Forever Mine: Callaghan Brothers, Book 9 (24 page)

“Who is Dr. Valdez?”

“He does vasectomies on an outpatient basis,” she smirked.

Jack paled, making the nurse laugh as she left the room to resume her rounds.

The thought stayed with him, though, long after everyone else had gone home. Kathleen’s parents were keeping the boys overnight, and he sat beside Kathleen’s bedside, contemplating the idea.

“Don’t even think about it,” Kathleen whispered, reading his thoughts. She had the uncanny ability to see into his heart and mind, to know what he was thinking or feeling, even when he didn’t realize it himself sometimes.

She disengaged a now-sleeping Shane from her left breast, exchanging him for a slightly fussy Sean at her right. The nurses told her she was crazy to attempt to breastfeed twins, but Kathleen was adamant. And when Kathleen set her mind upon something, there was no stopping her.

“We wanted six. We have six. And I don’t know if I can go through that again,” he told her honestly.

He was still quite shaken by the events of the last forty-eight hours. Unlike the previous births, Jack had been there this time. Seeing Kathleen in that amount of pain for that long wasn’t something he enjoyed; he would have much preferred handling his own physical pain to witnessing hers.

She laughed softly. “It’s not so bad. And this,” she looked down at her newborn son, her eyes filled with fathomless love, “
this
makes it all worth it.”

“You are an amazing woman,” he murmured, leaning down to brush a kiss across her forehead. Not a day went by that he didn’t love her more than the one before. “How did I get so lucky?”

She smiled at him then. “
Mo croie beloved
,” she whispered, “luck has nothing to do with it. ‘Tis Fate.”

“I love you, Kathleen.”

“I love you, too, Jack.”

O
ctober 2015

Pine Ridge

“Just make yourself at home,” Michael shot at Sean, who was reclining back in Michael’s chair with his size fourteen boots planted right in the middle of Michael’s neat and tidy desk.

“Did,” Sean smirked, lifting his blue eyes from his smartphone. “Everything go okay?” he asked, looking past Michael to Jack.

“Aye.” After spending most of the morning undergoing one test after another and answering dozens of the same questions over and over, Jack had just finished up his six-week follow-up with Jimmy Yim. According to the cardiac surgeon, everything was looking good.

Sean’s eyes went to Michael for confirmation. Jack found that especially irritating. If he said everything was okay, then it was, damn it. Despite his assurances that he hadn’t been openly courting a heart attack, he still saw the doubt in their eyes sometimes, as if he’d been deliberately tempting Fate. That irritated him, too. If there was one thing life had taught him, it was that Fate would have its wicked way with all of them, good intentions be damned.

“It’s all good,” Michael confirmed.

Satisfied, Sean stood abruptly. Like all of his sons, Sean was a large man. In terms of physical appearance, he and Shane looked nearly exactly the same, but their personalities were as different as night and day. Sean was more abrupt, more impulsive, more likely to shoot first and ask questions later, while Shane was quieter, preferring to thoroughly analyze a situation before committing to a course of action.

“Ready to go?”

Jack sighed. Apparently Sean was his ride back to the farm. “Aye.”

“See you later, Mick.” Sean led the way. Jack followed along behind, internalizing his resentment of being treated like a child. They cared about him, and that was a good thing, even if it chafed. He thought about some of the poor bastards he’d encountered over the past couple of weeks, those whose kids were too busy to be there for them, and felt a twinge of guilt for being annoyed.

“Here you go.”

Jack looked at the keys Sean held out to him as they walked toward the back end of the lot. “What?”

“Your six weeks are up. You’ve got clearance to drive now. Unless you
want
me to be your chauffer.”

A tendril of excitement mixed in with a new respect for his son.  “Hell, no. What did you bring?”

“The ‘Stang,” Sean smirked. “Your car’s at my garage. Nicki tuned it up and now she’s detailing it for you.”

Jack was fond of his black Infinity sedan, but Sean’s custom ’67 Shelby GT500 Eleanor was a damn fun car to drive. And Sean rarely let anyone drive it.

Jack narrowed his eyes. “You’re letting me drive the Shelby?”

“Yeah, but don’t get used to it. This is a one-time, congratulatory type gift.”

“For what, not dying?” Jack snorted.

