Page 94 of Heartbeat

She nodded. “In both of you. At last, I can say I know my people.”

“And I need to meet the Popes,” he said.

“How long are you going to be here?” she asked.

“I’m flying out in two days to hold a press conference regarding my resurrection. I have no plans to make your presence a part of my comments, but it’s possible they’ll snoop around and find out anyway.”

“I’m not going to start waving flags bragging about who I’m related to. But I’m so proud to be your daughter and not afraid of the connection, if that’s what you’re saying. If it’s okay with you, I’ll talk to Sean tonight and feel him out about a small family gathering at Shirley’s so you can meet some of the immediate family before you leave.”

“It’s very okay. Just let me know when and where,” Wolf said.

“Oh, I’ll pick you up and take you there. It’s up the mountain, and about every third mailbox has the name Pope on it.”

A short while later, Amalie was gone. The food was cleared from his suite, and he took the remaining champagne back to the fireside and had a long solitary talk with Shandy about what had occurred, then lifted a glass to her memory and to the child they had made.

“I swear on my life, I will make your parents pay for what they did and spend the rest of my life making it up to our girl.”

Amalie walked into her house clutching the photo of her parents and then set it on the mantel above her fireplace before getting out of her dress clothes and into her pj’s and fuzzy socks to call Sean. It was well after ten o’clock. She hated to call that late, but she’d promised and he would be expecting it, and she was right.

He answered on the first ring.

“Are you home?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was a wonderful evening. He wants to meet you and your family before he leaves.”

“We would love it, and Mom would revel in it. When is he leaving?”

“He’s here for a couple more days, and then duty calls, as he said.”

“I’ll run it by Mom, but I can tell you right now, she’ll say yes. He won’t be the only one checking out the in-law business. His money won’t impress her. It’ll be the man himself.”

“Let me know if she’s up to it. I can bring food, too, if it will help.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow with time and day,” Sean said.

“Thank you, Sean. I believe you two are going to like each other. I felt like I’d known him forever.”

“That’s the soul connection,” Sean said. “Like I felt the first time I saw you.”

“What do you mean?” Amalie asked.

“That first day I saw you, I thought I already knew you and that I’d been waiting for the sight of your face.”

The room was beginning to spin as the scene played out before her.

“In the trading post, right? Fouquet, the trapper I belonged to, had just hit me. He was always hitting me when he got drunk. I was bleeding, and you let out this roar, picked me up, and sat me on the counter beside a pile of furs and threw him out the door. You wouldn’t let him take me away, and so I stayed.”

Sean was in shock. He didn’t know what to say. What to think, but it was just like before, and he wondered if she even knew what she’d just said. And when she segued from that into the picture Wolf had given her, he knew it hadn’t sunk in.

“I can’t wait for you to see it. My mom and dad. They were so young. Younger than I am now! And so beautiful! Love makes everyone beautiful, and true love lasts forever, doesn’t it, Sean?”

“Yes, it does, baby. Yes, it does. Now that I know you are home, rest well. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

“Yes, Sean. I love you.”

His vision was blurring. “I love you, too,” he said, and disconnected. He needed to talk to Aunt Ella. If what he believed was happening here, then finding Meg wasn’t the end they’d all believed. It was just the beginning, and he and Amalie were the closure to their family’s tragic past.

Chapter 16

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