Chapter Thirty

 

Colby stood at a quaint little cemetery in Mayo County Ireland. One broad headstone faced her. Thomas and Annie O’Callaghan’s.

Ash had already taken his place, sitting cross-legged before his parents, his hands on his knees as if he were simply home and wanted to chat. He peered up at Colby, patting the clover at his side. “Come sit with me, love. I want you to meet me folks.”

That was awkward, Ash speaking as if the dead could hear him. Dropping to her knees, she joined him, at a loss for words. “It’s so green here.”

“Aye, you’re in Ireland.” He wrapped an arm around her. ’Tis green everywhere.”

That it was. Jackdaws chattered from the boughs of a nearby tree, so large it could’ve easily been several hundred years old. To the side of the cemetery, an ivy-covered stone church promised salvation from the moss stained cross mounted at its spire. Colby wasn’t much of a churchgoer, not like Ash. She’d seen too much of the world to trust the philosophies of man mingled with holy words and promises.

“Mum. Da,” Ash said with a deep sigh. “I want you to meet Colby Quaid Callahan, my wife. I’ve taken her to my heart and I want you to love her as much as I do.”

Colby stared at the marker, not feeling the same mystical connection with his parents that he did. The black marble headstone was thoughtfully done, a tribute to Ash’s love for them. The carved family name, O’Callaghan, graced the moss-covered, foot high base in bold gold lettering. Thomas’s name was etched in the center of the left panel, Annie’s on the right. Beneath those names were dates of births and deaths. Some Gaelic words.

She cleared her throat, needing to be there for Ash, but uncomfortable in what was definitely a graveyard, not a lovely cottage. And everyone in it was dead. “This is nice,” she offered lamely.

He nodded, wordless, an unusual feat for a charmer of his magnitude. ’Twas then she looked at him with her heart and saw that his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. Her big-talking Irishman was biting his lower lip. Trying to be tough.

Circling an arm around his waist, she told him in case he didn’t know, “I’m sorry, Ash. I can’t imagine what losing them did to you.”

Another head nod, sharp and a stiff, “Aye.” He growled to clear his throat. “I came home from college that day, but the deed was already done. The house was burnt, the constable and firemen were on the scene. Too late. I came home on time, but I was still… too late.”

She could tell this gnawed at him. “There wasn’t anything you could’ve done. You didn’t kill them.”

“Aye, ’twas Liam who did that.” Another deep sigh. Another long minute before Ash could find the words. “He came home early that morning, hiding from the law after he’d bombed the constabulary in Belfast. He’d killed three men, and the authorities were hunting for him and his bloody friends. But Da would nah let him in, and they fought.” Ash shook his head, not so much in anger as—lost. “He knocked me da to the ground, then dragged him inside with her. Said if he was nah welcome, no one ever would be again. Then he started the fire. Diesel burns hot and fast. ’Twas still smoking when I got there. Everyone in Newport could see it.”

Colby cringed at the horror of losing his parents that way. “They were… alive?” This part she hadn’t known.

“Aye.” A tremor shuddered up his spine. “They were when he… when he…”

“Oh, Ash, baby, I’m so sorry.” Colby pressed her face to his bicep, holding him close. “What a bastard your brother is. Now I’m glad I knifed him. I should’ve killed him.” I should’ve asked exactly what happened to your parents a long time ago instead of finding out now. Why didn’t I?

“’Twas always him or me,” Ash murmured, his voice gone soft and sad. “One of us has to die.”

“Then it’ll be him,” she declared fervently. Somehow. Someway. “Did he… tell you this? Is that how you knew what happened?”

A small grunt. “The bloody braggart made sure I knew every last detail. How long before the fire brigade showed. How much they screamed until…” Ash scrubbed a hand over his face, trembling at the ungodly memory. “He said he’d do the same to me the next time he saw me, so do nah feel one bit of guilt for taking him on. He would’ve killed you if you had nah.” He’d slipped into his Irish brogue, a sure sign of the depth of his pain.

“Please tell me what that means?” she pleaded, pointing to the Gaelic etched below Thomas’s name and needing Ash to not dwell on things he couldn’t change.

“Suaimhneas,” Ash said easily. “’Tis the Gaelic word for peace and comfort. Da deserved a hundredfold of peace and rest after the hard life he lived. For working the fields and keeping his Catholic faith despite the lures of the world. For being the wisest man I ever knew.” He wiped his misty eyes. “Ah, he could make me laugh. Mum, too. You would’ve loved him and he you, Lass. He came from a long line of Thomases, his father and his father’s father before him. All Thomas O’Callaghans. Until me and… Liam.”

Colby calmed, understanding now why Ash had needed to visit his parents. It wasn’t closure he was seeking, but some small measure of that same comfort he’d given his da.

He pointed to Annie’s side of the stone and the Gaelic words etched there. “See there? That describes me Mum through and through. Twas never a day went by she did nah bake a loaf for a neighbor, or tend a sick child. She loved children most of all.”

“She loved you,” Colby breathed. She didn’t believe in Irish magic or superstitions, but there was definitely something in the air between this broad headstone and Ash. It raised the hairs up the back of her neck, almost as if the two beings he loved the most were there with him.

“Aye, I know that now.” He swiped a hand over his face. “And I, her. More than I ever told her.”

