“They leave on Monday?”
He nodded. “I’ll drop them at the airport when I go up to work. They have an early-morning flight.” He hesitated, then asked abruptly, “Want to have dinner with me Monday night? We can go to Brady’s. I owe you, after this.”
Taken aback by the invitation, she said, “You don’t owe me anything.”
“I think I do,” he insisted. “Please.”
“Okay, then, dinner would be nice.”
His expression brightened. “Great. Now I’d better get Davy and head home. They’re coming over this evening for a barbecue. I’d invite you and Laurie, but it would only make matters worse.” His gaze pleaded for understanding. “Just so you know, if our relationship—well, if we were committed, I wouldn’t try to hide it, not even from Georgia’s parents.”
“I understand,” she said, and she did.
“I wish this were less complicated.”
She smiled reassuringly. “I understand that, too.”
“I’ll see you Monday, then. Shall I pick you up here at six?”
“I’m off on Monday, so I’ll be upstairs in the apartment.”
“Right. I’d forgotten.”
Laurie appeared then with a sleeping Davy in her arms. She held him out to Kevin. “He’s a great kid.”
Kevin grinned. “Thanks. And thanks, too, for keeping an eye on him. Enjoy the rest of your visit.”
Laurie waited until he’d left, then turned to Shanna. “You have a date with him on Monday?”
She nodded.
“Are you crazy?”
Shanna sighed. “More than likely.”
Up until now she’d been able to maintain the illusion that they were just friends, but it was hard to do that once a man had actually asked for a date. This wasn’t like taking a break and grabbing lunch at Sally’s or Panini Bistro. It wasn’t anything like having Kevin pick up a sandwich and bring it by. This was dinner, in a restaurant, with a man capable of making her toes curl with a single touch. That he’d asked her right after facing down his former in-laws over Shanna’s role in his life made the date seem even more significant.
She was in such trouble, she thought, barely containing a sigh. More worrisome was the fact that increasingly she found she didn’t care what kind of disasters might lie ahead.
“You and Shanna seem to be spending a lot of time together,” Jess noted Saturday night, with most of the family except for Mick seated at the table. Unfortunately Georgia’s watchful parents, who weren’t used to the O’Brien family dynamics and penchant for teasing, were there, as well.
Kevin glowered at his youngest sister. “Are you trying to stir up trouble?” he inquired in an undertone, casting a pointed look toward his former in-laws.
Jess immediately backed down, but Bree was less discreet. She turned to Martha and John. “You met Shanna today. Isn’t she great?”
“She seemed very nice,” Martha said stiffly. She turned to Kevin. “I know I said this earlier, but don’t you think it’s a little soon for you to be dating anyone?” She glanced around the table then, seemingly looking for backup, but the others remained silent.
“Shanna and I aren’t actually dating,” he said emphatically, mostly to avoid another scene in which Martha felt compelled to express her opinion about his loyalty to his late wife or to take off in a huff. “We just see each other from time to time.”
Bree snorted indelicately. “From time to time? Ha. Only if you consider most weekday afternoons and Saturdays to be ‘from time to time.’”
“Leave your brother alone,” Gram said. “It’s nice that he’s seeing someone.” She regarded Georgia’s parents with sympathy. “It doesn’t mean Georgia didn’t mean a great deal to him. She made him very happy.”
And very unhappy, Kevin thought to himself. That was what no one here understood, and he could hardly tell them.
Gram continued, “He’s a young man. He needs to move on, and Davy needs a mother. Not a replacement for Georgia, of course, but someone to bring a mother’s touch into his life.”
Kevin groaned as the color washed out of Martha’s face.
“Excuse me,” she said, and left the room.
John sighed. “I’d better go check on her.”
After they were gone, Kevin scowled at his family. “Can’t you see that this topic is making them uncomfortable? It’s not doing much for my mood, either. Drop it. It’s completely inappropriate to be discussing me dating in front of Georgia’s folks.”
“Do you suppose he’s so cranky because Shanna’s holding him at arm’s length?” Jess speculated, ignoring his warning. “Going without sex can do that to a person.”
“Not a topic for the dinner table,” Gram said adamantly, giving Jess a chiding look.
“To say nothing of the fact that it’s so not your business!” Kevin retorted.
The problem was, Jess was right. It was increasingly evident that he wanted Shanna, not as a friend, which was the way it had started, but as a woman. He wanted the kissing, the sex, all of it. He thought she did, too. She certainly hadn’t held back on the couple of occasions when he’d kissed her.
“Well, despite what Martha said, I think you should just ask Shanna out and get on with it,” Jess declared.
“Me, too,” Bree chimed in, followed by consensus from Abby.
“Leave it alone, all of you,” he ordered, his scowl fierce. “Especially tonight.” If they didn’t quit, he’d be the next one bolting from the room.
Across from him Trace and Jake grinned sympathetically, but all three of his sisters merely laughed. He wondered what they’d have to say if they knew about his plans for Monday evening. On some level, he knew that invitation had been about a whole lot more than dinner. He wondered if Shanna had known that, too.
“What’s going on between you and my brother?” Bree asked Shanna Monday morning after tracking her down in her apartment and luring her to Sally’s for coffee. “Is it finally getting serious?”
