Time's Secrets (Taylor's Girls Book 3)

by Sabra Brown Steinsiek

  “Da, what’s wrong? She told Ma where the grave was so I could take Megan there today.” Jamie looked at his mother in confusion. “I don’t understand…”

  “You’re damned right about that, Jamie O’Hearn! You don’t understand! And you shouldn’t be poking around in things that don’t concern you.”

  “Jamie!” His mother reached out to her husband. “He doesn’t know, doesn’t need to know!”

  “Doesn’t need to know what?” the younger Jamie asked.

  “He’s old enough to know now, Moira. He’s old enough to know that the father of the girl he’s seeing ruined our Sha’leen’s life.”

  His son stood very still. “What are you talking about, Da?”

  “Your sweet Megan’s bastard of a father raped your Aunt Sha’leen. That’s why she went into the convent. She couldn’t face trying to build a normal life after that. And you dragged her into it again!”

  “Da! I didn’t know! How could I know? And it’s not Megan’s—”

  “Not Megan’s fault? Is that what you were going to say? No, it’s not her fault but she’s of his blood. I already ruined one life by bringing that man into my family. I’ll not be letting you do the same. You’ll not be seeing her again, Jamie O’Hearn! I forbid it.”

  “You can’t forbid me to see her. I’m twenty-six years old and I’ll see who I please.”

  “Not while you live under this roof you won’t!” his father roared.

  “Then I guess I’ll not be living here any longer,” Jamie shouted back with his eyes blazing. “I’m in love with Megan and I’ll not let what her father did come between us!” He rushed out the door, slamming it so hard behind him that it bounced back from the latch and the window shattered.

  Moira watched helplessly as her husband stormed out behind him.

  * * *

  Meg finished getting dressed. It would be a solemn afternoon but it would be easier with Betta and Jamie beside her. She ran her fingers over the Claddagh ring. With a smile, she turned it round so that the heart turned outward. She’d see how long it took Jamie to notice.

  Glancing at the clock, she realized it was already past noon. It wasn’t like Jamie to be late. Something must have come up at home or at the pub. He’d be along soon she was sure and she started down the stairs to wait with Betta.

  * * *

  The elder Jamie stomped into the pub. No one was there yet and that was just as well, he thought. He pulled down a bottle and a glass and poured himself two fingers of the finest Irish whiskey and drank it down neat. He rarely drank at all and never in the morning. But there had to be something that would remove the ache from his heart.

  Ten years. Ten years ago he’d lost his baby sister. Sha’leen had been the light of all their lives. She was a late baby, her brothers all nearly grown before she came along. They’d each sworn to keep her safe, but he was the one who had failed.

  Cary Edwards. Sly, smooth bastard—he’d duped them all into thinking that he was someone they could trust with their Sha’leen. Every boy in the neighborhood had been after her as well as half the news contingent at the hotel where Jamie had been keeping bar. But none of them wanted to cross the O’Hearn brothers so they watched from a distance and with respect. But Edwards had outdone them all and he’d convinced Jamie to leave her alone with him.

  No one had ever blamed Jamie but himself. And the guilt only got deeper when their mother had died a year later and their father soon after—of hearts too badly bruised to go on he’d always thought. And Sha’leen—she’d never said a word of blame against him, still claiming to love him as she always had. But how could she when he’d failed her so miserably?

  By the time Maureen arrived to help with the opening, the elder Jamie was cross as a bear and more the worse for drink than she’d ever seen him. Treading gently around him, she opened the door for business.

  * * *

  One o’clock came and went with still no sign of Jamie. Megan began to fear that he’d somehow decided that he didn’t want to be mixed up with the daughter of a murdered man—although what difference that could make she was at a loss to explain.

  By two o’clock she decided to ring his house but there was no answer. At two-thirty, she told Betta she was running down to the pub to see if Jamie was there. She was out the door before Betta could stop her and at the pub before Betta could catch up.

  * * *

  All young Jamie could think of was that he had to get away; had to find out if it were true; had to figure out what it would mean to love Megan if her father had truly been the one to hurt Sha’leen so. Finding himself in front of the library, it struck him that they would have newspapers, newspapers old enough to recount the story. There was no reason for his father to have made it up, but he had to see it in black and white before he could finally believe.

  Forgetting his promise to pick up Megan, he settled in at a microfilm machine and began his search for Cary Edwards and the truth.

  * * *

  Megan opened the door to the pub that was emptying now that the lunch rush was over. Only a few of the regulars with nothing better to do lingered over an extra pint. Maureen called out a greeting to her, which caused the elder Jamie to turn with a ferocious glare.

  “What will you be wanting, miss?”

  Megan was startled by his tone. This was far from the genial man who’d been their host in the pub and the loving patriarch who had welcomed her into his home.

  “I was looking for Jamie, Mr. O’Hearn. He was going to…” her sentence was cut off when he interrupted her.

  “Go on back to America, girl, and leave my boy alone. Your family’s already done enough damage to this one.”

  Betta stepped through the door in time to hear his statement. What was the man talking about? They’d done nothing to the O’Hearns. She exchanged a puzzled look with Maureen who was just as confused about what was going on as they were.

