Soaring (Magdalene #2)(29)
Author: Kristen Ashley

I kept my attention on the laptop as I used the touchpad to bring up my email. “Cupcakes. I start volunteering at Dove House tomorrow and I’m using them to buy the old folks’ affection.”

“You’re volunteering at Dove House?” he asked.

The disbelieving tone of his voice made me glance at him.

Yes, still amazingly beautiful.

Somebody.

Kill.

Me.

I looked back to the laptop, confirming, “Yes, three days a week, three hours a day.”

“Not lookin’ for a job.”

My gaze went back to him to find that now his eyes were on the laptop and his face was impassive.

I knew why.

I’d shared a little bit of me and it was like the rest of me.

Not exactly promising.

“No,” I whispered.

He looked to me and there were a lot of things I wanted from his blue eyes, but the emptiness in them right then was not one of them.

Even with that, he said, “Cool you’re doin’ that. My great-gran went there when her Alzheimer’s got bad. They’re always needin’ help.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

He tipped his head to my laptop. “Ready for my email?”

In other words, let’s get on with this so I can do the errand my beloved daughter wanted me to do and get the heck out of here.

“Ready,” I told him.

He gave it to me. I typed it in then attached the recipe files and added a subject and my cell phone number in the message space.

All that done, I hit send.

“It’s away,” I said, lifting my eyes to his to see his aimed at my hips.

At my words, they cut to mine and he asked, “You had dinner?”

I stared, a little surprised that I hadn’t thought of dinner and it was probably close to eight o’clock.

I made myself smile. “I’m having cupcake batter for dinner.”

He stared in my eyes for long moments before he muttered, “Right,” like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

My phone rang again.

I looked to it and it was again my father. Seeing that made my neck muscles tighten, knowing he was likely getting angry and with every call he’d get angrier and more determined to find ways to share that anger with me.

“See you’re not tight with your dad,” Mickey noted and I tore my eyes from my phone to look at him.

“We have…issues,” I admitted.

“Shame,” he muttered.

“Yes,” I concurred. “Are you…” I hesitated to ask, to draw his visit out, to request information that was not mine to have, then my mouth went for it, “Close with your folks?”

“Absolutely.”

He answered and it was firm but it invited no further conversation.

“You’re lucky,” I mumbled, looking back down to my laptop.

“Absolutely,” he repeated, just as firmly.

I nodded to my laptop before looking to him. “Do you want a cupcake before you go?”

His mouth tightened and I watched it do this with an unhealthy level of fascination.

I did this because it had not escaped me he had nice lips, a full lower one, captivating creases running along both the top and bottom, all this highlighted by alluring whiskers and framed by hollowed cheeks under very cut cheekbones and his squared off jaw.

Oddly, that mouth tightened in anger made it even more striking than it was normally.

Even so, I couldn’t imagine why my thinly veiled attempt to give him the opportunity to escape me would cause him to feel that anger.

He untightened his mouth to ask, “Where’d you come from?”

My head twitched at his question. “I’m sorry?”

“Before Magdalene,” he explained.

“La Jolla. In California,” I answered.

“Know where it is, Amelia.”

Amelia.

Not Amy.

He was angry.

Why was he angry?

“Your folks back there?” he asked.

“Yes,” I told him. “I grew up there. Conrad took positions in practices in Boston and Lexington, but we landed back home before, well”, I tipped my head to the side, “here.”

“Practices?” he queried.

“He’s a neurosurgeon,” I said.

And again, Mickey’s mouth tightened.

“Your family?” I asked to change the subject to something that might not make him angry. “You said they sold you their—”

“Florida,” he cut me off, answering my question before I completely got it out, telling me something he told me already. Then he carried on, “Got three brothers. One in Boston, the oldest, moved the family business there. Second oldest is in Bar Harbor, he runs a subsidiary. Youngest, Dylan, lives in Vermont. He’s a professor at a college.”

“Oh,” I murmured.

“My great-granddad was a fisherman,” Mickey kept going, as usual, letting the information about him flow and doing it openly. “My granddad took his business and built it. Dad built it bigger. Big enough, he could afford a house in this neighborhood to put his woman in and raise his sons in. Big enough, that business outgrew Magdalene and Sean had to move it to Boston.”

“Sean is the oldest?” I asked.

He nodded. “Sean, then Frank, then me, then Dylan.”

Four Donovan brothers.

If they were half as magnificent as Mickey, it was good they didn’t live in Magdalene or the entirety of the female population would have problems, just like me.

“Your dad still work?” he asked and I felt my neck get tighter.

“Yes,” I told him. “He probably won’t retire until Auden comes of age and he can hand over the business direct to family.” This was true, and Dad had shared this with my son, but the idea of it terrified me. I obviously didn’t tell this to Mickey. Instead, I explained, “My brother took his own path, lives in Santa Barbara, he’s an attorney.”

His mouth got hard again but he still moved it.

“What’s your dad do?”

I didn’t want to answer.

In fact, I wasn’t really certain why he asked, he couldn’t care.

In fact, I was completely uncertain why he was still there when I couldn’t imagine that he wanted to be.

But he frequently laid it out for me and maybe this was his attempt at keeping things friendly. Know thy neighbor or something like that.

So even if I didn’t want to, I answered anyway.

“He’s CEO of Calway Petroleum, the family company.”

His eyes flared then shut down on his, “Jesus.”