Chapter Two
Cait stood in front of the small, shabby cape with dirty blue vinyl siding she was once again calling home, trying to brace herself before she went in.
She’d only lived in the house for a few years, between her mom marrying Duke—whose real name was John, which had inexplicably led to John Wayne jokes and the nickname back when he was a child—and moving into a shitty apartment with two broke friends as soon as she graduated from high school. She’d worked hard and eventually moved into a much smaller apartment with a similar level of shittiness, but without the roommates she’d come to like less than she had before living with them.
Then, almost eight months ago, Duke had a heart attack and he didn’t make it. Her mom and her sixteen-year-old half-brother, Carter, hadn’t handled it well. Her older sister, Michelle, was in Texas with her Air Force husband and had her hands full with a toddler. Cait had given all the help she could from arm’s length, but she’d eventually had to come to grips with the fact her mom wasn’t coping with being widowed a second time. It was a scared phone call from her brother that had been the final straw. Since she’d already been looking to lease or buy a less-shitty-than-her-apartment condo, she let her place go and temporarily moved back in with her mother.
Now it was six months later and it wasn’t going well.
But it was too cold to stand outside all night, wishing she was someplace else. A nightclub with friends, dancing and drinking and checking out the hot guys would be nice. Or maybe she’d finally get around to stopping by Kincaid’s Pub, which was supposed to have damned good food and was a favorite of the local firefighters. It was owned by a retired firefighter from Gavin Boudreau’s house, actually, and the owner’s son and son-in-law were on the same crew, too.
And she’d managed to circle right back around to the one guy she was trying not to think about anymore today. With an aggravated sigh, she walked into the house and almost ran into her brother, who was crossing the kitchen to the fridge. Carter’s hair, as dark as her own, needed cutting again and one more thing got added to her to-do list before she even got her shoes off.
“How was your day?” she asked him as he sidestepped around her.
“Fine.” He didn’t stop walking or look up from his phone. The only indication he gave that he’d even heard her was the one word spoken in a flat tone.
On another day, she might have pushed him—forced him to put the phone down and have a conversation with her—but she was tired and not in the mood to get in a war of words with another guy today. Especially since she was already starting to feel guilty about the earlier exchange with Gavin. Whether he pushed her buttons or not, she shouldn’t have taken her bad mood out on him.
Carter rummaged in the fridge for a few seconds before heading to the living room with a drink and his phone.
Her mom was at the counter, where she usually was when Cait came home. Every day, after her workday as a bank teller ended, Patty changed into one of Duke’s old sweatshirts over leggings. “Hi, honey. I wasn’t sure when you’d be home, so I didn’t start dinner yet. It won’t take long, though.”
Cait had sent her a text message when she left the garage, but her mom rarely had her cell phone with her in the house. It was probably at the bottom of her purse, which was hung on the hook under her mom’s heavy winter coat, chiming out reminders nobody could hear.
“I’ll help,” she said, but she wasn’t surprised when her mom shook her head and told her to go relax.
Patty had always enjoyed cooking and they’d often worked side by side in the kitchen but, since Duke’s death, she’d become adamant about doing it herself. Cait had figured out a long time ago that it was one of the few aspects of being the sole head of the household that Patty felt confident about—feeding her children was something she could handle—so she didn’t argue with her.
Instead, she turned her attention to one of the household chores her mother definitely didn’t handle well, which was dealing with the pile of mail tossed on the kitchen island.
And, oh, joy, it was credit card statement time again. One of the first fires Cait had to put out when she moved back in was stopping the auto-payments to the credit card company from Duke’s savings account. The automatic withdrawals meant the statements could go unopened, to deal with another day. Her mother probably would have let it go on forever if Cait hadn’t gotten pushy about her financial situation. Now, every month, Cait looked over every item on the statement, watching for problems and trying to keep a rein on the retail therapy habit her mom had developed. It was a double whammy because she got the retail therapy by buying things for Carter he didn’t need—or deserve—just to make him happy for about two and a half minutes.
“Mom, we need to talk about this gym membership.” Again. “Neither you or Carter have used it a single time since the last time we talked about it.”
“I told you it was Duke’s. He liked to go alone, and I think he went more to hang out with his friends than to work out. I won’t use it, but it just keeps renewing itself.”
So it was basically just setting forty of her mother’s dollars on fire every month. “It needs to be canceled.”
“I tried once. The gym has a website, but I didn’t have the information to sign into his account. And I told you last time you asked that I’ve been meaning to ask Carter if he’d be interested in it, but I keep forgetting. I’ll ask him.”
Cait took a long drink of her coffee to drown the words she wanted to say to her mother. If Carter had any interest in going to the gym, he probably would have gone with his dad. He wasn’t likely to be more interested now that his dad was gone. But she could tell by the way her mother ducked her head and lifted her shoulders a little that she wasn’t feeling very strong at the moment, and Cait knew pushing the issue now would only end in her mother’s tears and her own increasing frustration. Especially if they had to go through the grueling process of trying to guess the answers to her stepfather’s security questions. That hadn’t been fun and the only saving grace was that Duke seemed to reuse the same few passwords on a lot of sites.
Instead, she reached for the notebook that was never far from her laptop—which pretty much lived on the island with the mail since she rarely used it—and opened it to the page where she kept the list of credit card transactions that required further action. After writing down the company name and all the details, she finished scanning the statement and was relieved she didn’t find anything else amiss.
Then she flipped to the most recent page in her never-ending to-do list and added nag Carter about stopping at the barber shop after school. That was a hard one because one Saturday morning of every month, Duke and Carter would go out to breakfast and then spend a couple of hours at the barber’s, getting their hair trimmed and engaging in the male version of salon gossip. While most of Carter’s acting out got on her nerves, since much of it was aimed at getting one over on their mother, she knew this one really hurt him.
