A Heart Revealed (34 page)

“Even so,” she said with a frown, “a man of your age should have more control.”

He blinked, his gaping mouth a mirror image of hers moments before. His usual good humor went as flat as his lips. “I don’t know why you’re acting so huffy, Emma, I’m the one with the problem. Forget I even brought it up.” He opened his door.

A merge of guilt and hurt squeezed in her chest.
I
am
acting huffy
, she thought with surprise, and a chill slithered through her because she didn’t know why. She reached for his arm before he could exit the car. “Sean, I’m sorry—forgive me, please?”

He dropped back against the leather seat, one hand rising to pinch the bridge of his nose. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m just touchy because Rose makes me so crazy.”

“How did this happen?” Emma asked gently, trying hard to focus on the problem at hand.

He expelled a weighty sigh and closed the door once again. “She showed up at my game and warded off a dinner invite from a widowed mother.” He peered at Emma out of the corner of his eye. “Actually had the nerve to say she was my girlfriend. And I’ll tell you what, you never saw a widow hightail it so fast.”

Hand to mouth, Emma stifled a gasp. “No . . .”

“Yep, afraid so. I told you she was devious. So when Bobby begged his mother to invite me to dinner, Mrs. Dalton—or Barbara, as she suggested I call her—was mortified, but went ahead and extended an invitation for Saturday night.” His mouth twisted. “For me
and
Rose.”

“Oh, dear!”

“Rose apologized, saying we already had plans, and all I could do was nod my head like some woodenheaded bobble toy. So when Barbara dragged Bobby away, I turned on Rose, faster than a blind slugger on the third strike. Called her a liar, a manipulator, and a floozy . . .”

Emma’s hand dropped from her mouth as if wrapped in a fifty-pound cast. “You didn’t . . .”

“I did. Felt like a heel the minute the words were out of my mouth.”

“So what did you do?” Emma whispered, unable to imagine Sean saying such hurtful words, even to Rose Kelly, despite the disastrous effect she obviously had on him.

He closed his eyes, head resting on the back of the seat. “What could I do—I apologized. That’s when she finagled going to Robinson’s.” He massaged his temple with the ball of his hand. “Right before she insisted we keep our ‘date’ so it wouldn’t be a lie.”

“Oh, my.”

“So, now I’m stuck having dinner with her tomorrow night.”

Emma worried her lip. “Well, it’s just one night. How bad can it be?”

His eyelids nudged up to give her a dubious stare. “Uh, I don’t think you understand, Emma—this is Rose Kelly. You know, the woman who not only cornered me in the storeroom with a lip-lock but got me fired by giving me mouth-to-mouth while perched in my lap?”

A tiny gasp popped from her lips as heat steamed her cheeks.

“Yeah, now that’s more the reaction I was going for.” He shifted to face her, arm draped over the seat and his manner serious. “Look, Emma, I know it sounds like I’m making light of this, but trust me, that’s only a cover. Deep down inside, the woman scares me silly.”

She tucked a leg beneath her skirt and slanted against the seat to study him, an unsettled thought churning in her brain. “That’s more than obvious, Sean, but I can’t help but wonder why.”

He glanced up, eyes expanding and brows jagged high. “Why? I already told you why! The woman’s as loose as a pocket of change.”

She hesitated, a difficult question poised on her tongue. “Which would only be a problem if . . . ,” she swallowed the sour taste in her mouth, “you were attracted to her, right?”

It was his turn to blush, and he complied nicely with a swoosh of ruddy color bleeding into his cheeks. He gouged the back of his neck. “For pity’s sake, Emma, I’m a man, not one of those blasted mannequins down at the store. Of course I’m attracted to her.”

For some reason his words stung, but she ignored their effect and tilted her head, brow wrinkled in concern. “Well, for the first time, I guess I find myself wondering just why that would be such a bad thing? You know, why you fight this attraction to a woman who is obviously crazy about you?” She paused to draw in a deep breath, then laid a calming hand to his arm. “But most of all I can’t help but wonder why you have an aversion to falling in love when it might be exactly what God has in mind?”

He blinked, her frank question obviously catching him off-guard. She noted the sharp shift of his Adam’s apple and immediately knew she’d struck a nerve buried deep. Averting his gaze, he stared out the windshield, lips compressed.

