Damaged

  But her mind was on her fledgling company now in trouble and her social life obviously on life-support. Since the day she broke up with Brad, she had been on a ‘man-fast’.

  She had been involved with Brad Dolan for eight months but it wasn’t until the seventh month that she had risked taking him home to meet the family. The results were disastrous, as somewhere deep inside she knew they would be. Which was probably why she had waited so long.

  It wasn’t that her family ever did or said anything. They were polite, solicitous even. But they were also mirrors that revealed the truth. They had listened and nodded while Brad talked on and on about his accomplishments, his ideas, his life plan. In other words, talked exclusively about himself.

  Soon she was seeing Brad through Jimmy’s eyes, and her dad’s. Within a month, the relationship was over.

  Allison realised she always chose the wrong guys. Maybe it was just that inborn streak of defiance she acknowledged but couldn’t control. Or maybe she just liked bad boys.

  ‘I’ve decided to become a nun,’ she told Riley and Jimmy at supper the Sunday night after the break-up. That night’s meal was sacrosanct to the Jones family, unless Riley, who worked in Homicide, had a case he couldn’t abandon. Same menu, different crowd. Sunday was the day everyone was welcome at the Jones family home.

  On that rare Sunday it had been just the three of them, so Allison could speak her mind. Not that she ever had a problem doing that, no matter who was there.

  ‘Men are creeps. Present company excluded,’ she had announced as she dug into her shepherd’s pie. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘There are exceptions,’ her brother had said, so eager to bring forth his idea that he spoke with his mouth full. ‘I know this guy you would really like …’

  ‘Jimmy Jones, if you mention Mike Dennison one more time, I will poison your food next Sunday …’

  ‘Hey, Ally!’ The voice of her uncle startled her back from the past and into the present. He and his family lived two blocks from hers. ‘I hear you did good with your store.’

  ‘Hey, Uncle Marty,’ she said, giving him a hug. ‘Maybe too well,’ she admitted. A gust of wind sent the sand rattling against the wooden fence that lined the beach. ‘I need a new plan.’

  ‘You’ll figure it out,’ he said. ‘You’re as smart as you are beautiful. Just like your mama. And don’t you ever forget it.’

  A lump formed in Allison’s throat as his love for her seemed to wash over her. She certainly knew what it meant to feel love. She’d been showered with it since the day she was born. The entire family – grandparents, uncles, cousins, second cousins, her father and brother – all of them had treated her like a rare piece of porcelain that might shatter at any moment.

  Not only was she the only girl of the lot of them, but she had talent. She could sing and dance, and paint and design things. To them, she was a beautiful alien dropped into their boisterous midst by some miraculous quirk of fate.

  Only her mother had known that she was made of sturdier stuff. It was Lydia who had taught her to be self-reliant, independent and to dare. And it was from Lydia that she got her quirky sense of style. Lydia may have been a cop, but she was a fashion plate when she wasn’t on the job.

  As a child, Allison had spent hours in her mother’s closet trying on exotic scarves and shoes and belts. And the closet had been left exactly as it was when Lydia was shot. A cousin had taken over the family apartment on West Ninth Street but kept the closet for Allison. Whenever she needed inspiration, all she had to do was open the door.

  And then, when she decided to open a shop, the name was a no-brainer. Lydia’s Closet was the only one she ever considered.

  ‘Careful, Uncle Marty,’ she said, dragging a wool hat out of her jacket pocket. ‘My head will get so big, this won’t fit!’ She pulled the hat over her tangle of hair and headed towards the water where the sand was firm. ‘See you for Sunday supper.’

  She walked for almost an hour and when she headed back up the path, she had her plan. Two cars were in the driveway when she got back to the house. The one Jimmy and her dad drove to work, and a jeep of indeterminate age and questionable roadworthiness.

  Her family was known for picking up strays. Heaven only knew what down-on-his-luck Irishman awaited her inside. He’d be hungry, from the look of his car. She hoped the chicken she planned to roast for dinner would be large enough.

