Christmas Eve. Two years later
“Hey, Pa, where do we go from here?”
Michael looked up at nine-year-old Frank’s question. After Catherine had given him his second chance, the two of them had decided to adopt the orphans she’d been keeping. And every day of the last two years, he had spent every minute making up to her for the time they had been apart.
She would never again have cause to doubt him, and he reveled in the blessing of his family and home.
“I think you’d best be asking your mother that question,” he said to Frank. “Catherine?”
“It’s the big white house at the end of the street,” she said as she waddled up to them beside the train station.
Michael grinned at the sight of her pregnant body. He’d missed seeing her carry Diana, but he was definitely enjoying her now.
The way Catherine figured, they had two more months before the baby would join them. Just enough time to visit her parents with their passel of children in tow, and then make it back home in time for the little one’s birth.
Four of the orphans still lived with them. Five children total with Diana. Michael smiled as he watched all of them climb aboard the wagon he had rented.
He’d always wanted a big family.
“You nervous?” he asked Catherine as he draped a comforting arm over her shoulders. She hadn’t seen her parents since the day they had eloped almost seven years before.
“A little. And you?”
“A little.”
Even so, he was too grateful for his life to mind even a lengthy visit at his in-laws’. He still found it hard to believe Pete had lied to save him.
“I’ve ruined your life enough, Kid. This is one place I think I’d best go to alone,” Pete had told him.
Pete would be in prison for a long time to come. Maybe it would make his brother a better man.
All he could do was hope that one day his brother would find the peace that had always eluded him.
Michael placed a tender kiss on Catherine’s brow as he took Diana’s hand in his and helped her up into the wagon.
Every day for the last two years, he had been grateful that his wife had stood by him, even though it was the last thing he’d deserved.
“Thank you, Cathy,” he breathed as he helped her climb into the wagon seat.
“For what?” she asked.
“For making my life worth living.”
Her smile warmed him to his toes. “It’s been my pleasure, Mr. O’Callahan. Merry Christmas.”
And a Merry Christmas it would be, too. For in this life, there were second chances, and this time, Michael wouldn’t waste the one he’d been given.