Natural Reaction (17 page)

He stood up, leaned over the desk and extended his hand to Pete. “Thank you,” he said earnestly. “I’m grateful for what you’re doing.”

Pete shook his hand. “Hey, it’s the least I can do for someone in the O’Reilly clan.”

“Well, I’m not part of the clan yet,” he admitted.

“Yeah, he’s going to talk to dad tomorrow and get his permission,” Sean added.

“Good luck, Bradley,” Pete said. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

“Thanks…I think,” Bradley said. “Hey, do you want to be there? Maybe you could represent me.”

Pete laughed. “Oh, no, I stay out of family matters like these.”

Bradley sighed. “I knew you were a smart man.”

Sean laughed. “Hey, don’t worry; I’ve got your back. Besides, I invited Art and Tom to be there too.”

“The twins?”
Pete asked. “Most guys only have to face the father, not all the brothers too.”

Sean grinned. “He can take it,” he said. “Besides, ma likes him.”

Pete nodded. “With Maggie O’Reilly on your side, you don’t need a thing more.”

Bradley shook his head. “So why do I feel like I’m going to my own execution?”

“I’m back,” Rosie sang as she danced through Mary’s front doorway.

Stanley rose from Mary’s couch and walked over to meet her. “Why didn’t you tell me you
was
going to meet with Wally?” Stanley said. “I
woulda
gone with you.”

“Well, Stanley, it just wouldn’t have worked as well,” she explained.

Stanley
squinted
his eyes and stared at her. “
Was
you using your womanly wiles on that poor man?”

Rosie blushed. “No. Well, maybe a little. But it was for a good cause. I got the key.”

Ian clapped his hands. “Good for you, Rosie,” he said. “Mission accomplished.”

Mary, her arms full of laundry, came walking down the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“Rosie got her man and got the key,” Ian said.

“She got the key
alrighty
,” Stanley said. “But the only man she’s getting around here is me.”

Rosie reached up and placed a kiss on Stanley’s cheek. “You’re the only man I want to get,” she said, tenderly patting his cheek.

“So, do I have to wear a radon suit or something like that?” Ian asked.

She shook her head. “Oh, no, the school was already tested for radon,” she said, “So that idea didn’t work at all.”

“Oh, sorry, Rosie,” Mary said. “I thought that was a sure fire winner.”

Shaking her head, Rosie slipped off her coat and hung it over the back of the chair. “Well, actually, the funny thing is…,” she paused for a moment, lowered her head and bit her lower lip. “The thing is, I couldn’t think of anything else, so I told him the truth.”

Mary dropped the laundry. “What truth?” she asked.

“I told him to do a Google search on Ian,” she said. “And he saw that he was a professor.”

“And that my specialty is parapsychology,” Ian added.

“Yes,” Rosie admitted and then turned to Mary. “But, I didn’t tell him about you. So, this will work perfectly.”

Stanley put his hands on his hips. “Sounds like you
ain’t
telling us everything, girlie,” he said. “What else?”

Rosie sighed deeply. “Well, I may have led him to believe that I…,” she hesitated.

“That you…” Mary encouraged.

“That I can see ghosts.”

Stanley strode up next to Rosie. “You told him you could see ghosts?” he asked, his arms gesticulating in every direction. “You know what you did? You realize what you did? You placed yourself in danger. That’s what you did.”

Rosie took a deep breath and faced Stanley. She pointed her finger at him. “Yes, I did,” she said. “I put myself in a little danger and do you know why?”

“Yeah, I want to know.”

She put her finger on his chest and pushed, knocking him back a little and surprising him a lot. “Every time we work on a case with Mary, she puts herself in danger,” Rosie said. “She sacrifices for everyone else. She helps everyone else. And what do I do?”

“Rosie you help,” Mary said. “You always help.”

“I make cookies,” she argued, popping Stanley’s chest with her finger again. “I cook, I bake. Oh, look out Rosie, you might do something dangerous, like get burned on the stove. The rest of you protect me while you get involved.”

“Rosie, darling, you do much more than that,” Ian said.

She glared at him. “Don’t try to sweet talk me, Ian,” she said. “I know who I am and I know my limitations. But this time,” she took a shuddering breath, “This time, the man involved saved my life. This time I’m the one who was saved. This time I had to do more.”

Unheeded, tears flowed down her cheeks. “This time I wanted to make a difference.”

Stanley put his arms around her and held her tightly. He placed a kiss on her head. “You make a difference every day,” he whispered softly, “By just being you.”

She sniffled, “But I needed to help Coach Thorne,” she said. “Can you understand that?”

“Yeah, I can,” he said, nodding his head. “I just
ain’t
used to my sweet Rosie turning into a superhero.”

Chuckling weakly, she stepped out of Stanley’s arms, wiped her eyes and turned to the others. “Can you forgive me?”

Mary came up and put her arms around Rosie. “There is nothing to forgive,” she said. “You followed your heart, that’s always the best course of action.”

“Aye, although it would be a terrible crime if you gave up cooking altogether,” Ian said with a wink.

She giggled. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll still bake.”

Ian put his hand on his heart. “Well, saints be praised,” he said, “We won’t have to only eat Mary’s cooking.”

Mary whipped a couch pillow at him, hitting him in the stomach. “Eat that, MacDougal.”

“Well, now that things are getting back to normal, we
oughtta
be putting together a plan to solve this case and keep my Rosie safe,” Stanley said. “So, what’s the first step?”

“So this is how swinging singles live in Chicago,” Bradley said, following Sean up another flight of narrow stairs to his apartment on the fifth floor carrying a bag of White Castle sliders.

“Yeah, great,
ain’t
it,” Sean said with a grin, juggling his keys with the drink tray and the other bag, containing onion rings and French fries.

