Forever Mine: Callaghan Brothers, Book 9 (7 page)

Sean handed him a cup of coffee. Not the crap from the automatic drip machine in the far corner, but the good stuff. “We never left. We’ve been down in the cafeteria.”

Michael sipped the coffee and leaned back, closing his eyes. “I thought we agreed to take shifts.”

“We did, but no one wanted to leave. You stay, we all stay.”

Michael nodded. There was no sense arguing about it. “So. I guess we’re all hanging out here tonight?”

“I guess we are,” Kieran grinned. “Maggie’s got everybody staying out at your place tonight. She’s already dispatched Nicki with the care packages. Looks like we’ll take turns camping out in your office, Mick.”

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J
anuary 1975

Pine Ridge

Jack sat in Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s kitchen, waiting while she puttered around with the tea kettle. Jack remembered that kettle. They’d been twelve, maybe thirteen at the time. Fitz had dragged him all over town that day, looking for the perfect Mother’s Day present. They’d scoured the five and dimes and downtown shops for hours for something useful and affordable, the money from delivering papers and mowing lawns burning holes in their pockets. When they’d come upon the tea kettles with the hand-painted roses at the farmer’s market, Fitz had declared their efforts a success. Jack thought it was such a good idea, he’d gotten one for his mother as well.

The older woman reached up into the cupboard for the tin of tea – a special blend created by the healer that lived farther up the mountain—– and pulled out a bottle of
uisce beatha
, commonly known in English as Irish whiskey.

Bringing it all to the table, she placed the kettle on a trivet, the tea next to that. But it was the whiskey she poured into two mugs, handing one to him. “You were with him?”

Jack didn’t have to ask what she was talking about. He had been waiting for that question for years. The last time he’d seen her, at his father’s funeral, she hadn’t asked, and he sure as hell hadn’t wanted to bring it up.

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes, bracing herself against the grief. “Did he suffer?”

“No,” he answered honestly. If she really wanted the details, he would give them to her, but he hoped she didn’t. It was enough that he had seen it, relived it every day. He didn’t want that for her.

Thankfully, she nodded, drained her mug, then poured them both another. This time she added some tea. He waited patiently for the words he didn’t want to hear. As long as she didn’t say them out loud, he could believe for a little while longer.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Jack, but your mother passed.”

And poof, just like that, his pipe dream scattered. “When?”

“Going on two years now. Shortly after word came that you were missing. She never stopped believing you would come home. Said she’d know if her only son was...”

Her eyes grew shiny. She paused for a moment to gather herself, avoiding his eyes and sipping her tea. He wondered if she had known when Fitz died. If mothers had some secret connection that didn’t need someone showing up on their doorstep with an official-looking letter to tell them their son would be coming home in a box.

What was worse? Knowing your kid was dead, or not knowing and imagining the worst in between flashes of hope?

Jack fought the urge to suck in a breath, his lungs desperate for air as the sunshine-yellow walls closed in on him. “How?”

“Her heart. The doc said it just gave out, couldn’t take anymore. She went in her sleep. Did they not tell you?”

“No.” Someone had probably tried, but receiving mail wasn’t part of the amenities offered by the Viet Cong. After he and the others had been found, well, he guessed no one wanted to be the one to tell him. He had been in pretty bad shape.

“And Kathleen?” he asked, forcing the words past the constriction in his throat.

“She left, right after. Didn’t feel right staying there, I imagine.” Mrs. Fitzsimmons sighed. “She wasn’t there at the time. Her sister Erin was birthing her firstborn, and there were complications. When she got back, she found...” She trailed off. “The lass took it hard. Blames herself. Thinks that if she’d been there things might have ended differently.”

Jack didn’t comment on that. There was no second-guessing death. All the what-ifs in the world weren’t going to change anything, and speculating what might have been only kept the wound open and raw. He knew that, first-hand.

“Where is Kathleen now?”

“She moved back with her family. She comes round every week or so to check on the place, though. Keeps it nice, said she wanted it ready for you when you came back. Never gave up hope, that one,” the woman said. “She’s working at her da’s diner in Birch Falls. Does she know you’re home?”

