Harbor Lights (27 page)

Shanna nodded and moved into his arms. The moment she was there, she remembered exactly how safe and secure he made her feel and how much she’d missed that feeling. She lifted her gaze to his.

“Thank you for doing this. I know it’s not the way you planned to spend today. We still have a lot of things to talk about.”

“And we’ll get to those,” he told her. “But for now, it’s kind of nice being with two people who are so happy.” His expression turned nostalgic. “I remember feeling that way once.”

“When you married Georgia?”

He shook his head. “The night I spent in your bed.”

Tears immediately filled her eyes. “Kevin, you shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“So much has happened since then,” she reminded him. “I know I’ve made you miserable.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “I made myself miserable by not trusting you. I took the worst memories from my past and imposed them on you without bothering to find out the truth. You tried to explain, but I was too stubborn even to listen. That’s all on me.”

She pretended to consider his words. “You know, you’re right,” she said with an exaggerated display of drama. “You were a jerk.”

He laughed. “I was.” His expression sobered. “But I do want to know the whole story. Maybe when we leave here?”

“If there’s time,” she agreed. “Henry will be back around six.”

He gestured toward Laurie and Drew, who were in a tight embrace and barely swaying to the music. “Something tells me they’ll hardly notice if we leave.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to walk out on the bride and groom,” she said. “They have to go first. That’s the tradition.”

“This isn’t exactly a traditional couple,” Kevin said wryly. “I doubt it will take much to convince them this party is over and they’re free to move on to the wedding night, or the wedding afternoon, as it were.”

“I could suggest they have their meal served in their room,” Shanna said.

“Do it.”

She waited until the song ended, then tapped Laurie on the shoulder. “I think maybe you should take this party upstairs and have room service deliver your lunch. You two can enjoy it in privacy.”

Laurie’s expression filled with dismay. “We invited you here for a reception, and now we’re ignoring you.”

“You just got married,” Shanna said. “We’re not insulted. Honest.”

Laurie glanced at Drew, blushing. “It would be nice to go upstairs.”

Drew’s gaze never left her face. “Works for me.”

“Then go with our blessing,” Shanna told them. She hugged Laurie. “I’m so happy for you.” She turned to Drew. “Be good to her, you hear me?”

“Always,” he promised.

Kevin kissed Laurie’s cheek, then shook Drew’s hand.

“Thanks for being a part of our wedding,” Laurie told him. “Next time, I expect to be dancing at yours.”

Shanna felt heat flame in her cheeks at Laurie’s words. “Pay no attention to her. Women in love say crazy stuff.”

“I’m serious,” Laurie said.

“Go,” Shanna ordered, blaming champagne and the romantic aura of her wedding for Laurie’s change of heart about her and Kevin.

As soon as Laurie and Drew were gone, she turned to Kevin. “Now what?”

He reached for her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

“We could just have lunch here.”

“Not with my sister lurking about the premises,” he said. “Lunch is one thing, but there’s no way we could have a private conversation.”

“You probably have a point. Where, then?”

He hesitated. “You know, I’m not sure. I have it on good authority that my sisters have spies everywhere. Do you know that Bree took pictures of us on the pier yesterday and sent them out with her cell phone?”

If she hadn’t been so appalled, Shanna might have laughed. It sounded like something an O’Brien would do.

“My apartment then,” she suggested. “We could pick up sandwiches or pizza and take them to my place. Unless one of them climbs a tree on the town green with
a zoom lens on a camera or binoculars, they won’t be able to see us.”

Kevin nodded. “That’ll work. Why don’t I drop you off, then pick up the food. Any preference?”

“Quiche and a caesar salad sounds good to me. Is there anything on the menu at the French café that you like?”

“I’ll find something.”

He let her out in the alley behind the bookstore, where the stairs led up to her apartment. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Shanna was halfway up the stairs when the back door to Bree’s shop opened and she popped her head out.

“Trying to sneak past me?” she inquired.

Shanna laughed. “Going home. You didn’t enter into the equation.”

“Where’s my brother going? I thought you’d be together all afternoon. You didn’t have another fight, did you?”

“Actually we were in a wedding,” Shanna told her, resigned to supplying enough details to satisfy Bree’s curiosity.

“Oh, that’s right. I ran the flowers over to the inn earlier. Your friend Laurie got married. How was it?”

“Fast-paced, but, you know, I think the impulsive nature of it suited her just fine.”

“Is Kevin coming back?”

Shanna gave her a wry look. “Not if he knows you’re lurking in the alley.”

Bree chuckled. “Okay, I get it. I’ll go back inside and mind my own business.”

