‘‘Mark? Did you say you were Mark? My Mark?’’
He closed his eyes. Swallowed bile. ‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘Oh, God. Torie. She must be dying if you are willing to call me.’’
‘‘No, dammit. She will not die. That’s not gonna happen.’’ Fear and fury lay behind his next words. ‘‘Just get your bony old ass up here and meet your new grandson. For some godforsaken reason Matt wants you here. I’ll tell the driver you’re leaving in twenty minutes. Be ready.’’
‘‘I’ll be ready in ten,’’ Branch said as Mark lowered the cell phone from his ear and punched the disconnect button.
He made a call to the bodyguard assigned to watch Branch, and arranged for a redistribution of resources, then leaned against the corridor’s wall, his head tilted back, and closed his eyes. A moment later, he sensed a presence. Annabelle. Damn, but the woman was a comfort to him. ‘‘I swear I’d rather take on a hundred Taliban single-handedly and weaponless than do this.’’
‘‘You did the right thing.’’
He shrugged. ‘‘Matt wants him here, so he’ll be here.’’
‘‘They’re wondering if you will stick around.’’
‘‘I’m not going anywhere. Not until we know Torie is gonna be all right.’’ He sighed heavily, and levered himself away from the wall. ‘‘At times like this, families should be together. I’m glad you are here with me, Annabelle.’’
She rose on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss against his cheek. ‘‘Anything for a Fixer,’’ she said lightly.
A Fixer. Not a husband. He guessed he had that one coming.
They rejoined the others in the waiting room and Mark explained the arrangements he’d made. Maddie excused herself to go check on the girls, and Mark and Luke flanked Matt in order to better inspect their newborn nephew while distracting the baby’s father from his worry about little baby John’s mother.
‘‘No wonder Torie has been looking like she was toting around a keg,’’ Luke observed. ‘‘This kid is huge for a newborn.’’
‘‘Nine pounds, six ounces.’’ Matt shifted the baby so that his brothers could get a better look.
Mark said, ‘‘Gonna be a ball player, for sure.’’
‘‘See how he’s sucking those middle two fingers?’’ Luke asked. ‘‘Kid will probably grow up to play quarterback for the Longhorns. Doing the ‘Hook ’Em Horns’ sign already.’’
‘‘Nah,’’ Mark disagreed. ‘‘He’s an Aggie through and through. See? He’s saying, ‘Texas sucks.’ ’’
A grin flickered on Matt’s lips. ‘‘You are both wrong. Look how big his head is. The boy is all brain. John will be an Ivy Leaguer all the way. Princeton. Maybe Yale. Maybe Princeton undergrad and Harvard B-school.’’
They continued to discuss their ideas regarding young John Patrick Callahan for a while. Maddie returned to the room and begged the opportunity to hold the newborn. Mark noted that Annabelle slipped in and out of the room from time to time, but he kept his focus on his brother. Tension radiated out of Matt like heat from a charcoal grill, and Mark knew the best thing he could do for Matt was to keep him occupied.
Minutes dragged by like hours. Luke took a turn at holding the baby. Even Mark got in on the act after Maddie demonstrated how to support the baby’s head, then just plunked John into his arms.
Mark gutted his way through this new experience. He’d been halfway across the world backtracking a Filipino terrorist cell based in Cleveland when Luke’s girls were born, and they’d been staring at their one-month birthday before he’d made it back to the States to see them. When he first held them, they’d had some bulk to them. Cradling this little guy scared the bejesus out of him.
It also caused one of those What-if moments that he had to shake off quick. Now was not the time to wallow in the past.
Hell, maybe those times were gone for good.
Holding this little guy in his arms took his thoughts toward the future. As soon as he and Annabelle dealt with the Kurtz and company problem and Torie was back on her feet—which
would,
by God, happen—the focus of the family needed to turn to this next generation of Callahans. Catherine, Samantha, and little John here.
As the scent of baby lotion teased his nostrils, he wondered why it had taken him so long to see it. The Callahan family needed to quit looking backward and start looking forward.
The baby let out a little mewling noise, and Mark’s lips twisted in a rueful smile.
Callahan family, hell. Matt and Luke aren’t the problem here. I am.
Matt and Luke had moved on. They did look forward. They’d stopped living in the past. Of the three of them, Mark was the lone holdout.