Colby didn’t dare try to pronounce the Irish words. Any way she tried, the phrase ended up with a Spanish twist. Bean an tí. “Say it for me, Ash.” Let me hear the love you have for your mother.

He let out a deep sigh, his shoulders relaxed as he pronounced, “Ban-a-tee. It means ‘she who cares for everything’. Even me.”

Colby could’ve cried. I was wrong about Mom. About Quaid, Inc., and Mitchell Rhoades. And now I’m wrong about this, too. Unbelievable.

He’d been raised by devout Catholic parents, who’d worked the land for generations. That was where he’d gotten his sexist ideas, simply because that was the way it was. Annie and Thomas weren’t rich, but it was obvious they’d loved their sons. Seeing this side of his mother, the one who’d watched over him since he was a baby, the one who’d cradled him and taught him all those prayers he’d said while carving his pirate queen…

The one who’d washed his dirty face and kissed his scrapes and little-boy bruises…

Colby wiped her face, too. Annie O’Callaghan, she who cares for everything, was still taking care of Ash—through Colby. Still teaching in her humble Irish way. Colby knew now that her parents had always loved her, in their way. She also knew Ash would die defending her. That he’d fight fiercely to protect her, if she needed it or not. That he loved her. In his way.

What’s more, there was honor in taking care of your man at the end of a hard day, and she wanted nothing more than to be like Annie in that respect and lighten his load. She’d fought so long to be a separate entity, to be strong enough to stand alone, only to understand now there was no shame in being an equal partner—a soul mate—with this man. If he’d let her.

“You owe me a walk, Husband,” she reminded him, tears welling.

He pulled her to her feet, but kept hold of her fingers. “Aye,” he said quietly, his gaze warm and tender, “and I owe you this.” Tugging her right hand to his lips, he kissed her knuckles as he slipped a gold ring to that index finger. “This was Mum’s,” he said, the blue of his eyes swallowed up with the black. “It’s all I have left of her, Lass, and she would want you to have it.”

Colby could hardly catch her breath, her heart pinched so hard. The ring was a simple gold band, embossed with two twining roses, a vine connecting them. Though the ring was tarnished, the gold petals of the roses gleamed.

She decided to tell him right then and there. “You’re wrong, Ash. This isn’t all you have of your mother. Thomas and Annie are still here. I can feel them. So can you. They’re right here.”

Trembling, because never in a million years had she seen this for herself, she brought his big, warm hand to her belly. They’d been married three months now, two of those months spent touring Ireland, but the wee one growing in her womb was a kicking four-month old fetus, ready to put his—or her—stars in the skies.

Ash cocked his head. “Since when?” he asked, his tone raspy and unbelieving.

“Since that first night in your apartment,” she confessed. “I wasn’t sure until yesterday.”

“You were pregnant when we wed?” Ah, she adored the wicked gleam in his beautiful eyes. “That’s why you needed to get to a drugstore yesterday. You bought a pregnancy test, did you nah?”

“Aye,” she said coyly. “And some chocolate.” Cherry-chocolates to be exact. Food cravings. Who knew?

With a cry, the crazy man dropped to his knees in the grass. Easing one warm hand under her shirt, he palmed her bare belly, then lifted her shirt and pressed a warm, fervent kiss to her skin. “’Tis a wee boy, I can tell by his fine heartbeat.”

“She’s a girl,” Colby countered, threading her fingers over Ash’s scalp and through the thick waves he’d let grow. “A fine strapping girl who’ll be able to take care of herself.”

Ash was already shaking his head before Colby finished. “Oh, no. Trust me on this, Lass. A man knows when his woman’s about to give him a son.”

“A daughter!” Colby declared, laughter bubbling up from her heart at this capricious man she loved so hard.

“A boy.”

“A girl! And her name is Annie!”

That shut him up. Ash looked up at her then, the sun on his forehead and a universe of stars shining in his sparkling blue eyes. “Aye, you might be right. That’d be just like Mum to send you a partner in crime before she sent me a son. Annie ‘tis.”

Did you know pregnant women tend to get emotional as quick as lightning, moreso when they win a silly contest over the gender of their love child? Tears brimmed at the adoration Colby saw on this Irishman’s handsome face. “Boy or girl,” she told him honestly, her voice gone tight and squeaky. “It’s all the same to me. Your mum and da will love her from heaven just as much as—”

“—we’ll love him from here.” Ash climbed to his feet, but kept his palm on Colby’s belly as he threw back his head and yelled for the whole world to hear. “I’m soon to be a father! A good father! Just like me da! Do you hear me, Liam? You chose badly. You lose!”

Colby choked back a sob, so proud of her husband. She could almost feel Thomas and Annie smiling down from heaven on their son. And on her, too. Wiping her tears—damn those hormones!—she whispered, “Take me back to our room, Husband. I need to make love to you for the rest of the day.”

With his arm already around her neck, he tugged her forehead to his lips. “Aye,” he muttered, placing a warm, wet kiss just about her nose. “And all the night, too.”

It was Colby’s turn to sigh. She’d finally found what she hadn’t known she’d been looking for. It wasn’t in Boston, Texas, nor far off Cambodia. It wasn’t in some fancy house overlooking the Pacific Coast of California, either. It was here. Inside the circle of Ash’s arms. Like the words of her marriage vow, wherever he went, she would be at his side. For richer or for poorer. In sickness and in health. For better or for worse.

Like an Army Ranger. Leading the way… most of the time.

 

The End