“Really?” Shanna asked skeptically. “Is that possible?”

“For a good cause, yes,” Bree assured her. “This is a good cause, right? The two of you are going to work things out?”

“I hope so,” Shanna said. “I want us to be friends again.”

“Friends?” Bree exclaimed indignantly. “This better be about more than that. You both need to get serious.”

“How about laying off and letting us take one step at a time,” Shanna said, her message pointed, but her tone gentle.

Bree sighed. “I suppose you’re right. Meddling’s usually counterproductive.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Okay, I’m gone,” Bree said, stepping back inside and shutting the door.

Before Shanna had climbed another couple of steps, Bree’s door opened again.

“One more thing,” she said. “Then I’ll disappear for real.”

“Yes?”

“Kevin loves you. I know he does. So, even if he messes up the words, listen for what’s in his heart, okay?”

“I think your brother’s perfectly capable of speaking for himself,” Shanna told her. “But, unlike his recent behavior, I
will
listen. I promise.”

“All I’m asking,” Bree said, closing the door again. This time it remained shut.

Shanna sighed as she continued up the steps and went inside to wait. She was beginning to understand the kind of pressure that Kevin lived with every day. He had this wonderful, well-meaning family, but all those expectations, all that certainty that they knew what was best for him, must be exhausting. She felt it, and she could pretty much tell them to bug off, if she wanted to. He had to sit back and listen.

Not that he had to heed their advice. She’d seen evidence that he had the same independent streak the rest of the
O’Briens had. She supposed it was a necessity in that family.

But despite all the potential drawbacks she foresaw, the bottom line was that she wanted to be one of them. She wanted to be Kevin’s wife.

The admission, phrased for the first time in exactly that way, with no hesitation, startled her. She’d allowed herself to acknowledge missing him, even loving him, but this was the first time she’d looked into the future and seen so clearly what she wanted.

Even as she had the realization, she could hear Laurie’s voice reminding her that she’d wanted the same thing when she’d rushed into marriage with Greg. The two men, however, could not have been more different. And their families, well, the O’Briens were warm and welcoming. The Hamiltons had been stiff, cold and unyielding, at least until recently.

Convinced not only of what—
who
—she wanted, but that it was the right decision for her, she couldn’t help wondering if what Kevin had to say this afternoon would open the door to that kind of future for the two of them. Or, once he heard more about her past marriage and the complicated situation with Henry, if he would slam the door on the two of them forever.

K
evin noticed that the back door to Flowers on Main was ajar as he took the steps up to Shanna’s apartment two at a time. He knew instinctively that his sister was standing just inside that door. Upstairs, on the landing, he leaned over the railing and hollered, “Close the door and go back to work.”

He heard Bree chuckle, but the door closed quietly. Only then did he knock on Shanna’s door.

When she barely opened it a crack to peer out, it was his turn to laugh. “Making sure the coast is clear before you let me in?”

“Something like that,” she said, stepping aside so he could enter.

“Did Bree spy on you, too?”

“Accosted me with questions is more like it,” she said. “You?”

“Nope. She stuck with peeking out the back door of her shop.”

“I love your family, but they’re a little obsessed when it comes to the two of us.”

“Tell me about it. I’ve had Mick, Trace and Jake on my case recently. You should probably be happy to know they’re all on your side.”

“I didn’t realize our situation called for taking sides,” she said, as she reached into the bags he’d brought and put their food onto dishes she’d already set out on a table by the window overlooking the town green.

Kevin shrugged. “We’re talking O’Briens here. They take sides over everything, which is one reason my father and uncles rarely speak. I’m pretty sure Uncle Jeff’s daughter, Susie, is the only cousin who defies the rules. She speaks to all of us. Her brothers barely nod if they pass us in the street. The only time there’s detente is on holidays, when Gram’s around.”

“But isn’t the fight between your father, Thomas and Jeff?” she asked, regarding him with bewilderment.

“That’s how it started,” he acknowledged. “Like I said, sides were chosen. Facts and logic had little to do with it. All that was required was ingrained family loyalty.”

“But you’re
all
O’Briens,” Shanna protested.

Kevin chuckled. “There you go, trying to impose logic on this.”

Shanna sat down at the table, picked up her fork, speared some romaine lettuce, then chewed thoughtfully. “Doesn’t it make you crazy?” she asked after a while. “Who can work up the energy to keep a grudge going after all these years?”

He leaned forward. “You’d never know it to see them now, but my father didn’t speak to my mother for something like fifteen years after the divorce. Most of us kids didn’t speak to her, either, unless Gram forced us to when Mom came to visit.”

