Stone Cold (39 page)

It was hard to not say anything but Hannah remained silent while Conall continued talking.

“I didn’t know about the two of you for awhile and then he showed me pictures you’d sent him and I knew it was you even though you were older.”

He handed her the stack of pictures.

She looked through them slowly as she listened.

“It killed me Hannah, I’m not going to lie. When I saw the pictures and knew he had you and I wanted you – it was like I died right then.”

Conall paused to take a breath.

“I never told him you and I had met – and then he told me he was going to ask you to marry him. I didn’t know what your answer was but I didn’t want to ever see him again to find out.”

He
stood and was pacing back and forth in front of her.

“It was over a year since I’d seen him when I was be
ing put on medical leave and for some reason I wanted to let him know I was leaving. That’s when I found out he’d been killed in action.”

He’d stopped pacing and was looking in
to Hannah’s eyes.

“He wanted me to give these pictures and this letter he’d written to you if he died.”

He handed her the letter.

Hannah took it from him. Her hands shook as she flipped it over and read her name on the back. She held it to her nose and breathed in. It smelled like Josh.

“If you want to be alone when you open it I’ll understand.”

She was holding it in her lap contemplating what she wanted to do.

“I’m going to open this right now and I’d like for you to wait over by the water until I read it through. Then I’ll let you know what I want to do from there.”

Conall
nodded and touched her shoulder as he walked away from the bench.

Hannah smelled the envelope again and without any
more hesitation, she opened it to reveal the letter inside.

She began reading it silently to herself.

Hannah my love,

You wouldn’t be reading this letter if I were still alive. In fact, you wouldn’t even know about this letter if I were. I’m so sorry that I’ve left you with the best years yet to come.

When we met I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world and that feeling never went away. I loved you more than life and wanted nothing more than to spend every single day with you for the rest of mine doing all the things that people who are in love do.

I saw us getting married, buying a home, not a hou
se but a home, where we would’ve raised our family. I wanted more than anything to have children with you, girls as beautiful as their mother, and boys as handsome as their father so I’m told.

I wanted to grow old with you too but you’ll be doing all of this with someone else.

From the beginning Hannah, I knew you didn’t love me like I loved you.

When we first started dating I
needed to find out if there was someone else in your life so I decided to follow you to the ferry landing in NYC. I’d asked you if I could go with you on your trip and when you said no I thought you might be meeting someone else there. I saw you leave the envelope on the bench for Conall. When you left I opened it and read the letter inside.

After I read it I decided to wait to see if Conall
would show up and take the letter so I put it back. A few minutes later, a young businessman came along and took it and I thought he was Conall. He seemed too old for you so I decided to take my chances that nothing would happen between you and him and that someday you would come to love me as much as I loved you. So I kept dating you.

It wasn’t until after I met Co
nall in the army that I realized he was the one you were in love with and not the man who took the letter (Still wondering who he was). It was too much of a coincidence that a fellow soldier would have the same rare name as your Conall and not be the same person.

To know for sure, I gave Conall your pictures to look at to see what his reaction would be. I thought I saw him rea
ct but I couldn’t be sure. He’s a great master of disguise and can completely hide his emotions when necessary.

I s
till don’t know for sure if he’s your Conall Hannah but I wanted you to know that I knew about him and as much as I wanted to hate him, I couldn’t. I can see what you see in him.

All I want and have ever wanted is
for you to be happy. I know he’s the one and always has been for you – I want you to be with Conall.

He’s the one you’re going to marry and buy a home with. He’s the one you’re going to have a family and grow old with. We both know that eventually this would
’ve happened even if I were still alive.

I wanted you from the first time I saw you when you were a freshman. It took me a whole year to work up the nerve to ask you out. It took another five years to ask you to marry me.
And that’s where our story ends.

It’s time for you to meet the real man of your dreams
again and spend the rest of your lives together with no more interruptions. That’s why I made it my dying wish to ask Conall to bring this to you in person so that I could finally give you what you wanted.

This is my last wish for you my love.

Forever yours,

Josh

Hannah sat i
n silence while she stared at the paper in her hands. She was moved to tears by its contents.

She couldn’t believe that Josh knew about Conall almost the entire time that she’d known him and yet he still loved her and wanted to marry her.

She whispered to herself, “That’s why he kept bringing ‘Conall the ranger’ up to me. He knew and he wanted to see my reaction.”

She thought the letter was going to make her sad and start the guilt feelings all over again after working so hard to get rid of them.

Instead, she felt a peace come over her that was completely unexpected. It was the most liberating moment she’d had since they’d begun dating. The guilt she’d been suppressing was gone. Her heart felt like it was instantly healed and she could let Josh go.

He’d given her his blessing to be with Conall. Hannah was finally able to forgive herself for continuing her relationship with Josh when she knew she didn’t love him deeply enough
. She was free to move on in her life.

Conall had been watching her from the waters edge.

“Hannah, are you okay?”

