by Natalie Ann
“Don’t call him that. Please don’t.”
Sean nodded his head. “They had me call Joe. We cleared all the employees out of the offices, kept their cars in the parking lot like they should have been there but sent them elsewhere, and the police were parked around the corner. I told him if he wanted to see you, he had to see me first, that you told me what had happened, and that I had no intention of letting him near you without an explanation.”
“I still don’t understand why he would agree to that. I don’t remember him ever thinking he had to explain himself to anyone in the past.”
“He did hesitate over that, but agreed. I’m sure he didn’t think we could have possibly known about the warrant for his arrest, everything just happened so fast. Ben was up all night getting the information. Remember, he left your house after seven last night. It’s not like we had a lot of time to gather information. Joe was clueless.”
“It just doesn’t sound like the man I remember,” she said, shaking her head.
“I told him to come to Harper’s at eleven. I wanted to meet in public. He knew where I worked and agreed.” The minute Joe walked in the door, the police wanted to arrest him, but they didn’t want him to run so they changed plans. “Ben was sitting in the waiting room, pretending to wait for Alec, who was just coming out of his office when Joe showed up.” Sean didn’t want the brothers there for this, but they’d said they weren’t leaving.
“Then what?”
“Alec asked if he could help him. Joe stated his name, and Alec yelled down the hall for me. I came out and walked him to the conference room where the police were waiting. He didn’t even put up a struggle when he saw them, Carly. I can tell you, I almost wet my pants when they all pulled their guns on him.”
“Why did you go in that room with him!” she shouted at him. He’d never heard her yell before.
“Were you scared for me?” he asked, chuckling.
“What the hell is wrong with you? All of you. Ben I can understand, but you and Phil and Alec? Brynn is never going to forgive me!” She was screeching at the top of her lungs. So much so another teacher came running down the hall to see what the commotion was.
Her face flooded with embarrassment and Sean turned and laughed, then addressed the newcomer in the doorway. “Sorry. Carly is just a little emotional right now.”
“I’ve never seen Carly yell before. I didn’t know if she even knew how.”
“Neither did I. Now I know. I better be careful in the future, don’t you think?” he asked the young teacher, smiling.
“It’s okay, Brenda,” Carly said. “It’s nothing. You can go now.”
Sean was surprised the teacher turned and left so quickly, but she did. “Are you done yelling?”
“I am. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was kind of cute.” He hugged her tight. He had to get his hands on her right now. She’d actually lost her temper in her fear for him. “He didn’t put up any resistance. As I said, we were all safe. Ben was guarding the front door in case Joe decided to take off, but he didn’t.”
“I wonder why he came looking for me? I guess I’ll never know. It’s not like I want to ever see him or talk to him.”
“I know why. I won’t tell you if you don’t want me to, but I asked to go to the police station when they questioned him after he was booked, and before they transported him back to Pennsylvania.”
“I’m not sure I want to know, not if he came here to hurt us.”
“He didn’t, but if you don’t want to know, I won’t tell you.”
“Tell me,” she said, after hedging for a minute.
Ben and he had sat behind the mirror listening to the questions. “They asked why he ran and why he came here to you, after not seeing you for so long and having no contact in all that time. He said he knew he was going back to prison and he knew he’d be lucky if he ever got out. He’d been keeping tabs on his girlfriend too and knew she was being pulled off life support. He said he just wanted to see you one last time before he went to prison. He wanted to see how you turned out, how you looked, and he wanted to say he was sorry.”
“Sorry for what? For beating my mother, for ruining her life, for making us leave town in the middle of the night like that and having to live for years in secret, always looking over our shoulders?”
“He never explained, Carly. He just said he was sorry.” She didn’t need to know that Joe turned to the mirror, guessing Sean was there and said, “Tell her I never meant to ruin her life.”
But her life wasn’t ruined. Her life brought her to him and he was going to do everything he could to make it up to her and give her the life she’d always deserved.
Epilogue
Sean turned when the music started and watched his future bride make her way toward him. She took his breath away. Absolutely stunning.
Trisha looked completely different to him, walking her daughter down the aisle. Long gone was the mousey-looking woman who didn’t seem to take care with her appearance. She’d never looked bad to him, just tired, and she rarely smiled.
But now, she had a grin from ear to ear, and even from a distance he could see the tears shimmering in her eyes, right along with the ones Carly was battling.
His woman, making her way toward him. Two new women in his life. No, make that three—just what he needed, more women in his life telling him what to do. Only this time, he really didn’t care.
Theresa and Trisha were bossy and temperamental with each other, and he learned that was just the way they interacted. Now that Joe was behind bars, he found their antics more comical than ever. He suspected they did too. It didn’t matter that he’d heard more bickering in the last two months leading up to the wedding. There was a lightness to it all, a carefree aura to all three women.
They seemed free to him now. Free from the secret and burden of memories so deep they felt they couldn’t truly live without looking over their shoulders.
Carly stopped right in front him, smiled that huge bright smile of hers at him and his heart knocked once, twice, and fell right at her feet. It was hers to have and to hold, to cherish and to love, and he knew she would. Beyond a doubt, she was the one for him.
“Well, hello there, Ms. Springfield.”
“Hello right back at you,” she said, those tears in her eyes gathering more as she fought to hold them back.
Thirty minutes later, she was finally his. When he said “I do” he meant it with everything he had. Everything he possessed was the truth spoken in those words.
“You may kiss your bride,” the priest said.
“You’re mine now, Sean,” she said gripping his face and uttering those words before he could lower his head.
“You’ve always been mine, Mrs. Callahan,” he whispered and kissed her for all to see, bending her backwards and putting on a show, blocking out all the yelling and whistling in support of them. Deep in his mind, he heard the loudest shouts from Theresa and Trisha.
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