Driftwood Cottage (4 page)

If she’d been keeping a ledger, the list of positives in their relationship would have covered pages, but even at that it couldn’t make up for the one huge negative—his refusal to consider marriage.

Water under the bridge, she told herself, following him to the car.

“What did you do last night?” she asked as they headed toward his house. “Did you spend time with your mother and father?”

He shook his head. “Jess and I went to Brady’s for dinner. It was jammed, so we wound up sitting in the bar.”

“Looking for singles?” she asked, knowing that the bar was often packed with the town’s available men and women on a weekend night.

Connor shot a hard look in her direction. “Would you care if we were?”

She thought about it. Truthfully, she absolutely hated the idea of Connor being with another woman or even looking at one, but how could she tell him that? She was the one who’d dumped him.

“Hey, you and Jess are young, attractive professionals. You’d both be great catches.”

“Do I detect a hint of reservation in there?” he pressed.

She forced herself to meet his gaze. “I don’t have a right to criticize anything you choose to do, Connor. We’re not together anymore.”

“But would it bother you if I started dating someone else right here in Chesapeake Shores?” he persisted.

She frowned at him. “Why are you pushing this? Does your ego need me to admit I’d hate it? Okay, I’d hate it, but we’re both going to move on eventually. That’s just the way it is.”

Now it was his turn to frown. “Are you seeing someone else?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said impatiently. “It’s not some sort of contest to see which of us will start dating first, Connor. I’ve barely had time to take a deep breath, much less think about meeting men. Do you have any idea how much work is involved in starting a business and keeping up with a one-year-old?”

He looked relieved by her response, but his tone was apologetic. “I guess it would be none of my business if you were dating,” he conceded, then regarded her miserably. “How did we get here, Heather? From the day we met, I never looked at another woman. You never looked at another man. Those feelings haven’t changed, and yet
here we are, making small talk and asking about each other’s social life as if we’re barely casual acquaintances. We’re trying to act as if the answers don’t matter, when we both know they do.”

She heard the sorrow in his voice and found herself reaching over to touch his hand on the steering wheel. “We’ll always be more than casual acquaintances, Connor. We share a son, for one thing. But it’s going to take time to find our way with this new relationship. Sometimes it’s going to be awkward and messy and frustrating, but we have to find a way to make it work. I don’t want either of us to end up bitter and unable to be in the same room together.”

He sighed. “I don’t want that, either.”

She forced a smile. “You do know that the two of us turning up together today is going to set tongues wagging with your family, don’t you? Are you ready for that?”

“Hey, you’re the one living here now. You’ll have to deal with the nonstop pressure and meddling more than I will. Are you up to it?”

“I guess I’ll have to be.” Sobering, she met his gaze. “We made the right decision, Connor.”

“You’re the one who made the decision,” he corrected, his tone suddenly edged with annoyance. “Don’t lay this on me. I was happy with the way things were.”

“Sure, hiding me and your son from your family was working just fine for you,” she retorted sarcastically. “It meant no one except me could tell you what you were doing was wrong. And of course I couldn’t say a thing, either, because essentially I made a pact to play by your rules the day I agreed to move in with you.”

He frowned at the accusation. “Did I force you to move in?”

“Of course not. You just counted on me loving you so much, I wouldn’t be able to turn you down.”

“You never once said a word about being unhappy with our situation,” he complained. “Not even once.”

“And that’s all on me,” she agreed. “I weighed the options of living with you on your terms or without you, and I chose you. I don’t regret that, Connor. I really don’t. The years we spent together were amazing.”

“What changed?” he asked.

“When little Mick came along, I began to see things differently,” she conceded. “I wanted more for all of us.”

“You should have told me that,” he said.

“Oh, please. Every single time I tried to tell you what I was feeling, you’d get this look on your face as if I were betraying your trust, so I shut up,” she said. “And when I saw your attitude toward marriage getting darker and darker every day with every divorce case you handled, I had to accept that you were never going to change. That meant it was up to me to make a choice, and the only one that made sense for me was to move out and move on.”

She regarded him with real sorrow. “And just so you know, it wasn’t easy, and there are times when I regret it, but I still know in my heart it was the right thing to do.”

“Maybe for you,” he said grudgingly. “But what about our son? Was it best for him?”

“In the long run, it will be,” she insisted. “If you and I cooperate, he’ll grow up knowing we both love him.”

“The way all of us wound up knowing how Mom felt
about us?” he scoffed. “We grew up thinking she’d abandoned us. Neither she nor Dad tried all that hard to show us otherwise.”