“So that’s what I could have looked forward to, if you hadn’t decided to listen to my side of the story about Henry? You’d have frozen me out from now till doomsday?”

“What can I say? It’s a family tradition.”

“That’s just nuts.”

“I know,” he agreed. “But I’m here now, and I want to know everything. Before you even start, I apologize for misjudging you, jumping to conclusions, refusing to listen to your explanations and all of the other idiotic things I did.”

“Okay, do you want to hear the long version or the short version?” she asked.

“Whichever one you want to give me,” he told her.

She began haltingly, but eventually the words started to spill out. Kevin cursed as Shanna told him about her disastrous marriage to Henry’s father.

“Let me be clear about one thing,” she said. “Greg was never physically abusive to me or to Henry, but his unpredictability and verbal abuse was almost as bad. Eventually I realized that I couldn’t stay. It was only the thought of what might happen to Henry if I left that kept me there even as long as I stayed.”

“You should have left the minute you realized how bad his addiction to alcohol was,” Kevin said.

“I’d made vows,” she said simply. “More important, there was Henry to consider.” She met Kevin’s gaze. “I loved him as if he were my own.”

“You should have taken him with you.”

“I thought about that, believe me, but with absolutely no legal right to him, I would have been charged with kidnapping. Since no one—not even his own family—believed me about Greg’s drinking and his abuse, I knew they’d never believe that I’d done it to keep Henry safe. We’d have been on the run for the rest of our lives. How could I do that to him? In some ways that seemed as cruel as leaving him with his dad. It was a no-win situation.”

“Surely the law would have been on your side,” Kevin protested. “There must have been evidence, something. You would have been protecting a child, for heaven’s sake.”

“Nothing,” she told him. “Leaving Henry behind was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. If the nanny hadn’t been there, I don’t think I could have done it. Every day since, I’ve prayed that his family would wake up to what was going on and keep Henry safe. His father never hit him, but his yelling used to terrify Henry. And that was if he was even around. The nanny was the only person in Henry’s life most of the time.”

“How did he wind up here with you?”

She explained about the accidental overdose, the hospital stay, Greg’s liver complications, and the decision by Greg’s family that Henry needed a more stable environment. “He’d bonded with me. Even before Greg and I were officially engaged, Henry was calling me Mommy. At first we both tried to discourage it, but it made him so happy. I think that was part of why we finally decided to marry, because we knew how thrilled Henry would be.”

She sighed, thinking back to the time when they’d actually been a real family. It had been so brief. Then Greg’s drinking had started again in earnest.

“So, after keeping you from him for over a year, they suddenly realized you were the parent he needed? And you agreed to step in?” he asked incredulously.

“I think Greg’s family knew all along, but they would never admit such a thing to the world. Then the circumstances changed, and they’ve been forced to take drastic steps to ensure Henry’s happiness.” She grinned. “The nanny helped. Greta kept insisting that Henry would be better off with me. I have to give Mrs. Hamilton credit,
though. In the end, she was the one who brought him here. It had to have been humbling for her to admit that I’d been right, but she did it.”

“She was the one with him in the store that day?”

Shanna nodded. “She finally realized that Greg wasn’t able to provide Henry with the kind of life he deserved and that getting Greg well again was going to be all she and her husband could possibly contend with. She convinced Greg to agree to let me become Henry’s legal guardian. We’ll see where it goes from here. She even offered to send Greta here to help me look out for Henry, but in the end, Greta decided to accept a position with another family.”

Kevin was stunned. “Hold on a minute. Are you saying Henry could wind up back with his father?”

She nodded. “But only if Greg’s health improves.”

“You’re taking a huge risk. Are you sure it’s worth it? Do you love this child?”

“Of course I do,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s my son, no matter what the law says. I know it’s a risk, but it’s one I have to take. Leaving him behind before left this huge hole in my heart.”

Kevin couldn’t help wondering where this left the two of them. “You have a lot on your plate right now. I know I’ve made it worse.”

“Not worse. I just wanted so badly for you to understand. When you wouldn’t take my calls, I thought there was no way we’d ever get back the friendship we had before.” She met his gaze. “I hated the thought of that.”

“It wasn’t much of a picnic for me, either,” he admitted. “I had no idea how much I’d miss you. I kept telling myself it was for the best. Bree suggested I was using this situation to keep from admitting how much I love you.”

He stood up, walked around the table and held out his
hand. Shanna placed hers in his and stood up. The air between them sizzled.

