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After graduation day, she’d hated him.
That rage and anger had kept her going, made her stronger, gave her the strength to leave town and pursue her dreams. She’d headed to California and attended college in San Francisco, studied hard and graduated with a degree and a burning desire to climb the corporate ladder. Six years later, she was head of human resources at an organic food company. That was where she’d met Carl. He was the managing director of the East Coast division. He was smart and good-looking and recently divorced. They’d had a whirlwind romance. Despite her friends warning her she was his rebound relationship, within a year they’d bought a house, an engagement ring and made plans for the future. But three months later he left, claiming he still had feelings for his ex-wife. The house was sold and she quickly returned the ring.
Broken and hurt, Nicola had learned a valuable lesson—she was never going to be anyone’s rebound girl again.
“Aunt Nicola,” Marco said as they drove back through town, “can we have gelato when we get home?”
She glanced at the clock on the dash. It was seven o’clock, a little late for her nephew’s favorite treat. “Tomorrow,” she promised. “I’ll get Nonno to make your favorite strawberry flavor, okay?”
Despite his declining health, her father still insisted on making the gelato that JoJo’s was famous for. The pizzeria had been in her family for over forty years, since her grandfather had started the place a decade after he’d arrived in Cedar River. Back then, he’d planned on making a fortune mining silver, but instead Guido and Josephine Radici had turned their hands to doing what they did best—cooking the most authentic Italian cuisine this side of the Black Hills. And it was a family business in the truest sense of the word. Her father, Salvatore, had learned the business from his father and continued on alone after her mother’s death a few years earlier. Her late brother Gino had learned from their dad. Although she missed her mother, Nicola was glad her mom hadn’t had to endure Gino’s passing. It was bad enough watching her father slowly deteriorate through his grief at the loss of his beloved son, along with a series of minor strokes. And since her older brother Vince had moved to San Francisco years ago, now there was just her...trying to cobble together some sense of normalcy for Gino’s two sons.
But it wasn’t easy. With Marco’s emotional withdrawal and Johnny’s penchant for getting into trouble, she had her hands full. Both boys grieved in their own way, but it was Marco who really concerned her. He suffered from night terrors and had developed a severe fear of water. Although neither of the boys were with their parents at the time of the accident, the fact they were killed while sailing had profoundly affected Marco, and now he refused to go near water except for a quick shower at bath time. He’d always loved fishing but now resorted to hooking plastic toys from a bucket in the backyard.
Once they were back home, Nicola parked the car, grabbed her tote and ushered the boys from the back seat. The house was where the boys had always lived—Gino and Miranda’s home, which they’d bought when they got married. It was a few minutes out of town, on a wide, tree-lined street, with a swing set in the backyard and a porch out front. After her brother’s death, Nicola had quickly packed up her life in San Francisco and moved in, trying to keep the boys’ normal routine as smooth as possible—soccer on Saturdays, joining a couple of other parents in a carpool for school pick-up twice a week, family night on a Friday with a movie and popcorn in the rooms behind the restaurant. She even did her best to pack the same kind of lunches that their mother had each morning.
Her friend Annie Jamison was a nanny to three children, and she’d counselled Nicola to maintain as much of their old routine as possible to encourage emotional stability in the wake of their grief and loss. So she did. Normality was the key.
Even though, some days, she felt as though every moment was an uphill battle.
And tonight, she discovered about an hour later, was becoming one of those battles.
Johnny wanted to stay up late to play a computer game, and Marco refused to go to bed and was holed up in his room, hiding in the corner of his closet, rejecting her requests to come out even when she relented and offered him the gelato he’d asked for earlier.
“Please come out,” she pleaded, standing by the closet door, knowing she could wrestle him out of the small space, but she didn’t want to upset him any more than he already was.
Yeah...an uphill battle just about covered it.
“No,” he wailed. “You don’t care what happens to me.”
Nicola hung on to patience and remained by the door. “Of course I do. Please, Marco...it’s nearly bedtime. You have to get up for school in the morning.”
“I’m not going back to that stupid school!”