Shanna frowned. “Serious? After one kiss?” Okay, it had been two, but Bree certainly didn’t need to know that.
Bree chuckled. “You are both so pitiful. Kevin was trying to tap-dance around answering our questions at dinner on Saturday, and I have to tell you he wasn’t very good at it.”
Shanna recalled the family occasion was to include Georgia’s parents. “You brought this up while the Davises were around?” she asked incredulously.
Bree blushed. “Yes, well, that was a little awkward. Martha bolted with John on her heels.”
“Who could blame them? What were you thinking?”
“Well, Jess started it, and she almost never thinks before she talks,” she said, then shrugged, her expression sheepish. “Then Abby and I couldn’t resist chiming in. I have to admit, it was mostly me. Kevin looked so flustered, I couldn’t help myself.”
Shanna couldn’t even imagine how awkward the scene must have been. “Kevin must have flipped out.”
“He wasn’t happy,” Bree admitted. “And Gram got a little ticked that we brought up sex, or rather Kevin’s lack of it, at the dinner table.”
Shanna groaned. “Maybe this fantasy I have about a big family is all wrong. It sounds awful.”
“I suppose that depends on which side of the teasing you’re on,” Bree said thoughtfully. “Anyway, what I want to know is, when are the two of you going to admit that you’re falling for each other?”
“I can’t speak for him, but I’m…” She stopped because she couldn’t utter a complete lie. She was falling in love with Kevin. She just wasn’t convinced he was ready for a real relationship. There was a good chance he was with her because she was undemanding and filled the lonely hours in his life.
“You’re what?” Bree prodded, refusing to let the topic die. “You care about him, don’t you?”
“Well, of course. He’s a great guy. He’s intelligent, thoughtful, protective, and he’s a wonderful dad.”
“He’s been laughing more lately,” Bree
commented, her expression pensive. “I think that’s because of you. Until recently he’d been pretty grim.”
“Can you blame him? He lost a woman who meant everything to him.”
Bree shook her head. “He hardly knew her,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but you deserve to have another perspective. I think it’s guilt, not grief, that he’s been feeling all these months. I’m more convinced of that than ever now that Georgia’s mom and dad have been here.”
Shanna didn’t even try to hide her shock. “What on earth do you mean?”
Bree regarded her hesitantly. “He hasn’t told you the whole story?”
Shanna shook her head. “He almost never mentions Georgia at all.”
“Okay, I probably shouldn’t be the one telling you this, but since he hasn’t, I will. They met in Iraq.”
“I knew that much,” Shanna said.
“Well, under those conditions, my impression is that everything’s intensified. Emotions run high. People reach out to someone who’s there. Georgia was there. The first time they were on leave, they got married, in the middle of the Baltimore airport, no less.”
“They must have been very anxious to get married,” Shanna said, trying to imagine such a setting for a wedding.
“The only thing worse, in my opinion, would be one of those wedding-a-minute chapels in Las Vegas,” Bree said. “Anyway, by the time they came home from their tour of duty, she was pregnant with Davy. Kevin was discharged not long after, but Georgia stayed in the army. They spent a few weeks here before they moved to northern Virginia. Kevin took a job as a paramedic. Georgia was assigned to Fort Belvoir until she had the baby. I think things were okay then. Normal, if you know what I mean. They actually seemed happy.”
Shanna nodded.
“When Georgia’s orders came to go back to Iraq, with an infant in the house she could have said no, but she refused. They had a huge fight over it, which I know about because she was totally upset when she called me afterward. I told her I agreed with Kevin.” She shrugged. “Didn’t matter. She was determined to go. If you ask me, that was the beginning of the end of the marriage. Oh, he made a big show around us of accepting it. He claimed he understood, that he admired her for wanting to do her duty.”
“He probably did,” Shanna said. “At least on some level.”
Bree shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think he knew the marriage was already over. Our mom left us when she and Dad divorced. Jess was still little, I was just twelve and the others were in their teens, but it had a huge impact. Kevin has a real thing about mothers belonging with their kids. He won’t admit that, not with Georgia gone and practically turned into a martyr in his head, but that’s the truth. I don’t think he would have stayed with her after she chose her job over Davy.”
Bree’s information gave Shanna a new perspective on Kevin, one that scared her. What would he think when he found out that she’d walked away from a husband and a child, albeit a stepson to whom she’d had no legal rights?
Would Kevin judge her for what she’d done? If he did, his opinion certainly wouldn’t be any harsher than what she thought of herself. When it came to guilt, she could match him, maybe even top him. What she viewed as her own cowardice for not staying with Greg for Henry’s sake was one of the reasons she’d been keeping Kevin at arm’s length. She wasn’t convinced she deserved another chance to have a family, especially a family that so closely resembled the one she’d fled.
She was so lost in the troubling thoughts that she almost forgot about Bree’s presence.
“Shanna, are you okay? You turned pale. Did I say something to upset you?”
“It’s nothing, really,” she insisted. “I do have to go, though. I have a million things to do today, since it’s my only day off.”
