Muffin Top

What Frankie wouldn’t give to tell Ford to fuck straight off. Maybe he could even draw his baby brother into tossing down like they had the night Frankie had enlightened Ford about what an idiot he was being when it came to Gina. Sure, he’d walk away with a few bruises, but that was better than the guilt jabbing into him like an electric cattle prod.

Because he hadn’t just seen something and gone into automatic protector mode when it came to what had happened with his dad. He’d done it with Lucy, too. When that guy at the bar had gone off like a moron, he should have walked away. Instead, he’d given in to the need to try to be her knight on a white horse. Lucy didn’t need that. She didn’t want a protector, she wanted someone she knew would always be at her side. He’d had the opportunity to show her that he would be with her, always. But he’d fucked it up.

“Shit. I fucked up.” He looked around at his brothers and dad. “What in the hell am I going to do now?”

Finn shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I’m happily single.”

True enough. He turned to Ford.

His youngest brother rolled his eyes. “To paraphrase what a giant jackass told me recently on the deck of this house, go get your girl.”

None of this was helpful, so he faced the man who would be totally within his rights to tell Frankie to go jump off a bridge. “What do I say?”

“You gotta figure that one out for yourself, Junior, but whatever you do, go big. A woman like Lucy isn’t someone you just sweet-talk your way back to. You’re going to have to work for that job.”

The last word jumped out at him. That’s what Lucy had asked him about on the floating deck back in Antioch. Sure, she’d been joking, but he wasn’t—not then and definitely not now.

“Can you help me arrange a thing tomorrow and help me get Lucy to it? Maybe tell her it’s a wedding thing?” he asked Ford.

“Have you ever planned a wedding?” His brother looked at him like he was the Pod Person now. “That shit is complicated. There are color-coded spreadsheets.”

“What if it’s not related to the wedding?” Finn asked. “What if it’s just family and close friends?”

That would be perfect.

Ford grumbled something under his breath before answering. “This had better work, because otherwise Gina is going to kill me for messing with her scheduling.”

A few minutes of planning later and Ford and his dad were heading toward the front door, but Frankie couldn’t let his dad walk out without apologizing.

“I’m sorry for thinking the worst, Dad,” he said, emotion making it hard to get the words out. “Can you forgive me?”

His dad gave him the same easygoing grin that Frankie saw in the mirror.

“For doing what you thought was the best thing to protect this family?” Frank Sr. asked. “There’s nothing to forgive. You responded the way a man should—not by thinking of yourself, but by thinking of those around you that you loved.” Then he pulled Frankie into a full-on man hug with hard back-patting. “Just try not to jump the gun quite so fast next time. Now, don’t mess this up, or I’ll never hear the end of it from your mother.”

“She knows about me and Lucy?”

His old man gave him a look that screamed out duh. “She’s Katie Hartigan, isn’t she? The woman knows everything.”

It was true. The woman always did. And that should have been his first clue that what he’d thought he’d walked in on all those years ago wasn’t what it had looked like. Instead, he’d been so determined to protect her that he hadn’t even given it a thought. He wouldn’t make that mistake again, not with family and definitely not with Lucy.

Now it was time to get to work. Number one on his list? Sweet-talk Fallon into committing a kidnapping.

Chapter Twenty-Three

That morning, Lucy called her dad as soon as she could, considering the one-hour time difference and her hangover. Vodka and Mountain Dew were both dead to her for the next good long while.

He picked up on the third ring. “Hey there, Muf—Lucy.” He paused and sighed. “Sorry about that. Old habits die hard.”

But he was trying to change, and that meant something. “It’s okay, Dad.”

“So what do I owe this surprise call to?”

She squeezed her eyes shut against the sun streaming in through her bedroom window like a laser beam aimed right at all of her most tender spots—especially the emotional ones. “I need your help.”

“Anything.”

“I messed up with Frankie.” And that was the undersell of the year.