She went up on her tiptoes and quickly kissed him one last time, a brief touch of lips, a fast good-bye. The only way she could bear it. Then she stepped away and turned around, rushing for the door. As she reached the threshold, he asked, ‘‘Annabelle? Will you wait?’’
She stopped, but didn’t turn around. ‘‘I thought you weren’t going to ask.’’
‘‘Yeah, well, I lied.’’
She swallowed hard, licked her lips, and said, ‘‘I’ll wait, Callahan. Not forever, but for a while. If you do come back to me, I expect you to bring a heart that is whole and healthy and finally, once and for always, all mine.’’
She went upstairs then, took her long hot bath, and fell into bed, exhausted.
When she awoke in the morning, he was gone.
Kansas
Three weeks later
Annabelle slipped the last dinner plate into her mother’s dishwasher, then added soap and closed the door. Out on the driveway, she heard the bounce of a basketball, a clang as it hit the rim, and the grunts and groans of men fighting hard for the rebound.
Noah, Tag, and her brother, Adam, were warming up, waiting for her to join them. Despite having cooked tonight, she’d volunteered for KP, too. Honestly, she simply wasn’t in the mood for basketball this evening. She’d rather go up to her room, crawl into bed, and have a pity-party crying spell.
Today had been a frustrating day. Their investigation into the gallery woman had ground to a halt. They had no more clues to follow, no more leads to pursue. Though Annabelle had been thrilled when Tag found Rhonda Parsons alive and healthy, she was frustrated that he learned nothing more to add to the puzzle. Noah’s investigation in Europe had reached a dead end, too, a fact confirmed in an afternoon conference call with Colonel Warren in which Noah’s suspicion regarding the involvement of a Germany-based terrorist cell had been put to bed.
They didn’t know what to do next. Tag thought they should all stay together to watch one another’s backs. Noah believed that the gallery woman’s death likely ended that direction of the threat. Annabelle . . . well . . . Annabelle didn’t know what they should do.
She wanted to ask for Mark’s advice, but she hadn’t talked to him. He kept in touch with Tag and Noah, she knew, but he’d quit phoning her after the first few days when she didn’t answer his call. She didn’t want a play-by-play. Didn’t want to hear his voice from somewhere far away. She missed him too much as it was. Her loneliness for him went bone deep. Her hope for a happy ending was hanging by a string.
‘‘Stop it,’’ she murmured as she switched the dishwasher on. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and hung it on a rack. Glancing into a mirror, she put on her game face and stepped out onto the front porch, where her parents sat ready to watch basketball.
‘‘There you are,’’ her mother said. ‘‘I was getting ready to send the boys in there to help.’’
‘‘And stink up your kitchen with their sweat? Really, Mama. You’d have to air the place out before fixing pancakes in the morning.’’ She leaned down and kissed her mother’s cheek, then said, ‘‘Now, if y’all will excuse me, I have to go kick some basketball butt.’’
She picked up her muddy athletic shoes from where she’d left them beside the door and headed for the porch steps when her father said, ‘‘Car coming.’’
Immediately, she tensed. They weren’t expecting any more family tonight, and friends seldom arrived at the Monroe farm unannounced. Since her dad had an ear for engines, she asked, ‘‘What kind of car?’’
‘‘Big engine. Not a truck. Sports car, I suspect.’’
Annabelle dropped her shoes, ducked back into the house, and retrieved her gun. ‘‘Guys?’’ she called. ‘‘We have company.’’
Noah and Tag stopped the game and grabbed their weapons. In a long-practiced habit that needed no directions, they took up defensive positions. Annabelle waited beside her parents.
A Porsche took the turn into the farmhouse drive just a little too fast and sent dust flying before slowing for the final hundred yards up to the house. As the car drew closer, Annabelle could see two occupants inside the car, though a tinted windshield prevented her from identifying their features.
The car rolled to a stop. Annabelle’s heart began to pound. Began to hope.
The passenger-side door and the driver-side door opened at the same time. Two tall male figures unfolded from the seats. ‘‘Oh, wow,’’ Annabelle said.
‘‘Oh, my God.’’
