“Three months,” said Seamus.
Three months! “And you didn’t think to tell me?” I barked.
“We didn’t know how you’d take it,” Chelsea said softly.
I grimaced, leaning back against the wall. I’d just proven they’d made the right decision. “You didn’t think I’d be happy for you?”
To my surprise, my voice was choked.
“No, Dad,” Seamus said, his eyes on mine. “I never thought that. But we just thought it might be hard, too.”
Was I so fucking predictable?
“Jamie,” Chelsea said, “when Seamus proposed, I cried. And not happy tears. At least, not at first. All I could think about was Mom.” Chelsea’s mom had passed only a couple of years ago. They’d been close.
I blinked away the wetness in my eyes, trying to swallow down the prickly throat. Then I looked at both of them in turn. “Thank you for your concern. And you’re right; it’s hard being reminded of… mortality. But I could never be anything but happy for you two. You found each other at the perfect time.”
I kept thinking, when saying goodbye to Sarah, that I wished we’d found each other earlier. When I’d have been a better man for her. Less jaded.
On the other side of fifty.
“Separately, you’re good people,” I said, still looking between them both, “but together, you’re whole. If that makes sense. So yeah, I’m delighted for you two.”
“It makes sense, Jamie,” Chelsea said, her eyes watering. She leaned into Seamus, grasping his hand. “It’s exactly how I feel.”
I cleared my throat. “Good. Okay. I’m happy, so you can wear the damn ring. And Seamus, you’re going to have to come back to Quince Valley. Sarah’s leaving.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Dad,” Seamus said, an eyebrow up. “For as long as I can remember, you’ve always hated it when people changed plans on you. You never did it to anyone else. But suddenly you told me to retract my presentation so you could bring Sarah,andyou told me not to tell her you’d asked me to? And don’t even get me started on how you convinced the committee to let her talk on the topic she wanted, even when they called it ‘unconventional.’”
Seamus was my committee deputy—I’d forgotten that meant he got all the same emails I did.
“They were being stodgy bastards.”
“I’ve never seen you tell off a whole committee on behalf of an employee.”
“Then we saw your keynote online,” Chelsea said. Her eyes looked almost heart shaped as she said it. Then she brightened. “Hang on, I wrote it down.”
Chelsea pulled out her phone, swiping and tapping until she found it.
“Never regret the mistakes you make. Consider them a change in plans.”
She looked pointedly at me.
“Use them. To walk forward into the promising future where, maybe, you can make all new mistakes and laugh about them with the best people at your side. People who make you realize you were always meant to find them.”
I’d framed it like I was talking about hiring. Personnel. Business. But everything about Sarah had shone right through.
“I told the whole fucking conference I love her,” I said.
Seamus grinned. “I mean, I think only the people who know the two of you would get it. But Dad, it’s great. Really great.”
“She’s too young for me,” I managed to croak. “Too perfect.”
Seamus, suddenly wiser than his old man, looked me in the eye when he said, “What does she want that you can’t give her?”