In Jack's Arms (Fighting Connollys) (2 page)

"At first, I was worried he would overstay his welcome, but Jack assured me they all enjoy Mattie's

company."

"That's good. I know Mattie is in that odd phase where he's too old for school—and he loved high

school—and too young and independent for the residential programs around town."

My younger brother's Down Syndrome diagnosis had hampered his earliest years, when our mother was

more concerned about finding her next fix than getting him to occupational or physical therapy. After

moving in with Granddad, Mattie had finally gotten the help he had needed to thrive. "I'm thrilled he's making new friends and feeling out the real world in his own way. I don't worry nearly as much because I

trust that Jack and Finn will keep an eye on him."

"Hell, with two Marines as his bodyguards, he's the safest kid in town."

"Let's hope."

Eric's phone began to ring and he fished it out of his pocket. When he glanced at the screen, he frowned

but didn't answer before shoving it away. "I've got to run. I'll follow up with you in a day or two. When are you submitting your final report to the station?"

"Wednesday morning," I said, trailing him to the door. "I should have the inventory completed by tomorrow night." Even though I was certain he was overreaching on his gang tie suspicion, I asked,

"Would you like a copy?"

He shook his head. "I'll grab one from the detectives on this case. I'd like to come by and look at the security footage."

"There isn't any."

Eric looked taken aback. "How is that possible?"

"Dan forgot to switch on the security system when he closed down the store on Sunday evening. That's

how these thieves were able to get in and out unnoticed."

"I hope you're going to dock his pay for that."

"It was an honest mistake."

Eric didn't look convinced. "I'll follow up with you if I hear anything troubling on the street."

"I would appreciate that." I opened the door and leaned against it. "Thanks for checking on us, Eric."

"Happy to serve," he said with a grin. Two steps into the office area of the shop, he paused and turned back to me. "There was a warrant roundup this morning. You know what that means."

"Ugh." My shoulders dropped as I imagined the crowd that would be waiting at my door in the

morning. "It means I'm going to have a line of mamas and girlfriends trying to pawn everything they own in the morning to raise bail money."

He smirked teasingly. "Hey, that's your bread and butter, right?"

"Get out of here," I said and shooed him. "Or else I'll call the cops on you for criminal mischief."

Chuckling, Eric waved at me and disappeared into the main area of the shop. I popped into our finance

manager's office and waited for her to finish up the note she was making before asking her to request extra cash from the bank before she clocked out. In the final days of the month, we always experienced an

upswing in loan demand, and with the added surge of customers who typically came to us when they

needed to bond out their relatives, I hated the idea of running low on cash when we needed it most.

After a quick chat with the employees on the night shift, I returned to the storeroom and picked up

where I'd left off on the inventory. Just as I was getting really sick of numbers and barcodes, Dan, the night manager, called out to me. "Abby, you in here somewhere?"

"At the back, in stereos and speakers," I shouted. "What do you need?"

"Where is Mattie?"

"His shift ended at four. He's probably at the gym. Why?"

Shuffling feet on concrete heralded Dan's arrival at the line of shelves behind me. "Was Mattie pulling past due tickets today?"

"Yes. I asked him to go through and pull everything that was a week beyond the grace period. Those

customers have had ample time to come in and renew the loan or pay off the balance."

I scanned a barcode and steeled myself for the inevitable disagreement I knew was coming. Dan had

been with the shop for nearly as long as I had been alive, but he didn't agree with my decision to allow

Mattie to work with us. If Dan had his way, Mattie would only be allowed to clean the glass cases or sweep the place. My brother could do so much more—and I intended to make sure he got the chance to prove

himself.

"Well, he seems to have taken some of the merchandise from the shop."

"What?" I stepped into the small walking space between shelves so I could see Dan. "What did he take?"

"A watch."

"Whose watch was it?"

"Nick Connolly's."

"Oh." The elder Connolly had been a longtime customer of the shop, and a few months earlier, he had come in to pawn a watch to raise some quick cash. To pay his light bill, he had said, but I had suspected it was for a card game. Between his alcoholism and gambling addiction, the old guy was a damned mess, but

I hoped the bullet he had recently taken while trying to save his youngest son's girlfriend might put him on the wagon for good. "I'm sure he thought he was helping friends."

"He can't do that, Abby. It's property of the shop, and that's on our books. We can't keep the doors open if your brother is skipping off with inventory whenever he pleases. This is why I don't like him messing

with my stuff. He isn't smart enough to—"

"Dan," I interrupted him as respectfully as possible even though I was steaming inside. "First it's not
your
stuff. It's the store's stuff. Second, I'm quite aware of how the pawn business works and how to balance our books and inventory. My business degree sort of covered all that. As for Mattie taking the

watch, I'm sure this was an isolated case. He's never taken a thing from this store, not even a pencil from my desk, without asking permission two or three times. That's just the way he is."

"Well—I don't like it."

I bit my tongue rather than reminding him where he could go if he didn't. "Mattie is a Kirkwood, and

this is our family's business. He belongs here. End of story. Okay?"

Dan sighed. "Sure. Fine."

"I'll sort out the watch situation."

"I'm sure you will," he grumbled on his way back to the front of the shop.

Setting aside the barcode scanner and logbook, I found a stack of crates to sit on and rubbed my

temples for a few seconds. Exhaling with frustration, I tugged my cell phone from the pocket of my jeans

and dialed Mattie's number. Five rings later, someone finally answered, but it wasn't my brother.

"Hi, Abby."

I blinked as the gruff, rumbling waves of Jack Connolly's voice rolled through me. A girlish quiver of

giddiness filtered through my belly and into my chest. "Hey, Jack. Um…I guess that answers my question about Mattie's whereabouts."

"He's here. I've got him doing circuits. Do you need him?"