She sucked in a long breath. “Marco, please—”
“Everyone’s hates me. And my hand hurts,” he wailed. “No one is nice to me. Not you. Not Johnny. No one except that doctor.”
Except that doctor.
Nicola’s breath stilled in her chest. Kieran. She tried to ignore the way her pulse started to beat wildly. “Well, he’s not here. He’s at the hospital, and you don’t need to be there now. But I’m here, and I’d really like to talk to you. So, can you come out, and we’ll have some gelato and spend some time together...okay?”
Silence. The deafening kind. She heard movement and thought she’d made progress when he spoke again. “You could call him. Doctors come to people’s houses, too.”
Nicola hung on to her patience and took a deep breath. “I can’t do that.”
She heard him huff. “You never do anything I want. Only what Johnny wants.”
The pain in his voice was unmistakable. The boys had once been close, but over the past few months she’d seen the divide between them become wider.
The guilt landed squarely on her shoulders. She was a lousy parent. And she clearly needed help.
Nicola left the room and headed downstairs. She got to the living room and discovered the overhead light bulb had blown. Great...that’s all I need. She loathed heights and had no intention of bothering her neighbor for a ladder, even though she was sure the elderly man would help if she asked. Besides, her independent streak made her resist asking anyone for assistance. But as she got to the kitchen, filled the kettle and sat down at the table, Nicola admitted that she did need help. Right now.
A minute later she was calling the hospital, feeling foolish through to her bones. He’d probably left for the night, and she hoped he had. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to ask for his help. But within seconds she was connected to the ER, and a moment later she heard his deep voice.
“O’Sullivan,” he said as a greeting.
She clenched the phone and sucked in a sharp breath. “Kieran...”
Silence stretched like brittle elastic, and then he spoke again. “Nicola? Is that you?”
She was shocked that he’d recognized her voice. “I... I...”
“Is everything okay?”
Her belly did a foolish loop-the-loop at the concern in his voice, and then words just blurted out. “Kieran... I need you.”
Chapter Two
Twenty minutes later Kieran was pulling up outside a two-story home on Grove Street.
I need you...
It had been fifteen years since he’d heard Nicola say anything so provocative.
He glanced at the address scribbled on a crumpled note on the passenger seat and saw that he had the right place. It was ironic that she lived only a couple of streets from the apartment he’d rented. The large Victorian he’d moved into five days earlier had been divided into several apartments, and his was on the second floor. His sister-in-law, Kayla, had been the previous tenant so it had been an easy sublet, taking over the payments and dealing with the landlord. And he liked the place well enough. There was one bedroom, a combined kitchen and dining room, and a spacious living room—plenty of room for the few boxes and sparse assortment of furniture he’d brought with him from Sioux Falls.
He got out, locked the Jeep and headed for the house. The porch light flicked on the moment he closed the white picket gate, and within seconds the front door opened. Once he was up the three steps and on the porch, Nicola was there, holding the screen door open and inviting him inside.
“Thank you for coming,” she said quickly as he crossed the threshold and she closed the door. “I know it’s late and you’ve been working and I shouldn’t have called but he was asking for you and I didn’t—”
“Nicola,” he said, cutting her off as he followed her down the hall. “Slow down, you’re rambling.”
She stopped and turned to face him. God, she was beautiful. His blood suddenly rumbled in his veins, and an old attraction spectacularly resurfaced, knocking him out. And in that moment he realized nothing had changed. He was still as attracted to Nicola as he’d always been.
But he would never let her know it. There was no point. They were ancient history, and he was in no condition to get involved with anyone. Particularly a woman who clearly hated the sight of him.
“Rambling?” she echoed, glaring at him.
He nodded, biting back a grin. “Yeah...rambling. Take a breath and calm down.”
“I am calm,” she shot back. “I’ve just had a crappy day. We’ll have to go to the kitchen as the light bulb in the living room has blown.”
He glanced into the darkened room as they passed. “Want me to fix it?”
“No,” she said and kept walking.
“So, what seems to be the problem?”
