips and throwing them into the bowl. He finally plucked up enough courage to say, “Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that. Do you really think it’s a good idea to make me the best man?”

  When he saw her distraught expression, he immediately regretted mentioning it. “Thorne—”

  “Of course it’s a good idea,” she snapped. “I thought you and Shane buried the hatchet. If you don’t want to be our best man because of him—”

  “It’s not about Shane,” he interrupted her calmly and placed a hand on her shoulder, lowering his own head and slapping a joyless smile onto his face.

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “Your future husband is a cop,” he explained, feeling clumsy. “And from what I’ve seen, you’re marrying into a whole family of cops. Some of the guests might find it strange to see your criminal brother standing next to you.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “Aidan, could you please stop calling yourself a criminal?”

  He clicked his tongue. “But that’s what I am.”

  His sister seemed determined to erase the word from his vocabulary. “You are not a criminal, Aidan O’Shea, you just did a few things that were wrong several years ago and you paid a price that was far too high. You’ve been rehabilitated, and that is all in the past.”

  But the issue was eating away at him. “In the eyes of most people I’m still a criminal and a convict,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant about it, “and I can understand them, considering I spent almost seven years in jail.”

  There was fire in her blue eyes. Her blue eyes so much like his. “We both know your sentence was far too long! You didn’t even have a record, they could have let you go on probation. The entire hearing was a farce, Aidan. Don’t embrace that verdict.”

  Nothing she could say could change the fact that he’d spent many years of his adult life in jail, thus missing a lot of things that could never be retrieved or made up for. It wasn’t easy to start over at the age of thirty-two. Because of his lack of funds, he never finished college, and all he had was the training he’d gotten in prison—as a welder. Luckily the company that recruited workers for the Canadian oil conglomerate didn’t care where he’d gotten his vocational training. His work on the rig had at least put some seed money into his pocket, or rather, into his account.

  Still, it was an awful feeling to look back on seven wasted years and not have a home or a job—or a family, for that matter.

  All he really had was Thorne. And Brady. And they didn’t even need him.

  “Let’s forget it,” he said gently, hoping to divert Thorne from his problems.

  “If you don’t want to be my best man, I’m not going to marry Shane,” she threatened, proving she was at least as pigheaded as him, or as their mother had been.

  “Don’t use me as an excuse if you don’t want to marry your cop.”

  “Aidan,” she reprimanded once again, then put down the dangerous-looking knife she’d used to cut the vegetables. “The cop has a name.”

  “I know.” He couldn’t help himself, he had to grin. “But since Brady could step through this door any moment, I think it’s better not to use that name.”

  “Brady is totally besotted with Shane. And vice versa,” Thorne said softly and looked up at him with a pleading expression. “Seriously, Aidan. They’re like two peas in a pod. Could you please try to like my future husband?”

  He swallowed hard and wrinkled his nose. Then he looked back into his sister’s eyes with great earnestness. “Does he make you happy, Peanut?”

  Her expression softened. “You haven’t called me Peanut since I was fourteen years old, Aidan.”

  “Thorne,” he replied tensely. “Does he make you happy? Because if he doesn’t, I swear I’ll—”

  “Jesus, Aidan,” she whispered, and immediately her eyes grew misty. “I am absolutely happy with Shane. He … he’s amazing. I really love him.”

  It was a relief to hear her say it, but the deeply ingrained suspicion against the man who’d fooled his sister seven years ago, and then abandoned her, would not die so easily. “If anything goes wrong, you have to tell me.”

  She gave him a reassuring smile, glanced over his shoulder to make sure Brady wasn’t spying on them, and then whispered excitedly, “Everything is wonderful, Aidan. Really. And to prove it, I’m going to tell you a secret that we haven’t told anyone else yet.” Her eyes sparkled with happiness. “Shane and I are having another baby.”

  “Oh.” He blinked in surprise and automatically looked to her belly, which elicited a burst of laughter from his sister.

  “You can’t see it, Aidan. It’s far too early for that.” She linked arms with him and placed a hand on his chest. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m doing fine. I’m actually doing amazingly fine, and I’m really very, very happy.”

  Aidan exhaled, and his mouth twisted into a half smile. “That makes me happy, Peanut. And if it hadn’t been the case, I would have beaten up the cop with the unspeakable name.”