Her father reached over and removed her gun from her numb fingers. Everything about her was numb.
Mark Callahan shut the passenger door, then removed his Oakley sunglasses and met Annabelle’s gaze. Under other circumstances, he would have held her gaze, but as it was, she couldn’t stop looking at the driver of the car.
He stood the same. Moved the same. When he took off a pair of Ray-Ban aviators, she repeated, ‘‘Oh. My. God.’’
She stepped down from the porch and crossed the lawn. The car doors shut and Mark moved toward her, stopping an arm’s length away. ‘‘Hello, Belle.’’
She cleared her throat. ‘‘That’s not Margaret Mary.’’
‘‘No.’’ He flashed a nervous smile. ‘‘She named him Mark. I’m guessing ‘Junior,’ but . . . well . . . we’ve decided on ‘Chris.’ He’s my son.’’
‘‘Definitely no doubt about that,’’ she said, blowing out a heavy breath. He was a lanky, leaner, younger Mark. Same hair, same eyes, same nervous smile.
Only two seats in that car. Where was the young man’s mother?
Mark said, ‘‘I’d like to introduce you. Then we can talk?’’
‘‘Sure.’’ She nodded, aware that her knees had gone weak, her palms damp. Furtively, she wiped her hands on her shorts.
She realized that her mother, father, and brother had moved to stand behind her. Tag and Noah watched the proceedings from either side. Annabelle pasted a smile on her face and tried not to faint.
‘‘Belle, I’d like you to meet my son, Mark Christopher Callahan. Chris . . .’’ Mark paused, waited for Annabelle to jerk her gaze away from his son’s. Only when she looked at him, only when his green-eyed gaze captured hers and held her captive, did he finish the sentence. ‘‘. . . this is Annabelle Monroe, the woman I love. The most beautiful, courageous, generous, forgiving woman on the face of this earth. The woman who I hope to remarry just as soon as we can manage it.’’
Annabelle’s world started spinning. As if through a fog, she heard Chris say, ‘‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.’’ He shook her hand. Nice and polite. Then he looked at his father. ‘‘You’re right, Dad. She’s a hottie.’’
Annabelle burst out with a breathless laugh. Nice, polite, and a Callahan, through and through.
Mark wanted privacy for their talk, so he led her away from the house and prying eyes and curious ears. Chris joined Harrington, Kincannon, and Annabelle’s brother in their basketball game, so he knew they’d wheedle all the details out of his son before long. That was fine with him. It’d save him having to tell the story twice.
As they walked past the barn, Mark motioned toward the door. ‘‘How about in here?’’
‘‘Sure.’’
She strode into the barn and climbed the ladder up into the loft. Mark followed her, glanced around, and noted the bales of hay and one big haystack. His Kansas farm girl. He could work with this. ‘‘Where would you like me to start?’’
She cut right to the heart of it. ‘‘Where is Carrie?’’
‘‘She died a long time ago.’’
Annabelle sank down onto a hay bale and heaved an audible sigh. ‘‘Okay, then. Okay. I . . . um . . . it would be disingenuous of me to say I’m sorry, but you do have my sympathy. Chris, especially.’’
‘‘He doesn’t remember her, Annabelle.’’
‘‘Why don’t you start at the beginning.’’
He took a seat beside her, inhaled the familiar jasmine scent of her lotion, and felt like h
e’d finally come home. He wanted to bury his face against her neck, sink his fingers into her hair. Plunge his . . . but first things first.
‘‘The first thing I did after leaving Texas was to track down Carrie’s mother. What a bitter old bitch Vicki Hansen is. I never heard so much venom come out of a woman’s mouth in my whole life. She shared some prime opinions about my dad. She didn’t hesitate to tell me that when Carrie ran away, she knew her money tree had disappeared. Vicki despised my dad, truly hated him, by that time. She decided that since she lost her daughter, it was only fair that Branch lose his son.’’
‘‘That’s crazy. So, it happened like Branch said? She wrote Carrie’s letter to you? She faked their deaths?’’
‘‘Yep. The story he told us was pretty much spot-on. Vicki said she never heard from Carrie again. Since she’d hooked up with the police chief, she didn’t much care. I left pretty quickly after that because I was afraid I’d kill her.’’