His voice penetrated her thoughts. She looked at him with a smile and motioned for him to come to her while tears were streaming down her face.

“Yes, yes I’m fine for the first time since I met you. Even in death Josh is such an amazing person.”

Conall sat down beside her and she handed him the letter.

“I want you to read this. Josh said so many things and if I tried to relay it all, I wouldn’t be able to do it justice.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to invade your privacy. It’s really none of my business.”

“I don’t want to force you to read it but if you do, I think you’ll get peace from it just like I have.”

Conall opened the letter and began reading. Hannah sat silently and waited until he was done.

“Well, what do you think?”

The letter had choked him up. He looked at her with tears in his eyes and without a word he grabbed her for another huge hug.

“I can’t believe he knew. I thought I’d hidden my feelings so well. And you’re right. Josh was and always will be an amazing person.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I think we should honor his wish. He knew we belong together and we’ve both known that too. I don’t want to waste another minute without you.”

“I feel the same way but is
n’t it too soon? Are we being selfish?”

“He’s been dead for two years
Hannah. It’s time for you and me to get to know each other and move forward in our lives. The first thing I want to do is go to your Aunt Grace’s and find your mom so we can go home and make up for lost time.”

“I’m all for that.”

Hannah took his hand and they started walking toward the street again.

“Wait, how do you know about Aunt Grace? And my mom? I never mentione
d anything about either of them.”

“
Oh yeah, I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet that I went to your parent’s house to deliver the letter about two weeks ago and met your mom. We had a nice chat and she told me that she was going to make sure you made this trip with her so we could meet.”

Hannah looked at him incredulously.

“I’m shocked that she was able to keep this from me. Way to go Sara.”

“She said you’d told her about me after Josh died.”

“Yes I did. I finally told her about my feelings for you and she wanted me to find you.”

“I kind of got that feeling from her.”

“Why did you wait so long to deliver the letter after you were put on medical leave?”

“I can fill in all the details later because this is kind of a long story but I was severely injured in
Iraq. I was in therapy for months and I didn’t want to meet you again until I was in the best condition I could be in.”

She stopped walking and turned squarely to face him.

“Conall, there’s nothing that could’ve kept me from wanting to meet you, to be with you.”

He smiled back at her and knew she meant what she said.

“I believe you but it was something I had to do for myself too. I wanted to be able to talk to you with a normal voice – well, as normal as it can be after several traumatic brain injuries. I also have hearing loss and sometimes I can’t remember things.”

Hannah reached up and kissed him on the lips.

“You’re perfect to me.”

As they walked hand in hand, it was clear to both of them that they once again had instant chemistry. All the years between them had vanished. During the entire walk to Aunt Grace’s house they embraced and held
hands and talked. Along the way, they stopped to eat and through it all they kept staring at each other. The attraction was as strong as it had been the first day they met.

When they arrived at Aunt Grace’s house, before going inside, Conall paused and pulled her to him. He could no longer keep himself from engaging her in a long, deep, passionate kiss.

Hannah had imagined what it would be like to kiss him from the moment she first saw him. It had been great in her mind but that was nothing compared to the real thing.

She could feel the sparks in every part of her body. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before. All she could think about was that she wanted to feel his naked body against hers. The more they kissed the harder they pressed their bodies together and she didn’t want that moment to end.

Conall had pushed her up against the house next to the door and pinned her there, the weight of his toned body crushing hers. He was pushing so hard she could barely breathe under his weight but she didn’t mind.

Hannah was nearly in the zone where she was oblivious to anything around her when suddenly the door opened and her mother was standing there
with a look of embarrassment on her face.

“Oh
, Hannah, it’s you. And Conall. Hi. I thought I heard something out here so I’ll just go back inside and…”

Hannah was smoothing her clothing and hair.

“Mom, it’s fine. We were just uh, coming inside.”

Conall had abruptly moved away from Hannah and had turned his body slightly aw
ay from Sara.

“Hi Sara
, so nice to see you again.”

“Mom, this is Conall but he told me you’ve already met. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! Especially when you know what I’ve been through over the past ten years,” she laughed.

“Well you were in London and almost finished your job there so I didn’t want to ruin your focus so close to the end. Anyway, you two need to come inside. It’s time for us to go so I’m glad you’re back. Let’s say goodbye to Aunt Grace and we can head out.”

The ride home was the best one Hannah had ever had. She and Conall sat in the back seat and talked an
d snuck in a kiss whenever Sara wasn’t looking in the rearview mirror.

Sara
asked him a ton of questions and he was more than happy to respond.

“So Conall, what kind of work will you do now that you’re no longer
in the army?”

“I have a degree in finance and have started an accounting job with the National Guard. I also s
tarted a job as a Federal Air Marshall.”

“Are you still in the a
rmy? I thought you were discharged?”

“
Not discharged. I was put on medical leave but it’s essentially the same thing. I won’t be deployed as a ranger again. I joined the National Guard so I can continue to serve. The only reason I’m not a ranger anymore is because of the severity of my injuries.”