Forever Mine: Callaghan Brothers, Book 9 (17 page)

“Why not?”

“I promised Erin I’d help her with the books for Seamus’ construction business.”

“I thought Erin did all that.”

“She did, but now that she has the baby, she can use some help, especially since things are really taking off. Seamus is hiring more guys just to keep up with the demand.”

“Can’t she hire someone?”

“She did. Me.”

“But - ”

“But nothing,” she breathed. “Enough talking. Make love to me, Jack.”

Jack had the distinct impression she was trying to distract him, but he would not refuse an opportunity to make love to his
croie
. He settled into the cradle of her thighs. “This discussion isn’t over.”

Her reply was a lift of her hips and a tug on his hair.

Mornings were better suited to such discussions anyway, he decided.

––––––––

J
ack woke the next morning with the certainty that something wasn’t right. For one thing, Kathleen wasn’t wrapped in his arms, snoring softly against his neck. For another, there were muffled sounds of her throwing up in the bathroom.

“Kathleen?” he called, knocking on the door when he discovered it locked. “What’s wrong? Open the door. Let me in.”

“Hang on.” The toilet flushed, followed shortly thereafter by the sound of running water and the telltale creak of the ancient towel rack. Kathleen opened the door and smiled at him weakly.

He took one look at her unusually pale complexion and the dark circles under her eyes and made up his mind. “That’s it, Kathleen. You’re taking the day off and staying in bed.”

“I told you, I can’t.” Kathleen patted him on the arm and went to the closet.

“The hell you can’t. You’re sick.”

“I’m not sick, Jack.”

“No? Then what do you call that?” he demanded, pointing toward the bathroom.

“I’m not sick, Jack. I’m pregnant.”

For a moment, Jack’s heart stopped entirely. Then it began to thunder so hard against the walls of his chest that he felt light-headed. He leaned against the wall for support.

“What?”

Her lips quirked slightly. “I’m pregnant.”

“Are you sure? You’ve been to the doctor?”

“Yes, I’m sure. And no, I haven’t. But I don’t need to go to the doctor to know. He’s in there.” Kathleen took his hand and laid it over the soft, natural swell of her flat belly. There was just a tiny bit of hardness there beneath her satiny skin. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?

“He?” he whispered.

“Yep. He.”

“Maybe it’s a girl.”

“It’s not.” The confidence in her voice nearly had him convinced.

“And you know this how?”

“I just know. He’s going to be big and strong, a force of nature just like his daddy.”

Jack chuckled, then went down on his knees and pressed tender kisses to her abdomen. “A boy. A son. My son. I can’t believe it. You are amazing, Kathleen.”

She laughed at that, cupping his head with her hands. “It’s not like I did it alone, Jack Callaghan. But don’t go bragging to the world just yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s bad luck to say anything before twelve weeks.”

Bad luck? Jack’s strong protective instincts rushed to the surface. His wife had just told him they were going to have a baby. He would allow nothing, including bad luck or any other force in the universe, to threaten their happiness.

“How far along are you?”

“Nearly three months. You probably knocked me up on our wedding night,” she told him, amusement evident in her voice.

Or the night of the break-in
, he thought. That night, things had changed. A new connection had snapped into place. At the time, he’d thought that the danger had made them appreciate each other more, but what if it had been the spark of new life?

“Why bad luck?” he asked.

“Because most miscarriages occur in the first trimester. Announcing anything before three months is tempting fate.”

Jack’s head snapped up. “Miscarriage?” The word sent shards of icy fear into his chest. His mother had had several. After each one, she would be inconsolable for weeks, and his father would grow quiet and distant. Was that kind of thing hereditary, he wondered? Did he carry something in his genes that put Kathleen at risk?

He got to his feet and folded her in his arms, as if to shield her from the possibility of anything bad. He’d experienced enough bad for the both of them.

“I’m sure everything is fine,” Kathleen told him, sensing his thoughts. “I feel wonderful, except for maybe being a bit more tired than usual.”

“And vomiting.”

“And vomiting,” she conceded. “But only first thing in the morning. I feel fine once I get something on my stomach.”

