Bottom Line: Callaghan Brothers, Book 8 (6 page)

Of course it wasn’t Aidan.  It was her mother.  Mary closed her eyes and put her hand over her forehead, angry with herself for not remembering that it was Sunday, and her mother always called on Sunday nights. 

A sense of doom settled into her chest, displacing the lingering desire. Usually there was some mental preparation required before Mary had the strength to hold a civil conversation with her mother, and even then it was an exercise in patience.  In her weakened mental state she didn’t stand a chance. 

“You sound off,” Catherine (Cat) Murphy said within seconds, confirming Mary’s fears.  “Are you sick?”

“No, Mom,” Mary said, forcing more energy into her voice than she felt.  “I was just reading, and I guess I dozed off.”

There was a moment of silence, but Mary knew it was a very brief respite while Catherine loaded her guns. 

“You should be out living life, not reading about it,” Catherine said.  “You’re still young, Mary, but not by much.  Each year you wait, it gets harder and harder to find a decent man willing to care for a woman beyond sweating up the sheets.”

Mary groaned inwardly, wishing that just once, her mother would give it a rest.  They rarely saw eye-to-eye on anything, but this was an especially sore topic.  Catherine Murphy lived for male attention; to her, it was the most important thing in life.  She simply could not understand how Mary could be content to be alone.

“Happy New Year to you, too, Mom,” she said, feeling the weight of guilt upon her shoulders for not calling and wishing her so on New Year’s Eve, which would have been much smarter.  There was no way her mother would sit home on a night known for celebrating.  She could have just left a message and avoided this.  “Can we talk about something else, please?”

“I at least had ten good years with your father,” Cat said, ignoring her.  “You barely had ten weeks before you became more of a nursemaid than a wife.”

“Cam didn’t ask for cancer, Mom,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Of course he didn’t.  My point is that bad things happen, Mary, whether we want them to or not.  Often without warning.  It is exactly why you need to grab as much of life as you can while you can.  Life is too short, too unpredictable to spend it alone.”

“I’m not alone, Mom,” Mary said, the familiar argument weighing on her already-weary soul.  “I have Max.”  
Besides
, she added silently,
it’s not as if there were many offers.
 

“For God’s sake, Mary, he’s a
dog
.” 

Mary looked over her legs at the huge mass of yellow fur currently resembling roadkill.  On his back, belly bared to the world, his long legs protruded out at odd angles that would have been painful for a dog with proper hip sockets.  His big head hung off the side of the sofa, lips pulled away from massive, gleaming white fangs by gravity, eyes rolled far back in his head, lost in some utopian doggie dream.  Max was so much more than a mere dog.  He was the only other living soul to which she felt inexplicably linked.

He was also the primary excuse Mary repeatedly used to decline her mother’s frequent pleas to visit her in Florida.  There were other reasons, too, not the least of which was her mother’s unerring ability to get on her last nerve in record time.  She meant well (at least Mary kept telling herself she did) but she and her mother had very different opinions on what a woman needed to be truly happy. 

“You need a vacation,” Cat said, right on cue.  “Book a flight and put him in a kennel for a few days.  It will be good for both of you.” 

Max in a kennel?  Only over Mary’s dead, lifeless body.  The look of utter betrayal in Max’s eyes alone would be enough to kill both of them.  As if sensing he was the topic of conversation, he rolled over onto his side and looked at her.  Those big brown eyes sought her out.  Once assured that she was near, they closed once again in slumber.

“Not happening, Mom.”  Mary wondered, not for the first time, if she was adopted. 

“Bill has a son about your age,” she said, switching gears without warning.  “His second divorce is almost final, and he’s got a good job.”

Oh,
hell
no.  The last thing she needed was her mother setting her up on blind dates. 

“No, Mom.  Not interested.  And who’s Bill?  What happened to Carl?”  Every few months it was a different name; Mary didn’t even bother trying to remember them anymore.

Catherine Murphy exhaled heavily in sufferance, refusing to be sidetracked.  “You need a man, Mary.”

Mary sighed; clearly her mother had reached the end of her patience and was abandoning all precepts of subtlety and going for an all-out attack.  “No, I don’t.”

“Well of course you do,” Catherine clucked.  “Everything in life is better with a man by your side.”

