Forever Mine: Callaghan Brothers, Book 9 (3 page)

“Tall, dark, handsome men with sweet-talking tongues. I’ll tell you right now, Jack Callaghan, that it will get you nowhere with me.”

His confidence grew. Maybe his old man was right. “You know my name, as well.”

That pink tint darkened and she shuttered her eyes, embarrassed. Then she seemed to gather her courage. Her chin lifted and she looked him right in the eye again, commanding his full and undivided attention.

“Aye, I do.”

Good thing she did, because damn it, when she looked at him like that, he was hard pressed to remember his own name. It would have made introducing himself awkward.

“Then perhaps, Kathleen, you will see fit to tell me what
will
get me somewhere with you.”

Her lips quirked. “You are a bold one, aren’t you?”

“Not typically, but I’m a bit short on time to do things right.”

She nodded, looking him up and down; he fought the urge to preen. “That you are. Guess we’d better get to it, then.”

Jack tilted his head and raised a dark eyebrow. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Come with me and find out,” she dared, her eyes now twinkling with mischief.

There was nothing he wanted more, except maybe to tease her a little. “I’m not sure I should. My mother warned me about girls like you.”

She laughed. If joy had a sound, that was it. “Oh, and what did she say?”

“I’d rather tell you what my father says on the subject.”

“And what’s that?”

He paused meaningfully, wanting her complete and undivided attention. “That should I be lucky enough to find one, I should follow her anywhere.”

Her features softened, and Jack knew in that moment that he really would follow her anywhere. Because he’d just found his
croie
.

S
eptember 2015

Pine Ridge

“Got it!  Let’s move!” Michael said, when he felt his father’s pulse flutter beneath the pads of his fingers. He tossed the portable defibrillator pads off to the side. “Time to go, Dad.”

A multitude of hands shot out to lift him smoothly and secure him to the makeshift litter, then slide him into the customized back end of the Hummer. Michael and Shane climbed in with him, while Sean kissed his wife and replaced her in the driver’s seat. Jake jumped in on the other side. Kane, Ian, and Kieran hopped onto the running boards while they made their way up the hill, jumping off when they reached the top.

Anxious faces peered toward the tinted windows. Nicki went to give them an update on the situation, while the brothers concentrated on mobilizing and moving out. Similar scenarios had played out enough times over the years, and they moved together seamlessly, each having a job to do and doing it well. They hadn’t lost a man yet, and they had no intentions of breaking that streak.

“Mick?” Sean asked, looking over his shoulder as Michael skillfully started an IV and positioned a clear, plastic mask over Jack’s nose and mouth to supply pure oxygen with each shallow inhalation. There were so many questions unspoken in that one word, but no more was necessary.

“Good to go. Fast and smooth.”

“Got it.”

Sean expertly wound them down the mountain and into town, using his superb driving skills to get them where they needed to go. The extra-wide set of the tires kept them hugging the curves at speeds that would have flipped a normal vehicle, and the extra horses under the hood made it faster than any conventional ambulance.

“Hold him,” Michael commanded. “Don’t let that line come out.” Shane shifted, extending his long arms to keep his father in place while Michael extracted a cell phone from his pocket. His normally soft voice was at once sharp and clear, capable and commanding.

“Dr. Michael Callaghan en route with male, sixty-five years of age, probable myocardial infarction. Pulse weak and thready, BP...” The stats rang out in the silence, piercing the shock that lay beneath their calm, capable exteriors. “Page Jimmy Yim, have him meet us there and clear a cath room. ETA eleven minutes...”

––––––––

J
une 1968

Pine Ridge

“Eleven minutes.”

That’s what Colin “Fitz” Fitzsimmons said, looking at his watch. To his credit, his voice belayed none of the anxiety in his too-bright eyes. The fluttering in Jack’s stomach turned into a full-blown roil, and not all of it was because he was heading out for newbie training and certain deployment.

His parents had already said their goodbyes. Jack had asked his father to take his mother home when he saw the tears welling in her eyes. These last few minutes were the hardest, and he didn’t want her breaking down into sobs like some of the other mothers were doing. This was hard enough the way it was.

