Worth the Fall (The McKinney Brothers, #1)(5)
Matt was already moving as diva number two twisted to examine the damage. He picked up the little boy, sprawled and whimpering on the brick.
“Oh. My. God. That little…” Kimmi sputtered, struggling to name what she was looking at, “baby ruined my pants. Where the hell is its mother?”
The boy hid his sticky face in Matt’s neck as his mother took a step forward.
Kimmi whirled on her. “Is that your frickin’ kid?”
The woman reached for her son, but the boy clung to him tightly.
“It was an accident. He didn’t—”
“He’s an accident! Jeez. Why don’t you practice a little birth—”
Matt stepped between the two women, facing off with Kimmi. “Stop talking.”
“I’ll be happy to pay for dry cleaning.”
Matt looked back at the boy’s mother as Kimmi continued her rant.
“Dry cleaning? That isn’t going to help. They’re ruined!” Kimmi’s voice rose to a full-blown screech. “Are you going to pay for five-hundred-dollar pants?”
“No. She isn’t,” Matt said between clenched teeth.
“Excuse me?” Kimmi gaped at Matt, then at the petite woman next to him. “Is this who you were staring at when you were eating dinner with me?” She jerked a finger at herself and wobbled.
Shit. The woman he had been staring at glanced from Kimmi to him, then back to Kimmi. He could see her making the connection, one that didn’t exist. It bothered him that she thought it did.
“Leave it alone,” he said, glaring at Kimmi, but she was too far gone on booze and bitchiness.
“Banging a married woman at the beach, Matthew? That’s so un–Boy Scout of you.”
“Stop. Talking.” Matt’s words were quiet but hard and he shot a meaningful look at Rob, who’d just joined them.
“Hey, that’s the kid who sprayed—”
Rob pulled Britney back with an arm around her waist, but Kimmi still wasn’t done.
“God, tell me one of these isn’t yours.”
Priority one was to get them away from Kimmi’s spewing venom. “Let’s go.” With a hand on the mother’s back, Matt guided her and her kids away from the patio. Away from the drunken crazy woman. Currently sleeping in his condo.
The little boy’s arms tightened around his neck and the sound of sandals tapped on the walkway. His senses narrowed to the woman beside him: The warmth of her skin seeping through the thin fabric; her delicate scent. The mere presence of her walking next to him.
When they were clear of the crowd, he stopped, turned, and was hit hard again by the beauty of the woman in front of him.
She reached to take her son, and the boy slid out of Matt’s arms and into hers.
“Thank you.” Her words were muffled in the boy’s hair.
He should say something. Apologize. But any words he might have spoken stuck in his throat like the worst MRE field ration, and before he could shake them loose, she was walking away.
Chapter 2
Abby had just gotten the last child into bed when her cell phone rang. “Wild West Saloon. Sorry, we don’t deliver.”
“Very funny. What made you think it was me?”
“Because you’ve called me at exactly nine o’clock for the past three nights.” And her friend Angie was the only person who ever called her. Abby walked to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of milk, and grabbed some Oreos. “Did you set a call Abby alarm or something?”
“Honey, I set an alarm to pee.”
Abby laughed. Angelina Mancini was the closest thing Abby had to family. Third-generation Italian with wild, electrocuted hair, her first words to Abby had been whispered in a birthing class: Anyone who tells you they delivered naturally is a lying bitch and probably has a vagina you could drive a truck through.
For reasons Abby still didn’t understand, Angie and her husband, Joe, a firefighter from New Jersey, had latched on to her that night and didn’t let go. Even now, a year after their family had moved, Abby expected her friend’s calls to taper off, but they hadn’t. Not yet.
“Have you met anyone interesting?”
Sinking into the couch cushions, she sighed and put her feet up. “Are you going to ask me that every day?”
“Maybe.”
“No, I haven’t and I’m not looking.” Not ever going to be looking.
“Maybe it’s time you started.”
“Angie, please, I’m six months—”
“I know. You’re six months pregnant, you have four kids, you don’t need anyone, blah, blah, blah. I’ve heard it all before, and I think it’s a load of crap.”
Abby dunked her cookie. “Wow, someone’s in a mood.”
Angie ignored her. “You and I both know you could move on today, tomorrow, yesterday.”
“I have moved on, and I’m in a really good place.” But she understood what her friend was saying. If Josh hadn’t gone down in a plane crash six months ago, he still wouldn’t be with her. He’d be on another continent crunching numbers for billion-dollar clients. She’d come in a distant second. The kids hadn’t even made his list.
All the promises in the world hadn’t kept him from the next big deal. Hadn’t made him stay. But he was just the last in a long line of people to leave. And he would remain the last.