Why? No secret there. His brothers had told him. Their wives had told him. Annabelle’s parents had told him. Annabelle, too. He’d heard them, but he’d never listened to them. Not
really
listened. Not to the extent that he truly comprehended what they were saying.
As he looked down into the face of the peacefully sleeping child, he told himself that maybe today that had changed.
A noise in the doorway had him glancing up in hope of seeing the doctor standing in the doorway with a big smile on his face. Instead, Maddie stood in the threshold and warned, ‘‘Branch is here.’’
Even as Mark braced himself, she stepped away and his father appeared in the doorway. Mark couldn’t hide his shock. He had not seen Branch Callahan since the sonofabitch had circumvented nurses and invaded Mark’s hospital room during his recovery from a gunshot wound—yet another injury that could be laid at the old man’s feet. Leaning heavily on a wheeled walker, his formerly thick, silver hair now a thin, limp white, his complexion mottled, his limbs palsied, he seemed to have aged ten years in two.
On the heels of shock, Mark felt that old soup of emotions that had defined his feelings about his father for so long—fury, rage, pain, betrayal. Also, a new ingredient swirled in the mix this time, and he wasn’t quite sure what to call it. Not forgiveness. He wasn’t there yet. Sorrow? Pity? Compassion?
Hell, maybe it was a combination of all those things.
Branch captured Matt’s gaze and asked, ‘‘How’s our girl?’’
‘‘We haven’t heard a goddamned thing. I’m about ready to go hunt someone down to give us a report.’’
‘‘Let me do that,’’ Luke volunteered. ‘‘You have someone to introduce to Branch.’’
Mark turned, ready to hand the baby back to Matt, when Matt surprised them all by saying, ‘‘Branch, this is your number two son, Mark. Mark, that’s your father, Branch. I’d be honored if you would introduce my son to his grandfather.’’
Well, shit. Under the circumstances, how could he refuse?
Mark stepped forward, cleared his throat, and spoke directly to his father for the first time in years. ‘‘Branch, you need to meet the newest addition to our family. This is John Callahan.’’
‘‘John? Well . . .’’ He choked up. Tears overflowed the old man’s eyes and spilled down his face. He reached out and touched the newborn’s cheek, his mouth stretched in a wistful smile. ‘‘He’s a fine-looking boy, Matthew.’’
Branch touched Mark’s arm. ‘‘A fine son.’’
Ten minutes later when Torie’s doctor showed up wearing that smile Mark had wanted so badly to see, tears spilled from the eyes of all the Callahan men.
Chapter Fifteen
Nerves prickled Annabelle’s skin as she paced the hospital’s hallway. Four hours earlier, Torie’s doctor had sat the Callahan family down and explained the details about her uterine rupture—a rare event for a woman of Torie’s health and medical history. He’d credited God’s grace and the speed of her arrival to the hospital for saving her life and the baby’s life. He gave himself credit for saving her uterus.
Meanwhile, word had spread throughout town of the Callahans’ mad rush to the hospital. As a result, too many people had appeared to express their concern for Torie, to visit Matt, to share in the joy of a new Callahan baby. And, Annabelle deduced, to mine for gossip about why the family had pretended to leave town, but hadn’t done so.
While the bodyguards Mark had hired appeared to be on top of the situation, she simply wasn’t comfortable. There were too many strangers and too much activity around this place for that.
Not with a killer on the loose and targets painted on the backs of the Callahans.
‘‘Hey, Annabelle.’’
She turned back to see that Mark had emerged from the ICU. ‘‘Hi. How is she doing?’’
‘‘She’s cranky when she’s awake. Wants more time with the baby than they’re giving her. All in all, though, she’s doing just fine.’’
‘‘Good. I’m so glad. . . . I know you two are close.’’
He smiled. ‘‘Maddie gets in your face and makes you love her. Torie is sneakier about it. She calls me on Maggie’s birthday.’’
‘‘They’re both exceptional women.’’
‘‘Yeah. And speaking of that . . .’’ Mark stepped up beside her and took her arm. ‘‘I want to talk to you about—’’
He broke off abruptly, frowning toward a group of women who emerged from the elevator at the end of the hall. Pivoting, he led Annabelle in the opposite direction. ‘‘That’s our old Sunday school teacher, one of the gossip queens in town. I don’t have patience enough for her right now.’’
He opened a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY and grinned, then tugged her inside.
A hospital linen closet? Annabelle rolled her eyes. ‘‘What is this . . . a soap opera?
As the Brazos Bends
?’’