Jack shook his head. When he’d been rescued, he’d been in bad shape, bad enough that he hadn’t wanted to get anyone’s hopes up. And after ... well, a phone call just wasn’t enough. Dreams of his homecoming hadn’t included a dead mother and an empty house, though. But maybe it was for the best.

“Did you say you have a key?”

The older woman looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Aye. Kathleen gave it to me, in case of an emergency.”

Jack thanked her and stood, suddenly anxious to be out of this warm, familiar kitchen where ghostly echoes of a much happier time warred with sadness and grief. Maybe he’d come back another time, when he’d had time to reacclimate himself to this world, but at that moment, the woman’s compassion made his heart ache. He wasn’t the boy she had known anymore, and the man he’d become needed to deal with this in his own private way.

Mrs. Fitzsimmons shuffled over to her canister set and extracted a flour-dusted key. She placed it into his outstretched palm, covering his hand with hers. “She’ll be wanting to see you, Jack.”

Would she?

Jack thanked her and walked back to his house, using the key to let himself in. He removed his coat and gloves, hanging them on the free-standing coat rack there, then remembered to wipe his feet on the mat and remove his boots. There was a part of him that knew it no longer mattered, but he did it anyway.

The place was chilly, but not freezing, which meant the heat was still on, too. A brief check of the thermostat confirmed that it had been set for fifty-seven degrees, enough to keep the pipes from freezing. He clicked it up to seventy-two, then moved into the kitchen.

Everything looked exactly as he remembered it. The pine cabinets. The Formica countertops. The aging white appliances. The goddamned tea kettle with the painted roses. Even the smell, though faint, was the same. Jack closed his eyes and inhaled the scents of lemon and wood and freshly-baked cookies. For a moment, he could almost believe that nothing had changed.

But it had. Everything had changed. Him, most of all.

Would Kathleen still want him, damaged as he was? This—– coming home –—was all he had thought about for so long. It was what kept him sane, a pinpoint of focus through a vista of horrors.

Now that he was finally here, the doubts began to creep in. He was no longer the man Kathleen had fallen in love with, mentally or physically. What if he’d been kidding himself? What if this—– this empty house, this feeling of no longer belonging—– was all there was?

That’s when he saw it, the tented notecard on the table. Cream-colored, with a tiny rose in the bottom right corner. The same design that was on the stationery she’d used to write him letters all these years. He knew that if he lifted it to his nose, he’d catch the faint scent of flowers, just like her perfume.

His name was written in familiar, flowing cursive on the front. Dare he open it?

With trembling fingers, Jack reached for it. He lifted the top and read the words there, his vision growing blurrier with every word.

Then Jack Callaghan did something he hadn’t done since he was a boy. He broke down and cried.

S
eptember 2015

Pine Ridge

“Can’t you just leave me be?” Jack grumbled when yet another nurse came in to take his vitals.

“Your numbers spiked,” the nurse calmly explained as she checked the wires and tubes and machines. “How’s your pain level?”

“Hurts like hell.”

“You can use the morphine pump if you’re uncomfortable.”

Jack grunted. “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing? It’s not doing a damn bit of good.”

“It’s regulated so you don’t give yourself too much. I’ll talk to the doctor.”

“You do that. And then maybe I can get some rest and you can stop pestering me.”

The corners of her lips quirked. “My, you are a bear tonight, aren’t you? What happened to the charming man who used to sneak me candy?”

Squinting, Jack tried to read the name on her ID badge.
Christine McIlvie
. It wasn’t familiar.

“You don’t remember me,” she said, her eyes twinkling.

Some of the irritation faded as he realized he was being an arse. “No, lass, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not surprised. It was a long time ago. You knew my grandmother. You used to come by on weekends sometimes, do some work around her house when she needed it. She loved those visits.”

Jack looked closer, his eyes widening when the pieces fell together. The red hair. The freckles. The mischievous eyes staring down into his. She could have been Fitz’s sister, but she was far too young.

