Tomboy

He turned around and couldn’t do anything more than stare. Fallon was in jeans, a T-shirt, and Converse high-tops, cruising up the driveway on a skateboard. Her long brown hair was down, and she was smiling so big, her dimples were on display—right up until she spotted him in the shadows of the front porch and her lips flattened.

Ouch.

She stopped and did some step-off kick move that sent her skateboard into the air, where she caught it without ever taking her eyes off of him. “What are you doing here?”

“Good Lord,” Kate muttered. “You’d think I never taught you any manners.”

Manners? He didn’t give two shits about that. He wanted to win, and everyone’s idiotic idea had finally burrowed into his subconscious deep enough to start to make sense in some weird way.

“We need to talk,” he said, standing straighter, prepped for battle.

She all but rolled her eyes. “About what?”

“The other night.”

A commotion at the door yanked his attention away from her and the random thought wondering how he’d missed seeing those dimples before. Three men crowded in the doorway next to Kate—a dark-haired giant, a gray-haired guy who looked like he could still do some damage in an octagon, and a third guy who was wearing a Waterbury PD T-shirt and a shitty expression on his face.

“What do you mean ‘the other night’?” the giant asked.

“Oh, settle down,” Fallon said, walking up the short sidewalk leading from the drive to the front porch. “It’s not medieval Ireland, and you don’t have to guard my virtue—not that that ship didn’t sail years ago.”

The gray-haired brawler gasped. “Fallon Eileen Hartigan—”

“Oh, stop sputtering, Frank,” Kate said, the words coming out with an exaggerated huff. “Like you were a virgin when we got married.”

“Mom!” That exclamation came in three-part harmony from Fallon and the two dark-haired men in the doorway.

“What?” Kate shrugged her shoulders. “Your father and I have enjoyed a very healthy and satisfying sex life for almost as long as we’ve known each other.”

The guy in the police department shirt covered his face with his hand and let out a groan. “But we don’t want to know about it.”

“Relax, Ford.” Fallon stepped onto the porch, coming to a stop not exactly in between Zach and the Hartigans at the door but pretty damn close to it. “She’s just trying to distract you.”

“From what?”

“From him.” Fallon tipped her chin toward Zach.

This was where Zach needed to interrupt, to put his idea to her and convince her to say yes. Too bad he was too discombobulated to make sense of the scene in front of him.

“And relax, Hartigan Testosterone Committee.” Fallon made a little shuffle move that blocked at least half of him from the horde in the doorway. “All I did the other night with this one, as a favor to Lucy, was make sure he didn’t crack his skull when he puked his guts up from food poisoning.”

The reminder of his former miserable state was enough to bring his brain back online, right in time for him to have the realization that she was—in her own way—protecting him from her family. What the hell? He didn’t scare that easy.

Ego pricked, he ignored the audience and faced Fallon. “Can we talk?”

“Come in and you two can talk while we get lunch on the table,” Kate said. “You are staying, there’s plenty of room. I made my special Hawaiian ham—we call it that because it has a pineapple sauce. There. It’s all decided. You can put out the plates while Fallon takes care of the napkins.”

“I’m not sure…” That was not what he’d signed up for. This was supposed to be easy—negotiate a deal with his Lady Luck and leave. At no time did he want to sit down and eat pineapples and pig with a family of pushy strangers.

Fallon took one look at her mother and shook her head before starting into the house, skateboard tucked under one arm. “You might as well come in, there’s no getting away now.”

She didn’t bother to wait for him. Neither did any of the other Hartigans. They just followed Kate deeper into the house, leaving the front door open as if there was no question that Zach wouldn’t walk away. What he wouldn’t give to prove Fallon and the rest of her family wrong. That would have to happen another day, though, because today, he had a job to do.

Walking across the threshold, there was no doubt in his mind that he was in way over his head. However, if he made it through an on-ice brawl that had left him with one less tooth in his head, he could make it through lunch with the Hartigans.

…

Zach Blackburn was in her mom’s kitchen putting plates down as if he never imagined so many people could squeeze around one table. Fallon almost felt sorry for him. Today would be a light showing, what with Lucy and Frankie off getting engaged while Hudson and Felicia were in Italy visiting Hudson’s mom and her husband.