Starting Over (Treading Water Trilogy) (41 page)

The phone rang, startling them. Brandon reached for it.

“We’ve got a lead,” Agent Jackson said without preamble. “A maid in the house heard about the reward and came forward claiming there’s a secret room on the third floor that Eleanor had built for her granddaughter. Mr. Monroe says he has no knowledge of it, and Eleanor’s not talking. We’re sending in a team now.”

“We’ll be right there,” Brandon said.

“No, stay put. It’s going to happen fast. I’ll call you the minute I know anything.”

Brandon hung up and relayed the information to Daphne.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “What do we do? We have to do something.”

He reached for her hand. “Pray with me.”

Twenty of the longest minutes of their lives later, the phone rang again.

“We’ve got her, and she’s fine,” Agent Jackson said. “She said her grandmother was nice to her.”

Brandon whispered the news to Daphne and kept his arm around her as she dissolved into tears. “Can we talk to her?”

“The paramedics are taking a quick look at her, and then we’ll bring her home. You should’ve seen this room, man. It was hidden behind a panel in the wall, and it looked like FAO Schwartz exploded in there. There were clothes hanging in the closet from infant size up to teen. Eleanor built the room when Harrison was in Washington and paid off everyone to keep quiet about it. Without that maid having a burst of conscience—and a thirst for half a million bucks—I don’t know if we would’ve ever found her.”

Brandon’s heart skipped a crazy beat at how close they’d come to losing her forever.

“We’ll have her home within the hour,” Agent Jackson said.

Brandon, Daphne, and her parents were on the front porch waiting when a police cruiser pulled up forty minutes later. Still weak from her ordeal, Daphne was wrapped in a blanket Brandon insisted on.

He walked down the stairs as the back door of the cruiser flew open.

Mike bolted from the car wearing a frilly dress that was all wrong on her.

Tears streaming down his face, Brandon held out his arms to her.

She flew into his embrace. “I missed you,” she said, sobbing and clinging to him.

“It’s okay, baby.” He wept into her soft hair as he carried her to Daphne. “You’re okay now. Daddy’s got you.”

Epilogue

Brandon faced the mirror to adjust his bow tie and brush some lint off the shoulder of his black tuxedo. He ran a trembling hand through hair streaked with the strands of silver that began appearing after the kidnapping.

The butterflies that had stormed around in his stomach for days had grown into bats overnight. He reached for the roll of antacids in his pocket.
How will I ever do this?

“Dear God,” he said to his reflection in the mirror, comfortable now with the daily requests he made to his higher power. “Please help me get through this day without embarrassing myself.”

He made one last unsuccessful attempt to straighten his bow tie and left the men’s room in the back of Holy Redeemer Church.

His mother came out of the room reserved for brides, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “She looks beautiful, love.”

“So do you, Mum.”

“Thank you,” she said. “She’s making us all cry in there.”

He smiled. “She’s holding up okay?”

“Cool as a cucumber. Just what you’d expect of her. How’re you?”

He popped another antacid into his mouth. “I’m kind of a wreck, to be honest.”

Colleen patted his face. “You can do it, love. I’ll be pulling for you.”

“Thanks, Mum.” He kissed her. “I’ll see you in there.”

The door to the bride’s room opened again. Seventeen-year-old Isabel and fifteen-year-old Emily emerged in strapless dark green gowns. Isabel’s chestnut curls were swept up into a glamorous style that left him breathless.
When had she become a woman?
Emily’s light blonde hair, so much like her mother’s and Mike’s, was twisted into the same elegant style as her sister’s.

“Daddy, she’s asking for you,” Isabel said, kissing Brandon’s cheek and adjusting the wayward bow tie yet again. “You look dashing.”

“And you, my ladies, are stunning. The maids of honor are not supposed to outshine the bride.”

They giggled.

Daphne, exquisite in a dusty rose silk gown, emerged from the bride’s room wiping her eyes.

“Hey.” Brandon kissed her. “Are you okay?”

Daphne nodded. “She’s ready for you.”

Brandon glanced at the closed door and then at his wife. “Am I ready for her?”

She laughed. “I doubt it.”

“You’re still a goddess,” he whispered in her ear, curling a lock of her now shoulder-length hair around his finger. “Love you.”

She went up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Love you, too.”

“Well, here goes nothing.” He knocked on the door and went in.

Her back was to him, so the first thing he noticed was the six-foot embroidered train and her bare shoulders under the light film of her veil.

She looked up then, and their eyes met in the full-length mirror.

“Oh, God, look at you, baby,” he whispered, staggered by her. “You’re gorgeous.”

She turned to him, all grown up at twenty-five—his little girl, his Mike—or Michaela as she was known these days, but still and always Mike to him.

He moved toward her, wanting to hold her, wanting to stop time and go back to when she was learning to ride a two-wheeler, scraping her knee, flying a kite with him on the beach, skiing on Mount Mansfield, learning to drive… But she was so perfect, he didn’t dare touch her.

“Have you seen Josh? How’s he doing?”

“He’s just fine and waiting for you. In fact, he’s been waiting for you since you bumped heads at five and eight.”

“Was I terrible to make him wait until we established our careers?”

“You were right to wait until you were ready, even if it took twenty years.”

She laughed. “Do you suppose people think it’s weird? I mean we all know Josh and I aren’t technically cousins, but others…”

“You’ve never thought of yourselves as cousins. Even when you were kids, there was something special between you. Anyone who knows either of you knows that.”

“I love him, Daddy. I love him the same way you love Mom.”

Brandon’s throat closed with emotion. “How am I supposed to give away the most precious thing in the world to me?”

