Love Around the Corner Read online

  God, how did he do that? One sentence and her knees had turned to liquid and her nipples had gone hard. He wasn’t even there.

  “We don’t,” she said, tucking the phone under her ear so she could use both hands to move the pot of sauce she was heating up to the back burner. “Dad’s at the bar, but Livie and Jess will be home from their afterschool programs in less than an hour.”

  “We can do a lot in an hour, Gem.”

  “Stop!”

  Brendan burst into laughter. “I’m kidding. That’s not why I want to come over. I have something for you. A present.”

  “You got me a present?” The idea set off a little burst of warmth in her heart. There hadn’t been much celebrating around the Romano house since Mom died. Even Christmas had been barely acknowledged.

  “Yes, so can I come by and give it to you?”

  It would be cutting it close. If anybody found him there, she had no good explanation ready. But she couldn’t help it. She needed to see him, touch him, kiss him, even if it was just for a few minutes. “Hurry.”

  Ten minutes later, she was rushing through the house to let him in before any of the neighbors spotted him. But she still paused to glance in the mirror in the entryway to smooth her hair down. She threw open the door, already smiling. It was hard to believe there was anything on earth that could distract her from Brendan, looking so incredibly hot in his white uniform shirt, green and navy repp tie, and dark pants. But there was one thing that could, and he was holding it in his arms.

  “A puppy!”

  As if he knew he was being spoken about, the floppy little brown dog in Brendan’s arms began wiggling with delight, scrambling frantically to get to her. Laughing, she plucked him out of Brendan’s hands and gathered him to her chest. The little guy immediately strained to lick her chin, her cheeks, anything he could reach.

  “He’s so cute! Whose is he?”

  “Yours, if you want him,” Brendan said, grinning as the dog licked her chin.

  “He’s for me?”

  “You and your family. I thought your sisters might like him.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, sounding unsure of himself. Everybody thought Brendan Flaherty was so cool and confident. They overlooked this side of him, so sweet and thoughtful, eager to please. It was her favorite thing about him.

  “Like him? Jess and Livie are going to freak. They need a happy surprise. Brendan, this is so nice. You don’t even know them.”

  He shrugged, suddenly bashful. “I know, but I feel like I do. And I... Well, I mean, I hope I’ll know them soon.”

  Gah. He was just the sweetest. She shifted the puppy in her arms and reached for his hand. “You know I want that, too. There’s just a lot—”

  He held up a hand to silence her. “I get it. It’s okay. Dead dad, remember? Families are complicated.”

  It was the first thing they’d connected over. When she’d gone back to school after Mom’s death, after the time off, after the holidays, it seemed nearly everyone in the school avoided her. It wasn’t their fault. Teenagers weren’t equipped to deal with unexpected deaths, especially of a parent. It wasn’t that they didn’t care. They just didn’t know what to say or do, so they said and did nothing. Still, feeling the crowds in the hallways part like the Red Sea when she passed didn’t make coming back to school any easier. During that first week, when she’d been hiding in the stairwell to eat lunch because she couldn’t take one more sad, sideways glance or whisper in the cafeteria, Brendan had stumbled on her. Instead of skirting around her and avoiding eye contact, he sat down and started talking.

  She’d known who he was, of course. Everybody did. Brendan Flaherty was a senior, smart, popular, well liked...and one of the hottest guys in school. He was on Sacred Heart’s championship soccer team and made the honor roll every semester. Girls wanted to date him, guys wanted to be him, and the nuns who taught school all thought he walked on water.

  Gemma had spoken to him once or twice in passing, but they weren’t really friends. That day, unprompted, he sat down next to her and started telling her all about losing his firefighter father on the job. Not in 9/11, like Gemma’s Uncle Vincent and so many others. Just a run-of-the-mill warehouse fire in Bushwick a few months before 9/11, one that went badly wrong. His dad went to work and by the end of the day, he was gone, leaving Brendan, just twelve, alone to support his grieving mother and his bewildered younger brother. He knew exactly what Gemma was going through.