He pushed the door open and a huge orange cat nearly tripped him as he entered the apartment.

“Escapee from the zoo?”
Bradley asked, watching the cat nearly topple Sean as it rubbed itself against his legs.

Sean grinned. “Bradley meet Tiny, Tiny meet Bradley.”

Bradley followed Sean in and closed the door behind them. He looked anxiously around the room.

“What?” Sean asked.

“Well, if this is Tiny,” Bradley joked. “I’m just concerned Monster is in the next room waiting to eat me for dinner.”

Laughing, Sean placed the items in his hand on an already cluttered table, scooped Tiny up into his arms and gave him a vigorous head rubbing. “No, Tiny wasn’t named because of his size,” Sean said.

Bradley looked around and finally found a clear spot to place his things down. “Well, I wouldn’t guess it was because of his appetite.”

Sean shook his head. “No,” he said. “Listen.”

He lifted the cat up so they were face to face. “How’s my big boy?” Sean asked.

Bradley could hear the cat’s thunderous purring all the way across the room.

“How’s my big boy?” Sean asked again.

The cat stopped purring for a moment, looked at Sean and opened its mouth. A tiny, barely audible “meow” was emitted.

Sean held the cat against his chest and rubbed him again, producing purrs that echoed through the apartment and probably the entire neighborhood. “See,” Sean said. “Tiny is verbally challenged, all the other cats at the shelter used to pick on him, so I took him home with me.”

“They wouldn’t let poor
Tiny
join in any kitty-cat games?” Bradley asked with a grin.

Sean laughed. “Yeah, something
like
that. So, we keep each other company, share tuna sandwiches. It’s all good.”

He put Tiny down and walked across the room to a doorway. “I can loan you some sweats, if you don’t mind CPD,” he said.

“That’s all Mary seems to wear around her place,” Bradley said. “So, they must be comfortable.”

Sean came back in the room and tossed Bradley a sweat shirt and sweat pants. “Well, you can’t keep them,” he said. “But if you’re nice to me, I’ll get you a set as a wedding present.”

The comment hit Bradley like a ton of bricks. “A wedding,” he said slowly, his eyes loosing focus. His legs felt weak and he blindly sat down, nearly crushing Tiny in the process. “I’m getting married.”

Shaking his head, Sean walked over to him. “Well, yeah, isn’t that what happens when you ask someone to marry you?”

Still staring into space, Bradley nodded. “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “But, you know, it was more… I love her… I want to be with her for the rest of my life.”

“You forgot about all that complicated stuff in between, huh?”

Bradley nodded slowly. “I really hate weddings,” he admitted.

Sean sat down on the edge of his coffee table, unbuttoned his uniform shirt and slipped it off. “Well, if you thought you hated weddings before, you
ain’t
seen
nothing
yet,” Sean said. “An Irish wedding is the wedding of all weddings.”

Bradley dropped his head into his hands. “Think we could elope?”

“Hah, not if you want my mother to ever speak to you again,” he said. “She’s waited her whole life to plan Mary’s wedding.”

Bradley sighed. “Well, it’s only one day.”

“Oh, didn’t you know,” Sean said. “Irish weddings last a week.”

Bradley’s head shot up. “What?”

Sean laughed at him. “You should have seen your face.
Priceless!”

“Not funny,” he said, and then he noticed a large scar on Sean’s arm. “
Wow, that
looks bad. Knife wound?”

Sean looked down at his arm. The scar had been there so long he barely thought of it. There were four slashes, evenly spaced and a puncture mark at the end of the one on the bottom. Even though they had healed years ago, they still had an ugly pink look to them.

“No, I got these when I visited Ireland when I was twelve,” he said. “We were playing hide and seek near my grandmother’s home and I went to hide in the woods. I must have encountered a pretty fierce thorn tree because I came out all bloodied and woozy. My brothers found me steps away from the woods and helped me back to the house.”

“Wow,” Bradley said. “Remind me to stay away from Irish woods.”

Sean laughed. “Oh, the woods are nothing compared to Irish women.”

They spent the evening watching basketball and complaining about the referees’ eye-sight. It was nearly eleven when Sean grabbed a couple of blankets and a pillow and handed them to Bradley before he went to bed.

“I think I might have an extra toothbrush in the bathroom,” he said, “In one of the drawers.”

Bradley nodded, “Thanks, appreciate it.”

Once Sean closed the door to his bedroom, Bradley sat down on the couch next to Tiny and pulled out his phone. He punched in Mary’s number.

“Hello,” a slightly drowsy voice responded.

“It sounds like I woke you up,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ll call back tomorrow.”

“Bradley?” her voice sounded more alert. “No, don’t call back. I’m awake.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “Are you home? Do you want to come over?”

He relaxed against the back of the couch and absently stroked Tiny. “I’m in Chicago,” he said. “I’m at Sean’s place.”

“Well then you must have met Tiny,” she said.

He could hear the laughter in her voice.

“As a matter of fact, I do believe that Tiny is sharing his bed with me tonight,” he said.

She laughed. “Well, you won’t be cold.”

“I met Pete O’Bryan today.”

“Really?
Pete’s a good guy. We’ve known him forever.”

“He’s going to help me find my daughter. And the guy is amazing.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said. “I’ve never known Pete to lose a case.”

“Yeah, he seems like the guy you want on your side,” Bradley agreed. “I really feel hopeful about finding her.”

“You should,” Mary said. “You will.”

He paused for a moment. “Mary, I can’t begin to tell you how much meeting you has changed my life.”

She laughed nervously. “Yeah, well, that whole seeing dead people can alter things a bit.”

Chuckling, he shook his head. “No, I mean without you …there are so many things that happened today that are a direct result from meeting you.”