Forever Mine: Callaghan Brothers, Book 9

by Abbie Zanders

  “Let’s go back to bed,” he suggested. “Call Erin. I’m pampering you today.”

  “I appreciate the thought, but I’m fine.”

  He grinned, wrapping his hands around her belly as he leaned down and kissed her neck. “And pregnant with our baby. I think that deserves a day of private celebration, don’t you?”

  She laughed. “Definitely, but it will have to wait till the weekend.”

  “I don’t want to wait.”

  “I know, but second quarter estimated taxes are due on the fifteenth, and I’ve got a slew of receipts to wade through.”

  “The second quarter doesn’t end till the thirtieth.”

  “I know, but for the second and third quarters, estimated taxes are due before the end of the period.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Taxes don’t have to make sense. They just have to be paid.”

  “Okay, what about after that? I’ll get Brian to watch the bar. We can do something fun, just the two of us.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m working the lunch to dinner shift at the diner.” Kathleen kissed his chest and slipped beneath his arm.

  Something wasn’t right; he could feel it in his bones. Jack followed her to the bathroom, where she began to dot some kind of light stuff under her eyes, making the dark circle all but disappear. The fact that she wouldn’t meet his gaze in the mirror only reinforced his suspicion.

  “Kathleen, what else are you not telling me?”

  She rummaged through her little make-up bag. “Telling you I’m pregnant isn’t enough?”

  Avoiding the question with a question of her own. Not a good sign.

  Jack placed his index finger beneath her chin and gently drew her gaze to his. “Talk to me, Kathleen. What the hell is going on? Why are you picking up shifts at the diner?”

  Her shoulders slumped and she exhaled heavily. “Fine. The bills came in from the electrician and the plumber, and we can’t afford to pay them.”

  Kathleen couldn’t have surprised him more if she turned around and cracked him with her hairbrush. “What!?”

  She shrugged. “Renovation is expensive.”

  “We’re doing a good business.”

  “Yeah, we are, but it’s not enough, not yet. And we’re losing even more because Danny’s been sneaking bottles out from behind the bar and sharing with his friends.”

  Son of a bitch. “How deep in the hole are we?”

  “Not too bad for just the two of us. But with a baby coming...”

  Jack sat down on the rim of the tub and dragged his hands through his hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I wanted to avoid this. You’ve been putting everything you have into this place, Jack. I thought if I picked up a few more jobs, we’d be okay.”

  “Jesus, Kathleen.” It was like a solid punch to the gut, knocking the air out of him. His wife, his pregnant wife, was working extra jobs, because they needed the money. And he, in his cluelessness, hadn’t known a goddamned thing about either one.

  The joy at finding out he was going to be a father was overshadowed by a wave of guilt and anger. The pub had been his idea. It was supposed to be a way for him to provide for her and their eventual family, not put them in debt and require her to work multiple fucking jobs.

  He stood up and punched the wall, sending pieces of plaster flying.

  “Don’t be angry, Jack.”

  “Don’t be angry? Are you kidding me?” He hit the wall again, this time leaving a red stain on the dingy white. “My pregnant wife is working her ass off to support me and this goddamn money pit of a pub, and I’m not supposed to be angry?”

  “Not you,” she said quietly. “Us. We’re in this together, Jack, and I’m just doing my part. You’re putting in sixteen hour days. When you’re not working the bar, you’re patching walls, fixing plumbing, sanding floors, building new cabinets, -—”

  “I never should have bought this place. What the hell was I thinking?”

  “Stop it. Now,” she said firmly, stepping close to him and wrapping her arms around his waist. “You were thinking of our future, and you were right. It’s tough now, but we’ll get through it.”

  Jack felt some of the anger start to drain away. With her soft touch and steel core, she had a way of pulling him back. “I don’t deserve you.”

  She chuckled against his chest. “No, probably not. But you’re stuck with me, Jack Callaghan, so you’d best just deal with it.”

  Jack gathered her against him and kissed the top of her head. “Like I’d ever let you go.”

  “You’re going to have to if I’m going to make it to Erin’s on time.”

  He did, reluctantly, only by telling himself that he was going to find a way to fix this. The first thing he was going to do, was look at the books and see just how bad things were. It was something best done while Kathleen was at her sister’s.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Jack!”

  “What?!” Jack looked up from the ledger to find Brian standing in front of him. Judging by the sharpness of Brian’s tone, it wasn’t the first time he’d called his name. Jack had been so immersed in the account books, he hadn’t heard much of anything.

  “The distributor’s here, wants a check.” Brian thumbed over his shoulder at the middle-aged guy sitting at the bar with Danny Finnegan. Based on their smiles and laughter, they were on friendly terms.

  “Did he pay for that drink?”

  “No. The old man told me to put it on his tab.”

  Jack snorted. That would have fine, if the old man ever actually paid his tab.

  “Got an invoice?”

  Brian held the piece of paper out to him. Jack looked it over, his brows furrowing as he read through the several lines of handwritten items. “That’s more than double the amount of Macallan we ordered last month.”