“They’re saying we might get snow later this week,” her mother said as she snapped spaghetti in half and dropped it into the pot of boiling water. “We should hire somebody to shovel the driveway and the walk. One of the kids in the neighborhood, maybe.”
“We are not hiring a teenager to shovel snow, Mom. You have one sitting in the living room.”
“It’s a lot for one boy. And you know he’s behind on his homework. He needs to spend that time catching up.”
“It’s not too much for him. He just doesn’t want to do it because nobody wants to shovel snow, and you need to stop babying him. He can shovel the snow and then do his homework.”
“I know you think I baby him, Cait, but you’re too hard on him.”
With a weary sigh, Cait closed the notebook. Then she shut her eyes and breathed deeply for a moment, wondering what her life would be like if Duke hadn’t died. She’d never been much of a party girl, but she’d gone out with friends. She’d even started dating again, after her last long-term relationship had gone stale.
But now, after an exhausting day at work, there was an exhausting evening with her mother and brother ahead of her. And the distance to her old neighborhood, where her friends and favorite stomping grounds were, was just far enough to require an effort she didn’t have the energy for.
It made her feel old and tired, and the memory of Gavin’s carefree laugh popped into her head. She could picture that boyish grin and that damn cowlick, so she opened her eyes. Thinking about him again wouldn’t do anything but make her feel restless, and it was a restlessness she couldn’t do a damn thing about.
She was willing to bet Gavin knew how to show a girl a good time, and—damn—she really needed a good time in her life.
But trying to date, even casually, while she was stressed out by her family would probably only lead to more complications and her plate was full of those. She’d be better off getting her mom back on her own two feet, finding herself her own place and then finding a guy who was actually her type.
It made a lot more sense than being frustrated by her inexplicable attraction to a guy who was very much not her type, and—as her mother often pointed out—Cait was always the sensible one in the family.
* * *
Gavin wasn’t really in the mood to shoot pool, but they’d all come up with the plan to meet up at Kincaid’s Pub while they were standing out on the sidewalk after the surprise childbirth incident yesterday, so he showed up. A night with the guys would probably beat sitting on his couch, watching TV alone. And even if it didn’t, he could use the distraction.
He wanted Cait Tasker out of his head.
There were zero good reasons why the opinion of one cranky EMT should not only matter to him, but matter enough to still be pissing him off over twenty-four hours later.
But it was, like a tiny sliver just far enough under the skin so he couldn’t dig it out.
“You want in?”
Gavin looked at Aidan Hunt, who was holding a pool cue out to him, and then shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”
He much preferred leaning against the wall, nursing his beer and his grudge against the sexy EMT with the big attitude problem.
The bar had a full house tonight but the crews from Gavin’s house had pretty much taken over the pool alcove. None of the other regulars complained, though. The owner, Tommy Kincaid, and his best friend and fellow bar stool hog, Fitz Fitzgibbon, were retired Engine 59 and Ladder 37 respectively, so complaining about the firefighters to the management didn’t do anybody any good.
And the bartenders didn’t care, either. Lydia was married to Aidan Hunt and Ashley was married to Danny Walsh. And both were Tommy’s daughters and Scott’s sisters. It was a family bar and a firefighters’ bar at the same time, and Gavin was part of that extended family.
Neither Jeff Porter nor Chris Eriksson were there tonight. Both were family men with kids and, while they occasionally showed up, they weren’t big drinkers, either. Aidan would be in and out on any given night if his wife was working. And Ashley only worked the busiest nights because she was taking some online classes and because her and Danny’s world had completely changed when their son started walking.
Jackson Kincaid Walsh might have his daddy’s last name, but he was pure Kincaid. Stubborn, opinionated, hot-tempered and with enough energy to wear out his dad’s entire crew during visits to the firehouse with his mom. Gavin thought he was one of the most awesome kids he’d ever met, but he might feel differently if he didn’t get to give him back to his parents when he was exhausted, which usually took less than five minutes.
“Come on, Boudreau,” Grant called to him from the other end of the pool table. “You gotta stop sulking because the pretty EMT was mean to you.”
Gavin flipped him off.
“It could have been worse,” Grant continued. “She didn’t push you down the stairs.”
That got a laugh out of him. He’d heard stories about the day Cait Tasker pushed Joe Grassano down a flight of stairs and, though he knew they were 90 percent bullshit, Gavin let himself imagine her cackling as Joe tumbled.
“Seriously, kid,” Aidan said, and Gavin tried not to bristle. Aidan and Scott always called him and Grant kid even though there wasn’t that much difference in their ages. Usually he took it in stride, because the other guys kind of were like the big brothers he didn’t have, but he wasn’t in the mood. “Is there something else between you and Tasker? It’s not like you not to get along with somebody. Especially when that somebody’s a woman.”
“I don’t know why she doesn’t like me. And Grant already asked me if I hooked up with her and the answer is no. Nor have I hooked up with any sisters or best friends or anybody else that I know of.” He took another swig of his beer. “She’s not even my type.”
“You have a type?”
“You guys are really a barrel of fucking laughs lately.”
Aidan laughed. “Somebody has to pick up the slack while you’re sulking.”
He wasn’t sulking, dammit. He was...brooding. “Whatever.”
“You guys hardly ever cross paths and, when you do, it’s on the job and you’ve got other things to focus on.” Aidan took a sip of his beer and then shrugged. “I don’t know why you’re letting it get to you, anyway. Who cares what she thinks?”
Gavin shrugged because he knew Aidan was right. He would only go in circles because he knew her opinion of him shouldn’t matter, but it did and he couldn’t explain why.
The best thing he could do if he saw Cait Tasker coming was cross the street.