A Heart Revealed (62 page)

“Sean!”

He turned to see Charity’s silhouette in her open front door. The backlight of the parlor masked her face in shadows, but he could hear the alarm in her tone all the same. Wrestling on a coat, she shut the glass door behind her before skittering down the brick walkway, puffs of labored breathing drifting skyward with every step she took. She halted several houses away from where he stood, her chest pumping vigorously. He drew in a frigid breath, a headache now throbbing in his brain, and steeled himself for what he knew was about to come.

“What’s wrong with Emma?” she sputtered, her breathing as ragged as his nerves.

“She’s just tired.”

“No, ‘tired’ is several yawns over a cup of chamomile tea and ‘how was your day?’ Not bolting up the stairs with ‘good night, I’m going to bed.’” She squinted at her wristwatch in the dim light of the street lamp. “And at seven o’clock, no less.” Arms folded, she stared him down. “Don’t pull a lip-lock on me, Sean O’Connor, this is me you’re dealing with here.”

He huffed out a sigh that rolled into the cool night air with the same force that his sister was rolling over him, and he silently berated himself for not hightailing it the moment Emma had shut the door. “She’s just upset, okay? And that’s all I can say.” He turned to go.

A hand clamped on his arm with all the force of a six-inch steel band. “Oh no you don’t, you’re not going anywhere until you tell me why my best friend just vaulted up my staircase faster than Henry when I need help with the dishes.” She folded her arms, her tone suddenly softer. “Is it because this was your last day?”

He studied her with weary eyes, wondering if God would consider it a lie if he just said yes. After all, there
had
been a certain edginess, a malaise in Emma at his farewell party. Kneading the bridge of his nose, he wished he’d never promised his silence because when it came to the truth, Charity could sniff it out like a bloodhound, twitching until she was nose-to-nose.

Like now.

She tapped her foot on the leafy pavement. “Something’s up, Sean, I can feel it in my bones, and so help me I will badger you all the way home if you don’t spill it now.”

His frustration blasted out in a cloud of smoke. “I can’t tell you, Charity, I promised.”

“Oh, fiddle, that’s an easy fix. I’ll just ask the questions, and you give me that stone-faced look of yours that will tell me everything I need to know.”

“But that’s not right.”

“Sure it is,” she said, dismissing his concern with a wave of her hand. “I do it with Mitch all the time.” Head cocked, she chewed on her lip. “Okay, it’s something that happened at work, but it has to be personal because Emma’s steady as a rock in all business matters, right?”

He stared, trying not to blink.

“Okay, good, a personal situation at work that involves a person other than you.”

His jaw dropped. “I never said that.”

“Sure you did, when you did that pinching thing with your nose as a stall tactic.”

He crossed his arms to his chest, emotional battlement to ward off the enemy.

“Now . . . let’s see,” she said, finger to her chin. “Somebody upset Emma pretty badly, which means it has to be someone who doesn’t work at the store.”

“Why?” he asked in exasperation, his patience as thin as his energy.

Charity blinked. “Why? Because the woman who bolted up my steps was as pale as death,” she said, enunciating slowly as if explaining something to Henry. “Which means it has to be someone she feels threatened by, and that rules out everyone at Dennehy’s.”

His lips compressed.

She gave him a quick nod and started to pace, head down and arms folded. “Okay, so it has to be an outsider she’s afraid of and probably a man.” She halted midstride, eyes spanning wide. “Wait, it’s not that bum who beat her up, is it? You know, her neighbor’s boyfriend?”

Swallowing his discomfort, he gave her a blank stare, facial muscles relaxing.

She blew out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. For a second there, I was worried.”

“How the devil do you do that?” he said in a choke, lips parted in shock.

She tapped a finger to her head. “Stone face, remember?” Her mouth flattened. “It’s a gift—honed to perfection by Mitch Dennehy.”

“I gotta go—you’re starting to scare me.”

“Wait!” she latched onto his arm again, her manner sobering considerably. “You can’t leave—I need to know. Emma’s like a sister to me.”