  “I’m sorry?” Meg’s voice was puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean. If I’ve done something to offend you…”

  “Offend? Offend? Is that what you Yanks call it? First your bastard of a father comes and destroys Sha’leen. Now, ten years later, you aim to do the same to my son? It won’t be happening this time! I’ll not let it happen again. Go on! Get out! You’re not welcome here and you’ll not be seeing my Jamie again if I’ve a say in it.”

  Meg turned to Maureen then to Betta. “What’s he talking about? What have I done?”

  “Jamie? You’ve had too much of the creature. Apologize to Megan right now!” Maureen stood with her hands on her hips and glared at him, angry as she’d ever been.

  “Apologize? Not in this lifetime! Her father raped your Aunt Sha’leen—and you want me to take the viper’s daughter in?”

  “No! Oh, no…” Meg’s eyes filled with tears. “It can’t be true.”

  “True enough—you can look it up in the papers. And you needn’t wonder any longer why he died.”

  With a strangled cry, Meg turned and ran out the door.

  “You horrible man!” Betta turned on him. “Meg had nothing to do with who her father was or what he did! She loves your Jamie and wouldn’t hurt him for the world. And now you’ve gone and destroyed the both of them. I hope you live a very long time with the memory!”

  She turned on her heel and ran out after her sister, praying that Meg would head for the house and not run headlong away somewhere. The shocked silence she left behind in the pub was broken only by the sobs from the man behind the bar.

  * * *

  Moira O’Hearn stood waiting in the Mother Superior’s office for a novice to fetch Sister Eileen. The scene in her kitchen played over and over again in her head. The long kept secret was out at last—and it may have destroyed the two she loved most in the world.

  “Moira! What is it? What’s wrong?” Sha’leen knew her sister-in-law
would never intrude at the convent if it weren’t an emergency.

  “Oh, Sha’leen! Jamie knows!”

  “Jamie? Which one?”

  “Both of them. My son told his father he was taking young Megan to see her father’s grave and your brother lost any of the good sense he’d ever had and spit the truth out at young Jamie. It ended with both of them rushing out and I don’t know what’s to come.” With that, she dissolved into tears and Sha’leen could only hold her helplessly as she cried.

  * * *

  After the library, Jamie walked mindlessly, pointlessly until, at dusk, he found himself at the Protestant cemetery standing in front of a simple stone that held only a name and the date of death.

  What kind of man was it that would abandon a young wife, pregnant with their child? How could he have turned his back on that child, his innocent daughter? Why would he have had his way with another innocent girl, only a few years older than his own daughter?

  As he stood and stared down at the grave, he knew he’d never know the answers because he couldn’t think in the same warped way as the man that lay buried there. He’d never understand because he, Jamie, was everything that Cary Edwards had never been.

  With a heavy heart, he knew there was one more person he would have to talk to before he could turn to finding Megan. He left the cemetery and headed for the convent. He could hear sweet voices raised in praise to God as Vesper hymns were sung. He leaned against the wall to wait, wondering how Sha’leen could still find the faith to pray to a God who had betrayed her.

  * * *

  Megan had gone back to the house. Betta found her there crying hysterically in their grandfather’s arms. He stood there hopelessly confused as he held her, his eyes asking questions of the breathless Betta who ran in the door.

  “Meg? Meg!” Betta shook her head at her grandfather, wordlessly asking him to wait to have his questions answered. She drew her sister to the couch then sat beside her and held her as she cried. Sean could only sit helplessly by, waiting for an answer.

  “Meg, he was drunk—crazy! He was just lashing out at you.”

  Sean’s eyes widened at her words and he silently mouthed “Jamie?” Meg shook her head. “His father” she mouthed back to him.

  “No, Betta. How could he make something like that up—why would he? Sha’leen is his sister. He’d never say such horrible things if they weren’t true.”

  “All right, Meg, but even if they were true, it has nothing to do with you. You’re not responsible for what your father did.”

  “Jamie’s father thinks I am! And so must Jamie. That’s why he didn’t come today. Now that he knows the truth, he wants nothing to do with me.”

  “You don’t know that, Meg.” Betta took her by the shoulders and made her sit up and look in her eyes. “All you know is what that spiteful old man said. Maybe Jamie just needed time to think.”

  “No. If he still cared he would have been here by now. It’s over. And I loved him, Betta. I loved him.”

  There was no reasoning with Megan after that. Betta filled Sean in on the whole story while Meg huddled in a chair, tears still pouring down her face.

  “It was awful, Abuelo, he was so horrible to Meg.”

  “I think I’ll head down to the pub and have a word with Mr. O’Hearn myself,” Sean said as he stood.

  “No, Abuelo!” Meg’s cry stopped him. “Just take me away from here, please.”

  “Where to, Meg?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t care! I just can’t be here. I can’t face Jamie. Betta, take me back to Italy with you. I can’t go home to face Laura and Taylor, yet. I need to have some time…”

  Betta met her grandfather’s eyes and nodded. “Maybe that would be best. I’ll go pack our things. Would you go call the airport, Abuelo—see how soon we can leave?”