‘‘Very funny.’’
But when the scent of his aftershave teased her senses, she couldn’t help but remember other times they’d shared a closet. On that Lanai estate. In a hotel in Amsterdam. At a restaurant in Atlanta. He flipped on a light switch and jerked her back to the present.
‘‘I haven’t had the chance to thank you for the quick thinking this morning. The few minutes you saved by taking control of the situation saved her life, Annabelle.’’
‘‘I’m glad I could help. I just wish we could have done this whole thing a little quieter. Have you seen the waiting rooms?’’
Grimacing, he nodded. ‘‘Luke and I both spoke to the guys from Saunders Security. They have reinforcements on the way.’’
‘‘Good.’’ Annabelle breathed a sigh of relief.
‘‘They also mentioned that you had already called requesting more men.’’
She shrugged. ‘‘Y’all were understandably distracted. I thought a few extra precautions were in order.’’
‘‘Like arranging for a private family ICU waiting room? That was good thinking, too. That’s made it easier for security to do its job.’’
‘‘It freed up eyes to man the hospital entrances.’’ She laughed mirthlessly and added, ‘‘I’ve spent so much time in hospitals of late that it was easy to recognize the need.’’
‘‘This hospital trend definitely has to stop. I say we do resort hotels from here on out.’’
Annabelle smiled a bit wistfully. ‘‘I’m worried, Mark. We have Matt shifting between Torie’s room and the nursery, and Luke and Maddie can’t keep their twins cooped up for hours on end. I know your brothers can take care of themselves and their loved ones, but it’s obvious to me that all of you are a bit off your marks today. If Kurtz gets into the hospital . . .’’
‘‘That won’t happen,’’ Mark declared in a hard, flat tone. ‘‘The guys on the door are good. They have a recent picture of Kurtz and he won’t get past them. Look, we considered sending Maddie and the girls home, but until the extra help arrives, we think it’s safer to keep the family together.’’
‘‘I know. It’s just that I’d feel better about everything if not for the near-constant parade of Brazos Bend friends come to pay their respects. And bring baby gifts. And flowers for Torie.’’
Mark brushed her cheek with the pad of his thumb and grinned. ‘‘I understand you threw a bit of a tantrum when Sara-Beth Branson came looking for pictures and quotes for the local newspaper.’’
Annabelle didn’t try to hide her snort of disgust. ‘‘The woman noticed the security guards and decided she had a scoop on her hands. I couldn’t talk her out of it. Maddie couldn’t, either. Luke had to promise her an exclusive once this is all over to get her to back off.’’
‘‘Luke has a way with Sara-Beth. She was his girlfriend in high school.’’
‘‘He told me we can trust her word, so I’m not worrying about it anymore. Still, she was awfully nosy about me. I’m hoping that things will calm down for a bit now that the nurses have closed the nursery blinds until evening visiting hours. That should give us some time to regroup.’’
He tucked her hair behind her ears and with admiration warming his voice said, ‘‘You are something else, Annabelle. I don’t know what I would have done without you today. You were there for us with Torie, there for me with Branch. I can’t thank you enough.’’
‘‘You did a good thing by calling your father. I know it wasn’t easy for you.’’
‘‘Damn straight it wasn’t, and I’m glad you noticed. See, I did it for Matt, but I also did it for you. Yesterday you told me that you were finished waiting for me because you didn’t trust me to battle my demons. Well, I took on one of the biggest a few hours ago when I made that phone call. I hope that demonstrates to you that I don’t fear my old ghosts more than I love you.’’
Annabelle closed her eyes. She wanted to believe him, but . . . ‘‘Look, Callahan. I don’t think either of us needs ‘us’ to be an added distraction right now.’’
‘‘I won’t say another word . . . as long as you promise me that you’ll reconsider what you said yesterday about not waiting for me.’’
She blew out a sigh. ‘‘All right.’’
‘‘I love you, Annabelle.’’
‘‘That’s another word, Callahan.’’
The gleam in his eyes warned her and her heartbeat quickened. ‘‘So is this.’’
Tugging her against him, he kissed her. Just like always, he wove a sensuous spell around her. She couldn’t stop her pulse from pounding when his tongue flicked over her lips. She couldn’t still the vibration in her skin when his hand skimmed down her back. She could not stay the damp heat of desire that pooled between her legs as he pressed himself against her and rocked, his hard length finding that spot that ached . . . ached.