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“Yep. We were as thick as thieves, the three of us.”
“His parents didn’t mind?”
I frowned, not sure how much I should say. “Alfie didn’t have the best home life. He practically lived with Aiden and Sloane throughout high school.”
Cassidy nodded, twirling a lock of hair around her finger thoughtfully. I’d noticed that she’d taken to wearing it down, and along with her new, noncombative posture it was becoming more and more difficult to reconcile this image of her with my first impression.
She was wearing leggings and a sweater today, her hair falling in loose curls that had my hands fisting at my sides, itching to feel its silkiness sliding through my fingers again. Cassidy bit her lip, looking out over the garden, and my stomach did a backflip as my gaze slid down over the gentle curves of her breasts to her waist. Images of those hips pressed against mine, my fingers tangled in those strawberry locks, flickered through my brain. Pressing her back against that brick wall, the feel of her body caged beneath mine and that sinful little moan when I’d kissed her the second time. I wanted to hear it again.
“I remember this place.”
That little revelation was like a bucket of ice water over my untimely fantasy, and I forced my eyes back up to her face. “What?”
“I remember coming here as a child.” The little crease between her brows was back. “I used to play in this garden while Tommy was down at the beach with you guys.”
“I forgot Michael would bring the family over sometimes.” That was a lie, but I’d be damned if I could come up with a single memory of Cassidy. “How come you never hung out with us?”
“You guys were always playing in the surf.”
I failed to see where she was going with this. “So?”
“I don’t like the ocean. It’s cold and violent.” She said it so matter-of-factly that I almost laughed. “And I can’t swim.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Cassidy narrowed her eyes. “I just don’t like it. I tried, and it’s not for me.”
“Little miss stubborn, you can’t expect me to believe that.” I leaned in closer. “Maybe you just didn’t have the right teacher.”
“I doubt that.”
I grinned. Challenge accepted. If it weren’t so cold out there, I would’ve taken her down to the beach and taught her myself. For all her fire and bravado, I’d come to realize that Cassidy had a bad habit of letting her fears control her. A habit I intended to break.
But not today.
“Melissa planted this garden,” I said, changing the topic.
“I know. I remember my Mom helping her.”
The silence between us seemed to stretch to the point of breaking, so I decided to push. “Tell me about her. Your mother.”
Cassidy didn’t say anything, idly turning a peony bud over in her fingers. At first, I thought I had overstepped, but she finally spoke. “I had a good childhood, I really did. It was a lot like yours, actually. Dad kept us pretty well sheltered against…what he did…and we were happy. Mom loved flowers. Any plants, really. I guess it comes with the territory when you own a nursery. It seemed like every day she’d come home with another ‘orphan,’ as she called them, a plant in desperate need of a patch of soil that could only be found at our house.”
I smiled faintly. “Must’ve looked like a jungle.”
“It did. Our backyard only had this little patch of grass, the rest was all plants,” she shook her head. “We had rows of these tall, leafy things that would produce these little pink flowers—I don’t know what they were, I’m hopeless with plants—but Tommy and I used to hide in them when Michael was looking for us and pretend we were lost in the jungle. He was the wild man and I was the scientist sent to find him.”
“The wild man of South Boston,” I chuckled. “Not much has changed, then.”
“Not really. Dad never could find us, but Mom always knew where we were.” She tilted her chin up, her eyes far away. “My mom was the sweetest, kindest woman, but she was strong. She loved helping people. She volunteered all over the city, organizing food drives, working at shelters. It seemed like every time we turned around, she was starting up a new charity.”
Cassidy frowned. “It’s almost like…I used to wonder if the reason she did it was to balance out all the bad. A few good acts to erase the evil ones. Maybe to dilute the blood that stained us, knowing where the money came from that put the food on our table, the clothes on our back. But mostly, I think she did it because she liked to do it. It made her happy.”
“She sounds like a wonderful person.”
Cassidy smiled at me. It was the first genuine smile she’d given me, and it took everything I had not to put my arms around her. It was good I didn’t though, because the smile slowly fell from her face.
“Being a good person wasn’t enough to save her, though. Not from this life.” She shook her head, a muscle working in her jaw. “Everything changed after that day. My father, he was a different person. He was cold. Distant. I think after my mother died, he had no reason to shelter us from the harshness of this life anymore. Tommy certainly didn’t mind. He was more than willing to join the ranks.”