  The top-shelf, single-malt Scotch was arguably one of the best, but at its hefty price tag, it was not one of the big sellers among the primarily blue-collar patrons. Brian’s eyes flicked back to Danny again, and Jack had a pretty good idea of where it was going.

  His furrows deepened when he saw similarly inflated numbers for high quality bourbon, gin, and vodka. Who had adjusted the order? Brian wouldn’t have, not without running it by him first, and neither would Kathleen.

  “Excuse me.” Jack approached the delivery man, glancing down at the name stitched onto the pocket of the blue button-down. Sal. “There’s been a mistake. This is more than I ordered.”

  Sal shot a sideways glance at Danny, and Jack’s suspicions were confirmed. Danny had padded the order. That explained the bottles Kathleen had seen Danny sneaking out, as well as why he hadn’t noticed a hit on the inventory. It was hard to miss what you didn’t know you had.

  Jack didn’t know what bothered him more – the fact that Danny was taking it upon himself to up the order, or that Danny didn’t think he’d notice. Granted, he hadn’t been looming over anyone’s shoulder, but he hadn’t really thought he’d needed to, either.

  Well, he was going to put an end to that, right now. Keeping Danny around out of a sense of moral obligation was one thing, but being taken advantage of was another.

  And there was no way his pregnant wife was going to work three fucking jobs so Danny Finnegan could “buy” a bunch of friends with top-shelf liquor using the Pub’s accounts.

  “Mr. Finnegan no longer owns the bar, Sal,” Jack said clearly. “I do, which means I determine what we will stock and how much, not Mr. Finnegan. Is that clear?”

  Jack blacklined several of the items and put a corrected version of the receipt on the bar, along with a check for substantially less than the original invoice. “This is what I ordered, and this is what I will pay for. Take the rest of it back. Unless, of course, Mr. Finnegan is planning on paying the difference?”

  Color rushed to the older man’s cheeks, and fire blazed in his eyes. He didn’t appreciate b
eing called out, but Jack was finished coddling the old man. Finnegan ran the pub into the ground when he owned it; Jack sure as hell wasn’t about to let him do the same to him.

  “No? All right then. Glad we’ve cleared that up. I don’t expect we’ll have any more misunderstandings from now on.”

  Sal was not particularly happy about taking back the high-priced inventory, but he did. Afterward, Jack intended to have a long overdue conversation with Danny, but the old man left in a huff before he got the chance.

  “Did you know about this?” Jack asked Brian point-blank.

  “Finnegan padding the orders? No. But I can’t say I’m shocked. He’s made no secret of the fact that he likes pretending he still owns the place.”

  That was true enough. The old man spent a good part of his day at the bar, telling colorful stories and reliving his glory days. Jack didn’t mind; Danny had been a fixture there for as long as he could remember. But the fact was, Danny didn’t own the bar any longer. Jack appreciated his experience and the color and history he brought to the place, but he was not about to allow Danny to make financial or business decisions.

  “Do you think it was a mistake to keep him on?”

  Brian considered carefully before answering. “No, you did the right thing there. Danny’s got his problems, but he’s one of our own. He’s like the alcoholic uncle that shows up at the annual family reunion. Everyone knows what he is, but plays along out of respect and because he is part of the family. Keeping him on the paying side of the bar is probably a good idea, though.”

  Jack sighed. Brian was right. Danny was sort of like family. He’d given them both jobs when they’d come back without question, and had wanted Jack to have the Pub over his own son-in-law.

  “I shouldn’t have called him out like that, not in front of the delivery guy.”

  “It had to be done. Don’t worry about Danny. You hurt his pride a bit, but he’ll be back. Where else is he going to go?”

  On that sad note, Jack returned to the table and the accounts while Brian restocked the shelves. Between seventy-five-dollars-a-bottle liquor walking out the door, trying to bring the living space up to code, and greasing the hands of the local politicians in order to keep their coveted liquor license, they were barely keeping their heads above water, surfing the fine line between black and red. Kathleen had done a great job of cutting unnecessary expenses, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Shite.” Jack slammed the ledger closed and rubbed his eyes.

  “That bad?”

  “It’s not good. What the hell was I thinking? Kathleen was right. This place is a black hole when it comes to money.”

  Brian drew him a draft and placed it in front of him. “Listen, Jack, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

  “More bad news, Bri? Because I have to tell you, I’m not sure I want to hear it.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear it, but hear me out anyway, okay?”

  His friend’s quiet, somber tones and serious expression had Jack nodding. “Okay.”

  “I got a call from Sammy Anderson a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Sammy Anderson?” Jack’s brows shot up. Sammy Anderson was in their SEAL unit for a while, until one of his legs was blown off and got him sent home.

  “Yeah. He’s not adjusting to civilian life well.”

  “No?”

  “No. Said he was tired of busting his ass at minimum wage jobs he hated anyway. Most places won’t hire him because he doesn’t have the skills they’re looking for. So Sammy decided to market the skills he does have. He’s contracting.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Contracting what?”

  “Hits,” Brian said quietly. “Take-downs. The kind where people disappear, you know?”

  “Holy shite.”

  Brian nodded. “Yeah. It’s fucked up. But it pays damn well. Sammy was calling me from his yacht. Asked me if I needed a job. Mentioned your name, too.”

