by Marie Force
“Thanks,” Grant said. “We’re excited.”
“Ah, here comes our newest Romeo,” Big Mac said, making room at the table for his brother.
“Oh shut up.”
“Holding hands, Uncle Frank,” Mac said. “Looks like someone’s got himself a girlfriend.”
“So what about it?” Frank asked testily as he helped himself to one of the doughnuts.
“He’s not even denying it,” Mac said. “It’s worse than we thought.”
“You all need to get busy minding your own business rather than everyone else’s.”
“That ain’t never gonna happen,” Ned said to laughter from the others.
“What the hell fun would that be?” Big Mac asked. “So… You and Betsy. Going steady. This is very exciting.”
“You’re a jackass, you know that?”
“Um, excuse me, but who was up in my grille every time I brought a new girl home? I never got the chance to do that to you because you were with Joann since eighth grade. Now it’s my turn, and revenge is sweet.” Big Mac wasn’t sure if he’d done the right thing mentioning the wife Frank had lost to cancer so young, but Frank just smiled at him, full of the good humor Big Mac expected from his older brother.
“Have your fun, pal. I’m happy to take your abuse, because she’s worth it.”
“Oh, wow,” Mac said. “This is way more serious than we thought.”
“I don’t know if serious is the word I would use,” Frank said. “At least not yet, but it does have potential.”
“Good fer ya,” Ned said. “Been a long time comin’.”
“Indeed it has,” Frank said.
“Pardon me,” a female voice said. All eyes turned to a striking, dark-haired woman. She was tall with brown eyes and a cautious manner.
“Help you with something?” Mac asked her.
“I’m looking for Mac McCarthy?”
“That’d be me,” father and son said together, as they usually did.
She looked from Big Mac to his son and then back to him. “Senior,” she said.
“What can I do for you?” Big Mac asked.
“Could I have a moment of your time, please? In private.”
“Uh-oh, Dad,” Mac said. “What did you do now?”
The young woman gave his son a curious look before returning her attention to him. He had no idea who she was, but since she’d asked so politely… “Sure thing. Right this way.”
He led her down the main dock to the very end, where the Salt Pond stretched out before them.
“I’m sorry to drag you away from your friends.”
“That’s all right.”
“I’m Mallory.” She swallowed hard as if she were nervous. “Mallory Vaughn.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mallory.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too. Does the name Vaughn mean anything to you?”
“I can’t say that it does. Should it?”
She withdrew a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. “You should read this.”
Holding her earnest gaze, Big Mac took it from her with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What was this about? Turning his attention to the paper, he began to read handwriting that obviously belonged to a woman.
My dear Mallory,
Now that I am gone, I feel it is only fair to share the one piece of information I was too fearful to give you in life. You have asked me for years about who your father is, and I had good intentions of telling you when the time was right. Then I got sick, and time became our most precious commodity. I had other things I wanted to do besides revisit my painful past.
Your father is a good man; at least he was during the short time that I knew him. He had an opportunity to start a business on Gansett Island, and since I was tied to my home and family here, there was no future for us. So I let him go to pursue his dream and stayed here to pursue mine. A short time later, I discovered I was expecting you.
“Oh my God,” Big Mac whispered as the dock beneath his feet seemed to move as his entire existence shifted. “Your mother was Diana Vaughn.”
“Yes.”
“So that makes you…”
“Your daughter, apparently.”
Big Mac couldn’t seem to breathe as he stared at the young woman before him and tried to make sense of what she was saying.
She gently removed the letter from his hand and read the rest to him. “Your father owns a marina called McCarthy’s Gansett Island Marina. His name is Mac McCarthy, and he will be surprised to know you exist because I never told him I was expecting you. By the time I learned you were on the way, he and I had ended our relationship, and a short time later, I heard he was engaged to someone else.
“I harbored an irrational fear that he might try to take you away from me if he knew about you, and I couldn’t let that happen. I wish I had been a stronger person for both your sakes, and I’m sorry for what I’ve denied you both through my silence. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me and perhaps find him now that you are alone in the world. You should also know I named you Mallory because his real name is Malcolm. I thought you might someday appreciate that connection, however tentative, to the man who fathered you. I love you with all my heart. Mom.”
Mallory folded the letter and returned it to her pocket. “I’m sorry to shock you this way. I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to meet you, to fill in the blanks. I’ll go now. It was really nice to finally meet you. This is a beautiful place you’ve got here.”
As she turned to leave, something in him rose up, forcing him to react before she got away. “Wait. Don’t go yet.”
She stopped and turned to him. “Honestly, I meant it when I said I don’t want anything from you. I’m perfectly fine. You have your life, and I have mine. I just wanted to put a face to the name. That’s all.”
“You can’t just walk away after telling me you’re my kid,” he said, stammering over the words. He couldn’t recall ever being quite so rattled by anything.