  Sean came over and knelt down in front of Meg. “Are you sure this is what you want, Meg? Don’t you want to give the boy a chance to have his say?”

  “I can’t, Abuelo. Please, just take me away from here.”

  “I’ll call, then, sweetheart.”

  It was just before dusk when they left for Belfast International. The girls would catch a flight to Heathrow in London then make connections to Milan. Their plane took off at about the same time Sha’leen came once again to Mother Superior’s office—this time to meet young Jamie.

  * * *

  “Jamie, I’m so sorry.” Sha’leen came to where her nephew was sitting and took his hands in hers. “You should never have had to find out and certainly not the way that you did. How’s Megan?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her today.”

  “Haven’t seen…Jamie, you’re not blaming her for what her father did?”

  “No…at least I don’t think I am. I feel like my whole world’s been turned upside down and I can’t go to her until I get it all back together.”

  “Jamie, look at me.”

  He raised his eyes to hers and saw only love there.

  “Your father has blamed himself for years for what happened to me. It wasn’t his fault any more than it’s Megan’s. There was only one person responsible that night and that was Cary Edwards. He’s the only one to blame—but I quit placing blame the day I came here. It happened. It was horrible. I still sometimes have nightmares but some good came out of it, Jamie. I found where I was supposed to be—here in the convent with my sisters and God.”

  “But how can you still have faith after something so terrible happened?”

  “Sometimes it makes it easier; makes you focus on what’s important and what isn’t. I’m happy here, Jamie. Happier than I could have been out in the world with a husband and family of my own.”

  “What do I say to her?”

  “Tell her what’s in your heart. That’s what she needs to hear and what you need to say. Go, Jamie. Find your Megan and tell her you love her.”

  Sha’leen walked him to the door then gave him a quick hug. “She’s a lucky girl, young Jamie. I hope she knows that.”

  * * *

  Sean got out of the car in the narrow driveway of the borrowed house. It looked so empty. They’d left in such a hurry that no one had thought to turn on lights to welcome him back.

  Wearily, he started for the door. He was startled when a shadow moved from the porch and formed itself into young Jamie O’Hearn. Not now, Sean thought, not now. I’m not ready to deal with him yet.

  “Mr. Collins, there’s no one at home. Is Megan with you?”

  “No, Jamie. She’s gone.”

  “Gone? She’ll be back won’t she?”

  Sean shook his head. “Come into the house if we’re going to talk, lad. I have a real need for a solid drink right now.”

  Jamie followed him into the house and was surprised at Sean’s appearance as he turned on the lights. He seemed to have aged years in the few short hours since last night.

  “Can I fix you something, Jamie?”

  “I’d not turn down a whiskey if you’ve got it.”

  Sean busied himself pouring the two drinks then turned back to Jamie. “Sit down, boy,” he snapped.

  For a moment the two of them concentrated on the drink and the warmth of it spreading through their hearts. Jamie broke the silence with a tentative question.

  “Megan? You said she was gone. She and Betta are just off sightseeing?”

  “No, Jamie. Meg’s gone. So is Betta. I was just coming back from the airport. They’ve gone to Italy.”

  “But why?”

  “After what your father told her and you not showing up, she was devastated.”

  “My father? Dear God! What did he tell her?”

  “You’ve not seen him then?” When Jamie shook his head, Sean continued. “She went to the pub to look for you when you were late coming to pick her up. She thought you might be
there. She needed to reassure herself that you were not rejecting her because of who her father was. Your father was cruel enough to tell her the rest of the truth about her father. Not only had he abandoned her mother and their unborn child but he’d also raped another young girl. According to your father, his blood runs in her veins and that makes her no better than he was.”

  “No! He was wrong. Meg’s wrong. I love her, Mr. Collins. Today was the first I’d heard of the whole story. I needed time to think, to take it all in. I didn’t mean to hurt her by not coming round…”

  “But, meaning to or not, Jamie, you did hurt her. She had only your father’s words telling her that you wouldn’t see her again. I tried to talk her into waiting to see if you would come, but all she could think of was getting away. She doesn’t even want to go home with me. She’s chosen to hide until she can face the world again.”

  “Tell me how I can find her,” Jamie stood as if to run out the door as soon as he had the information.

  “I can’t. I made her a promise that if you came round, I’d not give her away.”

  “But I have to see her! I have to explain!”

  “I can’t, Jamie. The best advice I can give you is to forget we were ever here and go back to your life. I’ll be leaving tomorrow myself and Belfast will have no reason to remember Sean Collins or his granddaughters.”

  “That’s your last word, then? There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”

  “I promised Megan and I’ll not break my word to her.”

  Jamie took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Sean could see them shimmering with tears.

  “Would you tell her someday that she was wrong—that I loved her more than life itself? I was just too slow to tell her.”

  Sean nodded. “If there’s a time that it can be said, I’ll tell her. I’m sorry, Jamie, for the turmoil we brought into your life. It’s amazing how one man—one worthless man—can still cause so much havoc from his well-earned grave.”

  Sean stood and walked Jamie to the door. As he opened it, they were both startled to find the elder Jamie standing there.