It wasn’t that Mary disagreed, exactly, but unlike her mother, Mary didn’t believe that just any man would do.  It had to be the
right
man.  Mary closed her eyes and prayed for strength and patience.  Another flash of golden hair and glowing eyes filled her mind’s eye, this time accompanied by a pang of longing.  She immediately opened her eyes and tried to dispel the image.

“You don’t have to marry him, honey, if you don’t want to be tied down just yet.  You don’t want to scare him away anyway.  Just let him adjust your attitude a little, and if it’s good enough - ”

“Mom, I have to go.”  There was no way she could listen to her mother drone on and on about the benefits of sex on a regular basis again.  She just didn’t have the strength.

“Mary, don’t you dare hang up on me!  You need to - ”

“I love you, too, Mom.”  Mary ended the connection and turned off her phone, tossing it on the counter to avoid the ten or so callbacks she’d get in the next few hours.  Leaning back in the recliner, she exhaled heavily, promising herself that next Sunday, she was going to be in the shower when the phone rang.

A
idan cruised down the main street of Birch Falls.  Again.  The sleek Benz caught a few curious looks, but he was beyond caring.  Borrowing the kid’s POS Honda had convinced him that he definitely preferred his own vehicles, if for no other reason than they had working defrosters and didn’t smell like stale beer and McDonald’s French fries.

Like Pine Ridge, Birch Falls wasn’t a very big town, but it was spread out over a fairly large area.  There was one well-defined main strip, with a lot of streets that branched off and divided the area into different sections. 

Driven by a strange compulsion he couldn’t explain, Aidan had taken to trolling the streets in an attempt to find something that looked familiar.  He wished, for the hundredth time, that he had paid more attention when Mary had given him a ride back to Tommy’s on New Year’s Day.  As it was, all he could remember was the gentle way she had smiled at him and the light vanilla and jasmine scent in her Jeep.

He shouldn’t be doing this.  Mary obviously had no interest in seeing him again.  If she had, she would have called by now.  But here he was anyway, driving around aimlessly like some creeper, looking for anything that might give him a clue where to find her again.

Aidan sighed.  If he had no luck today, he might just have to break down and ask Lexi’s husband Ian for some help.  Ian Callaghan had a reputation for being able to find anyone anywhere, but Aidan had to believe that locating a specific “Mary” in “Birch Falls” might even be beyond Ian’s mad digital stalking skills.

One more time.
  Aidan drove south another mile or so, well past the last stop light in the town proper, and made a right.  West for one block, then north.  When he got to the city limits on the other side, he’d head east, then south, then back to the beginning. 

He must have covered at least three quarters of the town at least twice, but as the early winter darkness began to fall in earnest, he worked his way back toward the center of town and the multitude of streetlamps and lighted businesses concentrated there.  It was unlikely he would find anything useful out in the darker, less populated regions, not when he had no idea what the exterior of her house even looked like.

The bright lights of O’Leary’s Diner caught his attention, and Aidan smiled.  He knew Conlan O’Leary, having met him several times at various Callaghan events.  Conlan was the maternal grandfather of the Callaghans and their Connelly cousins in Birch Falls.  Aidan liked him; the man even insisted that Aidan call him
Daideo
– the Irish version of “grandfather” - like all the others.

Reluctant to return home just yet, Aidan found himself pulling into the parking lot.

“Aidan, lad, this is a pleasant surprise!” Conlan looked up over a pair of bifocals to greet him with a smile.  “Come.  Sit.  I’ll just be a mo’...”

Aidan returned the older man’s smile, chuckling inwardly at Conlan’s affectionate familiarity and authority.  It had been a long time since anyone had called him a “lad”, and even longer since someone attempted to treat him like one, but Aidan didn’t mind.  It was kind of nice, actually.  Conlan always treated Aidan like one of his own, and he was decidedly more grandfatherly than Aidan’s Fortune 500 grandsire.

Sliding into the booth across from him, Aidan looked at the ledger and the stacks of receipts, invoices, and payroll checks.  “You do know they have computer programs that do all that for you, right?”

Conlan snorted.  “Computers.  Got no use for the blasted things.”  Aidan laughed.

A pretty young waitress came over to take his order.  When Aidan smiled at her, she blushed ten shades of pink before heading off to fill it.

Conlan chuckled.  “Ye have a right gift there, lad, but she’s too young fer ye.”