  The man having a beer inside with her dad and her brother did not look underfed. Nor down on his luck. He looked … the word that popped into her mind was ‘gorgeous’.

  Allison’s visceral reaction to this splendid creature so startled her that she felt a blush flooding her face. That was the trouble with being a ginger. People could tell what you were feeling by the colour of your skin.

  Since she couldn’t do what her body was telling her to do, which was to crawl onto his lap so he’d have to hold her with those muscular arms of his, she settled for a strained, ‘Hi, I’m Allison.’

  The man at the table didn’t say anything right away, even though Riley and Jimmy were looking at him expectantly. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded as if he was out of breath.

  ‘Hi,’ he said back to her. ‘I’m Mike Dennison.’

  Mike

  Manhattan

  Mike drove back to Manhattan that night with the top down, despite the early-spring chill. He needed to clear his head.

  Jimmy Jones had been at him about meeting his sister since he had transferred into Mike’s National Guard unit last fall. ‘She’s beautiful, she’s smart, she’s talented, she’s starting her own business,’ Jimmy had claimed.

  In Mike’s experience, when a guy went on and on about his sister, and how she was God’s gift, sure as the devil the sister would not be as advertised. So what the hell just happened back there in Breezy Point?

  He had had no intention of meeting Allison Jones tonight. But he liked Jimmy and when he suggested they grab a beer after work, Mike readily agreed. Jimmy texted him directions to what he assumed was an out-of-the-way bar on the beach. That’s how he had ended up sitting at Jimmy’s kitchen table when this half-frozen goddess in a wool cap had walked in and knocked him for a loop.

  Allison was much better looking than advertised. But that’s not what had Mike driving into the city on a freezing-cold night with the top down. He knew a lot of beautiful women. It was what had happened to him when she walked into the room that had surprised and baffled him. It was almost as if an electric shock had run through his body.

  If her father and brother hadn’t been in the room, and if they weren’t cops with Glock 19s on their belts, he might have walked across the room, picked her up and made love to her right there on the kitchen table.

  Thank God for his training as a pilot. You were taught to control emotions, even overwhelming ones like the one he had just experienced. Fly the plane, they had taught him. No matter how you feel, just fly the plane.

  So he sat there, chatting with Riley and Jimmy, as if his head wasn’t exploding with possibilities. And he flew the plane.

  His feelings clearly were not reciprocated. Allison had spent the evening banging around the kitchen as if she was mad at the whole world. She hurled a chicken into the oven and chopped vegetables as if they had committed a capital crime. From time to time, he caught her looking at him with such intensity that he realised she must have taken an instant dislike to him. Or maybe she just didn’t like unexpected dinner guests.

  Whatever it was, he was going to fix it. He had spent two hours in Allison Jones’ presence. She had said maybe ten words to him. But he wanted this woman. And when Mike Dennison wanted something, there was no way he would quit.

  A little later, in the warmth of his apartment near Gramercy Park, he sat pondering about Allison. Should he talk to Jimmy about her, ask him if she had mentioned him after he’d left? No way. Mike liked to play things close to his chest. He’d known other women, but none had made this kind of impression. He had a great need to see her
again, as soon as possible … He let the thought go, and eventually went to bed. But sleep eluded him.

  Allison and Mike

  New York City

  Allison was on strike. She hadn’t spoken more than two words to her brother for five days. She would put dinner on the table and take her plate to her workroom. She ignored Jimmy’s texts and her father’s attempts at intervention.

  It didn’t matter that Mike Dennison was about as hot a guy as you could dream up. She didn’t care that he had been a pilot who had risked his life to fly wounded fighters out of harm’s way when he’d been in the National Guard in Afghanistan.

  It didn’t matter that she had dreamed of him every night since she had discovered him sitting in the kitchen.

  What mattered was that her brother had disrespected her wishes. Jimmy was so sure he was right that, despite her refusal to be set up by him, he had brought his friend home anyway.