“Which is exactly why you and I will do everything we possibly can to make sure little Mick doesn’t feel abandoned by anyone,” Heather countered. “We have to try, Connor. We’re the grown-ups, and we can do this, because we both understand how important it is, right?”

He glanced over at her, then sighed. “Right,” he said with obvious reluctance.

He pulled up in front of the house. “I’ll let you out here with the baby, then park.”

Trying to inject a hint of humor into the suddenly somber mood, she teased, “You just don’t want to get caught walking in the door with us. You know I’m right about the hornet’s nest that will stir up.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Again, she placed her hand over his. “We’re going to make this work,” she reassured him. “I don’t know how, but we will, because we have to.”

“Sure,” he said, though he sounded doubtful.

Heather hesitated, thinking she should say something more, something to put a real smile back on his face, but nothing came to mind. Because the one thing he wanted, for her to cave in and move back to Baltimore on his terms, was the one thing she could never agree to do. At least, not if she were to live with her conscience.

T
homas O’Brien wasn’t sure what had drawn him home to Chesapeake Shores, especially on such a dreary Sunday morning. Usually he confined his trips to the holidays and the occasional visit to his mother. Now that Nell was in her eighties, he tried to make those visits more frequently, but usually at a time when he wouldn’t have to deal with his brother Mick and the rest of the family. He and Mick could pick a fight in ten seconds flat on their best days. On their worst, they barely managed to exchange a civil word. Lately things were better, but he didn’t like pressing his luck.

Despite that concern, when he’d awakened this morning in his cramped apartment in Annapolis, Thomas had wanted to go home. Lately, he’d been feeling especially restless. His work with the foundation that studied the bay’s environment was frustrating and time-consuming, but his passion for it hadn’t waned. Most of the time, it was rewarding enough to keep him going through any rough patches. Usually it even filled the tremendous gaps in his social life since his last divorce.

Recently, though, he couldn’t help recognizing that
something was missing from his life. In fact, every time he spent a few hours around Mick, now that Mick and Megan were back together, he could easily pin a label on it. He wanted a family of his own. Hanging around his older brothers—Mick and even Jeff and his family—reminded him of all that he’d missed out on while focusing on work. Both of his marriages had been so brief that he’d never considered children, and he was feeling that lack now more than ever before.

In truth, though he was only in his early fifties, he’d blown both marriages due to his obsession with environmental issues and protecting the bay that he loved. Lately, other than having an occasional drink with a coworker or one of the volunteers working on the foundation’s fund-raising efforts, his personal life was deader than the bay’s waters had been a few years back. Now the ecosystem was slowly coming back into balance, but his life wasn’t.

When he knocked on Mick’s door, it was Megan who answered. She beamed at him and immediately dragged him inside.

“Get in here out of that nasty weather,” she said at once, her expression welcoming.

“You have room for one more at the table today?” he asked, lifting his sister-in-law off the floor in a bear hug.

“We always have room for you,” she assured him. “Why didn’t you call and let us know you were coming?” She grinned. “Or do I need to ask? Were you afraid Mick would tell you to stay away?”

Thomas laughed. “He can’t scare me away anymore. With our mother and you around, and Kevin working for me, I have allies here.”

“You certainly do,” Megan said. “Now come in. We’re just about to sit down, so your timing’s perfect.”

“Maybe I’d better find Mick first, so he doesn’t keel over in Ma’s pot roast at the sight of me.” He regarded her hopefully. “That is what we’re having, right? I thought I sniffed it in the air when you opened the door.”

“It is, indeed. Mick’s in the den. Go on in, while I start rounding up everyone else. That can take awhile when the kids are absorbed in one of those video games they seem to love.”

Thomas wandered down the hall to his brother’s den. He found Mick behind a closed door, puffing on a pipe.

“If Ma catches you in here with that thing, she’ll have a fit,” he taunted as he walked in. “She only put up with Pop smoking a pipe because she never could deny him anything. He always claimed it reminded him of being back in Ireland.”

“It does the same for me. It reminds me of the trips they took us on,” Mick said, while regarding him with surprise. “What brings you down here? You usually don’t show your face except on holidays.”

“Only time I know for a fact I’m welcome,” Thomas admitted. “Is it okay? Do you think you and I can be civil today?”

Mick shrugged. “That’s always an iffy proposition, but I think we’ve done a pretty good job of mending fences recently. You were there when I needed you when I was trying to get Megan to marry me again. I won’t forget that.”

