Angel's Peak (Virgin River #10)(46)

“I don’t know what it was, but I broke out in a rash and it’s almost gone.” She had that pleased look on her face. She was expecting him to tell her something that would make her happy. He could only hope. “You remember Franci?” he asked. “That steady girl of mine a few years ago? Long, pretty hair?”

“Of course, though I think I saw her four whole times while you dated her. Five at the most. I liked Franci. And I thought you did, too.”

“I did, absolutely. I ran into her recently. I was out one night and, of all places, not far from Luke’s, she was out to dinner with friends. We’ve kind of resumed contact, you could say.”

“How nice for you. I never met many of your girlfriends, but of the few I think I liked her best. Nice young woman. Beautiful, too, if I remember.”

“Uh-huh. She cut off all that long hair,” he said, getting momentarily distracted. “She looks fantastic.” Maureen looked at him expectantly, and at that moment he really felt as if he was back in catechism, half expecting Sister Thekela to sneak up behind him and twist his ear for not paying attention.

He shook himself. “Listen, Mom, I never told you the whole reason we split up, me and Franci. I loved her and she loved me, but we weren’t in the same canoe. She wanted a commitment, a family, and I was running from marriage. I—”

“Good Lord,” Maureen interrupted him. “What did your father and I do to turn you boys off marriage?” she asked, half pleading, half annoyed. “I thought we had a good marriage, your da and me. He was so wonderful to me. I tried to take good care of him and you boys! It makes me wonder where we failed that the lot of you are terrified of marriage.”

“It wasn’t you and Da, Mom. It was the two marriages in the family and the Pope, if you get my drift. I mean, Aiden and Luke had a couple of short, train-wreck marriages that just about killed both of them, and then there was this whole Catholic thing of not recognizing their next marriages, if they were crazy enough to have them. I mean come on—Luke’s wife had another man’s baby and Aiden’s crazy Annalee was ballistic, totally certifiable. And they stuck by both those women as long as they could but, bottom line, the women left them. And still, no future marriage in the church? Come on! You know what kind of—” He realized he was on a rant and stopped himself. He hung his head. You didn’t knock the Catholic church in front of Saint Maureen. Without looking up, he said, “If I could have been guaranteed a marriage as sweet as you had with Da, I’d have jumped in. Those other things—they worried me.”

“You’ve always overreacted, Sean. Luke and Shelby were married by a priest! His marriage most certainly counts in the church!”

Sean flushed and hoped Maureen wouldn’t see it. Only the boys knew that Luke never even tried to get an annulment from his former wife. He told the priest his marriage to Shelby was his first. Luke was fine with that, but that knowledge would have had Maureen praying for his soul night and day for the rest of her life.

“It’s all right, Sean. Even I can admit Papa is sometimes a little behind the times,” she said. Papa was an affectionate nickname for the Pontiff. “He’s sometimes a little antiquated. I pray for change. My parish priest is very with it, you’d like him. He’d probably give you peace of mind.”

“Yeah, right. Well, back to Francine. She had an agenda I didn’t know about. She kept it from me. She had her reasons, I get that. But see…Okay, here’s the deal—we had an ugly fight. She wanted marriage and family, and I said I thought we were good just like we were. We said mean things. We split with hard feelings. I tried to catch up with her later, but the air force kind of scattered us—she got out and I got transferred. So when I saw her, it was so—” He stopped. He took a gulp of beer and swallowed hard.

“Mom,” he went on. “Franci was pregnant and I didn’t know it. She left because I didn’t want to marry her. Of course I would have if I’d known, which is why she kept it from me. She didn’t want it that way so she chose to do it alone.”

He watched the slow transformation of his mother’s face. When she was pregnant made her stiffen. Because I didn’t want to marry her made her glare angrily. Now she was maintaining that scary silence he remembered from his youth.

He brazened on. “Mom, I have a daughter. She’s three and a half. I’ve only known about this for a day. I don’t even know her birthday, but I made sure she knew I was her dad and that, from now on, she will always know how to find me, and I’ll be nearby whenever it’s possible. And yes, I asked Franci to marry me, make us a family, but she’s pretty leery of me. I’m going to have to convince both of them I’m worth the risk, I guess.” He swallowed. “You have a granddaughter, Mom. Red hair. Green eyes. Scary smart. Her name is Rosie. She calls herself the Wide Iwish Rose.”

Maureen wilted before his eyes. She got teary and, as redheads are wont to do, her nose got pink and the edges of her lips blurred as she pursed them. She sniffed back emotion to keep control. “How did you let this happen?” she asked, her voice catching.

“I didn’t let it, Mom. It took me completely by surprise!”

“How did you have an intimate relationship with her for…for presumably a long time, then refuse to marry her? Is that how you were raised?”