  So what if he had been right? Her mother didn’t just teach her about fashion and eclectic styles in that closet of hers. She taught her to fight to make her own decisions.

  ‘Honey,’ she had told her daughter, ‘as the only woman in a family of men, you need to learn to stand your ground. They love you so much they’ll want to plan your life, and choose your friends. Don’t you let them. No one knows what’s right for you but you.’

  Allison had learned that lesson well. The rub was that she did like Mike Dennison. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. She had Googled him; learned all about his war exploits, and his work as a storied copywriter. She knew he had raised his kid brother after his parents had been killed. It was hard to ignore the fact that they had that kind of loss in common.

  It was impossible to ignore the pangs of jealousy she felt when she learned he was one of the most eligible bachelors in New York City. He had probably driven out to Breezy Point to see if the cop’s sister would be another notch on his belt.

  The fact that he was willing to come to their home, even though she had declared she didn’t want to meet him, said something about him. It was something she didn’t like.

  ‘Mike had no idea he was coming here!’ Jimmy insisted. ‘He really wasn’t that keen to meet you either.’

  ‘Why not, I wonder?’ Allison addressed her comments to her father since she was not speaking to her brother. ‘Am I not good enough for Mr Bachelor of the Year, do you think?’

  ‘So you do like him,’ Jimmy blared, looking triumphant.

  ‘I said no such thing!’ Allison growled, slamming a dinner plate on the table in front of Jimmy. ‘I hardly noticed him.’

  ‘Ally, check yourself,’ her father said. This was his Detective First Class Riley Jones voice. Felons had been known to crumple when hearing that voice. ‘Those are your mother’s dishes.’

  Allison didn’t answer, but the next plate was placed gently in front of her father.

  ‘I’m going to eat in my studio,’ Allison said, beginning to make a plate for herself.

  ‘If Jimmy said Mike didn’t know he was coming to meet you, then he didn’t know,’ Riley said, not looking up from his food. ‘Your brother may like to play cupid, but he’s no liar. The Joneses don’t lie.’

  ‘I know that, Dad,’ she muttered.

  Allison didn’t believe Jimmy. Or maybe she chose not to. Maybe she was frightened by the intensity of her response to Mike Dennison. Or maybe she was just stubborn enough not to want to be with a guy her brother had picked out for her.

  And so she took her plate and headed for the safety of her little apartment atop the house. Instead of eating, she watched the waves crashing against the jetty and wondered what on earth had happened to her the night Jimmy brought a friend home for dinner.

  She spent the next week putting Mike Dennison out of her mind, or trying to. She immersed herself in her business plan. She had decided to turn Lydia’s Closet into an Internet Boutique. No rent, no insurance, no overheads. Just her group of stay-at-home moms: taking orders, packaging what they’d made, and shipping them out.

  All she needed now was to figure out how to get Lydia’s Closet noticed among the seemingly trillion websites on the Net.

  Whether she did it consciously or not, she would never know. But her research eventually brought her to the conclusion that what she needed was a killer advertising plan, something that would really create buzz, get people talking.

  When she finally did speak to Jimmy, it was to ask for Mike Dennison’s phone number.

  ‘It’s just business,’ she insisted. ‘Frankly, I didn’t care for the guy.’

  To his credit, he didn’t laugh out loud. ‘That’s good,’ Jimmy said, ‘because he wasn’t that into you either. Guess I need to stay out of your dating life from now on.’

  Both Allison and Jimmy pretended to believe that what the other was saying was true, but neither did.

  Allison told Mike she would meet him at O’Lunney’s on Forty-Fifth Street in Manhattan. She made it clear when she called that this was a business meeting and she wanted to do the paying.

  She had chosen the meeting place because she knew she would be on safe ground. Cops hung out there. Her family had been bringing her for as long as she could remember. That was when they lived around the corner, before her mother was killed and her father swept her away to the world’s safest community.