“Why not?” she asked with an amused little smile that reminded him in some small way of Janey.
He couldn’t begin to fathom how this was going to affect his life, his family or his marriage, but he knew he’d never forgive himself if he let her walk away. “Because that’s not how I roll.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you think a kid of mine is going to be out there in the world for all this time without me knowing about her and then walk out of my life as casually as all that, well, that isn’t going to happen. You may not want anything from me, but I want something from you.”
“And that is?”
“I want to know you. I want you to know me. If what your mother says is true, you have five half siblings. Wouldn’t you like to know them?”
“Are you doubting the truth of what my mother said?”
“I don’t want to, but I’d be a fool to accept the word of someone I haven’t seen in more than…”
“Thirty-eight years,” she said tightly. “I’ll be thirty-nine on Wednesday.”
“I have a lot at stake here.”
“I told you. I want nothing from you.”
“Dad?” Mac asked as he approached them. He took a long measuring look at Mallory. “What’s going on?”
“Give me just a minute, son, will you please?”
“Um, sure.” Hesitantly, Mac turned and walked away.
“That’s your son.”
“My oldest, Mac Junior.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“How old are your other kids?”
The question was asked in a cool, relaxed tone, but he could see how hungry she was for information about his family. “Grant is thirty-six, Adam is thirty-four, Evan is thirty-two and my baby, Janey, just turned thirty.”
“Four boys and a girl,” she said softly. “I wondered if I might have siblings.”
“You don’t have any others?”
She
shook her head. “My mom never married. I was her only child.”
“As I recall, she had a big family.”
“Who didn’t approve of her decision to have a baby on her own.” Mallory shrugged. “We didn’t need them. We had each other.”
“So now you’re alone in the world.”
“Not entirely. I have fantastic friends and a career I’m proud of.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an emergency room nurse in Providence.”
“That’s very impressive.”
“You really think so?” she asked wistfully, clearly hungry for more than just information.
“I really do.” He cleared his throat and tried to think of what his next move should be. “I need to talk to my wife. Her name is Linda, and she’s the center of my life. She has been since shortly after your mom and I broke up. Do you have a phone number or some way I can reach you?”
She shook her head. “I can see that you’re a nice man. You’re the good guy my mother said you were, but I just wanted to meet you, not turn your entire life upside down. There’s no need to explain me to your family or your wife. That’s not why I came. I got what I needed, and I appreciate your time. I won’t take any more of it.”
“So you’re not one bit curious about your five siblings? How about your cousins? There’re quite a few of them. Laura and Shane both live here on the island. They’re my brother Frank’s kids. He’s up there at the table. He’s a retired Superior Court judge. My brother Kevin is a doctor—a psychiatrist, actually. He’s got two sons—Riley and Finn. They’ll be here in a couple of weeks for Laura’s wedding. She’s marrying Owen Lawry, who’s my son Evan’s best friend. If I were you, someone who doesn’t have much family to call my own, I’d at least want to meet everyone before I decided I didn’t want anything to do with them.”
“And how do you plan to introduce me into this lovely family of yours?”
“As the daughter I never knew I had?”
She folded her arms and looked down at the wooden dock. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t plan for anything beyond introducing myself.”
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“No, I was going to take the ferry back tonight.”
“You should stay. Spend a little time here. See what you think of the place.” He was about to offer up one of the empty bedrooms at his house when he stopped himself, knowing he couldn’t do that until he talked to Linda. “We own that place up there on the hill.” He pointed to the hotel that sat just outside the entrance to the marina. “Go on up there, tell them I sent you and to bill me for your stay.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t feel right.”
“I’m inviting you to be my guest, but if you’d rather not stay, I understand. I would like your phone number, though.”
She seemed to be engaged in an argument with herself as she weighed what he’d said. “I’ll stay for tonight.”
“Good,” he said with a smile. “See that house up there on the hill? The white one?”
“Yes.”
“That’s my place. Come for dinner tonight.”
“You can’t just invite me without talking to your wife first.”
“Funny, you’ve never met my wife and yet you seem to already have her figured out.”
“I’m a woman, Mr. McCarthy. It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to predict that this news might take her by surprise.” She withdrew a card from her purse and handed it to him. “My cell number is on there. Call me later after you talk to her, and you won’t hurt my feelings if you tell me I’m not welcome there.”
“Don’t call me Mr. McCarthy. At the very least, call me Big Mac. That’s what everyone calls me.”
“Big Mac,” she said, trying it on for size. “I will. Thank you. You’ve been really nice about all of this, when I wouldn’t have blamed you if you told me to take a hike.”
“I’m not going to do that. I wonder, though, if I could borrow that letter from your mom. I’d like to show it to my wife.”
