She hadn’t imagined he’d remember who she was, let alone know where she’d gone after school.
He grinned. “You’re forgetting my mother, with her encyclopedic knowledge of anyone who’s ever attended our church. Once I mentioned you, she trotted out everything she knew, including the fact that you were married and living in Philly. She was surprised we haven’t seen you in church since you’ve been back.”
Siobhan Flanagan had taught her in church school twice—once in kindergarten, then again in junior high. She had a gentle manner, a warm smile and a love that extended to even the most rebellious of teens.
Still, however warm her memories of Ryan’s mother, she was not going to defend her failure to attend church to him. “Please greet her for me. And really, I can take care of the door.”
He shoved away from the counter in a smooth, even movement. “Tell you what. You hold the boards and I’ll pound. We’ll have it secure in no time.”
That was probably the fastest way to get him out of here, so she set the flashlight and teddy bear down and went to the door. The acrid scent of wet, burned wood from the back porch sent a wave of nausea through her, and she forced it down angrily.
Ryan had apparently brought a few two-by-fours with him, because the wood gleamed new. He put one of the boards against the door, and she braced it with both hands.
He used the hammer with quick, effective strokes. The board vibrated from his force, jolting her hands.
“So, after your husband’s death, you decided to come home and buy this place.” The pounding punctuated his words, and she felt the flex of his muscles where his arm brushed her shoulder.
“Not exactly. My husband had bought the building a couple of years ago for some business venture he had in mind, but he never got around to doing anything with it. So I decided to fix it up.”
She wouldn’t add that this building was the only legacy Jason had left her and Mandy. That everything else he’d received from his father had been frittered away on one foolish scheme or another, until his father had finally cut him off, saying Jason would have to pay for his own mistakes. Apparently he’d put her and Mandy in the mistake category.
“You plan to live here?” Ryan propped another board across the door, and it gleamed palely against the blackened frame.
“I’m fixing it up to sell. I have a buyer who has an option, if I can get the renovation done before she loses interest or finds something better.”
Ryan paused, looking over his shoulder at her. Her pulse gave a little jump. Her hands were planted next to his on the board, and his face was only inches away.
“And then you’ll leave Suffolk again?” He looked at her as if he really wanted to know. As if it might matter to someone what she did.
Her mouth was dry. From the smoke, she assured herself. Not because Ryan Flanagan had any effect on her.
She moistened her lips. “I haven’t decided yet. Mandy is going to have a cochlear implant—at least I hope she is, if all the tests go well. I can’t plan beyond that right now.”
The implant could give Mandy a chance at a normal life. How could she think of anything else?
“At the hospital here?” His eyes lit with interest.
“That’d be Dr. Marsh, I guess.”
“You’ve heard of him.” She was faintly surprised. Franklin Marsh was well-known to parents of deaf children, but why would Ryan know of him?
“My sister-in-law, Gabe’s wife, trains animals to work with people who have disabilities. She introduced me to Dr. Marsh at a benefit. I understand he does good work.”
“He’s the best.” She wouldn’t trust her daughter’s hearing and her future to anyone who wasn’t. “If he decides Mandy will benefit from an implant, it will make all the difference in the world to us.”
And if he did accept Mandy for the procedure, she somehow had to come up with the over fifty thousand dollars the process would cost. The minimal insurance program she was able to afford would cover Mandy’s stay in the hospital, but it didn’t cover a cochlear implant.
As if he felt all the things she didn’t say, Ryan put his hand over hers where it rested on the board. “I hope it works out.”
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat. “I appreciate that. And really, I can finish up the door. I’m sure you have other things to do with your evening.”
“I’m free as a bird.” He pounded another nail in place. “And anyway, as far as I can see, it’s finished.”
He stood back, smiling at her. He was right. The door was secured.
He’d shaken off her protests and done exactly what he’d said he would. And he’d gotten more information from her than she’d confided in anyone in months.
She raised her eyebrows at him, dusting her hands off. “Do you always get your own way?”
His smile broadened into a grin. “If you remember my family, you ought to know that I grew up fighting a bunch of siblings to get what I wanted. I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“I remember that you used to charm the teachers into letting you get away with murder.”
Now why had she said that? The man would think she was flirting with him.
“Lies, spread by my brothers, no doubt.” His smile assumed an angelic aspect. “I was always a serious student.”
“Somehow I find that difficult to believe.” And she also found it difficult to believe that she was standing here smiling at him, after everything that had happened this day.
“Why is it no one will take me seriously?” He dropped the hammer into a duffel bag and picked up the flashlight.
“Maybe because you don’t take yourself seriously.”
“Ouch, that hurt. A woman who sees right through me. I’d better watch out.” He hefted the bag. “Anything else I can fix while I’m here?”
“Everything’s fine.” Well, it wasn’t, but he ought to know what she meant. “I guess we’d better go out the front door, since you’ve nailed up the back.”
He nodded, and then he unexpectedly clasped her hand in his. His face was very serious in the dim light. “I wish you and your daughter the best.”
“Thank you.”
Ryan’s words had been the kind of simple statement anybody might make. They shouldn’t make her throat go so tight.
She turned away quickly, feeling him behind her as she headed for the door to the living room. Ryan Flanagan had a way of slipping through her carefully prepared defenses as if they weren’t even there.
So it was a good thing she wouldn’t be seeing any more of him.
“Listen, Ryan, are you sure Laura McKay isn’t going to mind our breaking into her house this way?”
Ryan’s brother Gabe paused, leaning on the shovel he’d been using to scrape soot and crumbled plaster from the ground floor of Laura’s building. Max, the yellow lab who was Gabe’s seizure-alert dog, sniffed at a pile of rubble, tail waving.
“Why would she? We’re only trying to help.”
Ryan suspected Laura wouldn’t see it that way, given her strong streak of independence. But no matter how much she might insist she didn’t need help, she was wrong. By the time she got home from the hospital with Mandy, he hoped they’d have much of the fire clean-up done.
A handful of Flanagans had offered to come along today along with several other firefighters. His cousin Brendan had used his clout as pastor to round up some more volunteers from the congregation.
All