“Of course you haven’t forgotten all of my sins from the past, either, have you?” Thomas said, referring to the fact that he’d taken the drastic step of turning Mick in
to the authorities when he’d wanted to take some shortcuts in protecting the environment back when all three of them—he, Mick and Jeff—had been developing Chesapeake Shores.

“You’re right. I’m not likely to forget that,” Mick said. “But the truth is, now that I’ve had time to think things through, I admire the way you stood up for what you believed in, even if it was a darned nuisance at the time.”

Thomas stared at him incredulously. “You mean that?”

“I do, but I’ll call you a liar if you repeat it. The family enjoys thinking we’re at odds.”

“O’Briens do seem to enjoy their little feuds, don’t they?” Thomas agreed. “Have you seen Jeff lately?”

“Here and there around town. We’re not sitting around sipping coffee at Sally’s, if that’s what you’re asking. And he does manage our properties in the business district, though most of the time when I have questions about that, I ask his daughter. Susie’s a smart girl.”

“She is, indeed,” Thomas concurred. “Think she’ll ever marry that young man who claims he’s not dating her?”

“That’s a puzzler,” Mick said. “I’d have had them in church by now, but Jeff seems to be oblivious to the situation.” He gave Thomas a quizzical look. “So, why are you here? You didn’t come for a sparring match with me, did you? Was Ma’s pot roast the lure?”

“Truth be told, I was lonely,” Thomas admitted. “But if you tell anyone
that,
I’ll call you the liar.”

Mick’s expression registered surprise. “I’ve never heard you say such a thing before. What’s going on?”

“I woke up this morning and realized there wasn’t
a single person in my life who cared what I was up to today,” he admitted with rare candor. “I hope you know how lucky you are.”

“Believe me, I know I’m blessed,” Mick said, eyeing him worriedly. “What you need is a woman in your life, maybe even kids. You’re not too old to have it all, if that’s what you want. I thought you were happily married to your work. Your wives certainly thought that, too.”

“It’s true. There’s no question that I sacrificed two good women to spend all my time with it,” Thomas lamented. “That doesn’t mean I don’t miss having a person to confide in, someone to share my bed or a laugh at the end of the day. You must have missed that when Megan was gone.”

“No question about it,” Mick agreed. “Neither of your ex-wives had remarried last I heard. Give ’em a call.”

Thomas shook his head. “It’s a rare thing to be able to go back again. You and Megan have pulled it off, and believe me, I envy you for that, but it won’t work for me. Those ties are good and broken. My own fault, too.”

“Well, surely there are available women in Annapolis who’d jump at the chance to go out with you. You’ve a successful career. And you have those handsome O’Brien genes, so you’re not too hard on the eyes. If you need a little coaching when it comes to charm, I could give you a few tips.”

Thomas laughed. “Charm is not my problem. Neither is a lack of abundance of available women.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I just haven’t found the right one,” he told his brother. “And since she’s unlikely to be sitting at your dining room table, we should probably let this drop for now. Ma’s pot
roast and your family’s company will be enough to console me for one more day. Thanks for not tossing me back out your door.”

Mick threw an arm around his shoulder as they left the den. “Ma wouldn’t allow it,” he said. “And if it comes down to it, I wouldn’t want to try.”

Thomas savored the rare moment of peace between them. Coming here today had been the best decision he’d made in a while, even if it meant going home knowing just how much his own life was lacking.

Somehow Heather had ended up at the dining room table sandwiched between Connor and Mick, who’d ceded his usual spot at the head of the table to his brother Thomas. She cast a desperate look across the table in Shanna’s direction, but Kevin’s wife only grinned. Next to her, Connor squirmed, which proved he was no more comfortable about the situation than she was.

Mick passed her a plate of home-baked yeast rolls, the kind few people bothered to make anymore.

“Have two,” he encouraged her. “You need to put on a couple of pounds. Chasing after that son of yours requires stamina.”

“Heather looks just fine, Dad,” Connor contradicted. “Leave her alone.”

“I’m just saying, she should keep up her strength, especially when she doesn’t have a man around to help her out,” Mick countered.

“Lots of single women manage careers and kids just fine,” Heather said, but neither man paid a bit of attention. They scowled at each other over her head.

“You making ends meet with your shop?” Mick asked.

Heather flushed. “It’s doing better each week.”

“You need to speak up if you need anything,” Mick said. “I’ll see that you have it. You’re part of this family now, even if your name’s not O’Brien. That boy of yours has O’Brien blood.”