Jack made a mental note to have crackers and a glass of water on the nightstand for her from here on out.

“You should see a doctor,” he said firmly. “Today.”

She laughed softly and stroked his hair. “No, Jack. There’s not much a doctor can do at this point except confirm what I already know.”

Was that true? Shite, he didn’t know. But going to the doctor seemed like something they should do. Her sister just had a baby not too long ago. She would know.

“What does Erin say?”

“Nothing, because I haven’t told her yet.”

“Why not?” Surely the twelve-week rule didn’t apply to close family.

Hurt flashed in her eyes. “Because I wasn’t going to tell anyone before I told you, Jack.”

His heart did that stutter thing again, the same as it did every time he felt the awe and wonder of the fact that this amazing woman loved him.

“And why didn’t you tell me?” She said she thought she was about three months ago, which meant she must have known for a while. He should have realized it sooner as well. Not a day had gone by that they hadn’t made love at least once.

She averted her eyes. “I was waiting for the right moment. I was going to tell you so many times, but things kept getting in the way.”

Things
. What could possibly get in the way of something as important as that? His mind flew back to the previous week, when Kathleen had prepared a surprise candlelight dinner for him. That was the night the pipe under the sink burst, and ruined her plans.

And the week before that, when she’d asked him to hurry along the nightly close-up because she wanted to talk to him about something important. Danny had been deep in his cups (an old-fashioned way of saying he was falling down drunk), and Jack had ended up driving him home. By the time he got back to the Pub, Kathleen was asleep and he’d forgotten all about it.

A few more instances of similar circumstances came to mind when something had unexpectedly arisen, ruining what might have been ‘the right moment’. Hell. How many times had she tried to tell him?

Jack ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Kathleen.”

“It’s okay.”

No, it wasn’t. Kathleen was the most important thing in his life, any time, any place, and he needed to do a better job of showing her. Starting now.

“Let’s go back to bed,” he suggested. “Call Erin. I’m pampering you today.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I’m fine.”

He grinned, wrapping his hands around her belly as he leaned down and kissed her neck. “And pregnant with our baby. I think that deserves a day of private celebration, don’t you?”

She laughed. “Definitely, but it will have to wait till the weekend.”

“I don’t want to wait.”

“I know, but second quarter estimated taxes are due on the fifteenth, and I’ve got a slew of receipts to wade through.”

“The second quarter doesn’t end till the thirtieth.”

“I know, but for the second and third quarters, estimated taxes are due before the end of the period.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Taxes don’t have to make sense. They just have to be paid.”

“Okay, what about after that? I’ll get Brian to watch the bar. We can do something fun, just the two of us.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m working the lunch to dinner shift at the diner.” Kathleen kissed his chest and slipped beneath his arm.

Something wasn’t right; he could feel it in his bones. Jack followed her to the bathroom, where she began to dot some kind of light stuff under her eyes, making the dark circle all but disappear. The fact that she wouldn’t meet his gaze in the mirror only reinforced his suspicion.

“Kathleen, what else are you not telling me?”

She rummaged through her little make-up bag. “Telling you I’m pregnant isn’t enough?”

Avoiding the question with a question of her own. Not a good sign.

Jack placed his index finger beneath her chin and gently drew her gaze to his. “Talk to me, Kathleen. What the hell is going on? Why are you picking up shifts at the diner?”

Her shoulders slumped and she exhaled heavily. “Fine. The bills came in from the electrician and the plumber, and we can’t afford to pay them.”

Kathleen couldn’t have surprised him more if she turned around and cracked him with her hairbrush. “What!?”

She shrugged. “Renovation is expensive.”

“We’re doing a good business.”

“Yeah, we are, but it’s not enough, not yet. And we’re losing even more because Danny’s been sneaking bottles out from behind the bar and sharing with his friends.”

Son of a bitch. “How deep in the hole are we?”

“Not too bad for just the two of us. But with a baby coming...”

Jack sat down on the rim of the tub and dragged his hands through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I wanted to avoid
this
. You’ve been putting everything you have into this place, Jack. I thought if I picked up a few more jobs, we’d be okay.”

