“Right. Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked…” She swallowed down her nerves. “It’s just that…”
“Hey, it’s okay. You are not stealing me away from my wife or girlfriend or significant other of any kind. I’m all yours.” There was that look again. She was missing something, but she had no clue what it was. “Why don’t you just start from the beginning and tell me why you are here?”
“Okay.” She inhaled deeply and tried to gather her thoughts and put them into some coherent order. However, as she went over what had happened, all she could hear in her head was her father telling her she was overreacting, and Karl could take care of himself.
“Hannah.” O’Malley reached out and covered her hand with his warm, strong, capable hand. She exhaled and her eyes locked on his. “It’s okay. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. But please, remember to breathe.” A small smile quirked the corner of his mouth and she chuckled. An unusual reaction but he set her at ease.
“I can see why my brother liked you so much,” Hannah said.
O’Malley’s expression grew troubled. “See, that’s the thing…” He looked away before he placed both of his hands over hers as if he was hoping she wouldn’t get up and run away.
Which she wouldn’t, no matter what he said, since he was her last, best hope of finding her brother.
“You weren’t friends.” She reeled back. It was obvious now. He’d looked so surprised when she said who she was. Hannah slid her hands out from under his. Well, half slid, since she didn’t want to break the contact with him. She liked the feel of his skin touching hers.
O’Malley moved his head a little to the side. “No, we were not friends. We were opposites. If I’m honest, and I always want to be honest with you.”
She inhaled again, focusing on her breath as familiar panic built inside of her. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
His hands tightened around hers. “Wait, I am not saying I won’t help you. I’m simply stating a fact that Norton…” He paused and his face screwed up a little before he let out a pent-up breath. “I’m sorry, I cannot remember his first name.”
“Karl. Karl Norton.” The man who had told countless stories about his friend O’Malley. If that was a lie, what else had he lied about?
“Karl. Of course.” O’Malley smiled apologetically.
“He liked you.” She tilted her head to one side and studied O’Malley.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he answered.
“I do.” She narrowed her eyes. “And I think I know why.”
“You do.” He looked puzzled. “Even though I don’t think he did.”
“He wanted to be like you.”
“Oh.” O’Malley leaned back in his chair and laughed. “No, I don’t think that was the case at all.”
“You’re friendly, easygoing and I expect you were popular with the other members of your team.”
O’Malley’s expression grew serious. “You might be right.”
“Everything Karl is not.”
“Wow.” O’Malley’s forehead creased and he drew one hand back across the table, picked up his coffee cup and took a long drink before he reached for a cookie and ate one.
“He was jealous of you. He wanted to be you.” A surge of sadness swept over Hannah and she wiped a tear from her cheek before she too sipped her coffee.
They sat in silence for a moment. Two people trying to reconcile this revelation with the image of the man they both knew.
“I always thought he disliked me.” O’Malley sighed. “I guess you never really know what is going on in someone else’s head.” He tapped the side of his head.
“No, we don’t,” she agreed. “And I’d be eternally grateful if we kept this insight into my brother between us.”
“My lips are sealed.” Her eyes were drawn to those sealed lips and she had the incredible desire to stand up, lean forward across the table, and place her lips on his. Purely to test if they were, indeed, sealed. Not because she found the man in front of her incredibly attractive.
“So, Karl has been away a lot since he left the Army. He’s never settled into a normal home life, although that might have something to do with my dad. They don’t seem capable of spending more than an hour in each other’s company before someone says something the other takes offense to.” She rolled her eyes. “I do not know what is wrong with them.”
“And Karl decided he wanted a quieter life.” O’Malley nodded in understanding.
“Yes, although he never settled down anywhere. He’s had a wanderlust since we were in high school.” She looked down at her hand still covered by his. “Since our mom died.”
O’Malley raised his chin and looked at her levelly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.” Hannah placed her hand over her heart. “She had a heart condition.”
“That must have been tough.” He was still looking at her as if he could see right into her soul but she couldn’t meet his eyes, it was too…intimate.
“We managed.” She nodded absently.
“I meant tough on you. Stuck between two men who didn’t always get along.” His hand tightened over hers as if trying to comfort her. He succeeded. At the same time, he seemed to tear down the barriers that she’d put up to stem the tide of emotions that would consume her if she let them. Emotions her father told her were a weakness.
She pulled her hand from his and balled them into fists as she tried to stop her tears. O’Malley was out of his seat and by her side in an instant. He wrapped his strong arms around her shoulders and cradled her against his chest. For a long moment, she went rigid.
This was the first time she’d been held, truly held, for as long as she could remember. No, that wasn’t true. She could remember. The last time she’d been held like this was when her mom was in the hospital. It was close to the end when Hannah had visited alone and instead of talking, her mom had patted the bed beside her.
Hannah had slipped onto the bed and lain down next to her mom, who wrapped her arms around her daughter and held her close. Maybe her mom had tried to imbue her with the strength Hannah would need in the coming months and years when it became her duty to hold the family together, to quell the arguments, and make everyone get along.
Maybe her mom knew that Hannah would fail miserably, no matter how strong she was, no matter how many times she tried to get the men in her family to work things out.
As O’Malley held her safe in his arms, she cried. Cried for all the lost years where she put other people first. Cried over her dreams that had slipped away from her as she struggled through the last year of college, distraught at the loss of her beloved mom. Cried because sometimes, no matter how many times she told herself she’d made the best of things and that her mom would be proud of the way she picked herself up and made a life and a successful business for herself, she’d failed at the one thing she craved.
A loving husband and children of her own. Small, huggable children, not the grown men-children who were her father and brother.