  Thorne rolled her eyes and tapped her finger against his chin. “Be good, Aidan. I’m getting married soon, and I would be a happy bride if you could call Shane by his first name at the wedding, instead of ‘the cop.’”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Aidan lowered his voice and stroked his sister’s cheek gently. “Cong
ratulations on the new baby, Thorne. I’m happy for you guys.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, sounding as if she might burst into tears any moment. “To hear that from your mouth means so much to me …”

  He waited a moment before joking, “I might think what I want about your intended, but Brady is an impressive product of his loins. I gotta give that to him.”

  He was glad to see the tearful mood had passed, for his sister snorted scornfully. “Maybe I had a tiny part in the way Brady turned out as well?”

  “Absolutely,” he agreed. “Speaking of Brady … Does he know he’s going to have a little sister or brother in a few months?”

  She shook her head and then brushed a strand of black hair away from her forehead. “You’re the first one to know. Well, except for Kayleigh.” Thorne made a face. “She guessed it when Shane started behaving in an exaggeratedly caring fashion. But since Kayleigh is Kayleigh, I know she won’t say anything.”

  Aidan didn’t want to show his curiosity, so he went for indifference. “Sounds like you’re getting along fine.”

  “You mean Kayleigh and me?” Thorne nodded and pulled away from him to adjust the heat of the stove. “To be honest, I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t get along with Kayleigh. She has a very big mouth and sometimes a rather irreverent sense of humor, but I know few people as easygoing and helpful as she is.” She winked at him over her shoulder. “She offered you a guest room, too, after all.”

  He shook his head with a groan. “She didn’t actually offer it. She was practically forced by her brother to take me in. Seriously, Thorne, I could have gotten a hotel room.”

  “But why?” She grabbed a wooden spoon and began stirring the tomato sauce she’d put on the stove an hour ago, when he’d appeared on her doorstep and asked if he could spend a little time with his sister. “I think it’s awesome. This way, you live right around the corner from me …”

  “I’m not living there,” Aidan corrected her. “I’m already looking for an apartment, and I’ll only stay at her place a few nights. I don’t want to get on her nerves.”

  “Oh, but you wouldn’t. Kayleigh is really easy to be with. I think you could feel right at home over at her place. She likes to watch sports, eats a lot of meat, there’s always cold beer in her fridge, and she doesn’t nag about dragging dirt into the house. Shane keeps saying Kayleigh must be any real man’s dream girl.”

  “Then why doesn’t she have a boyfriend?” Aidan asked with a frown. “I mean … does she have a boyfriend?”

  Thorne chuckled at his presumption. “If she had a boyfriend, he probably wouldn’t be thrilled to find you sleeping under her roof.” She shook her head. “No, she doesn’t have anyone, though I honestly don’t know why that is.”

  Aidan didn’t answer and noticed mere seconds later that Thorne was studying him with her head cocked to one side. “Are you into her?”

  “Me?” He acted surprised and tapped his forehead to indicate Thorne must be crazy. “Oh, sure. Disregarding the fact that I have a thousand other things on my mind and am not in the mood to start a relationship right now, I’m really the kind of man every woman is looking for. Who doesn’t want a guy who hasn’t had a date in seven years and can’t remember how to compliment a woman, or flirt with her?”

  His pragmatic sister made a face at him. “Hey, try to see the bright side of it!” she said with a giggle. “If you find a nice woman, you can tell her with all honesty that she’s the first woman in seven years to mean anything to you. And you won’t even be lying!”

  “Thanks for the pointer,” he croaked. She slapped him playfully with a kitchen towel. “All right, I’ll remember that.”

  She was still giggling when she raised her forefinger, obviously having another genius idea. “If you don’t fancy Kayleigh, you could ask her if she has a nice coworker to set you up with.”

  Aidan was silent, though he was aware that his sister was waiting for a reply. He simply couldn’t do her the favor, so he pointed at the pot on the stove instead. “Watch out or the sauce will bubble over.”

  ***

  Even though Aidan had been living in her house the last four days, Kayleigh rarely caught a glimpse of him. For one, she had to work several murderous twenty-hour shifts, but for another, he seemed to make himself scarce or clear out as soon as she got home.

  When Aidan O’Shea had moved into her guest room, Kayleigh had expected the worst. She had grown up with four brothers who left their things all over the house and made a mess wherever they went. Now, she had to admit that Aidan’s presence was barely noticeable—apart from the miraculous repairs. The slanted shelf in the basement, the missing bar in the railing, and the leaking showerhead: They had all been righted, filled, exchanged for a working counterpart. So far, Aidan seemed to be the model roommate, especially when she remembered the awful time she’d had sharing a dorm with another girl in college, or, later, the staff quarters with several coworkers, male and female, during her intern year.