  Overnight, Brendan became her emotional safe space. While she put on a brave face at home, being strong and getting through it, with Brendan, she could cry. She could get angry. She could be selfish. He understood.

  It hadn’t taken long for their fragile new friendship to turn into a romance. And once it had, it had become nearly all consuming. After she’d stumbled through the previous weeks half dead in a fog of grief, Brendan made her feel intensely, completely alive. He’d healed her heart and, in the process, stolen it completely for himself.

  Gemma buried her face in the puppy’s warm, silky brown fur. “Where’d you get him?”

  “A guy on the soccer team. His dog had puppies. They were up for grabs. You like him?”

  “I love him. And I love you.”

  Grinning, he stepped forward, settling his hands on her hips and drawing her in. When his lips met hers, she melted, so completely in love and in lust with him that she could barely remember her own name. He teased her lips apart, his tongue slipping in to touch hers, and she moaned. His hand slid over her hip, down her thigh, to the hem of her pleated plaid uniform skirt. His long, talented fingers toyed with the hem, tickling the sensitive skin of the back of her thigh.

  “Gem,” he groaned into her ear, and desire twisted through her body like a live wire. That voice of his, the way he said her name, it just wrecked her every time.

  God, she wanted him, too. She wanted his hand sliding up the inside of her thigh. She wanted him to stroke her and tease her until she was shaking and undone.

  The puppy broke the moment, wiggling in her arms, reaching up to lick Brendan’s cheek.

  They reluctantly broke apart. Brendan blew out a breath of pure sexual frustration and raked a hand through his sandy red-blond hair. Gemma felt just as tied in knots.

  He glanced up, meeting her gaze. “Can you get away today?”

  Ugh, it was impossible. Jess and Livie would be home soon, and there was homework to get through and dinner to make. Dad would come home briefly for dinner, but he had to go back to the bar for the evening shift, so she had to stay home with her sisters and get them off to bed. Then there were tomorrow’s lunches to pack, and then her own homework to do. But after all that...maybe. Maybe if last call wasn’t too late, she could sneak out after Dad got home for the night.

  “I’ll try. After last call, if it’s not too late. The backyard.”

  There was a little run-down garden shed in Brendan’s tiny backyard. They’d made use of it so often, Brendan had it practically fully furnished at this point.

  His hand tightened on her hip briefly before he released her.

  “I’m going to have to explain where he came from,” she said, trying to clear her head. As badly as she wanted him, it wasn’t going to happen for hours, if at all.

  “Tell your dad he’s a present from a friend. A special present. And wait until your sisters have seen him first. Once they’re in love with him, he won’t be able to say no.”

  “Guilt. That’ll work. He’ll have to let us keep him if he’s a gift. What’s his name?”

  “He’s your dog. You name him.”

  Gemma held the puppy up under his front legs, looking into his liquid brown eyes. He squirmed in delight, trying to lap at her face. “A special present for Gemma,” she said. “Spudge. What do you think? How about it, Spudge?”

  Spudge wiggled in agreement.

  “Spudge?” Bre
ndan laughed. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Special present for Gemma,” she explained. “S.P.G. Spudge. Every time I say his name, I’ll remember he was a present from you.”

  He grinned, lowering his face to kiss her again. “Then Spudge is perfect, because I never want you to forget.”

  Chapter Five

  She forgot.

  How could she have forgotten where Spudge got his name? She said it every day, without once remembering that moment with Brendan.

  When she looked up at him again, he was still watching her. That moment from fourteen years ago felt like a heavy fog, still clinging to them both in the here and now. “How is Spudge these days?”

  “Tired,” she said, with a little more force than necessary. “He’s getting old.”

  The corner of Brendan’s mouth ticked up, a flicker of a smile. “But he’s hanging in there, huh? Maybe I’ll come visit him soon.”

