Tangling With Ty

He thought of his mother, professional trouble-seeker, professional man-screwer, and knew it was entirely possible. With a sigh, he hit Reply.

Dear Margaret Mary…

Ty sat there, fingers poised over the keys, and couldn’t figure out what he wanted to say. How are you? Too formal.

How about What do you want from me? Nah, too defensive.

Dear Margaret Mary. Of Dublin.

He stopped to laugh. So formal, this mystery half sister. But then his smile faded. This could only bring trouble and rotten memories, neither of which he wanted. Thinking that, he typed:

Why now? Why me?

Besides, there could be a dozen of us for all I know.

Maybe you should try one of them.

Ty Patrick O’Grady

He hit Send, then sat there staring at nothing for who knew how long, until his computer beeped, indicating an incoming e-mail.

“So you can’t sleep either,” he murmured and leaned forward.

Dear Ty,

I’m so glad you wrote. You have questions, questions are good.

But there is no one else. She told me herself before she died. Not that her word ever meant anything, but on this, I want to believe her.

It’s just you and me.

Aren’t you even curious?

Margaret Mary

Curious? Hell, no. He’d rather not think about his past at all. He’d rather look around him and see where he was right this moment. How far he’d come. And he’d come pretty damn far.

It’s just you and me.

Damn her for that, for putting it into words so simply. So strongly. Clearly she didn’t relish being alone, as he did.

She was young, very young, and probably had idealistic hopes about a family around her, hopes he’d never entertained for himself.

Ah, hell. He hit Reply.

Margaret Mary,

If you’re looking for family to be a comfort, forget it. I didn’t get the comfort gene. If you’re looking for a handout, you’d have better luck with our mum herself, dead or otherwise.

Best leave it alone.

Ty Patrick O’Grady

He hit Send. It was the right thing to do, he’d been on his own so long he didn’t have any business opening his life to another person.

He was a loner, through and through. No family, no long-term lover. And if he gave a fleeting thought to what it might be like to be different, to let Margaret Mary in, to let Nicole in, he let it go.

Not his thing. Besides, he didn’t know how to let anyone in.

Since he couldn’t seem to sleep or entertain himself, he figured he might as well start his day. That meant pulling out the plans he was working up for Taylor’s building.

It was the attic that was concerning him today, as Taylor had fond hopes of a place to store all the antiques she couldn’t seem to stop collecting. The last time he’d been there, he’d gotten distracted by Nicole.

Seeing as Nicole was no doubt killing herself at work, he decided the crack of dawn was a perfectly fine time to crawl around in the attic to his heart’s content without disturbing a soul.

And he did just that, getting filthy in the process as he crawled through spiderwebs the size of his car. Straddling a beam, he pulled out his pad, and was happily making notes when he heard a door open. The sound came so close, he looked around, baffled, until he realized it was the apartment door directly beneath him.

Nicole’s.

Because of the way the building was built-on a slight incline-the roof was really on two different tiers. On the higher level was the attic. Right next to that, but a full level below, was the loft apartment. There were two ways into the attic, the way he’d come in, through the third-floor hallway, or through a trap door at the far corner of Nicole’s living room.

Due to a vicious storm only a few months ago, when a tree had fallen through the bedroom area of the loft, much of that part of the roof had been redone. But not the attic portion, which was still incredibly rickety. Reaching down, he opened the trap door.

It made a loud creaking sound, but Nicole, standing just inside her front door, never looked up. Ty realized this was because she had on a set of headphones, which, given the volume of her singing-so off-key he had to smile- meant she couldn’t hear anything.

Before he could attract her attention, she’d kicked off her shoes, then crossed her arms in front of her and whipped off her top.

She wore a tiger-striped bra-did she have any idea how sexy her secret lingerie fetish was?-and then put her hands to the button on her pants. Oh, boy. “Nicole!” He was barely braced on the studs now, but he leaned over way farther than he should, knowing he had to make her see him or she’d be good and pissed by the time she was naked, and generally he liked his women soft and smiling and mewling with lust when they were naked.

Still singing, she shucked her pants, kicking them across the room with an abandon that normally would have made him grin.

Her panties did not match her bra. They were purple, lacy and very, very tiny. Turning in circles in a little shimmy of a dance, she headed toward her bedroom, giving him a good, long look at her backside as she wriggled and shook.

“Oh man,” he whispered to himself, and leaned out as far as he dared. “Nicole-”

He crashed right through the ceiling. The air whipped his face; the floor rushed up to greet him, but all he saw was a tiger-striped bra and purple lace panties.

NOT MUCH SCARED Nicole. But Ty falling through her ceiling shook her to the core. By the time she reached him, which took longer than it should have since she wasted five seconds just staring at the huge mass of him on her floor, he hadn’t budged.

“Oh my God, Ty. Ty.”

He was on his side, face gray through all the dry-wall dust. Dropping to her knees at his hip, she leaned over him. “Ty, can you hear me?”

Nothing. But she could see his chest rising and falling, and she nearly sobbed in relief. “Okay. You’re going to be okay. You are.”

Surging up, she grabbed her portable phone, dialed for an ambulance; calm, cool, in control. As she always was in an emergency.

Then she looked down at the big, handsome, far-too-still man on her floor and wanted to fall apart. Her hands shook as she gently put them on him. What to do? God, what to do? Every ounce of medical training she’d ever had flew right out the window. “Damn it, get it together, Nicole.” She ran her hands down his limbs, frowning at his right ankle. Not broken, she didn’t think, but already swollen. Then she got to his right side, and the possibly cracked ribs, and had to take a deep, calming breath. “You’re going to be okay,” she whispered, having no idea which of them she was talking to.

There was a huge knot forming on his head, and he hadn’t regained consciousness. “Ty.” She cupped his face, his beautiful, too-still face, with the long dark lashes and strong, sharp jaw. “Come on, Ty. Come back to me. Wake up.” She checked his pupils. Uneven. Concussion, if he was lucky. “Please, Ty. Please wake up. For me, do it for me, okay? Wake up and I’ll-”

He groaned. Coughed. Rolled from his side to his back and groaned again, eyes still closed. “Shh, darlin’,” he said in a rough whisper. “It’s too early to be yelling.”

“Ty.” Her eyes burned with the relief. “You’re back.”