Connor started to rise out of his chair, but a warning glance from his grandmother had him sitting back down. “Dad,” he said tightly, “if Heather and little Mick need anything, I’ll take care of it. They’re not your concern.”

Mick scowled at him. “Family’s family,” he responded flatly. “No matter how they came to be that way.”

Sensing that an explosion was just seconds away, Heather looked from one man to the other. “My son and I are just fine. If we need help from anyone, I know how to ask for it. Now, why don’t we enjoy this meal that Nell has made. The pot roast is delicious.”

“It is, indeed,” Thomas chimed in enthusiastically. “Ma, you still make the best pot roast I’ve ever tasted.”

“And I want you to teach me, Gram,” Bree said. “Jake says I’m a disaster in the kitchen.”

“You don’t have any patience,” Nell told her. “And it’ll only get worse once you have that baby you’re carrying. You won’t have two seconds to concentrate on the meal you’re preparing.”

“Now that’s discouraging,” Jake said with an exaggerated groan.

Nell gave him a chiding look. “Stop your complaining. That baby is yours, young man. And I’ll see to it the two of you don’t starve to death, the same way I did around here when Megan had her hands full with all of you.”

Bree grinned. “Thanks, Gram.”

Abby had listened to the exchange quietly, then turned to her grandmother. “You haven’t offered to set foot in my kitchen,” she said, feigning a pout. “I’m a working mother, too.”

“With a husband who works at home,” Gram said. “And a nanny.” She wagged a finger at the rest of them. “Don’t any of you be getting ideas about this. I’m not providing meals on wheels at this stage of my life. One of these days, I expect somebody to take over these Sunday dinners as well.”

Heather laughed at the audible groans from around the table.

“Please don’t let it be Mom,” Kevin pleaded.

Megan looked up at the comment, chuckling. “Little chance of that, I assure you. Like Bree, I can probably keep us from starving, and maybe not even poison anybody along the way, but it won’t be anything like Nell’s meals. I vote we nominate and train someone else.” She turned her gaze to Kevin. “Didn’t you have to prepare meals for a crowd when you were an EMT? There’s nothing that says a man can’t take over these family meals, right?”

Kevin looked a little pale. “Now, hold on here,” he began, but Shanna was already nodding. “He makes a terrific spaghetti and meatballs, and his lasagna’s not bad, either.”

Mick scowled at his older son. “Where’d you learn to cook, boy? At the Gianellis’? You didn’t learn Italian cooking from Ma, I guarantee that.”

“Hey, you put me in the kitchen, you eat what I know how to cook,” Kevin retorted.

Heather chuckled at the exchange. There was something about this family that never failed to enchant her. Growing up as an only child, she’d envisioned scenes just like this one. And here she was, in the middle of one of them…yet not quite a part of it.

She risked a glance toward Connor and saw that he was studying her, sympathy in his eyes. He knew how much she’d wanted this, understood what moments like this meant to her. And yet he’d still denied her the right to claim this family as her own. Even if they’d stayed together on his terms, she’d have felt like an outsider here, no matter how welcoming everyone tried to be.

Suddenly fighting tears, she pushed back her chair, murmured an excuse, then fled the dining room.

Grabbing her coat from the hall closet, she went outside and ran across the yard, oblivious to the rain. Standing on the edge of the cliff, she studied the pounding white-caps on the normally placid bay. The tumult matched the feelings roiling inside of her.

“Heather?”

Connor, of course. She turned to find him holding her scarf, her gloves and an umbrella. It was almost enough to put a smile back on her face. Almost, but not quite.

“You should come back inside,” he said, a worried frown on his face.

She shook her head. She didn’t want to face the curious stares or the unspoken questions about what had upset her. She saw the same puzzlement on Connor’s face, even though he should have known exactly what sent her running from the house.

“Want me to drive you home?” he asked. “I can bring the baby back later.”

She regarded him gratefully. “Would you mind?”

“If that’s what you really want, I’ll be happy to take you.”

“It’s what I want,” she said at once.

“Okay, then,” he said, though he looked vaguely disappointed.

He led the way to his car, settled her inside, then turned on the heater. It was mostly a wasted effort, since they’d be at her apartment before it warmed up much. They rode in silence for the few minutes it took to reach the alley that ran behind the shops and apartments.

“I’m sorry,” he said as she was about to open the door.

She paused and met his gaze. “For?”

He seemed to be struggling to find the words. “I know how badly you wanted to be part of a big family. It must be hard to be there in the middle of mine.”