Page 10 of Airhead

She didn’t just look good. She looked amazing. And she was looking right at him.

Frank didn’t think about it—no surprise there—but it was like his whole mouth just started moving on its own accord. His lips curled into a smile he couldn’t flatten back into a line if he tried.

“Earth to Hartigan,” Shannahan said in a low voice, as he stood next to Frank. “Remember that grin thing you were asking about earlier? Well, I’m pretty damn sure you’re doing it right now, at the captain’s daughter. That’s a really bad idea.”

It was, but it wasn’t like he was known for having great ones.

Chapter Five

Katie’s Jazzercize class had made her sweat, but seeing Frank again made her hot.

This was not something she was proud of—and it should never have happened in the first place. He wasn’t her type.

Firefighter? No thank you.

Mr. Muscles? Not her thing.

A cocky attitude that made her want to forget she knew better? Gag her with a spoon.

Her type was professorial Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark, not a redheaded, hulking Conan the Barbarian.

And yet, here she was, with mouth dry and brain blank, staring at the last man in Waterbury who should be giving her all of the best kind of bad ideas.

“I brought cookies,” she said, holding out the Tupperware container filled with her mom’s oatmeal raisin cookies.

Wow, Madigan. Way to really show that man that he has zero impact on your brain’s ability to function.

Yeah, well your brain can suck it because your eyes have to process seeing Frank in a tight T-shirt (because he’s so jacked up there’s no other kind for him) and it’s doing things to you.

Am I having an argument with myself over Frank fucking Hartigan?

Yep.

I am so very, very screwed.

“For my dad,” she said, her cheeks burning with the heat of a thousand suns as Frank stood there doing that grin thing at her. “I brought cookies. For my dad. My mom asked me to drop them off. For him. My dad.”

“Are they chocolate chip?” the guy standing next to Frank asked.

“Sugar?” another offered in question.

Benny O’Rourke, The Creep’s sycophant best friend took a few steps closer to her—as if she wanted to be anywhere even kind of close to him—and asked, “Brown butter?”

She was just gathering up enough brain cells to first take a solid step away from Benny, and second disclose they were oatmeal raisin, when a stiff wind blew in from behind, sending a smattering of orange-colored leaves into the open bay door. That was immediately followed by the unmistakable sound of high heels clicking on the pavement, which cut though the static in her ears with an oh-God-really sense of dread.

“Imagine seeing you here, Katherine,” Sandy O’Shay said, before snapping her gum loud enough that the pigeons on the firehouse lawn scattered. “Those cookies will just go perfect with the tray of ziti I brought as a little thanks for these hardworking fellas who saved my life.”

Katie barely bit back a groan, but couldn’t stop the eye roll. As her mom always told her, “Katie if your mouth doesn’t say it, your face sure will.” Her mom wasn’t wrong. Still, it was hard not to react when Sandy had been milking her so-called brush with death for the past three months.

“It was a trash fire on the street, Sandy,” Katie said, unable to stop the words from coming out.

The other woman held her aluminum-foiled-covered Pyrex dish tighter to her chest and looked off into the middle distance. “But it was so close to my house that some days it’s like I can still feel the flames.”

“The dumpster was at the end of the alley,” Katie said, knowing she should just ignore the other woman. But Sandy had been a bully since their days at St. Bernadette’s School for Girls, and what little give-a-shit Katie once possessed was now just a memory.

Sandy jerked her focus to Katie, giving her a tight smile. “Aren’t you just a font of factoids today?”

“Ladies,” Benny said, rocking back on his heels with a smug look on his freckled face as if they were both there to specifically see his scrawny ass. “There are enough stomachs for all of it.”