It was funny how quickly Sean had come to think about Holly in the course of his everyday life. She hadn’t even been back a week, but it already felt like she’d always been in the back of his mind, even as the organized pandemonium that was his life swirled around him, both jarring and comforting. Sometimes, the greater the uproar or hubbub, the more he thought about her…and it surprised him how much easier just thinking about her smile, or the way she arched into him when he kissed that spot just above her collarbone, made the insanity of the world that was running a restaurant that much easier to sort through and maintain.
Just as he caught himself in yet another highly detailed daydream, and thought about trying her cell again, there was a tap at his office door. Without waiting, Mick stuck his head in.
Sean looked up. “You know, it’s customary, after the knock, to wait for—”
“Pretty lady to see you, boy-o. I thought you might want to cut down on the formalities.”
And, as if his constant thinking and daydreaming had conjured her up, Holly walked into his office. It shouldn’t have been such a profound moment, but it was. Her, there, in his space for once. Surrounded by his life, the sounds, scents, and general mayhem of it. Like this perfect little island of serenity in the midst of turmoil. Only, once the haze wore off and Mick closed the door behind her, did he see that she wasn’t, exactly, looking all that peaceful.
“What’s wrong?”
She didn’t even take the time to notice his office, which was probably just as well. He knew where everything was, amidst the piles and stacks, but that was the extent of his organizational skills. “Can I—” She motioned to a stack of files and order forms on the only chair facing his desk. He was already shoving back his chair, prepared to leap over his desk if need be, to make room for her, but she carefully shifted the pile to the floor and took a seat. Then immediately sprang up and began pacing.
Sean frowned. “Holly? What’s going on?” He stood and came around the desk more calmly this time, then finally stepped in front of her, effectively cutting off her path.
She paused, then abruptly said, “I had a lot on my mind. When I left your place. I woke up happier and more confused than ever. And I—didn’t know where to go next, what to figure out first. Oh, and thanks for the car. I hadn’t thought about it, and I had a meeting with the lawyer, so it was really great of you to do that, and—”
“Did something happen at the meeting? Did you figure out about the lease?”
“I did and no, that wasn’t it. Actually, I think that’s going to be easier than I thought. And Mrs. Gillespie is helping me with setting up having a few buyers come in, and an auction house appraiser to look at the stock she doesn’t want. I—I think it’s going to be okay.”
He tipped up her chin. She was talking a mile a minute. “Something rattled you, was it—” He really hesitated bringing up the night they’d spent together. It had meant everything to him, and he knew he was possibly setting himself up, allowing himself to hope like he was, but he couldn’t seem to stem it. He wanted her. He wanted a chance to see what they could have together, and no amount of rational deliberation or commonsense talks he’d had with himself today was going to change that, apparently. “What’s going on?” he finally asked.
“I—even with the solutions for the shop issues, I…I had so much on my mind. Mostly about you, about my life in London, my job, what my life here would even be like if I tried…I just—I needed out. Away. I needed to focus on something else. This morning I watched you sleeping, and I felt this need, this overwhelming urge to sketch, to draw, to create and I know it’s all this uncertainty and that’s how I vent.”
“So…did you?” The idea of her watching him while he slept, much less drawing him, should have been disconcerting, and he supposed it was. But mostly it was an incredible turn-on.
She shook her head, clearly still distracted by whatever was really on her mind. “I didn’t have the supplies, at your place or the store. But that was probably a good thing…or maybe not. I really don’t know. If I’d spent time working things out with paper and charcoal, or some watercolors, then I probably wouldn’t have grabbed the diary instead.” She held his gaze again now, only more directly this time. “And gone to St. Francis with it.”
He had no idea what he’d been expecting, seeing her so atypically rattled, but that hadn’t even occurred to him. “This is about the diary?” Enormous relief coursed through him. She was thinking about staying here, about moving her life here; those were the tidbits he’d gleaned from her burst of chatter; that’s what stuck in his head. That she’d woken up happy.
“Sean, it’s about more than the diary. It concerns you. Your family.”
“What?” He tried to clear his head, pay attention to what she was saying. “How? I mean, I know you said my grandmother was the one who helped get the baby to the nuns, but what else could that have to do with my family, especially now?”
“That’s just it, I don’t think they gave the baby to the nuns.”
Sean frowned. “What in the hell else would they have done?”
She put her hand over his arm. “They found a home for him. I’m pretty sure that home was with your family.”
Sean felt himself sway slightly. “They what?”
“I talked to the priest and showed him the diary, and I spoke to the mother superior. They weren’t personally there at the time, of course, but they’ve both been there since shortly afterward.”
“I can’t believe they’d have told you anything.”
“I just let them read the diary and I knew, from the looks they shared, that they knew…something. I asked them in more detail about the adoption policies back then, just in general you know, and all they would tell me is that the way things were back then, they just tried to find a loving home, where and when they could. And…I don’t know how I pieced it together, but I thought about your grandmother being the one to bring the baby to them, and how huge your family is, and so I just supposed, out loud, that it could be someone like the Gallaghers and their faces gave it away.
“I reminded them that there were no Havershams left, and that only Lionel and his great-nephew were left on the Hamilton side…and that if one of the Gallaghers was an actual blood relation, didn’t they deserve to know?”
“What did they say?”
“Nothing. That was all…but Sean, wasn’t that enough? One of your relatives is Trudy Hamilton’s son!”
Sean leaned his weight back against his desk, sending a pile of paper cascading but ignoring the mess it made. “I guess it’s possible, but…which one? I mean, my dad was the last of thirteen kids. My grandmother was almost as old when she had him as your mom was when she had you. And though my dad only had me, the rest of his brothers and sisters…” He waved an absent hand to the restaurant beyond the door to his office. “Well, you know how that went.”
“Don’t you think it’s important to find out?”
“Why, because they might have claim to Hamilton’s money? I don’t know that anyone in my family would risk the damage such news could do just for the sake of a possible inheritance.”
“What damage could it do?”
“Think about it…you said yourself that it was Trudy’s money that helped bail out Hamilton Industries. If she had an heir that predated, or possibly precluded Lionel…I’m just saying, having all that come out, I don’t know what good it would do.”
“If it was you? I mean, if you weren’t a Gallagher by blood…wouldn’t you want to know your history?”
“Anyone in Willow Creek with the name Gallagher is family. Born into it, married into it, even divorced from it in some cases. Once a Gallagher, always a Gallagher. Nothing would change that. Putting this out there would only lead to possible divisiveness within the family. Why do that?”
“I’d want to know,” Holly said quietly. “It wouldn’t change how I felt about my parents; they raised me—they loved me. But I’d want to know.” She handed him the book. “This really belongs to you. One of you, anyway.”
And, with that, she turned and walked out the door. He thought about calling her back, but the entire exchange had caught him so off guard, he simply sat there, book clutched in his hands, wondering what in the hell had just happened. And what he was supposed to do about it.