She removed her hand from his arm to rest it on the purse in her lap, her palm idly smoothing the cool leather while her voice carried low. “Actually, it’s been a curiosity of mine for a while now—why someone with such a capacity to love would be so deathly afraid of giving that love to a woman. Charity’s always been convinced that some woman broke your heart during the war, but I’ve never given much credence to that theory.” She studied his chiseled profile, his face as serious as she’d ever seen, and slowly released a tenuous breath. “Until now.”

He remained silent, but the muscle flickering in his jaw told her she was treading on ground where no one had ever gone. And in the slow rise and fall of his chest, she suddenly knew. Knew without a word uttered, that the man beside her—the friend she loved—had been fatally wounded during the war. A protective instinct rose up in her so strong, that she reached for his hand, clutching it as tears stung her eyes. “Talk to me, Sean,” she whispered. “Please . . . so I know how to pray. Because I love you too much to watch you suffer this way.”

He slowly withdrew his hand, gaze glued to the dash. “Don’t do this, Emma. It doesn’t make for pleasant conversation.”

The hackles rose on the back of her neck, lending an uncustomary sharpness to her tone. “I’m not interested in ‘pleasant’ conversation, Sean, I’m interested in seeing old wounds healed for one of my dearest friends.”

He turned. Thick, blond lashes lifted, revealing hooded eyes dark with pain. “I’ve never talked about it before.”

“I know,” she whispered, “but if it still hurts, then it’s time.”

Still, he didn’t answer, his gaze lost in a hard stare into the cobblestone street where couples strolled in the hazy lamplight. It seemed a surreal contradiction—the muted strains of laughter and music from a pub down the way while his breathing tumbled out shallow and harsh, filling the silence with his torment. He finally straightened and draped sturdy arms across the top of the thick, black steering wheel to rest his chin on massive hands. “It’s been so long,” he whispered, his voice laced with melancholy, “since I’ve allowed myself to even think about it . . .” A muscle worked in his throat as he stared, his profile little more than a shadowed silhouette. “So long since I’ve even whispered her name.”

She had sensed it was a woman, and yet his words shocked her anew, plumbing the depth of their friendship in a way no other words had. Air stilled in her lungs while she waited.

“Clare.” His mouth seemed to caress the word as it breathed from his lips, and Emma’s heart stopped at the tenderness emanating from that single name. A silent heave shivered the broad expanse of his shoulders before he sagged back against the leather seat, lamplight glinting off the sheen in his eyes.

“Did you . . . love her?” Her whisper wavered, all breath suspended.

“Love her?” he repeated. The barest of smiles hovered at the edges of his mouth. He nodded, and the words from his lips, though barely a whisper, pierced her heart with his sorrow and regret. “How could I not? She was the mother of my child.”

His statement drifted in her brain, its impact silent, slow, and deep, like a knick she didn’t know she had until she saw the blood on her hand. And then in a harsh catch of her breath, her heart constricted, and a low moan died in her throat. She reached for his palm. “Oh, Sean . . .”

He gripped her hand until the pain in her heart throbbed like her fingers, and then as a chasm yawning wide, the man before her quietly unburdened his soul, allowing a glimpse into Sean O’Connor she suspected few had been privileged to see.

He’d met Clare in November 1917, he said, while stationed in Château-Thierry, and they’d fallen desperately in love. His eyes took on a faraway look that made Emma feel alone in the car despite the lifeless drone of his voice.

“I’d never felt like that before, Emma, nor since—consumed by a love that made me almost grateful for the war that brought us together.” He told her how General “Black Jack” Pershing mandated months of extensive training before the American Expeditionary Force faced combat in the spring, which allowed the soldiers frequent leaves that he and Clare always spent together. He looked away, more wetness shimmering in his eyes. “I wanted to marry her, Emma, I swear—more than anything in this world. But her parents wanted nothing to do with me.”

“Did she love you?” Emma asked, her pulse slowing to hear his answer.