“You don’t want to drive? Fine. Give me the keys.”

For a moment, Jack saw a flash of icy fire in Sean’s eyes before he could cover it up, and Jack realized that his off-the-cuff remark hit a little too close to home. Some of that irritation he’d been feeling was replaced by another twinge of guilt.

“Not a chance,” Jack said, pulling the keys close to his chest. “Let’s go.”

It felt good to be behind the wheel again, even if it wasn’t the most comfortable experience. The super-responsive muscle car drew attention to the fact that he hadn’t driven a stick shift in a while, but it came back to him fairly quickly. To Sean’s credit, the boy refrained from making a single comment. Judging by the completely blank expression on his face by the time they arrived at the garage, Jack guessed it would be a while before Sean asked him to drive the Shelby again.

“Hey, Dad.” Nicki came out of one of the bays with a torque wrench in hand. Her diamond-like pale eyes widened when she realized he had been the one driving. Clearly, she was every bit as surprised as he had been by her husband’s beneficence. That expression of surprise morphed into a knowing smirk. “Fun to drive, isn’t she?”

That earned her a glare from Sean. “You drove my car?”

Nicki, who, despite her unnerving beauty, was every bit as tough as Sean (maybe even more so), grinned wider and ignored her husband. “I’ve got the Infinity all ready for you. It’s in great shape, but I replaced the plugs and a few gaskets that were starting to show some wear and tear.”

“Woman,
when
did you drive my car?”

“After I swapped out the super-charger for a better model,” she said, flicking her hand in dismissal before turning back to Jack. “I adjusted the timing, too, so she should run smooth as glass for you.”

“You did
what
?”

“Thank you, lass,” Jack said. Watching the two of them spar was always entertaining, but more often than not escalated into a show of dominance that inevitably led to them sneaking off into a nearby unoccupied room or broom closet. Jack preferred to make his escape before things reached that level.

Nicki broke her gaze away from her husband and looked at Jack. “So where are you going, now that you are a free man again?”

That was a good question. Now that he no longer needed to be driven around, he could go anywhere he wanted, without constant supervision. The realization was liberating. Suddenly he knew exactly where he wanted to go.

“I’ll probably drive around for a bit, then head over to the Pub.”

“Okay. Call if you need anything.” Nicki reached into her jeans and pulled out the keys to his car.

“I will,” Jack nodded.

Slipping into the contoured leather seats of his luxury sedan felt comforting, familiar. He chuckled to himself, thinking of how far he’d come since that old Ford Galaxie. He could almost hear Kathleen’s bell-like laughter as she teased him about going soft. Then she’d smile and kiss him, and tell him that he deserved a bit of extra comfort in his advancing years.

He stopped at the flower shop and scanned the wide assortment of potted mums so prevalent at this time of year. After a brief deliberation, he selected a deep crimson one, then chose a muted gold foil as the wrap.

That done, Jack wound his way through town, then turned into the gated drive of St. Patrick’s cemetery. As he had hundreds of times before, he got out of his car and walked up the slight incline to the top of the hill. The sprawling sugar maple was a dazzling array of fiery reds and oranges. He’d chosen this location specifically for its beauty and scenic view, even petitioning to plant this tree here nearly twenty-five years earlier.

Tears welled in his eyes when he saw the half-dozen or so mums already placed there. Mums had been Kathleen’s favorite flower, and Jack always brought them when he visited Kathleen’s grave. Clearly, someone had been covering that for him as well.

He set the pot down amidst the others and sat down on the bench his sons had so kindly placed there for him. It was yet another thing they never spoke of.

Jack leaned back and closed his eyes. It was so peaceful there, with rays of sunlight shining in beams through the leaves and branches. With a hand over his chest, he inhaled as deeply as he dared, drawing in the scents of freshly mown grass and autumn leaves. There was something unique about smell of leaves this time of year. They were sweeter. Richer. As if offering one final gift before they crumbled and decayed back into the earth. It was the natural cycle of things.

What would his final gift be, he wondered?

She came to him then, not as a ghost or an apparition, but as a remembered image in his mind. If he kept his eyes closed, he could imagine her sitting next to him. She was always with him, in his heart, but until his heart attack, these private moments were the only times he allowed himself to feel her.