  Aidan never left dishes unwashed, always filled the refrigerator when something was missing, didn’t leave a single dirty sock in the bathroom, and had easily found her washer and dryer, which, in her experience, was something most men never did. Utterly perplexed and even a little horrified, Kayleigh had chanced upon a neatly folded pile of his washed and dried laundry in the basement yesterday, and next to that, two piles of her laundry, just as neatly folded. She had simply been dumping her dirty clothes in a hamper next to the washer, not bothering with them, for over a week. And he’d silently taken care of all of it. How embarrassing!

  And the man didn’t even leave the toilet seat up.

  By now, Kayleigh was worried she might have invited an alien in human disguise into her home. Maybe a visitor from outer space had come to earth and borrowed Aidan’s body in order to explore unchallenged. Like that oversized cockroach in the movie with Will Smith. Instead of being concerned that the man in her guest room might attack her in her sleep, clear out her valuables, or discover her cherished collection of baseball cards, she was worried she might be abducted by a spaceship and abused for scientific examinations by aliens.

  There was no other explanation for how neat and tidy, convenient, and commendable her current roommate was.

  Meanwhile, the news had reached her mother. Thorne’s brother was staying at Kayleigh’s house? Ellen could hardly contain her curiosity when her daughter dropped by after her shift, hoping to be fed.

  As Kayleigh sat in her mother’s kitchen watching the news on the small TV there and blissfully biting into a juicy ham sandwich, Ellen Fitzpatrick polished some already shiny surfaces. “Thorne told me her brother is an extraordinarily skillful workman,” she said innocently. “Maybe he can help you put up new wallpaper in your bedroom.”

  Kayleigh was quite adept at smelling dubious attempts at baiting her, so she merely mumbled something unintelligible, munched on her sandwich, and tried to focus on a report on prospective health care reform.

  “I mean, you could really use some help with the renovations, right?” her mom suggested sweetly. “And since Aidan seems to be a nice man, he might be willing to lend you a hand.”

  “Mm.”

  “Really, Kayleigh. Thorne said—”

  “Mom,” she interrupted, swallowing the bite she’d been chewing. “I’m sure whatever Thorne said about her brother is terribly fascinating, but I’d still prefer to eat my sandwich in peace, instead of being harassed with your flimsy attempts at hooking me up.”

  “Hooking you up?” Her mother pretended to be outraged at the suggestion. “Who said anything about that? I merely thought it would be nice if you could make use of the unexpected man in the house. God knows that house needs some attention.”

  Kayleigh struggled to suppress a sarcastic snort. “Mom, he’s my guest. I won’t ask him to wallpaper my house.”

  For the moment, her mom was silent. But it didn’t take her a minute to pipe up again, sounding suspiciously casual. “It wa
s the decent thing to do, of course, letting your future sister-in-law’s brother stay at your house so he wouldn’t need to find a hotel. It’s a shame, the outrageous prices some of them ask these days.”

  Kayleigh gave her a look of mild curiosity. “You are aware,” she said innocently, “of the fact that Aidan served time in jail, aren’t you?”

  “Kayleigh,” her mother said with a reproachful shake of her head. “I didn’t think you, of all people, would mention a thing like that.”

  “Me of all people?” she echoed, puzzled. She lowered her half-eaten sandwich and looked at her mother, who was scrubbing the countertops with obvious indignation. “What are you trying to tell me here?”

  “I always thought you weren’t the kind of person to judge other people by their past mistakes. So I don’t understand why you would bring up his sentence, which, according to Thorne, was far too long to begin with. The way I understand the story, her brother has proven to be a decent person.”

  Kayleigh was all too familiar with the praises her mother bestowed on a man when she wanted to pitch him and his virtues to her only daughter. She usually mentioned that the most recent candidate had a good job, came from a nice family, was fond of children, and went to church on a regular basis. The fact that she was now singing Aidan’s praises, even though she didn’t know him, and even though she knew he’d been in prison, led Kayleigh to believe that her mother was desperate indeed. She was clearly on a serious mission to end her daughter’s unmarried status.

  “Mom, just because Aidan’s living in my guest room right now, doesn’t mean he’s going to be your new son-in-law. The same goes for the nice butcher. He won’t be your new son-in-law, no matter how prettily he cut up the pork chops for you. And neither will the nephew of your friend from bible study. Never mind that he’s new in town and would like to meet women his age.”