Bree covered her hand. “Are you sure you aren’t running off because of me and my big mouth? If I upset you, I’m sorry.”
“No, you just gave me some information I needed to have,” she said.
Information, she thought bleakly, that could change everything.
17
Shanna’s day only got worse. As she got back to her apartment, her cell phone, which she’d left on the kitchen counter, was ringing. Checking caller ID, she saw it was Henry.
“Hey, sweetie, how are you?” she said.
He didn’t reply, but the sound of his weeping was unmistakable. Her stomach sank.
“Henry, what’s wrong? Sweetie, talk to me.”
“Daddy’s going away,” he said at last. “For a long time.”
“I don’t understand.”
He said something more, but he was crying so hard she couldn’t make out the words.
“Is Greta there? Can I please speak to her?”
The nanny came on the line, clearly almost as upset as Henry. “The ambulance is here,” she told Shanna. “Mr. Hamilton, he was drinking. He took some pills. It was an accident, it had to be, but he was unconscious when the maid found him.”
“Does Henry know all this?”
“Only that they’re taking his dad to the hospital. Mrs. Hamilton is here now. She insisted Mr. Hamilton’s doctor be called before she’d allow the paramedics to take him. They’re talking about him going straight to rehab when he leaves the hospital. Henry overheard them before I could get him out of the room.”
“No wonder he’s so upset. He probably doesn’t understand why his dad has to go away. Do you have any idea what will happen with Henry? Has anyone thought about that?”
“I’m to stay here, of course. Mrs. Hamilton said she’d come back later, after she’s been to the hospital to get her son settled, and we could discuss what would happen next.”
“I’ll drive up,” Shanna offered.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Greta said, lowering her voice. “Henry mentioned you and Mrs. Hamilton threw a fit, said you were no longer a part of this family and he was not to even think about calling you.”
Shanna bit back a curse at the woman’s lack of consideration for a scared little boy. She should be reaching out to anyone willing or able to help him. “I’ll speak to her,” she told Greta. “Let me talk to Henry again.”
“He’s right here,” Greta said, handing over the phone.
“Mommy?” he whispered tentatively, sounding slightly more composed.
“I’m here. I know things must be really scary there right now, but it’s going to be okay. You have Greta with you, and your grandmother will make sure nothing bad happens to your dad.”
“He’s going in the ambulance,” he said, his voice catching. “He never went in an ambulance before. Do you think he’s afraid?”
“No, your dad’s very brave. And he’s going to the hospital so they can make him well again.”
“Mommy, can I stay with you till he’s better?”
Shanna closed her eyes against the wave of longing washing through her. She couldn’t bear it when she heard that wistful note in Henry’s voice. “No, honey, but you can call me any time you’re scared, day or night, okay? Greta will make sure of it.”
“I guess,” he said, sounding resigned.
“I love you.”
“Bye,” he said, hanging up on the words he no longer trusted.
Shanna stared at the silent phone, then immediately placed a call to Greg’s mother, bracing herself for the chilly greeting she was likely to receive.
“This isn’t a good time,” Loretta Hamilton snapped.
“Make it a good time,” Shanna said. “I know what’s happened with Greg and I’m sorry. I truly am. But right now I want to know what you’re going to do about Henry.”
“That is none of your concern,” she said emphatically. “The nanny shouldn’t have called you and dragged you into the middle of anything going on here. I’ll fire her for sharing this family’s business with an outsider.”
“I’m hardly an outsider. Besides, she didn’t call me. Henry did. Are you going to kick him out, because he defied you?�
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The comment was greeted by a long pause. “What do you want?” Loretta asked eventually. The chill in her voice had been replaced by weariness.
How many times must she have been through something like this with Greg? Shanna wondered, feeling a surge of sympathy. More times than Shanna had, certainly. It must be devastating for a mother to see her grown son behave in such a self-destructive way.
“I want to help,” she said simply. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Well, there’s nothing you can do except make a bad situation worse,” Mrs. Hamilton said.
“Greg’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
Mrs. Hamilton’s bravado slipped. “I really don’t know anymore,” she said in a rare display of uncertainty. “This time…” Her voice trailed off. “I just don’t know.”
“Surely this incident will scare some sense into him,” Shanna said. “Maybe it will keep him in rehab. Maybe he’ll finally want to beat his addiction to alcohol.”
“I hope so,” his mother said without much conviction.
“I know you don’t believe this, but so do I,” Shanna told her. “Call me if there’s anything I can do for Henry or for you. I mean that.”
She sensed Mrs. Hamilton hesitating and waited.
“I know I tried to demonize you when we went to court,” she admitted to Shanna. “It was the only way to keep Henry where I thought he belonged. I’m sorry for that. You had no idea what you were getting into when you married my son. I saw the stars in your eyes, and I knew that would never last. I should have warned you. Instead, I kept silent, praying that things would turn out differently after all. Worse, I blamed you when things turned out exactly as I’d anticipated they would.”
“I hated what you did, what you all did, but I understood,” Shanna told her. “You were fighting for your son. I would probably have done the same. Now, though, maybe you should fight for what’s best for Henry.”
“Goodbye, Shanna.” Once again, her tone was stiff and forbidding.
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