  Visit him? Like he was going to waltz into her house after all these years and just visit her dog? “Hey—”

  “I’d better go,” Brendan said, cutting her off. And when she would have continued anyway, he stepped forward, suddenly filling up her personal space. And stealing her breath. “It was good to see you again, Gemma.”

  “I—” She had no idea what to say to that. Had tonight been good? Disturbing. Not in the troubling sense. In the sense that all sorts of memories and feelings that were supposed to have long ago been laid to rest had been disturbed. Now she was lost in the stirred-up dust cloud, not sure which way to go to get out. And Brendan standing there close enough to touch wasn’t helping to clear the air.

  He was so tall. She used to love that about him. She’d hit five foot ten by the time she was fourteen. She was used to looking guys in the eye—and forget about heels. But Brendan towered over her. When he’d stood near her like that, he’d made her feel protected, like she was sheltering behind a large, sturdy tree out of the wind. What a ridiculous idea. There had been nothing safe or secure about Brendan.

  This place, this moment—the dark street in front of her house, the hot guy standing inches away—was messing with her head. It sent her tumbling back through time, and she was awash in the emotions of a younger Gemma, full of all sorts of giddy longing. But all that was over, just leftover memories from another time in her life. None of it was real.

  She shook herself and straightened. Time to go inside and clear her head. “I’d better—”

  “Gem?”

  Nobody had ever said her name in that particular tone and timbre. Just the sound of his murmured, deep, throaty “Gem” brought back an avalanche of sense memories, most of them incredibly filthy.

  “Yeah?”

  He dipped his face toward hers and her heart took off at a gallop. He was going to kiss her. Again, she fell back in time, swept away in emotions that she’d long ago left behind. The emotions might be gone, but the memory of them was surprisingly potent. It was the only thing that explained why she stood there, letting him get closer, letting him move in. Grown up, savvy Gemma would have shoved him away—maybe slapped his face for good measure. But grown up Gemma had fled, leaving behind a trembling shadow of her teenage self.

  Every nerve ending in her body tingled with anticipation. Her lips parted, waiting for the pressure of his mouth on hers. He was no more than a breath away, so close she could feel the heat of his body. Then, just as her eyes slid closed, she felt it. But not on her mouth. He left her hanging there in a stunned tangle of lust and confusion as he pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek.

  She blinked, her eyes fluttering open again. Brendan was smiling down into her face, his eyes gentle, his expression soft, an echo of another boy in another time.

  “I’ll see you around the neighborhood, Gem.”

  Then he turned and walked off down the sidewalk.

  Gemma stayed frozen, stunned by what had just happened, one hand gripping the wrought iron fence behind her for support like she’d collapse without it, shaking with reawakened lust, and the bastard had just casually strolled off into the night.

  “Ugh!” Muttering angrily to herself, she stomped up the path through the front garden, and up the steps of the front stoop. “Asshole!” she growled, stabbing her key into the lock and letting herself in. Spudge was there, right inside the door, sitting in a saggy brown heap, his tail thumping on the wooden floor as he gazed up at her in hopeful adoration. He let out a doggy groan of greeting and pressed his graying muzzle against her hand.

  “Yes, he’s back,” she told him. “And no, you traitor, you are absolutely not allowed to have him over to visit!”

  Chapter Six

  As Brendan neared the house he’d grown up in, he could see the work that needed to be done. Flying in once or twice a year for a day to check in hadn’t allowed him to keep an eye on the place, so he paid a guy, someone for his mother to call if there was a leak in the roof or a problem with the plumbing. But big old houses needed constant upkeep, stuff you could only do if you were there full time.

  He sent money, but it was obvious he was going to have to be hands-on if anything was going to get done. He’d need to get someone in to check the roof, the furnace, maybe update the electrical... The list was long enough to have him feeling exhausted before he’d even begun. After so many years of shouldering the responsibility on his own, he should be used to the weight by now.