Annabelle stretched out her long, summer-tanned legs and Mark focused on the hot pink polish on her toes. How could toes be so damned sexy?
He cleared his throat. ‘‘After that, I went looking for Kevin Starr. He was pretty easy to find. He’d moved to Chicago not long after Carrie left town. He went to college and then on to med school. He was real surprised to hear from me. All these years he’d assumed I met up with Carrie and the baby and we had a life.’’
‘‘So they didn’t have an affair?’’
‘‘No. That was all a story she made up for my father. Kevin helped her because . . . well . . . he did have a thing for her. He worked in the hospital and was on shift when Carrie arrived in labor a month before the baby was due. She was scared. Alone—her mother was out of town. He stayed with her, and they talked. She told him that Vicki said Branch wanted to steal her baby from her. When Branch showed up demanding to see his grandchild, Kevin came up with the bright idea to substitute another baby in the nursery for Chris. A little girl. A little girl who couldn’t be mine. He got permission from the baby’s mother, and they posed a scene in Carrie’s room that completely convinced Branch that Carrie was a cheap slut who’d cheated on her soldier husband off risking his life for the red, white, and blue.’’
‘‘Vicki wasn’t in on it?’’
‘‘Nope. Carrie wasn’t any happier with her mother than she was with my father. Kevin said Branch had told her about Vicki’s lies and extortion. She took off, left her mom a letter confessing her sin—along with the little girl’s picture. Kevin said she planned to write to me with the whole story as soon as she settled someplace safe.’’
‘‘Something happened to prevent it,’’ Annabelle concluded.
‘‘Yes. Took me a while to find out what. I’m lucky that she told him she was heading for Florida. That made picking up her trail a lot easier. Still, there were lots of records to chase down. I traced her to Orlando. One morning she left the baby at a drop-in day-care center and went looking for work. A car hit her while she was crossing the street. Annabelle, the driver was drunk.’’
‘‘You’re kidding.’’
‘‘Life takes some strange twists.’’
‘‘So . . .’’ She tucked a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. ‘‘Your wife didn’t cheat on you and your father wasn’t responsible for her death.’’
‘‘That’s right. He did meddle, but for all his faults, he was trying to help Carrie. My father does that. He’s the original Fixer. I think I’ve finally made my peace with that.’’
She reached over and took his hand, and Mark grinned at the familiar gesture of comfort. Yep, coming home.
It was time to finish this tale of the past so he could move on to the future. Their future. ‘‘She was using the fake ID she’d gotten in high school to get into clubs. She’d signed the baby into the day-care center as Mark Watkins to match the ID. Authorities never found a family for the baby, so he went into the system and was adopted right away. He’s had a good life, Belle. I really like his parents. Paul and Cindy Christopher.’’
‘‘Ah . . . now I get the ‘Chris.’ ’’
‘‘Two Marks is too weird.’’ He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. ‘‘I feel so grateful that they adopted him. Hell, he was better off with them than he would have been with me all these years. They’re normal. His father’s an accountant. His mother teaches kindergarten. They are even okay with the fact that I found him. They were happy for him. They’re fine with him spending some time with me.’’
‘‘Hmm . . . wonder if they’d change their minds if they knew you let him speed in a Porsche.’’
‘‘Hey, just on the road to the farm,’’ he defended. ‘‘Chris is a neat kid. He’s smart—an honor student. He graduates from high school in a couple of weeks. He’s going to college on a baseball scholarship.’’
‘‘Really? Where?’’
Mark released her hand and reached up to touch her hair. ‘‘Hawaii. He doesn’t think he’s good enough to make it to the Show, so the idea of beaches and bikinis trumped any other considerations.’’
‘‘He’s a real Callahan, isn’t he?’’
‘‘He makes a father proud. And speaking of Callahans . . .’’ He rolled off the hay bale and onto his knees, facing her. He took her hands in his. ‘‘Belle, what would you think of the hyphen thing this time?’’
‘‘Hyphen thing?’’