  She was running behind, so she had to splurge and grab a taxi from the subway station. For some reason, it had taken her forever to get dressed today. She must have changed her clothes four times before she was satisfied that she was presenting the perfect balance of business-woman and trendy chic.

  She needed to sell Mike Dennison on the fact that her brand was something worthy of a heavy hitter he was spending time on. To do that, she needed to look amazing. At least that’s what she told herself as she discarded outfit after outfit.

  Mike was there when she arrived. He had settled at a secluded table in the very back, away from the noisy crowd at the bar. It had been her plan to sit at the long community table up front, so there would be no misunderstanding about this not being a date. However, this isolation was probably better for talking business. And Jimmy had been clear that Mike was not into her.

  As she approached him, her heart was beating so fast she felt as if she was climbing up a steep hill.

  As Mike watched the woman with the red hair come towards him, he realised he had misjudged her at that first meeting. She wasn’t beautiful; she was dazzling. Movie-star gorgeous. In the glow of the lights from the bar her hair appeared to be on fire.

  However, the real fire seemed to come from somewhere within her. As he got up to greet her, he felt a little dizzy.

  What do I do? he wondered, his mouth feeling dry. Shake her hand? Kiss her on the cheek? Or his preference … kiss her all over her tall, curvaceous body?

  Allison solved that problem by offering her hand.

  ‘Mr Dennison, thank you for meeting with me. I’m hoping to make you an offer you can’t refuse.’

  ‘Name it,’ Mike said when he found his voice. ‘And the only Mr Dennison I know was my father and he is no longer in this world. Please call me Mike.’

  As they sat down he noticed that she wasn’t wearing cologne of any kind. It was the scent of this woman that was making him feel intoxicated.

  The vibrating of her cell phone startled Allison. She was about to turn it off when she saw the caller ID, Riley Jones. Her dad only made a phone call if it was urgent. When you were a cop’s daughter, you did not want to get that call.

  ‘Hey, Dad. Everything okay?’

  ‘You tell me!’ he roared. ‘You said you’d be home by eight thirty latest and it’s after ten.’

  Allison felt the heat of that blush heading northwards from her neck. She glanced at Mike across the table. He was looking concerned. ‘I’m sorry. My meeting ran late.’

  To his credit Mike kept his face expressionless.

  ‘What kind of meeting lasts till ten o’clock at night?’ Her father’s voice was so
loud Mike could hear every word from across the table. ‘I’ll come get you. I don’t want you riding the subway at this hour.’

  ‘Dad, I’ll be fine! I’ve had more self-defence training than a Navy SEAL.’

  Mike shook his head and mouthed, ‘I’ll take you home.’

  Allison looked at him for a long moment, thinking it over. It had been impossible to keep up the pretence that she didn’t like him after the first five minutes. The attraction was too great, the conversation flowed too easily. Suddenly it didn’t matter if her brother had brought him home, or if she’d met him online, or in a crowded subway. There was a connection so strong it was useless to deny it.

  ‘Allison, I’m coming for you. Where are you?’

  ‘It’s okay, Dad,’ she said. ‘I have a ride.’

  ‘You sound funny,’ her dad roared. ‘Who are you with?’

  Mike and Allison smiled sheepishly at one another.

  ‘I’m with Mike Dennison. And tell Jimmy if he says, “I told you so,” I will never, ever speak to him again.’

  They didn’t talk business that night at O’Lunney’s, nor did they on the long ride back to Breezy Point. Or during the walks on the beach that weekend. There was too much to discover about one another.

  She learned about his kid brother, Kevin. Mike said he never regretted having to leave West Point to be a father to the boy after their parents had been killed. Kevin had finished Cornell University with the highest grades and dreams of becoming an architect.

  Mike, his pride obvious, told her how Kevin had put those dreams on hold to serve his country, in the same unit, in the same way he had. Mike had been a Medevac rescue pilot on duty in the Middle East.

  He learned about her big, rabble-rousing family of men and boys. There were, of course, wives and mothers, but in all the clan only one girl, Allison herself.