Super-mom Tallie
O'Shea took on eight adopted children and built a legacy of compassionate
justice with her policeman husband. When he is
gunned down, she doesn't think it's an accident. Then a former lover shows up
and the lies from her past start unraveling. As dangers explode around her, can
Tallie set things right before everything she loves is destroyed?
EXCERPT: Challenging the
Legacy
The pressure of Pierce's fingers
on hers surprised Tallie. She knew speculation about the two of them had been
raging through town since Pierce showed up the night Halo exploded. Fitting, it
seemed, since his arrival and the news he was Marly's biological father had
rocked the foundation of her world.
Events continued to unfold at a
rapid pace, including the whirlwind courtship and marriage of her oldest son,
Collin, and local café owner, Beth Boulanger. Tallie already loved Beth like a
daughter, though she had questioned Collin about the haste of their wedding.
However, Beth glowed with
innocent love as she walked down the aisle toward Collin. And Tallie had never
seen her oldest son as happy as when he took Beth's hand and tucked it under
his arm, then turned to face his brother, Patrick, who was performing the
ceremony.
"Dearly beloved..."
What a difference the packed
church was to the intimate setting when Tallie had married Bernie. Just the
minister, his wife, and Bernie's uncle, along with Collin and Patrick, who were
still wary little boys not believing they might actually have a loving home of
their own.
Collin
is so handsome. Just like Bernie was.
Tallie dabbed at her tears with a
tissue. Bernie had worn a navy blue suit and starched white shirt. Tallie wore
the new dress he insisted on buying for her and carried a bouquet of
flowers--real ones--from the florist fifty miles away. The two boys were
self-consciously silent in their borrowed suits and slicked-down hair.
"This will be a real marriage." Bernie
had told her when he proposed a union so the boys would have both an adoptive
father and mother. "You decide when you're ready to be physically
intimate. But I'll always be faithful to you."
Tallie touched the wedding ring
still circling the third finger of her left hand. A ring that had belonged to
Bernie's grandmother.
When they married, Bernie spoke
his vows clearly and looked directly at her. In all their years of marriage,
Tallie knew without a doubt Bernie had indeed been true to her. He never gave
her reason to think anything else.
You
would be so proud of your children, Bernie.
As she dabbed at her tears again,
Pierce took Tallie's hand and smiled at her. What would her life have been if
she had married Pierce? She would have missed out on all her children, as well
as the courage that came with being part of Bernie's legacy. She might have
become as bitter as Portia Stratford.
She had loved Pierce with a deep
physical passion--in a different way than she loved Bernie. She and Bernie were
partners, with a love that grew from shared respect and purpose. No matter the
past and whatever the future might hold, Tallie was grateful she had her
marriage with Bernie and the blessings of all her children.
Only time would tell if her
relationship with Pierce would become more than being parents to Marly. Today,
Tallie simply cherished this beautiful time of her oldest son marrying the
woman he now gazed at with total devotion and love.