“Chrissy? Ginny Fitzsimmons’ little girl?”

“Yep, that’s me,” she grinned.

“Good Lord, lass, I didn’t recognize you without your pigtails.”

Christine touched her short, practical cut, laughing. “I forgot about those. They’ve been gone a while now.”

“I am an old man with old memories. How is your mother?”

“She’s good. She moved down to Florida about ten years ago, said her bones couldn’t handle the winters around here anymore.” She swapped the nearly-empty I.V. bag with another while she talked. “She still talks about you, you know. How much you helped my grandmother. It meant a lot to her.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. The woman had been like a second mother to him, and Fitz wasn’t there to do it...

“You knew my uncle, didn’t you?”

Knew? That seemed such a poor word to describe the kind of friendship he and Fitz had shared. They were brothers, in everything except parentage. Not a day went by that Jack didn’t think about him at least once, but he didn’t want to go into that. “Aye.”

Whether she sensed that, or was just a kind soul, she readjusted his blankets and laid her hand over his. “I’m going to see about those meds. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“I will.”

Little Chrissy, now Christine McIlvie, R.N., slipped quietly out of his room. It was another reminder of how fast the past forty years had gone by. The last time he’d seen her, which didn’t seem that long ago at all, she’d been a skinny, little thing with a face full of freckles, flame-red pigtails, and the same green eyes and impish smile that Fitz had. It was a shame that Fitz never got to meet any of his nieces or nephews, or have kids of his own.

Jack sighed into the semi-darkness and sank back into the pillow. Through the blinds, he could see hints of moonlight. How he wished he could get up, detach all of these bothersome sensors and tubes, open the window and breathe in the scents of autumn. If he never smelled antiseptic again, he would be a happy man.

At least things seemed to be quiet. Other than a few muted sounds from down the hall, the occasional sound of hard rubber wheels rolling along in tandem with soft-soled shoes, he could almost pretend he wasn’t laid up in intensive care. Barring any surprises, he had a few hours before Chrissy or someone else came in again.

He suspected he knew why his machines had started squawking. Because he’d been dreaming of Kathleen again. That seemed to be happening a hell of a lot, even more than before. Each time he closed his eyes, whether willingly or not, his mind was reliving those early days. He wondered if it was some kind of sign, then realized he didn’t care.

He gave the morphine pump another squeeze and closed his eyes, willing her to come to him again.

––––––––

J
anuary 1975

Pine Ridge

Jack went upstairs as fast as his healing legs would allow and took a shower. The water was ice-cold (he made a mental note to turn on the water heater) but he was too focused to care. He shaved and dressed in comfortable, familiar clothes – blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that smelled as if they had been freshly laundered.

He paused, his chest filling with emotion. Kathleen had been doing his wash, ensuring he had fresh, clean clothes. She’d been keeping his house, never faltering in her faith that he would honor his vow and come home to her.

Because she loved him.

The clothes hung more loosely on him than they once had, but they felt good. And for the first time in a long time, on some very small level, Jack Callaghan felt a little like the man he used to be.

Jack pulled the cover off the old Galaxie, saying a small prayer of thanks when the engine roared to life with just a bit of coaxing. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be driving, but he’d be damned if he had to wait another minute to see his girl. She’d been waiting far too long for his sorry ass as it was.

He smiled and raised his hand in acknowledgement when he saw Mrs. Fitzsimmons waving at him from the window.

The drive to Birch Falls was just as he remembered it, though there were a few more houses along the way. It felt good to drive a real car again, smell the lingering scents of his father’s pipe smoke in the rich leather seats. That was nothing compared to the knowledge that each familiar twist and turn in the road brought him closer to Kathleen. Seeing her. Holding her. Kissing her.

With each mile, his anticipation grew.

After pulling into the parking lot of O’Leary’s diner, Jack cut the engine. He took several deep breaths; his heart was leaping against the walls of his chest, his palms sweaty. With one last check in the mirror, he pulled off the patch of toilet paper from his chin (it had been a rather quick shave), and headed for the front door.