She pulled the letter from her pocket and handed it to him. “You’ll understand that it’s precious to me—”
“I’ll make sure you get it back.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Okay.” The smile she left him with reminded him, in a way, of his mother. And then he remembered the photo of his mother that he kept in a frame in his study and realized Mallory was the image of her as a younger woman. After she walked away, he watched her until she was past the table full of men, who eyed her with curiosity. She didn’t stop to speak with them but rather kept walking toward the hotel. Big Mac’s mind raced with thoughts and memories and fear over what this news might do to his family—and his marriage.
As Mac and Frank approached him, clearly looking for information about what’d just happened, Big Mac knew he couldn’t tell anyone about Mallory until he’d told Linda. With that in mind, he walked purposely toward the parking lot.
As he approached his son and brother, Mac tried to stop him. “Dad?”
“Hold down the fort. I’ll be back.”
“Is everything all right?” Frank asked.
“Yeah. Nothing to worry about.” As he said the words, Big Mac hoped and prayed they were true.
Chapter 13
At the first sounds of chatter from the crib in the next room, Owen was up and out of bed, hoping Laura would sleep for a while longer. He changed the baby’s heavy overnight diaper, washed him up and left him in only a new diaper to feed him his cereal and applesauce for breakfast, knowing he’d probably need a full bath after he ate.
Holden was getting better all the time at eating from a spoon, but mealtime was messy nonetheless. After he’d devoured the runny cereal and a jar of applesauce, Owen rewarded him with a scattering of Cheerios on the table of his high chair. Watching the baby’s fat fingers pick up the Cheerios and get them to his mouth was one of Owen’s favorite things. With every new day, Holden learned how to do something else, and being part of that was nothing short of miraculous.
At times like this, when he got to spend time alone with Holden, he felt a little sorry for Laura’s ex-husband, who’d never know how much he was missing with the son he saw only sporadically, whenever he could manage a day trip to the island. Laura had been married to Justin for a couple of months when she discovered he’d never disabled his online dating profile and was still arranging meetings with other women.
Imagine being married to a woman as amazing as Laura and not being satisfied. Owen couldn’t conceive of such a thing, because being with her—and her son—was the greatest honor of his life. Since Justin had agreed to sign the divorce papers shortly after Holden was born, Owen bore the guy no ill will. He’d done the right thing and set her free. He wouldn’t be entirely satisfied until her divorce was officially final, though, and worrying about when that would happen had him placing a call to Dan Torrington.
“Morning,” Dan said in a mumble that had Owen checking the clock and then wincing.
“Sorry. I had no idea it was still so early. We’re on baby time over here.”
“No problem. What’s up?”
“Laura’s divorce is what’s up. What’re you hearing?”
“Should have the final decree any day now.”
“Will it be in time for the wedding?”
“You’ve got plenty of time, Owen. Try not to worry. I’m keeping a close eye on it, and we’ll get it done.”
“Okay,” Owen said, even though Dan’s assurances didn’t completely address his anxiety, which was all over the place lately.
“How you holding up?”
Owen grunted out a laugh. “Fantastic. Never been better.”
“I don’t want to fill you with platitudes, but it’ll all be over soon, and you can move on.”
“That’s what everyone is telling me.”
“If there’s anything I can
do for you or your mother, you only have to ask.”
“Thanks, Dan. It makes us both feel better that you’ll be with us in Virginia.”
“I’m glad to be going. The greatest satisfaction I get out of my career is seeing justice done—no matter what form it takes.”
“I just hope we get justice.”
“You have a good case. Is it a slam dunk? No, but I think it’ll go your way in the end.”
Dan’s assurances helped address some of Owen’s greatest fears. “I’ll see you Tuesday morning.”
“I’ll be there.”
After he ended the call with Owen, Dan returned the phone to the bedside table. He’d tried to get up when the phone woke him out of a sound sleep, but Kara’s arm around him had kept him in bed while he talked to Owen.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he turned toward her.
“It’s okay.” By now she was certainly used to the phone calls he received at every hour of the day and night. While working on his memoir about his quest to free wrongfully convicted people, Dan continued to oversee the team of lawyers who worked on his innocence projects. They worked out of his Los Angeles office while he was on the other side of the country becoming more entwined every day in his life on a tiny island that had begun to feel like home, especially since he met and fell in love with Kara.
“Go back to sleep for a while,” he said as he kissed her shoulder. “It’s early yet.”
“Mmm.” Her smooth leg slid between his, coming to rest just below his groin.
Dan’s hand, which had been caressing her back, moved down to cup her bottom, bringing her in even closer to him.
“Looks like one of us is wide awake.”
“He can’t help himself when you’re all naked and soft and warm.”
Her hand on his stomach did nothing to help the growing problem below.
“Today is going to be a very long day,” she said with a sigh. Her parents had come to visit so they could meet him and had insisted on throwing them an engagement party so they could meet the rest of Kara’s friends. Dan knew she’d rather skip the entire thing but was humoring her parents, with whom she’d had a difficult relationship over the last couple of years.