And then the door opened and Henry came bursting in, followed by his grandmother. He skidded to a stop at the sight of Kevin. Shanna tore her hand out of his grasp and knelt to give the boy a hug.

“How was your day?” she asked him. “Did you have fun with your dad?”

Kevin caught the subtle shake of Mrs. Hamilton’s head, even as Henry’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Greg wasn’t feeling well,” she said stiffly.

Shanna gathered Henry close. “I’m so sorry, buddy.”

“It was okay,” he said, putting on a brave face. “Grandma and Grandpa took me to a baseball game.” He sighed. “But the Phillies lost.”

“Oh, dear, you really aren’t having a good day, are you?” Shanna said, brushing the tears from his cheeks.

“I’ll bet I know a way to make it better,” Kevin said, not entirely sure he should intrude, but unable to stand by and watch the boy’s misery. “Why don’t we pick up my son and go out on that boat trip I promised you?” He met Shanna’s gaze. “What do you think? We won’t stay out late.”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Mrs. Hamilton said, regarding him with sudden approval. “Henry loves boats, don’t you?”

Henry nodded eagerly.

“Okay, then,” Kevin said. “Shanna, you know where the marina is. Why don’t I meet you and Henry there in an hour? I’ll go get Davy.”

She smiled at him. “We’ll be there.”

As he passed Mrs. Hamilton, she stopped him with a touch on his arm. “Thank you,” she said in an undertone. “He really needed something to turn this day around.”

Kevin nodded. “I’m happy I can help.”

And though everything he’d learned here this afternoon made his heart ache for both Henry and Shanna, he was filled with determination to see that their lives got better from here on out. He’d been raised to be protective of those he loved. Now, it seemed, he counted Shanna and that little boy among them.

Henry couldn’t stop talking about going out on Kevin’s boat. The trip seemed to have wiped out all of the day’s earlier unhappiness.

“It was so fun, wasn’t it, Mommy?” he said again as he climbed into bed.

“It was great,” she agreed.

“And Davy’s really smart for a little kid, huh?”

“He is.”

“Kevin knows lots and lots of stuff about the bay. Did you know all those things he was telling us?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I want to learn all that, so I can do what he does someday,” he announced.

It sounded to Shanna as if he’d developed a serious case of hero worship. On the one hand, she was glad about that. Heroes had been in short supply in his young life. On the other, there were no certainties about what role Kevin might continue to play in his life.

“Kevin says he’ll see me after school tomorrow,” Henry announced. “He says he brings Davy by the store sometimes when he gets home from work and that we can go for ice cream.”

This was news to Shanna. “He told you all that, did he?”

“He promised,” Henry said, his expression serious. “Does he keep his promises?”

“He’s kept all the ones he ever made to me,” she assured him.

“Cool.”

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Get some sleep, kiddo. It’s way past your bedtime and you have school in the morning.”

“But I wanted to look at one of those books you have on the bay,” he protested.

“Tomorrow,” she insisted.

“Okay,” he said readily and closed his eyes.

Shanna stood there for a moment, lost in the joy of knowing he was here with her and safe. In a few days she’d know if this arrangement would last.

“I can’t sleep if you’re going to stare at me,” he murmured.

She laughed. “Sorry. I’m turning out the light right now. Love you.”

There was only the slightest hesitation before he whispered, “Love you, too.”

Outside his door, she leaned against the wall and blinked away tears. Every time she earned those softly spoken words, she felt blessed. One of these days, she hoped he’d learn to say them freely, filled with trust in the love surrounding him.

The house was in a total state of chaos. Abby’s wedding was two hours away. Megan was in an absolute frenzy over last-minute details. Jess had run off to make sure everything at the inn was under control. Bree and Trace’s sister Laila were trying to keep Abby calm, no small task with Carrie and Caitlyn underfoot and practically dancing with excitement.

Kevin spent one minute in the midst of the frenzy, then
headed outside, where he found Jake, Connor and Mick trying to keep Trace calm. Kevin looked at his soon-to-be brother-in-law and shook his head.

“What’s your problem, pal?” he asked the groom. “You were the one who couldn’t wait for this day to get here.”

“I’m not relaxing until Abby’s walked down the aisle and actually said
I do,
” Trace said. “There’s still time for her to back out.”

“She’s not backing out,” Mick told him. “I won’t allow it.”

Kevin chuckled. “Don’t let her hear you say that. She’ll be on the first plane to anywhere, if she thinks you’re issuing edicts.”

“Good point,” Mick said, reversing his stance at once.

Just then Carrie and Caitlyn ran outside, the ribbons in their hair already coming undone, curls escaping.