“I guess I should see her first, then we can talk about the recent donation.”
Camille nodded. “She’s expecting you.”
Presley was standing by the window of her room when he found her, a wheelchair close in case she needed to sit. She was smiling at whatever she saw outside, her blonde hair freshly washed and braided, though she was still incredibly pale. Seamus purposely shuffled his feet and she turned to face him, her expression reminding him so much of Penny’s it made his heart hurt.
“It’s good to see you, Presley.”
“I was wondering when you would show up.” She grinned and held up her hands to show off her hospital gown, batting her lashes. “I’m back and dressed in the latest fashion. Not quite strong enough to go for a walk yet, but I am ten pounds lighter. Being crazy is the best diet I’ve ever been on. Maybe I should write a book. I’d be rich.”
He laughed softly and stepped inside. “I’d read it.”
“Sweet Seamus. What have you been up to while I slept my fat away?”
He shrugged. “Not much. I’m still making changes at the bar and that’s going well. Brady is engaged to his boyfriend—”
“Didn’t Owen just get married?”
“That was back in December, yeah. But they’re still honeymooning like it just happened.”
Presley’s laugh was bright and genuine. “I feel so bad for the women in town. All the good Finns are either taken or gay.”
You have no idea, Pres.
“I’ll tell Mom you said that. She said something similar at the twins’ birthday last weekend.”
Presley wrapped her arms over her stomach protectively. “Birthdays are nice. I think I slept through mine. Was there cake?”
Seamus rubbed the back of his neck. “Two cakes. They each got a mountain of presents, then rode ponies and talked me into getting them a dog.” He frowned when he saw her shoulders slump. She still didn’t want to hear about the kids. He should know better by now. Why was he always pushing? “Do you want me to take you outside?”
Her body language changed in an instant and she lowered herself to her wheelchair expectantly. “It looks like a beautiful day.”
“It is.”
Seamus pushed Presley to the small enclosed yard of the secured wing. It was full of blooming flowers and she sighed happily at the sight. “It’s so pretty here in summertime, Seamus. My secret garden. My mother planted all these flowers for me because she knows how much I love them. She spoils me. She knows you spoil me too. Did you see her when you came in?”
Her mother had been dead for eleven years and Seamus had never met her, but he didn’t say that.
“Do you want to see something beautiful?” He pulled out his cell phone and skimmed through his pictures until he came upon a few she’d like. “This is Ireland. Galway.”
She didn’t reach for it, but she was looking, so he held it up and slowly moved through each shot. The rocky shoreline. The green slopes that had taken his breath away and the colorful flowers scattered throughout that he’d taken because Penny loved flowers as much as Presley did.
“Why do you have pictures of Ireland?”
“I went there on business a few months ago.”
Presley looked up at him with suspicion. “You’re a handyman, Seamus.”
“I’m a bartender now.” He chuckled. “And there are a lot of pubs in Ireland. I learned all about making beer.”
She suddenly reached for his hand. “You should take me there,” she whispered. “For our honeymoon. I’d love to see Ireland with you.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed, trying to pull his phone away. “No, Seamus. Show me more.”
He was so thrown he didn’t realize that the next picture he had was Penny, Wes and Little Sean playing by the lake at Owen and Jeremy’s. Seamus watched as Presley recoiled from the image of her children as if they were rats. “That’s enough.”
He knelt beside her wheelchair and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Presley.” And he was. Sorry he had mistaken her earlier symptoms for an active imagination and a sensitive nature. That he didn’t realize she was building a scenario for their future after a few short weeks that he didn’t share, hallucinating things that had never happened.
He hadn’t realized she was jealous of his relationship with Jake, or that she’d believed tricking him into getting her pregnant would solve everything and make him love her the way she needed him to.
Instead it had sent her irretrievably over the edge. The further along she’d gotten in her pregnancy, the more unstable she’d become—a horrible mixture of hormones and her already manifesting illness. He’d managed to keep it, and her, from everyone. He still had no idea how. He’d told them she was working on herself. That she wasn’t ready for a family. That she didn’t love him. That she’d left the state and started a new life.