Forever Mine: Callaghan Brothers, Book 9(10)

The National Guard had been flying in aid around the clock. Big Army helicopters brought food, medicine, and clothing to those who had lost everything. Today, one of them brought Jack Callaghan home.

But the flood wasn’t why he had been given a temporary, week-long ticket to Pine Ridge. Not directly.

No, he was here to bury his father.

Liam had suffered a massive coronary while trying to rescue a family from the rising waters. One minute he was reaching for a woman leaning out of her second story bedroom window; the next, she was safely in his bass boat with her kids and dog and he was grasping his chest and plunging over the side.

Until the call came, he hadn’t known about the hurricane or the flood or any of it. He had been out of contact for months, unable to write or phone. He’d been so looking forward to a break from active duty, to getting back to a secure base camp to do just that, but it hadn’t worked out quite the way he’d thought it would. When he’d gone to pick up the hefty stack of accumulated letters written by his mother and Kathleen, he had been directed to the commanding officer’s tent instead.

His father was gone, and now he was gazing at what was left of the valley he called home.

With the help of Guardsmen, he made it to his parents’ house. Luckily, it was far enough above the flood plain that they hadn’t been directly affected by the rising waters. It was only a small consolation.

His mother Mary ran to him, embracing him with red-rimmed, puffy eyes. She looked as if she’d aged twenty years instead of four, but that was probably the grief. After thirty years of marriage, his parents had still been very much in love. Now the light in her eyes was dimmed, her heart broken right along with her husband’s but still somehow beating. That was the power of croies.

The priest was there, too, offering words of condolence and faith. Jack nodded and thanked him, but the words provided little comfort. He wasn’t the same man he’d once been. He’d seen too much, done too much. He was numb, so numb to the horrors of life.

What Jack did thank God for was the fact that his family didn’t know, hopefully would never know, those horrors. That was why he and the tens of thousands of other young men did what they did.

Neighborhood women bustled about with food and candles and flowers, but there was only one face Jack searched for.

He found her in the kitchen, neatly organizing the well-intentioned offerings of food. For long moments, Jack just stood in the doorway and watched her. Waves of black silk were twisted and coiled at the base of her neck, so dark against her much-lighter skin. The summer sun had touched it though, lending a radiant, healthy glow.

She wore a dark, flowing, ankle length skirt and a short-sleeved, plain blouse. So damn feminine. His heart thundered in his chest and for a moment, he was afraid to move for fear that this vision –—that she—– wasn’t real.

Kathleen reached up to tuck an errant lock back into place, turning slightly in the process. Her eyes widened when she saw him.

“Jack?” she whispered. And then she glided across the room and wrapped her arms around him, uncaring of those who had stopped what they were doing to watch the scene. He pulled her close, burying his face in the crook of her fragrant neck. He closed his eyes, letting her warmth, her love, soak into him.

“I’ve missed you,” he managed. The words were woefully inadequate, but in that moment there were no words ever written that could have conveyed what he felt. This woman, the one he had known for barely a week before he’d shipped out, really was the other half of his ragged soul. From the moment he’d looked down in her beautiful eyes, he had known.

“I’ve missed you too,” she said. Her hands traced over his arms, his shoulders, his face, as if assuring herself he was really there. “I’m so sorry about your father.”

He squeezed her to him again. As awful as the situation was that had brought him here, he was overjoyed to hold her. A throat cleared, and then another, reminding him that they were not alone.

“Come,” he said, lacing his fingers through hers and tugging her out the back door and into the yard, away from prying eyes. When he got behind the row of stately pines, he backed her against the old oak and kissed her the way he’d been dreaming of doing since the moment he’d left.

She returned the kiss with equal fervor, thank God.

“Are you all right?” he said finally, exhaling heavily as he rested his forehead against hers. “Did you and your family make it through the flood okay?”

“Not entirely,” she admitted, “but not as bad as some. The water level came up to about a foot on the ground floor, but the second floor is still livable. The diner wasn’t affected; Dad’s been working around the clock, providing meals to those displaced. She reached up and traced the pale scars that extended beyond his hairline. She knew that he’d been injured, knew about Fitz, because he’d written her. He had spared her the details, though. “God, Jack, I missed you. Are you okay?”

He captured her hand and kissed her fingers. “I am now.”

––––––––

The funeral service was nothing more or less than he had expected. Somber men walked past his father’s casket, offering condolences and handshakes. The women sniffled and gave teary-eyed hugs. Through it all, Jack stood tall beside his mother. It hadn’t quite hit him yet, but it would, later.