Chapter 7
DONOVAN
“I can’t fucking believe this shit,” Callum groused. “We should be on a plane to Ireland right now.”
“Shut your mouth, Callum O’Shea,” Maeve scolded. “There’s a sweet little baby in Nebraska who’s lost her mother. If she’s yours, the only place we’re going is Toys R Us to stock up, then home to Hambleton to settle her in.”
I shook my head in disbelief at my new sister. “How the fuck are you so calm about all this?”
“It’s not the baby’s fault that my husband’s an eejit who obviously didn’t wrap up properly. What am I meant to do? Let her go into the foster system? I don’t think so. Am I happy about all of this? Of course not. Am I scared out of my wits? Well, yeah. But what else is there to be done?”
Glancing down, I saw Callum squeeze Maeve’s fingers, and my chest filled with warmth because my brother had that.
He had a woman who brought him peace of mind and support at a time when others would’ve run for the hills, and it got me to thinking about Rosie because she was the same way.
I just hoped I wouldn’t do something stupid to push her away.
The O’Shea family was notorious for big clanging fuckups.
Back in the day, my dad had screwed up with my mam so many times that I was surprised she didn’t drag him through the divorce courts.
He was full of anger from his childhood, which he often took out on her, me, and Callum.
My older brother got the physical brunt of it, whereas Ma and I got the psychological shit.
I knew he was probably suffering from his own issues having grown up in a war zone, but his behavior was hard to forgive.
Callum’s fuckup almost destroyed his marriage, too.
He’d learned from an early age never to open up and never admit fault, or else Da would take a belt to him.
He grew up automatically keeping shit to himself and closing down on people until he met Maeve and had to learn to change his ways after he hurt her and almost ended up divorced for not being honest.
I never wanted to become a product of my environment, which was probably why I rebelled. If Da told me to go right, I’d go left.
My athair never wanted me to enlist. Dad had an irrational dislike of soldiers and the military, probably because of harrowing experiences back in Belfast, so of course, it was the first thing I did as soon as I was old enough.
He wanted me to run the bar with Callum and settle down with a nice Catholic girl and have babies, and I did the opposite.
Da loved me and I loved him, but he’d never been proud of me. Still, I wasn’t particularly proud of him either, so go figure.
I didn’t often think about my da; honestly, I tried not to, but there was something about the last few days that had brought him to the forefront of my mind.
Maybe it was because I knew Callum would have missed him desperately on his wedding day.
Or maybe it was because Maeve was pregnant.
Either way, I felt his ghost haunting me.
“I don’t understand how this could’ve happened,” Callum muttered.
“The age of this little girl doesn’t add up.
I’ve been thinking; I’m certain I was seeing Bethany around then.
” He glanced down at Maeve. “She never told me she’d had a kid or that I was a father when she came to the bar on New Year’s Eve.
If she did have my kid, wouldn’t she have said? ”
“Could the mother have been somebody else?” I asked.
“You know I only ever saw one girl at a time,” he retorted. “No overlaps, not ever. I may have hooked up with somebody at the end of whatever it was we had, but the dates would be off.”
“Let’s just get there and talk to the social worker,” Maeve suggested. “We can speculate all we want, but all it will do is drive us loo-lah. We need to do a paternity test and take it from there.”
Callum bent his head and kissed the side of Maeve’s hair. “You okay, wife?”
She rested her cheek on his shoulder. “I’m nervous, but I’m sure once we get there and find some answers, I’ll settle down.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” he murmured, his hand going to her belly. “I’m such a fuckup.”
Her fingers rested on top of his. “Now hush, Callum O’Shea. This happened way before we were first married, and you didn’t know anything about it. However, if that little girl is yours, there’s no question of what we’re going to do. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. His head lowered, and I heard him murmur, “Buaileann mo chroí duit, Mo ghrá.”
I couldn’t help smiling because our da used to say the very same thing to Ma. Roughly translated, my brother just told his wife in Irish that she was his love and his heart beat for her.
Couldn’t blame him.
Maeve was the best thing that had ever happened to his grumpy ass. The grace and understanding she’d shown him while dealing with this latest drama was all the confirmation I’d ever need that his wife was something special and he was a very lucky man.
I just hoped that one day I could get the same thing.
—————
The Health and Human Services office in Scottsbluff was a large, ugly, brown, one-story building just one street away from the North Platte River.