“I can’t get Marco out of the closet,” she said and then quickly explained how the boy liked to hide there. “And when he asked to see you, I just... I couldn’t think of anything else to do except call. He doesn’t generally take to strangers...which is good, I suppose. But he seemed to connect with you at the hospital, and all I could do was what he asked. Right now, I simply want him to come out of the closet and get some sleep. Plus, he said his hand hurts.”
“He’s got a few stitches, so that’s not unusual,” Kieran said, realizing she was clearly frazzled and holding on by a thread. “I’ll talk to him in a minute, but perhaps you should fill me in on what’s been going on with him lately.”
She nodded. “Sure.”
Kieran followed her up the hall. “Where’s your other nephew?”
“Bed. Johnny fights to stay up and play video games and then ends up flaked out on the floor in his room,” she said as they entered the kitchen. “He’s willful and defiant and doesn’t do anything I say. Unlike Marco, who is usually a people pleaser and hates getting into trouble. But tonight... I think he’s simply overwhelmed by his injury and after what happened at school...” She sighed and her voice trailed off. “It’s been one of those days.”
“What happened at school?” he asked, standing on the other side of the island. watching as she began pouring coffee into two mugs.
“He got bullied today,” she explained quietly. “And then he got upset, and some of his classmates saw, and then he withdrew like he sometimes does and wouldn’t talk to his teacher. It’s happened before. I left the restaurant, picked him up early and brought him home. But he still wouldn’t talk to me. I didn’t even know he’d hurt himself on the fishing hook until I called him in for dinner. He’d wrapped a T-shirt around his hand so I wouldn’t know.”
Kieran considered her words. “Have you thought about getting him to talk with a professional?” he asked quietly. “He’s obviously having trouble coping with the death of his parents, and naturally so, but I could make a few inquiries and find someone who works specifically with children if you would like a referral.”
She nodded fractionally. “It may come to that. But for now, I’d just like to get him out of the closet.”
“Sure,” he said and noticed that her hands were shaking a little. “Does he have nightmares?”
“Yes,” she replied and pushed the mug across the counter. “I have cream and sugar.”
“This is fine,” he said and took the mug. One brow rose. “Your tastes have changed.”
He met her gaze. “Some,” he said and tried to ignore the way his heart beat faster than usual. “So, about his nightmares...does he talk to you about them?”
“Sometimes. He has a fear of water,” she said and sipped her coffee. “That’s why he fishes out of a bucket.”
Kieran recalled that her brother and sister-in-law lost their lives in a boating accident and how Marco had responded at the hospital when he’d mentioned he might want to try fishing for real. “Because of his parents’ accident?”
“Yes,” she replied softly. “The boys weren’t with them that day. It was just pure luck, really. They’d both had head colds and my sister-in-law Miranda didn’t want to risk them getting worse,” she explained.
“Gino and Miranda were good people,” Kieran said. “I used to stop by JoJo’s sometimes, when I’d come home to visit my folks. As I recall, they were dedicated sailors.”
She nodded. “They competed in all the major events. They were in San Francisco for the regatta, which they did every year. I loved it because it meant Vince and I could see them, and we could catch up as a family.”
Kieran knew Vince had moved to San Francisco straight out of high school. It was one of the reasons Nicola had chosen to go to college there, to be close to her older brother.
“Vince has a big apartment in the city,” she explained quietly. “And they always stayed with him when they were there. I was at my brother’s apartment watching the kids because Gino and Miranda had gone for a sail outside the bay before the races started the next day. They say the storm came out of nowhere.” She sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know... Gino was always so careful about the dangers of doing what he loved. But on that day, he miscalculated. It was days before their bodies were found...but by then we knew something terrible had happened. Vince identified them, and then we had to tell the boys. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.”
Kieran watched as her eyes glittered with tears and she blinked a couple of times. There was something incredibly vulnerable about her in that moment, and he fought the sudden urge to reach across and touch her. Comforting Nicola was out of the question. He had to remember that. She wasn’t a patient or a friend. She was the girl he’d loved in high school. She was his past. End of story.
“You know,” he said and met her gaze, “I’ve seen fear manifest from loss before...it’s not uncommon, particularly in a child. In time, and with patience and maybe therapy, he’ll probably overcome his fears.”