The strain on his face eased as a faint smile curved on his lips. “Yeah, she did. Enough to want a lifetime together . . . and enough to give herself to me.” He looked up then, as if to measure the assessment in her eyes. “What we did was wrong, I know, and I was certainly raised to know better.” He drew in a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, his sorrow appearing to be more from his loss than his actions. “But the world was at war and men were dying, and at the time it seemed as if our lives might be snuffed out too. We’d both waited a lifetime for this and didn’t dare squander it because in the next moment we knew . . . it might all be gone. All we had were fleeting moments where we could see inside of each other’s souls, two people who might never speak a word and yet somehow knew . . . knew what the other was thinking.” He exhaled again, and the tenor of his tone went as flat as the press of his mouth. “When she told me she was pregnant, I vowed to marry her, only her father refused.” His eyes were glazed and fixed straight ahead. “I found out from one of her friends that he hated Yanks, so he beat her in a rage and she . . . ,” he lowered his head, shoulders slumped as if weighted with memories that crushed not only his heart, but his spirit, “. . . lost the baby.”

“Oh, Sean . . .” Emma’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I tried to see her, of course, but her father refused, threatening me with the authorities if I came around again. So I laid low for a few weeks, hoping to reason with him when he cooled down, only”—a nerve flickered in the hollow of his cheek as his jaw hardened along with his words—“when I went back, she was conveniently married to someone else, handpicked by her father.”

Emma caught her breath. “Sean, I’m so sorry . . .”

“No, I’m sorry for burdening you with this, Emma, but I guess I’ve never really gotten over it.” He attempted a smile that failed miserably. “And I did warn you it wasn’t pleasant.”

“Yes you did,” she whispered. She squeezed his hand as she studied him, her gaze bonded to his. “Now let me warn
you
, Sean O’Connor. There is no way I can allow someone as dear to me as you to carry such a heavy load.”

A muscle quivered in his jaw. “Trust me, Emma, if I could lay this down, go back and change the past, I would. Because as surely as I draw breath, I know it was my weakness, my desires . . . that ultimately cost my child’s life. And as if that isn’t horrible enough, I have to live with this seething anger inside, not just toward Clare’s parents, but Clare herself—the woman I would have loved and protected for the rest of my life . . . if only she’d stood up to them and given me a chance.”

“Oh, Sean . . .”

His voice was lifeless as he stared straight ahead, obviously mired in thoughts as dark as the hate with which he wrestled. “They say confession is good for the soul, Emma, but all it does for me is dredge up painful things I’d rather forget.” His voice broke and he put a hand to his eyes, his silence thick with shame and regret. “Like the kind of man I am deep down inside.”

“Sean . . . we’re all sinners . . .”

The torment in his eyes chilled her. “Yes, Emma, we are . . . but we’re not all murderers.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “No! You didn’t murder your baby, Sean—Clare’s father did!”

“Not the baby,” he whispered, “a man, Emma. A man I killed during the war.”

Her brows knit together. “A lot of men were killed during the war. It’s the nature of the beast, defending one’s country. That’s not murder.”

He sank back against the seat, closing his eyes as if he dreaded seeing the shock on her face. “It wasn’t my country I was defending, Emma, it was Clare.”

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

“I mean I lost my temper.” He gouged his forehead and then opened his eyes, chest expanding as he drew in air. She saw the hard press of his lips as he finally locked eyes with hers. “Like the night at Kearney’s when I assaulted your friend. I told you later that it’s only happened twice in my life—once with you, and once during the war.” Unleashing a weary sigh, he sifted hands through his hair to clasp the back of his head, eyes trailing into nothingness. “I’ve always known I had a temper, but I kept it under wraps because it’s not something I’m proud of. And then on one of my weekend leaves, I was supposed to meet Clare at a new pub, but when I walked in, some guy was manhandling her and I just lost it. Slammed him against the wall just like I did Martin, only this guy fought back, and the next thing I know, my buddies are pulling me off, afraid I’m going to kill him.” A lump shifted in Sean’s throat and he closed his eyes again, his face a mask of pain. “And I would have, Emma, because the rage was like nothing I’ve ever felt before . . . so dark, so evil, like I wanted to kill him for even touching Clare. I turned away, and then Clare screamed. I swear I never even felt the knife, only something warm and wet on my arm as this guy came at me again. When I realized it was my blood on his blade, I snapped. Picked up a heavy wooden chair like it weighed nothing at all and swung it, catching him on the side of the head so hard I swear I heard his neck crack.”

Emma watched as Sean put a hand to his eyes, his voice choked with emotion. “I can still see it, even after all these years—that look of total shock in his eyes before he slumped to the floor, knife still in hand. The pub was crowded that night, and my buddies dragged me out of there so fast that nobody really knew what happened. I didn’t find out until later that he was dead, nothing more to the locals than a knife fight gone awry.” His throat shifted. “But I know better.”