A Hamilton Family Christmas - Donna Kauffman Page 0,78

the hell else would they have done?”

She put her hand over his arm. “They found a home for him. I’m pretty sure that home was with your family.”

Sean felt himself sway slightly. “They what?”

“I talked to the priest and showed him the diary, and I spoke to the mother superior. They weren’t personally there at the time, of course, but they’ve both been there since shortly afterward.”

“I can’t believe they’d have told you anything.”

“I just let them read the diary and I knew, from the looks they shared, that they knew…something. I asked them in more detail about the adoption policies back then, just in general you know, and all they would tell me is that the way things were back then, they just tried to find a loving home, where and when they could. And…I don’t know how I pieced it together, but I thought about your grandmother being the one to bring the baby to them, and how huge your family is, and so I just supposed, out loud, that it could be someone like the Gallaghers and their faces gave it away.

“I reminded them that there were no Havershams left, and that only Lionel and his great-nephew were left on the Hamilton side…and that if one of the Gallaghers was an actual blood relation, didn’t they deserve to know?”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing. That was all…but Sean, wasn’t that enough? One of your relatives is Trudy Hamilton’s son!”

Sean leaned his weight back against his desk, sending a pile of paper cascading but ignoring the mess it made. “I guess it’s possible, but…which one? I mean, my dad was the last of thirteen kids. My grandmother was almost as old when she had him as your mom was when she had you. And though my dad only had me, the rest of his brothers and sisters…” He waved an absent hand to the restaurant beyond the door to his office. “Well, you know how that went.”

“Don’t you think it’s important to find out?”

“Why, because they might have claim to Hamilton’s money? I don’t know that anyone in my family would risk the damage such news could do just for the sake of a possible inheritance.”

“What damage could it do?”

“Think about it…you said yourself that it was Trudy’s money that helped bail out Hamilton Industries. If she had an heir that predated, or possibly precluded Lionel…I’m just saying, having all that come out, I don’t know what good it would do.”

“If it was you? I mean, if you weren’t a Gallagher by blood…wouldn’t you want to know your history?”

“Anyone in Willow Creek with the name Gallagher is family. Born into it, married into it, even divorced from it in some cases. Once a Gallagher, always a Gallagher. Nothing would change that. Putting this out there would only lead to possible divisiveness within the family. Why do that?”

“I’d want to know,” Holly said quietly. “It wouldn’t change how I felt about my parents; they raised me—they loved me. But I’d want to know.” She handed him the book. “This really belongs to you. One of you, anyway.”

And, with that, she turned and walked out the door. He thought about calling her back, but the entire exchange had caught him so off guard, he simply sat there, book clutched in his hands, wondering what in the hell had just happened. And what he was supposed to do about it.

13

So much for clarity. All her little jaunt that day had done was roil up even more confusing emotions. She shouldn’t have just shoved the book in his hand and bolted, but she’d panicked a little. It wasn’t that she truly cared what Sean decided to do with the diary, but their entire exchange, his talking about his family with such pride and fierce loyalty, had only served to make her feel that much more an oddball in contrast. Her life was so vastly different from his. Had she really thought she’d so seamlessly fit in? Yes, it was easy when she was with Sean, but that was only so many hours of each day. What about all the rest of them?

The bells on the shop door jingled out front, making her heart lurch. She wasn’t ready to see him again, talk to him again, but it wasn’t Sean. It was one of the appraisers. Mrs. Gillespie was really on the ball with this thing. Holly greeted him and was soon swallowed back up in the ongoing, and for the first time, blessed distraction