“I hope so,” she said quietly. “Until then, I have to work out how to make him feel safe. Unfortunately, I feel as though I’m failing at every turn.”
It was quite an admission, and one he was sure she hadn’t intended divulging. Hours ago, she’d made her feelings toward him abundantly clear—she still hated him. And yet now he was standing in her kitchen, listening to her earnest words, drinking coffee and acting as though it was all absurdly normal.
“I’m sure you’re not,” he assured her. “Parenting is a challenge even in the best of circumstances.”
“You’d know more about that than me.”
A familiar ache hit him directly in the center of his chest, and he quickly averted his gaze. He didn’t want to see her eyes, didn’t want to speculate as to how much she knew about him and his life before he’d returned to Cedar River. But people talked. He knew that. But with everything else that was going on with his family—with his parents’ impending divorce, the discovery of his half brother, and then his other brother Liam secretly marrying the daughter of their father’s sworn enemy, he hoped that his own smashed-up personal life might not rate a mention on the radar. But when he did finally glance at her again, he figured that she knew enough. Maybe not everything, particularly how broken up inside he felt most of the time, but she certainly had some idea of what he’d been through.
“Later,” he said and shrugged. “You can ask me later.”
She shrugged loosely. “I shouldn’t have said that. Your private life is none of my business.”
He nodded. “Anyway, for now, we should probably go and talk with Marco.”
She placed her mug on the counter. “He’s upstairs.”
He followed her from the kitchen and up the stairway, trying not to notice how her hips swayed as she walked. Or the way her perfume assailed his senses. Other than in a professional capacity, it had been a long time since he’d been so close to a woman. He hadn’t been intimate with anyone since he’d separated from Tori. Casual sex had never been his thing, and he wasn’t interested in a committed relationship, so the best thing was to avoid women altogether until he worked through his demons. But he hadn’t figured on his old attraction for Nicola making a comeback.
Get a grip, O’Sullivan...
Ten minutes later, he still hadn’t managed to coax Marco from his hiding spot in the closet, but the child was at least answering him. To his credit, he’d made the tiny space into a fort, complete with walls and windows, out of several old cardboard boxes and several towels pegged together. Looking at how he’d used his imagination allayed some of his concerns for the boy’s emotional well-being. This was clearly Marco’s safe place, his go-to spot when he felt cornered or unhappy or despairing. Kieran wasn’t an expert in child psychology, but he was relieved to discover that Marco wasn’t simply hiding in a confined space staring at the wall.
“You’ve built a really cool fort,” Kieran said quietly.
Marco was silent, then grunted. “Johnny says it’s lame.”
“Well, I’m something of an expert at fort building,” he said, flicking his gaze toward Nicola, who stood in the doorway. He caught a tiny smile at the edges of her mouth and ignored the way it made his gut churn. “When my brothers and I were young, we turned our treehouse into a fort. It had a moat, too.”
He heard a shuffling sound, like sneakers shifting across carpet, and then spotted Marco peering around the door frame.
“A moat?” the boy asked. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Kieran replied. “It had water in it, too. I fell into it once and dislocated my collarbone.”
Marco’s eyes widened, and he stepped out of the closet. “That must have hurt a lot.”
“It did,” he said and nodded. “So, your aunt said your hand was hurting.”
“Yeah,” the boy said, his voice cracking.
“On a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?” Kieran asked.
“Ten,” Marco replied quickly.
Kieran glanced at Nicola, saw the concern on her face and offered a reassuring nod. “Ten,” he mused. “Really? That’s a lot. Are you sure?”
Marco’s bottom lip wobbled. “Well...maybe a five.”
“Five... I see. Then, that’s not so bad, right? Remember the word I said you need to say over and over?”
The boy nodded. “I remember.”
“Good,” Kieran said and smiled. “Keep saying it, over and over, every time your hand hurts. Now, your aunt also says it’s way past your bedtime, so how about you get settled into bed.”
“Do I have to have more stitches?”
“No, not a single one.”