“Then you ask her.”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? I could tell something was wrong the minute I heard her tell you goodbye, but she’s even more tight-lipped than you. Said she’s fine, but too tired to talk, then locks me out, just like Henry tried once.”

He sighed. “Then you’re just gonna have to catch her before she leaves for work in the morning, because I gave her my word.” He squeezed her shoulder, suddenly feeling sapped of all energy. “Just pray for her, okay?” he whispered. “Good night, sis.”

“No . . .” His sister’s hoarse whisper halted him dead in his tracks, ten feet away.

He turned.

She looked straight through him, her face cast in stone. “Please . . . tell me it’s not Rory.”

The shiver of her body was apparent, even from a distance. He could only stare, his own grief telling her what she didn’t want to hear. When she didn’t respond, he slowly walked to where she stood and tugged her into his embrace, forgetting his own fatigue to comfort his sister. “Just pray, Charity, okay, and I will too. I can’t say any more, so just see if she’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, nothing,” Charity said with a bite in her tone. “She will talk—
and pray
—with me tonight.”

He pulled back. “I thought you said she locked you out? Not literally, I guess, huh?”

She gave him a hug. “Yes, literally, as in an annoying click of a bolt. But this situation is far too serious and Emma is far too important to let a puny lock keep me out.” Her chin notched up. “Trust me, you don’t have a son like Henry without a spare key tucked away.”

For the first time all evening, Sean felt a smile pull at his lips. He tweaked her hair. “Tell me, sis, does Mitch have any idea just what he has in you, because you’re pretty special.”

A twinkle lit in her eye. “Thanks, Sean, and yes, I think the man has been educated thoroughly enough, at least for now.” Her smile softened. “Thanks for telling me about Emma.”

He grinned. “I didn’t.”

She patted his cheek. “That’s okay, honey, you keep thinking that. I’m married to you-know-who, remember? I know how important pride is to a man.” Turning to go, she suddenly spun around, eyes narrowed in warning. “But just for future reference? Don’t toy with me, Sean, just spit it right out next time—it will save both of us a lot of precious time. Now go home and get some sleep—you look whipped. And don’t worry—we’re not going to let her do this.”

He nodded, suddenly feeling much lighter at the thought of this woman joining forces with him against Rory Malloy. “Thanks, Charity. You’re a good friend to Emma.”

Her lips quirked. “You may be the only one with that opinion tonight, but such is love.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said with a cuff of his neck. “But she’s worth it.

“That she is,” Charity whispered and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Sean.”

She spun to go and he caught her hand. “Charity, wait.”

With a half turn, she peered up, eyes in a squint. “Yes?”

He stared at the sister who had captured the attention of men all of her life, and felt the muscles thicken in his throat. “Too beautiful for her own good,” he’d once heard Mitch say, and for the first time Sean realized just how true those words had been for this sister, whose natural beauty had wrought so much pain in her life. Unbidden, moisture stung at the memory of a golden-haired, little girl, whose silent pleas screamed from blue eyes swimming with tears over Uncle Paul’s shoulder. Sean’s eyelids weighted closed while a thousand knife points stabbed in his gut. A six-year-old innocent carried upstairs “to be punished” for crimes she’d never committed. Crimes that belonged to her uncle . . . Sean winced as pain slashed within.
And the brother who didn’t stop him . . .

“Sean? Are you okay?” Charity lifted on tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek. “Because Emma is going to be fine—I won’t let anything happen to her, I promise.”

No, you wouldn’t—unlike me . . .

“Sean?”

She waggled the hand still clutched to her own, and he opened his eyes, sorrow a poor salve for the wounds in his soul. “Charity,” he whispered, his voice no more than a rasp, “forgive me, please . . .”

A smile bloomed on her beautiful face. “For what? Loving my best friend, because that’s—”

“No—” He stilled her words with a gentle squeeze of her hand. “For not . . . ,” his voice cracked as his words cleaved to his tongue, “saving you from Uncle Paul.”