“Jesus, Kathleen.” It was like a solid punch to the gut, knocking the air out of him. His wife, his
pregnant
wife, was working extra jobs, because they needed the money. And he, in his cluelessness, hadn’t known a goddamned thing about either one.

The joy at finding out he was going to be a father was overshadowed by a wave of guilt and anger. The pub had been his idea. It was supposed to be a way for him to provide for her and their eventual family, not put them in debt and require her to work multiple fucking jobs.

He stood up and punched the wall, sending pieces of plaster flying.

“Don’t be angry, Jack.”

“Don’t be angry? Are you kidding me?” He hit the wall again, this time leaving a red stain on the dingy white. “My pregnant wife is working her ass off to support me and this goddamn money pit of a pub, and I’m not supposed to be angry?”

“Not you,” she said quietly. “
Us
. We’re in this together, Jack, and I’m just doing my part. You’re putting in sixteen hour days. When you’re not working the bar, you’re patching walls, fixing plumbing, sanding floors, building new cabinets, -—”

“I never should have bought this place. What the hell was I thinking?”

“Stop it. Now,” she said firmly, stepping close to him and wrapping her arms around his waist. “You were thinking of our future, and you were right. It’s tough now, but we’ll get through it.”

Jack felt some of the anger start to drain away. With her soft touch and steel core, she had a way of pulling him back. “I don’t deserve you.”

She chuckled against his chest. “No, probably not. But you’re stuck with me, Jack Callaghan, so you’d best just deal with it.”

Jack gathered her against him and kissed the top of her head. “Like I’d ever let you go.”

“You’re going to have to if I’m going to make it to Erin’s on time.”

He did, reluctantly, only by telling himself that he was going to find a way to fix this. The first thing he was going to do, was look at the books and see just how bad things were. It was something best done while Kathleen was at her sister’s.

––––––––

“J
ack!”

“What?!” Jack looked up from the ledger to find Brian standing in front of him. Judging by the sharpness of Brian’s tone, it wasn’t the first time he’d called his name. Jack had been so immersed in the account books, he hadn’t heard much of anything.

“The distributor’s here, wants a check.” Brian thumbed over his shoulder at the middle-aged guy sitting at the bar with Danny Finnegan. Based on their smiles and laughter, they were on friendly terms.

“Did he pay for that drink?”

“No. The old man told me to put it on his tab.”

Jack snorted. That would have fine,
if
the old man ever actually paid his tab.

“Got an invoice?”

Brian held the piece of paper out to him. Jack looked it over, his brows furrowing as he read through the several lines of handwritten items. “That’s more than double the amount of Macallan we ordered last month.”

The top-shelf, single-malt Scotch was arguably one of the best, but at its hefty price tag, it was not one of the big sellers among the primarily blue-collar patrons. Brian’s eyes flicked back to Danny again, and Jack had a pretty good idea of where it was going.

His furrows deepened when he saw similarly inflated numbers for high quality bourbon, gin, and vodka. Who had adjusted the order? Brian wouldn’t have, not without running it by him first, and neither would Kathleen.

“Excuse me.” Jack approached the delivery man, glancing down at the name stitched onto the pocket of the blue button-down.
Sal.
“There’s been a mistake. This is more than I ordered.”

Sal shot a sideways glance at Danny, and Jack’s suspicions were confirmed. Danny
had
padded the order. That explained the bottles Kathleen had seen Danny sneaking out, as well as why he hadn’t noticed a hit on the inventory. It was hard to miss what you didn’t know you had.

Jack didn’t know what bothered him more – the fact that Danny was taking it upon himself to up the order, or that Danny didn’t think he’d notice. Granted, he hadn’t been looming over anyone’s shoulder, but he hadn’t really thought he’d needed to, either.

Well, he was going to put an end to that, right now. Keeping Danny around out of a sense of moral obligation was one thing, but being taken advantage of was another.

And there was no way his pregnant wife was going to work three fucking jobs so Danny Finnegan could “buy” a bunch of friends with top-shelf liquor using the Pub’s accounts.