Marco looked pensive. “More medicine?”
Kieran checked his watch. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”
Kieran looked at Nicola and she nodded. “How about you see how you feel in the morning and then talk to your aunt about it, okay?”
The boy looked thoughtful for a moment and then nodded. “Okay.”
“And keep saying the special word,” Kieran said and smiled. “I promise your hand won’t hurt as much.”
Marco grinned a little. “Okay. Thanks, Doctor.”
“And you can call me Kieran, okay? Because your aunt is a friend of mine.”
“Sure thing.”
Kieran turned toward Nicola. “I’ll leave you to get him settled.”
She stepped into the room and nodded. “Thank you for this... I don’t know what I would have done otherwise...” Her words trailed off for a moment. “If you give me ten minutes, we can finish that coffee.”
“Sure,” he said before giving Marco the thumbs-up sign. With the promise that he’d see him soon, he headed back downstairs.
He lingered in the kitchen, ditched his jacket and hung it over the back of one of the chairs and sat at the table, looking around. Like the rest of the house, it was a modern, spacious room, with granite countertops and top-of-the-line appliances. He’d noticed an array of family pictures on the wall in the hallway when he’d arrived and quickly deduced that this was once Gino Radici’s home. He’d always liked Gino. They’d played football together in high school and, as Nicola’s boyfriend, they all used to hang out at JoJo’s pizza parlor most afternoons. Life had been easy back when he was in high school...his parents were happy, his family was a tight unit, Liz was still alive and he’d had Nicola.
Until he blew her off.
At the time, he’d believed he was doing the right thing. Maintaining a long-distance relationship from separate colleges was never going to work. She had her ambitions, and so did he. Then, the week before graduation, when she’d brought up the idea of getting engaged he’d freaked out, suspicious that she might do something they’d regret—like deliberately get pregnant. And Kieran had no intention of being a father at eighteen. So days later, he’d ended it. Badly. He’d said he wanted to see other people. Other girls. He told her to get a life that didn’t include him. Remembering how stupidly he’d behaved only amplified his guilt by a million. She’d deserved better.
When she returned to the kitchen ten minutes later, she looked tired but relieved. “He’s settled...finally. And I managed to get Johnny back into bed and the video game out of his hands. Thank you,” she added and sighed as she moved around the countertop. “I owe you a fresh cup of coffee.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
It was a pointed remark...one they both knew had little to do with the situation at hand. Their history circled in the air between them. Air that needed to be cleared once and for all.
“Kieran, I—”
“I never meant to hurt you, you know,” he said quietly. “I mean, I know I did...but I was too young and too self-absorbed to fully realize what I was doing. When I did have the maturity to work out that I’d been a complete jerk, we were long gone from one another’s life. But I am genuinely sorry for hurting you, Nicola.”
She was still as a statue. She didn’t look impressed or accepting of his apology. “Sure...whatever.”
“I can leave if you—”
“I promised you more coffee,” she said and turned toward the pantry. “I’ll make a fresh pot. Are you hungry?”
His stomach growled and he remembered he hadn’t eaten since lunch. “Yeah.”
A tiny smiled lifted her mouth at the edges for a moment. “Cannoli?”
He grinned. “I still have a sweet tooth.”
“I figured,” she said and moved around the kitchen, making coffee and preparing the dessert on a plate.
Kieran remained where he was, watching her at her task. “How are you enjoying working at the restaurant again?”
She shrugged lightly. “It’s okay. Managing the place isn’t exactly my dream job...but my father needs the help, and it’s kind of ingrained in my DNA to work there. I’ve been waiting tables at JoJo’s since I was ten years old. Thankfully the place is still busy and turning a profit. I have a tourist party booked for tomorrow...twenty-four hungry mouths to feed. Friday fun, I like to call it.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
She shrugged. “Necessary. My dad has slowed down a lot in the past year.”
“He had a stroke, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” she replied. “A few months after Gino died.”
He knew she’d loved her brother. He also knew what it was like to lose a sibling. And he felt her hurt right down to his bones. But he didn’t press the subject. “So, did you have your dream job in San Francisco?”