Was Kathleen going to make it? He was torn on whether or not he wanted her to show up for one more goodbye. The past three days had been heaven on earth, and his last image of her, sleepy-eyed but happy, was a nice one to take with him.

On the other hand, the need to see her was a powerful one. He wanted to look into her eyes and see the promise there to reaffirm the words she had spoken as they watched the dawn rise in each other’s arms: that she would wait for him.

It would give him the opportunity to reassure her that he would be fulfilling the vow he had made to her as well: that he
would
be coming home, hale and hearty, to take that which she had so selflessly offered.

Well, maybe not completely selfless, he thought to himself smugly. She had been so soft, so ready, so willing after they had explored each other thoroughly with eager hands and lips. But it wouldn’t have been right. As wonderful as it would have been, he couldn’t take her innocence in a few moments of desperate passion and then leave. It wouldn’t be fair to her, for one thing. And for another, knowing he had that to come back to was a powerful motivator indeed.

“Ten minutes,” Fitz said, scanning the bus depot on his behalf. Fitz would always have his back; he’d been one of his best friends since elementary school. They’d grown up next door to each other, as close as any brothers. Jack remembered the day they’d first met as clearly as if it had been yesterday.

Fitz’s family had moved to Pine Ridge near the end of the school year, ending Jack’s twenty-three month reign as the “new kid”. Jack knew how hard it could be; Pine Ridge was a small, tightknit community, and most of them had been in the same classes since Kindergarten. Brian O’Connell had been the one to befriend him then and bring him into the fold. So when lunch time came around and Fitz –—a gangly, red-haired, awkward-looking second grader—– found himself in the corner surrounded by a trio of bullying fifth-graders, Jack and Brian didn’t hesitate.

They’d all ended up with black eyes and split lips that day, but something else, too:  a friendship that was even stronger ten years later.

It was Jack who spotted her first, running down the sidewalk, looking adorably disheveled. He couldn’t help the grin that split his face as she practically launched herself into her arms.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” she said breathlessly.

His joy at seeing her was tempered by the raw-looking scratches on the side of her face. “What happened?” he asked, tilting her head for a better look.

“Ah,” she said, averting her eyes. “It’s nothing.”

“Kathleen, it’s not nothing. You’re bleeding.” Jack removed the handkerchief from his pocket, a gift from his mother, and dabbed gently. “Tell me.”

“My father caught me sneaking in this morning,” she admitted with a frown. “He wasn’t pleased. He grounded me, and forbid me to see you off this morning. So I was forced to get creative.”

Jack lifted a brow. “How creative?”

“I crawled through the bathroom window and shimmied down the rose trellis.”

“Ah, Kathleen,” he exhaled, his heart swelling that she would go to such lengths to see him. “You shouldn’t have done that.” He placed light kisses over the scratches, aware of the gawking stares Brian and Fitz were giving them. They would probably be ribbing him about it later, but it was worth it. Neither one of them had a beautiful young woman teary-eyed over their departure.

“If you think I’d miss being here, you don’t know me very well, Jack Callaghan.”

Chuckling, he held her to him, absorbing her strength, memorizing the feel of her in his arms, her scent, her warmth. Those memories were going to have to hold him for a while.

“Five minutes.”

Jack felt her arms squeeze around him. He shot Fitz a warning look over the top of her head.

“Right,” Fitz said, nudging Brian. “We’ll just wait over there then.”

Pulling away only far enough to see her face, Jack curled his index finger and tucked it beneath her chin, coaxing her to look at him. Her emerald eyes were, as he suspected, shiny with moisture. But he hadn’t expected to see the absolute conviction there.

“You
will
come home to me, Jack Callaghan,” she told him.

“Aye,” he agreed.

She bit her lip and lowered her eyes just a little as she reached into her pocket. “And just so you won’t forget and be tempted by another, I want to give you something to remind you of what’s waiting for you.”

Forget her? Was she kidding? He’d known in the first few moments that there would never be another woman for him, not ever. Maybe he should have done a better job of assuring her of that. There was no time left to explain about
croies
and soulmates and how he knew she was his, so he leaned over and tried to show her with his kiss instead.