A warm presence surrounded him even as a sense of peace settled over him.

“Hi, baby...”

––––––––

I
t was some time later when he opened his eyes again, the ghost of a smile on his face as he sensed another familiar presence.

“Come on out, then,” he called.

Shane moved out of the shadows and into the dwindling light. “I didn’t want to startle you,” he said in explanation.

“I know.”

Was this how it was going to be, Jack wondered? His kids checking up on him when he was out of sight for more than an hour or two? Skulking in the shadows for fear of startling him into another cardiac arrest?

Shane sat down beside him. “Taryn got worried when you didn’t show up at the Pub,” he said, as if reading Jack’s mind. Knowing Shane, he probably had. The boy had inherited his mother’s uncanny ability to read people.

“Taryn did, eh?” Jack asked with a quirk of his lips. He’d bet Taryn wasn’t the only one. He knew full well that it was easier to pin that kind of concern on the womenfolk than fess up to it. He wouldn’t call his son on it, though. He’d done the same thing more times than he could count, often beginning a conversation with ‘Your mother is worried’ or something along those lines.

“Yeah.”

“You have already told her you’ve found me, then,” Jack guessed by Shane’s lack of action. “So she will worry no longer.”

“I texted her, yeah.”

“Good.”

They sat there like that, father and son, for several long minutes. It was a comfortable silence.

“I hear her too,” Shane said finally.

Jack watched a leaf as it floated downward, settling among the potted flowers. “Who?”

“Mom,” Shane said quietly. “I mean, not like you and I are talking now. More like feelings, really. Nudging me one way or the other. Subtle clues and warnings, when I listen hard enough.”

“And you think it’s your mother?” Jack asked carefully.

Shane turned to him. “I know it is,” he said with conviction. “And you do, too.”

Jack said nothing.

“My only question is, what is it that she’s telling you these days?”

Leave it to Shane to find a way to ask what they had all been wondering without making him feel like a delusional old man. “That’s between me and her.”

Shane nodded, as if that was what he’d expected. “Lacie said she told you our big news.”

The abrupt change in subject matter was neither unexpected nor unwelcome. That was another thing about Shane—– the boy knew when to move on. “Aye. Congratulations, son.”

“Thanks. Lacie’s worried she’s not ready.”

“Bullshite. The woman is going to make a fine mother.”

“That’s what I keep telling her.”

“Aye, and you are going to be a fine father.”

“I hope so. I have one hell of a role model.”

Jack swallowed down the lump in his throat. It wasn’t Shane’s words as much as the sincerity with which he’d said them that had the emotion swelling up. Damn it all, he had never been a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, and he wasn’t about to start now.

“I guess we’d best be going before Taryn calls out reinforcements.”

Shane chuckled. “Probably.”

“Thank you, son.”

“For what?”

“For keeping up your mother’s grave.”

It was Shane’s turn to look away. He nodded once. It was enough.

N
ovember 1985

Pine Ridge

“Thank you,” Kathleen murmured, as yet another guest offered their condolences. She stood just past the open grave, next to her sister and father as the receiving line continued. On the outside, she was composed and suitably subdued, but Jack saw the raw pain in her eyes. After a year-long battle with ovarian cancer, her mother had passed on. Her goal had been to hang on long enough to welcome her newest grandchild into the world, but sadly, it was not to be. In a tearful goodbye, she’d told Kathleen that she would keep their unborn child company until he (or she) decided to make his (or her) appearance.

Kathleen’s mother had often teased Jack, telling him that he needed to rearrange his chromosomes and make a daughter so that Celina would have another little girl to play with. Celina was Erin’s third child, and the only female among the predominantly male (eight) grandchildren. Since Erin had undergone an emergency hysterectomy after Celina’s birth, Kathleen was her only hope of gaining another granddaughter.

If he could have controlled such a thing, he would have. After six boys, Kathleen would probably appreciate a little girl, one who would wear pretty dresses and play with dolls instead of catch snakes and frogs and play Army. She’d never say so, of course. She loved her boys, and said as long as they were happy and healthy, she was happy. But he didn’t fail to miss the way her eyes lit up when she spotted something girly and picked it up for Celina, nor the way she coddled Brian and Adonia’s new baby girl, Alexis.