"No, it can wait." I suddenly found myself wishing I had some other reason to keep Jack on the line.

Man, how pathetic! I was pining over a man who only saw me as a client of his gym and the big sister of

one of his players. Jack was so outrageously sexy that women were literally falling at his feet. A girl like me? I had no chance with a man like that.

I had seen the women he chatted up after class and around the baseball fields. They were blue or green-

eyed beauties with killer curves and mega sex appeal. Me? I was basically the exact opposite of those girls with my cocoa skin, dark eyes and jet black curly hair. Instead of a knockout figure, I had a petite body

with breasts that barely filled a B cup and a tiny booty that no amount of squats had yet to make big or

delicious despite all the promises of those fitness DVDs.

"Abby?"

"Yes?"

"Are you okay? Mattie told me about the robbery." He hesitated. "If you need anything—"

"They only took some video cameras. It was nothing big. We've already had the doors and locks

replaced and our security system has been revamped. We'll bounce back."

"I wasn't talking about the store, Abby. I was talking about
you
. Are you okay?"

The concern deepening his voice knocked me for a loop. "Yes, I'm fine."

"You know it's okay to
not
be fine sometimes, Abby. It doesn't make you weak to ask for some support from close friends."

"Like you?" The words rushed out of my mouth before I could even reconsider them. Were we close

friends? I hoped so but…

"Of course like me, Abby." He paused for a few seconds. "You and Mattie are very important to me."

"We are?" God, I hated how stupid I sounded.
Get a grip, Abs!

"Yes, you are. If you didn't know that, I'm obviously doing something wrong."

I swallowed hard and tried not to read into his comment. With my stress-fried brain, it would be only

too easy to misinterpret this and make a real jackass of myself.

"Listen, when Mattie is finished working out, I'll bring him back to the shop. I'll swing by and grab some takeout, okay? Let me treat you guys to dinner. It's been a long day."

"Oh, Jack, you don't have to—"

"I want to, Abby," he cut in gently. "I'll send you a text when we leave. All right?"

"Um…sure."

"Great. See you later."

"Bye."

Staring at my phone, I tried to make sense of what had just happened.
We're important to him?
My

fatigued brain dredged up all the run-ins I'd had with Jack over the last four years as he dragged his family's gym out of near bankruptcy to make it a raging success. After Granddad's health had started to go downhill, I seemed to see more of Jack. Now that I thought about it, I wondered if that was by design—
his
design.

All those late nights he had turned up at the shop to browse the firearms and go through our sports

inventory suddenly seemed less than coincidental. How many times had he just happened to swing by when

I was working late by myself or with only one other employee? How many times had he picked up a broom

or mop to help me finish with closing?

I glanced up at the fluorescent light bulbs overhead and remembered the way he had taken it upon

himself to install them after running into me at the hardware store a few weeks ago. Never in my wildest

dreams would I have dared to think that simple act of kindness was something else.

Was it really possible that devastatingly handsome Jack wanted
me
?

Chapter Two

Swinging side to side in his office chair, Jack Connolly stared at Mattie's phone. Abby's sweet voice

ricocheted round and round in his head. How the hell had he screwed up things so badly that Abby didn't

even realize how much her safety meant to him?

Still clutching Mattie's phone, he shoved out of his chair and crossed his office to the window that gave

him an unimpeded view of the gym. He braced his palm against the cool glass and watched the two dozen

or so clients moving through the various stations. Unlike some of the gyms that catered to high-end clientele with their sleek machines and expensive trainers, Connolly Fitness embraced an old-school feel with its

minimalist design and wide open space.

Most clients followed a challenging conditioning and strengthening regimen that consisted of cardio,

weight lifting and flexibility work. He made use of his contacts from his military days to hire instructors to teach self-defense and fighting classes like Krav Maga, kickboxing, Muay Thai and Eskrima. They had a

mixed-martial arts program that was just over a year old and more popular than ever. Finally, after years of busting his ass, the gym was operating fully in the black.

But a few weeks earlier, they had come uncomfortably close to losing it all. Their father had gotten

them tangled up in a mess of debts to two different loan sharks, one of them with a claim on the building

itself. Jack's chest tightened when he thought of the way his younger brother's girlfriend had saved their backsides by giving the loan shark the building she had planned to use as the headquarters for her growing tech business.

The tightness in his chest increased when he remembered the night he and Kelly had barely managed to

save her from that psycho stalker while their dad bled out on the floor of her apartment after taking a bullet to protect her. Their old man had held on through a night of surgeries and was now in recovery at home.

Though he respected his father for risking his life for Bee's, Jack still had incredibly complicated feelings toward him. The years of abuse their family had suffered under that alcoholic bastard's hands were too

much for him to forgive and forget.

Mattie's deep belly laugh drew Jack from his thoughts. The laughter punctuated the heavy metal Finn

liked to play over the sound system in the evenings. Abby's baby brother hugged his stomach as he

guffawed at something funny he had heard from the three guys he had been doing burpees beside. No

doubt the joke or story he had just been told was dirty and wholly inappropriate. He had asked the guys

who worked out with Mattie to watch their language but his request didn't seem to stick for very long.

Though he wanted to shield Mattie from the coarser side of male camaraderie, he was glad that the

gym's clients all respected and accepted the younger man. Jack had made it perfectly clear that he would

kick the ass of any person who spoke badly of or rudely toward Mattie and that Kelly and Finn would take

turns whooping some ass when he was finished. So far, he hadn’t had to follow through on that threat.

Mattie's friendliness and sense of humor were so damned endearing even the roughest ex-Special Forces

guys who trained at the gym couldn't help but smile when he was near.

Jack stepped into the gym. "Mattie! Do your cool down and hit the showers, man."

Mattie waved to let him know that he'd received his order and started the final phase of his workout.