‘‘I know you are an independent woman and all, and I know how you felt about it last time, but lately I’ve discovered that I have a real old-fashioned streak. This time around . . .’’ Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out . . . a peppermint. He frowned, tossed it away, and dug into his pocket again.
Mark pulled out a ring. Square-cut diamond, platinum setting. Got a thumbs-up from Torie and Maddie when he sent a photo from the jewelry store to their phones. Nevertheless, his mouth was dry and his pulse pounded as he shot for nonchalance and repeated, ‘‘This time around, I’m hoping you’ll add the ‘Callahan. ’ Annabelle Monroe-Callahan. What do you think?’’
Her eyes glimmered with tears. ‘‘I dunno, Callahan. I’m not all that excited about the hyphen thing.’’
His heart lurched. ‘‘You’re not?’’
‘‘Nah.’’ She shrugged. ‘‘ ‘Annabelle Callahan’ works for me.’’
His heart swelled. ‘‘That’s cool.’’
She held out her left hand and wiggled her fingers. ‘‘Put it on me, Callahan, so we can get to the good stuff.’’
He slid the ring onto her finger. ‘‘Good stuff?’’
‘‘You think hotels are good?’’ She grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet, then dragged him to the corner of the loft where hay lay loose and piled high. Her smile was wide and wicked. ‘‘Just wait until you take me on a hayride, Callahan.’’
Chapter Eighteen
Lanai, Hawaii
‘‘The things we do for family.’’ Mark Callahan’s perspiration-damp hands retied his bow tie for the fifth time.
‘‘Tell me about it,’’ Luke Callahan muttered, running his finger around the snug collar of his tuxedo shirt.
Matt gave his reflection a once-over in the full-length mirror and scowled. ‘‘I swear, if Torie refers to me as James Bond one time today, I’m going to kick your ass, Mark.’’
‘‘Oh, y’all lay off Dad.’’ Chris smiled at his image in the mirror and fussed briefly with his sun-streaked hair. ‘‘He can’t help it that he’s lost the ability to say no. I haven’t seen any of you standing up to Nana of late, either.’’
The Callahan men couldn’t argue with that.
The wedding that started out as a small, informal affair had turned into a Wedding, capital W, once Lynn Monroe got involved. Over the course of the past few months, Mark had seen where Annabelle got her courage, her tenacity, and, though he’d never say it aloud, her stubbornness. Her mother had been ‘‘cheated’’ out of a big wedding for Annabelle the first time around. She wasn’t allowing that to happen again.
Chri
s’s schedule with school had put a crimp in the plans for a church wedding in Kansas, but once Lynn got a gander at the spot Mark had in mind for the ceremony, she had enthusiastically jumped into planning mode. When he discovered that Harvey P. Selcer had put Hau’oli up for sale, Mark decided to add it to his collection of vacation homes. Despite the fact that Annabelle had sold her business, he and his bride would spend lots of time in the Islands over the next four years in order to be near Chris. Besides, he had lots of fantasies involving his bride and his house with a view.
Fantasies he intended to begin indulging this very night.
He heard a knock on the door. Tag Harrington stuck his head into the room. ‘‘This is your fifteen-minute heads-up from General Monroe. Just so you know . . . she threatened that if you’re late, she’ll never bake me kolaches again. I have my gun and I’m prepared to use it.’’
‘‘I’ve been waiting for this moment for six months,’’ Mark shot back. ‘‘No way will I be late.’’
Six months. Six long, lonely, empty-bed months. If he’d known the cost of a certain Kansas hayride, he might have held off that evening—or at least waited until dark. Annabelle had turned beet red when, after they’d exited the barn to announce their engagement, Chris sauntered over to her, calmly plucked a piece of straw out of her hair, winked at her, then said, ‘‘Dad, I wanna grow up just like you.’’
In that moment, Annabelle reverted to her no-sex-outside-of-marriage viewpoint. She didn’t want to be a bad influence on her soon-to-be stepson, she claimed. No matter how much arguing, cajoling, and down-on-his-knees begging Mark had attempted, he couldn’t convince her to change her stance.
‘‘The sacrifices parents make,’’ he muttered glumly. But, hey, that all comes to an end tonight.
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