She blinked several times while his statement billowed away into the frigid night air, and then its impact struck, prompting a harsh shift of her throat and a swift swell of tears. “You were only a boy,” she whispered, her voice as hoarse as his. “How could you know?”

“I . . . sensed something, Charity, something not right, and yet I did nothing.”

“You were
nine
, Sean,” she emphasized, cupping his face with her palm. “Too young and noble to think such things could happen. You were the big brother I looked up to, the good boy I admired.” Her lips crooked into a wry smile. “Unlike Faith who was the good girl that got on my nerves.”

“But I should have done something, anything, followed my instincts . . .”

She cocked her head, blue eyes wide with surprise. “But you did, don’t you remember?” Another sheen of tears invaded her eyes. “You offered to go in my place, to be punished instead of me, but Uncle Paul refused.” She clasped his arms, her words clogging his throat with painful emotion. “You were always doing that, Sean—for all us—protecting us, taking up for us, binding our wounds whenever one of us got hurt. Don’t you remember?”

He shook his head, his guilt obliterating all rational view.

“Well, you did,” she said with a quick pat of his cheek. “The consummate big brother, always bleeding for the wounded.” The smile faded on her face as sorrow welled in her eyes. “Which is why you’re so good for Emma. If ever a wounded soul walked the earth, it’s Emma Malloy, and she needs you, Sean—both of us—now, more than ever.”

“I know,” he said quietly, the gloom of Emma’s situation shrouding his soul. A nerve pulsed in his jaw while his fingers twitched for revenge. “I’d give anything to rid the world of vermin like Uncle Paul and Rory Malloy.”

Drawing in a deep breath, she huffed it out again, clouds of vapor as thin and elusive as his quest for justice. “We both know that’s not going to happen. But . . . we can rid ourselves of the pain of their memory, and it was Emma Malloy herself and Mitch, surprisingly enough, who taught me how.”

He looked up, his liberty glimmering in the love he saw in her eyes.

“I’ve already forgiven you long ago, Sean, along with Father and Faith, although none of you bore any responsibility for what happened to me. Ironically, it was the pain of Uncle Paul’s actions that taught me the most important lesson I have ever learned.” Her lip quivered before she hiked her chin in that beautiful obstinance he’d come to know and love. The barest of smiles flickered at the edges of her mouth, reminding him so much of Emma. “And that, my dear brother, is that forgiveness is really just another word for freedom.”

“No one escapes being hurt in this life, Sean, because unfortunately, we live in a fallen world. But please believe me when I say . . . there’s a great gift in pain.”

He blinked, Emma’s words haunting his memory.

“So let it all go, Sean, all the bitterness for Rory and Uncle Paul and yes,” she said with a slight curve of a smile, “even Herman Finkel. Do it—for me, for Emma, and especially for yourself.” She gave him a playful tap on the cheek. “Because we love you, you big lug, you know that?”

He swallowed hard, thinking of Emma once again. “I know,” he whispered.

Latching onto his arm, she prodded him around, bullying him like she did with Henry. “Now, shoo—go home and get some rest because I can’t handle this woman alone, and I need you in top form. She’ll talk to me tonight or else, trust me. I’m as diabolical as Henry when it comes to getting my way.”

He sucked in a crisp, clean draw of air, welcoming the energy it infused into his body before releasing it again in a purge of spirit that was long overdue. “I know,” he said with a tug of his sister’s hair. With a slant of a smile over his shoulder, he ambled away with a heart much lighter knowing Charity was involved. “Thanks, sis, for everything.” His smile broke into a grin. “And all I can say is . . . God help Emma Malloy.”

———

“That’s the plan,” Charity called, hand to her mouth. She watched and waited until her brother rounded the corner despite the fact that she was chilled to the bone. Turning, she finally headed for home, shoulders slumped and heart heavy at the cost love had extracted from her brother. He was such a good man . . . and Emma was such a good woman . . . and they loved each other. Couldn’t God see that? She sighed. In the past, this would have been one of those times when she would have railed at the heavens, shaking her fist in the air at his obvious disregard for two people who loved him.