  Jack kept his expression neutral. Brian was doing him a huge favor by helping him out with the bar, tending a few hours every day so Jack could concentrate on the dozens of other things that needed his attention. Jack insisted on paying him minimum plus tips. That was more than the old man had been paying, but it wasn’t a hell of a lot to live on, even under the table. With Brian planning to ask his girl to marry him, he had to be concerned about finances.

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “Christ, Jack.” Brian shook his head, his eyes holding disappointment. “You’ve known me for how long and you can ask me that? I said no. But it got me thinking. Maybe what we learned does have some marketable value.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  Brian leaned forward. “Like handling situations where conventional means fail.”

  “Vigilante justice? You’re talking crazy.”

  “Maybe. But I bet if you put your mind to it, you could think of a few situations where the bad guys won because of some bullshit loophole or backroom deal. How many innocents have died because the authorities’ hands are tied? All I’m saying is, what if there was a way to stop the bad guys? To save those innocent lives, and do it off the books?”

  Jack’s lips thinned, but he said nothing. The truth was, after seven years in-country, doing whatever it took to survive and try to make things right, it was difficult to embrace the rhetoric of politicians and government officials who’d never stepped foot on a bloody field or held a dying brother in his arms, yet made back room deals with power brokers and despots in the name of democracy and foreign relations.

  But he’d done his part. He’d given his country—– hell, the fucking world—– seven years of his life and a huge part of his soul. He was done.

  “Just think about it, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “I don’t need to think about it, Bri. The answer is no.”

  Brian sighed and concentrated on wiping down the bar. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. Well, I hear the paper factory is hiring for third shift.”

  September 2015

  Pine Ridge

  “Just think about it, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “I don’t need to think about it. The answer is no.”

  “Dad, you can’t go back to living at the Pub just yet. You’ve got to take it easy for a while, and that means not going up and down two flights of stairs a couple times a day,” Michael explained, his normally calm voice belying his frustration.

  “I’ll not be a burden,” Jack said, setting his jaw.

  “You wouldn’t be a burden. We’ve got more than enough room at the farm. Maggie’s already converted the downstairs playroom into a bedroom for you. She bought new flannel sheets and extra-fluffy pillows, and is stocking the pantry with all of your favorite, heart-healthy foods. Do you want to be the one to tell her she’s been busting her ass for the past week for nothing? Because I sure as hell don’t.”

  Jack almost smiled at that. Maggie was a good woman, as fierce as a mama bear when it came to protecting her family. She was the perfect complement to his level-headed, intellectual son.

  “She’s going to take it personally, you know,” Michael continued, taking advantage of his hesitation. “And she’s already upset with you.”

  Jack sighed. “I didn’t plan to have a heart attack.”

  “No,” Michael agreed, leaning back against the window sill. “And deep down, Maggie knows that. I think she’s more upset with herself than you, anyway.”

  That surprised him. “Why would Maggie be upset? It wasn’t her fault.”

  “She says she sensed something was wrong, and thinks if she had pushed the issue or talked to me about it, she might have been able to do something.”

  “My arteries were blocked,” Jack scoffed. “What could she have done?”

  Michael shook his head. “Maggie? Nothing. But you, you might have.”

  Something in his third-born son’s tone grated. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “The kin
d of damage you had doesn’t happen overnight, Dad.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes. “If you’ve got something to say to me, boy, you’d best say it.”

  “Fine. You want me to say it? I think you’ve been having the warning signs for a while. I think you’ve known there was something wrong, and you chose not to do anything about it.” Michael looked pointedly at this father. “Tell me I’m wrong, Dad.”

  He couldn’t. Not without lying, and he wasn’t going to lie.

  “That’s what I thought. The question is, why, Dad?”

  How could he explain something like that to his thirty-six year old, happily married son? What kind of words could he use to express what it’s like to live without your croie for almost twenty-five years? To have her be the first thing you thought of every morning and the last thing every night, even after all this time?

  He couldn’t. Nor did he want to. The last thing he needed was his son believing he had suicidal tendencies. Some snot-nosed psychiatrist would show up, wanting to talk about feelings and past traumas and all kinds of crap he had no intention of discussing with anyone. Some things a man was better off keeping to himself.

  “I didn’t think things were that bad,” Jack finally said on a careful exhale. “I thought if I took it easy for a while, laid off the spicy foods, it would pass.”

  Michael didn’t say anything, probably trying to determine if he was full of shite. Thank God it wasn’t his son Shane doing the asking. That boy had a bullshite detector on par with Kathleen’s.

  “A man doesn’t like to admit he’s getting old,” Jack added quietly. “Not even to himself.”

  Seconds ticked by in the silence. Jack said nothing more. Either Michael would accept that or he wouldn’t, but that was all he was going to get.

  “All right, Dad,” Michael finally said. “Try to get some rest.”

  “I will.”

  Michael was at the door when he looked back. “What should I tell Maggie?”

  As much as he opposed the idea, it was probably the best way to get Michael and everyone else off his back. Taking the path of least resistance wasn’t something he did often, but he wasn’t feeling strong enough to fight every battle.