First and Only (Callaghan Brothers #2)

“Kieran brought you home with him after school,” he said.

Lexi nodded. “It was in 9th grade. My first year of public high school. I met Kieran my first day.” She smiled at the memory. “I was totally lost, standing where two hallways intersected, trying to figure out which way to go. He literally plowed right into me, leveling me like the bulldozer he is. My lip split and, as you can imagine, it was a total bloodbath. Thank God we were both running late and no one else was in the hallway at the time.”

“He was a little freaked out, I think, but he handled it better than most. He picked me up and carried me to the nurse, refusing to leave even though they threatened him with detention for not going back to his classes. That’s when he found out my little secret. He swore he wouldn’t tell anyone, and instantly appointed himself my protector.”

Yeah, thought Ian. That sounded like Kieran. Even when they were little, their mother used to call him her little knight. The rest of them teased him mercilessly about it. Still did.

“Anyway, we started hanging out a little after that. Well, it was more like I tried to hide and he kept finding me, but he really started growing on me after a while. One day, football practice was cancelled, and he wanted to walk me home after school, but I was in no hurry to go back to my house. I knew Kayla would be there with all of her friends.”

She shrugged, seeming to grow smaller as she subconsciously shrunk back from the memory. “I swear they spent hours coming up with new ways to torment me. I didn’t care – I’d learned to ignore them, but I would have been mortified if they’d humiliated me in front of Kieran. He was pretty much my only friend. I couldn’t chance that. Kayla was beautiful, outgoing, popular – boys were always asking her out, but me, well...”

Yes, Kayla had been popular. She’d been in Ian’s class. He had been just as enamored as the rest of them when she first moved to Pine Ridge, but that was the stupidity of adolescent boys, wasn’t it? And Kayla never had any qualms about flaunting her assets in front of them. Still, Kayla was one of those girls boys liked to take out, not take home. She made it easy. Too easy. There was a huge difference between that kind of “popularity” and the genuine kind, though he doubted Lexi understood that back then.

“When he realized I wasn’t going to let him walk me home he suggested I go home with him instead, feigning some excuse so I wouldn’t feel bad. That was the first day I met all of you.”

“You were in the kitchen,” Ian recalled quietly. “Making cookies.”

“Yeah,” she laughed softly. “I wanted to do something nice for Kieran since he’d been so kind to me. Given the size of him, I figured anything involving food was a safe bet, and baking was one thing I could do really well. Little did I realize I would end up feeding a small army.”

Ian smiled at the memory. The aroma had drawn him and all of his brothers to the kitchen like moths to a flame. They’d been without a mother for several years by that time, and needless to say, Jack Callaghan was not much of a baker. Things that other kids took for granted – like having a mom around that made fresh-baked cookies after school – were highly coveted in their household.

“I remember thinking that Kayla would have done anything to be in my place that day,” she recalled fondly. “There I was, alone, surrounded by an entire room full of Irish demi-gods.” Ian raised an eyebrow and Lexi blushed. “That’s what all the girls called you guys.”

“Then you came in,” she said, looking at their joined hands again. “You were bummed because all the cookies that had come out of the oven so far were gone, and the others were razzing you about it. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, pulling out another tray. ‘You can have these.’ You leaned against the counter, looked me right in the eye, and said – “

“You are a goddess.” It came back to him in a rush and suddenly he was back in that kitchen, looking down into her beautiful face, tilted up toward his, more exotic-looking than any girl he’d ever seen. Those wide, innocent eyes, blazing amber. The dark pink that quickly suffused her light bronze skin. The way her dark, full lips parted slightly, giving him an instant hard-on. Embarrassed by his reaction to her, he’d grabbed a few cookies right off the tray, ignoring the burning in his palm, and beat feet out of there before any of his brothers – or more importantly, she – took notice.