Her eyes swam with tears. “Don’t make me cry. You’ll ruin my makeup.”

The diamond necklace he’d given her so many years ago sparkled around her neck on a new, longer chain.

She reached up to touch it. “My something old.”

“You look so much like your mother did when I first met her.” He shook his head. “It’s unbelievable.”

“I remember it all, you know, everything about our first months together—finding you under the sink, Brandon the Bear, the playground you built for me, all the weddings. Remember when you almost dropped my birthday cake? Was I six or seven?”

“Six,” he said with a grin. “It was your first birthday after I met you.”

“It was the best birthday of my life because you were there. You were the first man I ever loved. You know that, don’t you?”

“Now you’re going to make
me
cry.”

“I have no idea what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t found you under my sink.”

Brandon laughed even as tears spilled down his face.

“The way we were living then…” She shook her head. “You saved me from a life on the run. You and all the O’Malleys… You saved me.”

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Oh, no, my love, it was quite the other way around.
You
saved
me
.”

“What day is today?” It was a question she asked often.

“Seventy-three hundred and six.” He was a longtime leader in AA, and others regularly turned to him for help, which still struck him as ironic at times. “Twenty years and six days.”

“That’s just about how long we’ve been together.”

“It’s no coincidence, you know. You and your mother gave me the will to stay sober. The two of you, your sisters, and the boys
kept
me sober.”

“Six kids would be enough to keep anyone sober,” she said with a smile.

“Yes, indeed. You all are the reason I keep my side of the street clean.”

The door opened behind them, and Isabel poked her head in. “Whenever you guys are ready.”

Brandon offered an arm to his daughter. “Shall we?”

The wedding party included all of Colleen’s nineteen grandchildren. Mike and Josh went round and round for weeks trying to trim the size of their wedding party until Josh finally said, “The heck with it. Let’s have them all.” Josh’s sisters Nina, Cecelia, and Amanda, and Declan’s four daughters preceded Isabel and Emily up the aisle. Josh’s brother Ben was his best man. Joining him at the altar were Brandon’s sons Jake, Sam, and Dennis, Colin’s sons Nate and Will, and Aidan’s sons, Max and Nick.

When the girls reached the front of the church, the organist launched into the wedding march.

Brandon glanced down at Mike. “Ready?”

She squeezed his hand and nodded.

All eyes were on them as they moved slowly down the aisle, past Colin and Meredith, Declan and Jessica, Aidan, Clare, Maggie, Jill, Kate, and their families. Mike, still one of Kate’s biggest fans, had asked her to sing at the reception.

We’ve been so very blessed
, Brandon thought.
But we’ve had our share of sorrows, too
. He and Daphne had mourned the baby they lost for a long time, even after all the others arrived. And they still missed Dennis, who had succumbed to a heart attack four years earlier, leaving a gaping hole in the lives of his wife, children, and grandchildren.

The business Dennis had built continued to thrive under the care of his children and now several of his grandchildren. Josh was Brandon’s right-hand man in the restoration business, which the year before eclipsed new construction as the most profitable arm of the company. Mike recently earned her master’s degree in architecture, and when she returned from her honeymoon, she would join Declan in the new construction branch, bringing yet another facet to O’Malley & Sons Construction. After Brandon and Daphne’s youngest son Dennis started first grade three years earlier, Daphne became the company’s chief financial officer and whipped them all into shape.

Tall, blond, and handsome, Josh never took his eyes off his bride as she made her way toward him on the arm of her father.

In the second row on the left side of the aisle, Harrison Monroe sat next to Colleen and Daphne’s parents. Mike never held Harrison responsible for his wife’s actions and made an effort over the years to maintain a relationship with him. After pleading guilty by reason of insanity, Eleanor died in a state psychiatric hospital nine years after the kidnapping.

In the front row on the right side, Erin and Tommy watched their son’s bride come down the aisle. Like Daphne across from her, Erin was wiping away tears by the time Brandon and Mike reached the front of the church.

Brandon raised the blusher from over Mike’s face and kissed her cheek. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too. First and always.”

He held her gaze for a long moment before he joined her hand with Josh’s. Watching them climb the steps to the altar, Brandon remembered a long-ago photo of two blond children with their arms around each other. They never had let go.

“Who gives this woman to be married?” the priest asked.

Brandon cleared the lump from his throat. “Her mother and I do.” He turned then to take his place next to Daphne.

She linked her fingers with his and held on tight as they watched their girl marry the boy she had loved all her life.

Brandon had given her away, but he’d never let her go.

The House That Jack Built

The first character to take up occupancy in my mind as a living, breathing human being, was a handsome, successful architect named Jack Harrington. Jack and I ran around together for a long time before I ever put fingers to keyboard to tell his story. I wanted to write about a man who has it all—a wife he still adores after twenty years of marriage, three beautiful daughters he'd do anything for, and a life most people would envy. That life is turned upside down when his wife is hit by a car and plunged into a coma. I wanted to show Jack's struggles to rebuild his life as he becomes the custodial parent for his daughters—two of them teenagers with all the accompanying issues—and I wanted to show his conflict when he finds a new love. These issues make up the core of the first book I wrote, "Treading Water," which led to two sequels, "Marking Time," and "Starting Over." It's "Treading Water," however, that is the book of my heart.

Since I finished "Treading Water," I've thought of my writing as "The House That Jack Built," tying into his career as an architect and the unexpected building blocks that came from "Treading Water." As I was finishing "Starting Over" in July 2006, I decided to drive out to Chatham, Massachusetts, so I could finish it in the town where it was set. Yes, this was a huge indulgence, but it coincided with the halfway point of summer vacation, and my kids were driving me nuts.