Kathleen melted in his arms as he poured his heart and soul into her in the only way he could. When he finally released her, he was vaguely away of her slipping something into his pocket.

The final call came, a harsh, unpleasant voice magnified over the crappy bus station speakers. It was time to go.

There were so many things he wanted to say, but they all jammed up in his throat. Kathleen smiled and stepped back, smoothing his shirt as she did so. “Go on, now,” she told him. “Be off with you.” Her voice was steady, but the thickening of her brogue gave her emotions away.

Unable to speak, he nodded and joined the others lining up to board the bus.

Kathleen was still there, smiling at him and standing proud when the bus drew away from the station.

“You are one lucky bastard,” Fitz commented beside him.

“Aye, I am at that,” Jack agreed.

“Did she give you anything? You know, for luck?”

Jack remembered that she had tucked something into his pocket. He reached down and pulled out a folded strip. He pulled it apart, his heart stammering in his chest as he looked upon a series of quick-succession poses, the kind that came out of the pull-curtain photo booths.

The first frame showed Kathleen looking seductively at the camera, hands poised at the edges of her button-down blouse. The third showed her blouse hanging off to either side, revealing a feminine, lacy bra accentuating full, firm breasts. And the fifth and final frame made his heart stop entirely. The cups of her bra had been replaced with her hands. Her very small hands.

From the seat behind them, Brian looked over his shoulder and whistled. “Now that’s what I call incentive.”

Incentive, indeed. Jack shoved the strip back into his pocket; those images were for his eyes only. He’d been determined to make it home in one piece before, but now he’d move heaven and earth to get back to her.

S
eptember 2015

Pine Ridge

Michael, now dressed in scrubs, made a quick stop in the waiting room. Six men jumped to their feet. Three of them held phones in their hands, no doubt providing updates to their worried wives back at the farm.

Their eyes landed on him, searching for news in his somber features.

“Well?” Kane asked. Nicknamed the Iceman for his hard, cold exterior, his voice belied none of the worry that Michael (and everyone else there) knew simmered just beneath the surface.

“He’s holding his own.”

A collective exhale was released. “What the hell happened?” asked Ian. The trademark mischief that normally danced in his eyes was notably absent, his face a mask of concern.

“Blood tests and a cardiac catheter confirm a heart-attack. He’s got three blocked vessels, one of them a major artery. The OR is prepping for an emergency bypass as we speak.”

“Jesus,” muttered Kieran, the youngest. “Does he know what’s happening?”

“He’s under sedation,” Michael hedged. What he didn’t want to tell them was that after explaining the situation to his semi-conscious father, Michael felt a chill come over him, and a moment later, Jack had stared over his shoulder and murmured, “So you’ve come to watch over me then, have you?” Michael had looked behind him, to find nothing but a wall of blinking, beeping monitors. It was eerie as hell.

“Who is going to do it?” Shane asked.

“Jimmy Yim. He’s the best cardiac man there is.”

“But you’ll be with him, right?”

“Yeah, I’m assisting.”

“How the hell did this happen?” That from Sean. There was no simple answer to that. They knew, just as Michael did, of the history of heart disease among the men in their family. At sixty-five, Jack Callaghan had made it farther than most of his male ancestors before him. It was more of a rhetorical question, anyway, so Michael didn’t bother to answer.

“Don’t you let him die, Mick,” Jake, their leader by unspoken agreement, commanded.

There were always risks with surgery, especially in emergency situations like this. He wasn’t about to spout a bunch of statistics to his brothers, though. Chances were, they already knew. A quick glance at Ian’s tablet screen confirmed that he’d been researching heart attack treatment options.

Michael nodded soberly. “It’ll be a couple of hours.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Jake said firmly, just as he’d expected. They’d been in this situation too many times to expect anything less.

Michael turned on his heel and went to scrub in. He prayed that the next time he saw his brothers, he’d have good news.

He returned to Operating Room 3 to find his father already prepped. Cardiothoracic specialist and his personal friend, Dr. James Yim, acknowledged his presence with a nod. The bright hazel eyes of the anesthesiologist met his. He couldn’t see her smile, but the crinkles at the corners over the surgical mask were plain enough.