  It felt strange, to knock on the door of the house he’d grown up in, but he hadn’t lived there in fourteen years. It wasn’t his home anymore, despite the money he’d poured into it. That wasn’t for him, though, that was for his mother.

  “I got it, Mom,” Tim said, approaching the other side of the door. “Hey! It’s my big brother!”

  “It’s Doctor Flaherty!” It was still hard to believe that his little brother was all grown up and saving lives. If he ever started feeling bitter about the hand fate had dealt him, thinking about Tim and all he had and would accomplish was enough to turn that around. Brendan might have made his share of mistakes, but Tim was the one thing he’d gotten right.

  Tim lightly punched his arm. “Nah, cut it out with that stuff. You can just call me Doctor Tim.”

  Brendan laughed, pulling him into a brief, backslapping hug.

  “How’s it going?” Tim asked when they pulled away.

  “Good. Can’t complain.”

  “How is it being back in the old neighborhood?”

  Brendan took a brief look around at the street he’d grown up on, but he wasn’t thinking of the familiar brownstones and storefronts from his childhood. He was thinking about Gemma Romano, glaring at him across the bar last night with those flashing dark eyes, looking somehow a thousand times hotter than she had at sixteen. “It’s been interesting,” he finally said. Interesting and exciting in ways he had never expected.

  “Come on in. Mom’s waiting for you.”

  He’d been home to visit in the intervening years, but something about being back for good made him see the place with new eyes as he followed Tim through the living room and dining room, to the kitchen in the back of the house. It was like time stood still in there. Nothing had changed since he was a kid, with the exception that everything was older, more worn out.

  His mother turned away from the kitchen counter, her face lighting up with a smile when she saw him. “Brendan!” she cried brightly.

  She looked good. There was a time, years ago, when she’d looked far older than her years, her face creased with worry and sadness. But Brendan had worked his ass off to make sure she had nothing to worry about anymore.

  “Hey, Mom.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “How are you doing?”

  Her hands fluttered around her face like little birds. “Oh, I’m fine. You look like you’ve lost weight, Brendan.”

  “No, Mom, I haven’t.” She always thought he’d lost weight. It was the one worry abou
t him she never seemed to shake.

  “Oh, well...” She looked momentarily confused before she shook her head. “I thought we could eat outside since the day is so nice.”

  It was early March, but the day was unseasonably warm, a taste of the spring soon to come. “Sure. Let’s enjoy the warmth while we can, right, Tim?”

  “We just got another foot of snow in Buffalo, so I am all about soaking up a little sunshine.”

  “Just give me a minute to finish up,” she said, turning back to the counter.

  “Can we help with anything?”

  “Oh, no. It’s just sandwiches. Nothing fancy. I just don’t cook all that much anymore.”

  “It’s fine, Mom.” He and Tim exchanged a brief look. When they were kids, his mother’s cooking had been so legendary in the neighborhood that their friends had begged them for invites to dinner. Just one of the many things from their childhood that had been lost when their dad died. In a lot of ways, they’d lost Mom then, too.

  She’d never been the same after Dad died. Losing him the way she had would throw anyone. But what he understood now that he hadn’t when he was a kid was that she just wasn’t someone good at handling her adult life, or any of the problems and catastrophes it could throw at you. While she’d been married, she hadn’t really had to handle anything. Dad had dealt with the bills, maintained the house, made sure the car ran well. Mom raised the kids and spent her days volunteering at school and cooking for her husband’s firehouse buddies.

  Then Dad was gone in an instant, and she hadn’t just lost her husband and the father of her children, she’d had the supports knocked out from under her entire life. She’d been thoroughly unprepared to handle it all herself. Then the hits just kept coming at them, and by the end of it, Claire Flaherty was a shell of herself. If she’d been bad at coping with life before, by the end of their trials, she was utterly incapable of it. Brendan had spent the intervening years doing all that he could to make sure she didn’t have to. It was the least he could do.