We pulled into the parking lot just after four and immediately made our way into the building.
After introducing ourselves at the reception desk, we were told to take a seat on some chairs that lined the opposite wall.
Maeve sat between me and my brother, cool, calm, and collected.
Callum was freaking the hell out. His eyes darted everywhere, his knee bounced, and he jumped at every noise.
“Calm down, husband,” Maeve told him quietly, placing her hand on his knee, which he was frantically bouncing up and down.
“I just need to see this little girl,” he replied quietly. “Surely I’d know if she were mine? I’d feel it, wouldn’t I?”
Maeve patted Callum’s leg. “Callum, you need to calm down. Let’s just wait and speak to the experts. We can do a paternity test and take it from there.”
I heard a door slam in the distance, and then the sound of heels tapping on the tiled floor became louder. Taking a breath to center myself, I looked up to see a woman walking toward us from a long corridor.
She came straight over and asked, “Callum O’Shea?”
My brother stood, pulling Maeve with him before extending his arm toward the social worker. “Good to meet you.”
I got to my feet and stood in line, waiting to introduce myself.
The woman took his fingers in hers. “Thanks for coming so quickly. I’m Tia Brown,” she announced. “I’ve been assigned Imogen’s case.”
“Imogen?” he asked, obviously in a total daze.
Maeve gave Cal a nudge, and he dropped his hand. “I’m Maeve O’Shea, Callum’s wife.” She took Tia’s fingers in hers and asked, “How’s the little girl—Imogen—doing?”
“She’s doing great. Imogen is in foster care with one of the nurses who treated her mother. The paramedics brought them in together, and we were called in from there.”
“What happened?” I asked, waiting for Maeve to drop the woman’s hand before I took it. “I’m Donovan O’Shea, Callum’s brother.”
“Tia,” she replied, shaking my hand, then her eyes lifted to mine, and she did a double-take. “Sorry... you are?”
“Cal’s brother,” I repeated. “You left a message on my phone, and I passed it on to him to call you.”
Her eyes darted between me and Callum, her expression turning to one of confusion. “Maybe we should go to my office, and I can explain more. It’s this way.”
She turned and walked back down the corridor, pausing briefly to wait for us to fall into step behind her.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, especially when I know how all this must have come as quite the shock. Unfortunately, time is of the essence. Imogen’s foster carer has a family emergency, and she has to go to Kansas to care for a relative who’s had a fall, so we’d like to get some answers and hopefully get Imogen settled before then, or else we’ll have to find more emergency foster care. ”
“How long have we got?” Maeve asked.
“Three days,” Tia answered.
“Wow,” Maeve murmured.
We approached a door where Tia typed in a code. It buzzed, and she pushed it open, ushering us through. “It’s the second door on the left. Go in and take a seat.”
We filed into a small office, containing a large desk, and settled into three chairs already placed opposite.
Tia followed us in, closing the door behind her, and made her way to her desk, where she perched her ass on the edge, picked up a file, and pulled out some papers. “Charlene Harmon,” she began.
We all looked at her blankly.
“That’s the name of Imogen’s mother,” she advised us gently. “Charlene died five days ago of a drug overdose.”
Maeve gasped and reached for Callum’s hand. “Oh my God. How awful,” she breathed.
“Yeah,” Tia agreed. “Charlene’s partner was at the scene and immediately taken into custody.
We don’t know on what charges, but I assume he supplied her.
The paramedics could see he was high, so they wouldn’t leave Imogen in the house with him.
Plus, the baby was obviously in distress, and they wanted her checked over. ”
The thought of the kid suffering in that way made something twist in my chest. Jesus, she could be my niece, and she’d already been through enough bullshit to last a lifetime.
Callum cursed at the same time as a soft sob escaped Maeve’s throat. Obviously, it was affecting them too.
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” Callum told her. “Why do you think I’m the father?”
Tia’s eyes shot to me and then back to Callum.
“Charlene’s boyfriend told the police that she got pregnant by the owner of the Lucky Shamrock bar when she passed through Wyoming on her way home from seeing family in Utah just over a year and a half ago.
He doesn’t know when exactly. Charlene never went into detail, but she was adamant.
” Again, her gaze veered to me, and she frowned thoughtfully.
A weird feeling hit my gut.
“I never had a one-night stand then,” Callum stated emphatically.