he’s ready to be done with this, to…I guess, join her again, if you know what I mean. I think he’s scared, too, at least a little.”
“So…do we tell him?” Holly asked.
Trevor and Emma looked at each other for a long moment, then clasped hands on top of the table. “We think he’s quite capable of being punitive and punishing to your relative. To Trudy’s great-grandson,” Trevor said. “Who knows what he’d do.”
“But we really don’t think it’s our place to make that decision for him. We think he should know.”
“And…if he decides to pull some legal maneuver, denying Thomas his rightful due, whatever that might be?”
Another glance between them, then, “Then I’ll make it right with my own slice of the pie. I haven’t touched my trust fund. My own personal thing, but other than provide for the security of any children Emma and I might have…I have no plans to use it to further my own goals. So…if Lionel doesn’t do right, I will.”
Sean and Holly looked a bit stunned at the announcement, and he couldn’t blame them. It hadn’t taken the four of them very long to track down Trudy’s heir. So this was all rather an emotional whirlwind, still. In fact, a Gallagher had adopted Trudy’s son. Tess and Frank Gallagher were aunt and uncle to Sean’s own grandmother. Neither were still alive, and neither was Trudy’s son, having died of a heart attack over a decade before. But he’d married and had a son himself. Thomas. Who’d grown up in Willow Creek but had gone back to Ireland, to work for the family over there, overseeing some of the farmlands. He was in his midthirties now, single, with no heirs of his own.
Sean had opted not to contact him until he’d spoken to Trevor and worked out exactly how things would proceed. He wasn’t going to drag Thomas halfway around the world until he had a better idea of what he’d be dragging him into. Trevor seconded that plan.
“I’ll be happy to meet with him myself, go with him to see Lionel, if that’s what he wants to do.”
“If Lionel will see him,” Emma put in.
“He’ll see him,” Trevor put in. He and his great-uncle had never had a smooth relationship, but he was at a point in his own life where he wasn’t so easily pushed around. “He doesn’t have to like it, and he might reject it, but if Thomas wants to meet him, we’ll make it happen.”
Sean put his hand out and Trevor took it, shook it, then nodded. “I’ll talk with Lionel. You talk with Thomas.”
“Ultimately, it will be up to him what he wants to do with all this,” Sean said. “He might reject the whole thing. I don’t know him, but the family here who does says he’s definitely his own man, with his own ideas about how things should be.”
Holly grinned. “Gee, I can’t imagine where he gets that from.”
Trevor laughed. “Yeah, well, he’s got it from the Haversham side, too, don’t be fooled.”
“Poor lad, then,” Sean said with a laugh. “And here I was, envying him a wee bit.”
“I wouldn’t be so fast with that. But this could definitely change his life.”
They finished their meeting, enjoyed coffee and a bit more chat, then Trevor and Emma finally said their goodbyes. “We’ll have to come back as customers,” Emma said. “It all smells delicious in here.”
Trevor nodded. “I’ll be in touch after talking with Lionel.”
After a few more pleasantries, the couple left and Sean pulled Holly next to his side. “So many changes. Quite the holiday season.”
“I wonder how Thomas will take the news,” Holly said.
Sean shrugged. “It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure.”
Holly leaned in to him. “What would you do with life-changing news like that?”
He turned and pulled her into his arms. “I’d grab it and make it my own.”
“You do that pretty well, come to think of it,” she said, giggling a little when he lifted her off her feet and planted one on her.
“There’s something else I hope I’ve done well,” he said. “Come here.” He took her hand and led her through the restaurant toward the kitchen.
“Sean, don’t you have like a million things to do? All this stuff with Thomas has taken so much time and I know tomorrow is Christmas Eve and you all have a full house, so—”
“So, none of that means anything right this very second. Come here.” He paused outside the doors to the kitchen. “I really wanted to