Aidan laughed.  “No worries there,
Daideo
.”

Conlan moved the stacks aside and closed his ledger.  “So.  What brings ye te Birch Falls?”

“Checking out the competition,” Aidan replied with a half-grin that had Conlan chuckling.  The Celtic Goddess was a five-star restaurant, among the best of the best, but O’Leary’s was the gold standard of old-school diners.

“Ye’ll not get Keely’s recipe for cinnamon rolls, no matter how many of my waitresses ye smile at.”  It was a running joke between them.  Keely – now one of Conlan’s ten granddaughters-in-law – had once worked as a waitress at the diner.  Her homemade recipe for the sweet, gooey treats had given O’Leary’s the distinction of having the finest on the east coast, or so he claimed.

“Maybe not today,” Aidan’s eyes glittered with amusement.  “But I’m working on it.”

Right on cue, the cute little server brought him a roll and a cup of coffee.  As Aidan took his first bite and rolled his eyes in bliss, a thought occurred to him.  Conlan had lived in Birch Falls a long time, and probably knew everyone in town.  Not to mention the Diner was a well-known gathering place for the locals.

“Actually,
Daideo
, I’m looking for someone.  Maybe you can help me out.”

“Might this someone be a woman?”

“Might be.”

Conlan’s eyes glittered as he leaned back in his seat, bringing his own mug of coffee to his lips.  Everyone knew the old man was a hopeless romantic who was only too glad to lend a nudge when necessary.  “Go on, then.”

Aidan wiped some of the icing from his lips.  “I don’t have a lot to go on.  Her name is Mary.  Brown hair, brown eyes.  Has a yellow Lab named Max.  Drives a Jeep.  I realize it’s not much,” Aidan said, “but do you know anyone like that?”

“Now what would ye be wanting with our Mary?”  The amusement had faded somewhat from Conlan’s eyes, and his expression was more serious than it had been only a few minutes earlier.  If Aidan had to categorize it, he would call it protective.

“You do know her,” Aidan breathed, feeling a rush of relief.

“Aye.  Answer my question, lad.”

“She, uh, did something very kind for me.  I’d just like to do something nice for her in return.”

The older man said nothing, but continued to stare at Aidan until he felt the urge to squirm in his seat like a boy.  Aidan exhaled, knowing Conlan would say nothing until he was honest with him.

“I was at Tommy’s on New Year’s Eve.  I had too much to drink.  Mary took my keys and drove me back to her house to sleep it off,” he admitted.  “But nothing happened,” he quickly added when he saw Conlan’s features harden slightly.

“Why were ye at Tommy’s?” 

Aidan shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I just... felt the need to get away from Pine Ridge for a little while.”

Conlan nodded in understanding, the lines in his face softening again.  “Mary’s a good woman.  Most folks around here say she’s an angel.”

An angel.  Yeah, he could see that.  “Why is that?”

“Ye are no’ the first she’s taken under her wing,” Conlan said vaguely.  His eyes bored into Aidan’s.  “She’s a good woman,” he repeated meaningfully.

Yeah, Aidan had figured that out for himself.  “I promise you,
Daideo
, my motives are pure.  I just want to thank her.  Maybe buy her some flowers or something.”

That made Conlan chuckle, but Aidan had no idea why.  “Ye sure about that, lad?  A woman like Mary has a way of getting under a man’s skin afore he even realizes what’s happening.”

Didn’t he know it, Aidan thought.  “No,” he breathed.  “I’m not sure about anything, actually.  But I do want to do something nice for her.”

Conlan studied him for a few more moments.  “Alright.  Ye are a good lad.”

Aidan let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, feeling like he’d just passed a critical test.  “You’ll tell me how to get in touch with her?”

“I’ll do ye one better,” Conlan grinned and winked, looking at his watch, then turning his eyes to the front door.  “Ah, there’s a good lass.  Right on time.”

Aidan followed his gaze, turning over his shoulder to where a familiar face was coming through the door.  “Hi, Amy!” Mary said cheerfully, walking up to the counter and placing a brightly-colored floral bouquet there.”

“Hey Mary,” the young girl answered back with a genuine smile.  “The usual?”

“Yes, please.”

Only then did Mary’s eyes travel over to where they sat.  She spotted Conlan first.  “Hi Mr. O’Leary.  Did you save some soup for me?”