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“And now you’ve seen him for what he is,” he told her. “Good for you.”
She smiled then, and she was his little girl again, basking in his praise. Seeing the way her eyes lit up, he had to ask himself what the hell he’d been thinking by staying away so much that any of his kids had lost confidence in themselves. There wasn’t a one of them—even Jess with her ADD—who wasn’t smart and strong and talented, each in their own unique way.
Unfortunately, Megan had taken off and he’d lost himself
in work. He’d left it to his mother to teach the kids to value themselves. He knew without a doubt Nell O’Brien had done that in every way she knew how, but obviously it hadn’t been enough for Bree to counter being all but abandoned by both her parents during those critical early teen years. She’d been easy prey for a man like Demming.
“So, is it just breaking up with Demming that has you so miserable?” he asked.
“I’m not miserable,” she immediately said with a lightning-quick flash of heat.
“Okay, you’re the expert when it comes to words. You tell me the right one to describe your mood.”
She considered the question, her expression thoughtful. “Lost,” she said eventually. “Gram said that a few days ago and she got it exactly right.”
“Why would a woman who’s making a name for herself in the career she chose be feeling lost?” he asked, trying to make sense of it.
“Because the name I’m making isn’t that great anymore,” she admitted.
“You got rave reviews for that first play of yours,” Mick reminded her. “There was even talk about taking it to NewYork.”
“And then the second play didn’t do so well, and the third one bombed,” she said, her voice empty of emotion.
“Then you’ll write a fourth,” he said confidently. “Better than the first one.”
Bree shook her head. “Not now. My heart’s just not in it. I need to start over, try something new.” Her gaze met his. “Which is why I rented a space on Main Street and plan to open a flower shop in it.”
Mick couldn’t have been more stunned or dismayed if she’d announced an intention to take up pole dancing. Not that
there was anything at all wrong with owning a flower shop—or pole dancing, for that matter, if one was so inclined—but Bree’s talents lay elsewhere. So did her heart, no matter how wounded she was feeling at the moment.
He knew, though, that he had to tread carefully. After all, he’d promised to limit his advice and to accept her decisions.
“Are you sure you want to make such a drastic change?”
She nodded, her expression eager. “I really do.” She must have seen the skeptical look he hadn’t been able to hide, because she added, “I know what you’re thinking, but I can keep my laptop in the back room, write whenever I have some free time.”
“Bree, honey, I know those Main Street leases are for two years. That’s a long time to be tied down.”
“I prefer to think of it as having some stability in my life,” she countered.
“Flowers,” he said, then shook his head. “You’re sure you’ll be happy fiddling with a bunch of posies?”
“Marty asked the exact same thing,” she said, giving him a pointed look that made him cringe. “And the answer is that I think so. There’s only one way to find out for certain.”
“Okay, then,” he said, concluding she needed support and practical thinking, not criticism, right now. “How much of your trust-fund money are you putting into this? I don’t want to see you lose that nest egg.”
She frowned at that. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Yes, you did,” she said. “And it’s okay. It just makes me want to work harder to prove you wrong. Besides, I thought you always said that you put the money into those funds so we’d be able to buy a house or start a business when the time came. That’s all I’m doing.”
“Then I don’t have a leg to stand on, do I?” he said, relenting. “You’ll tell me what I can do to help. I’ll come down there with you tomorrow, if you want me to. I can help you figure out any construction you’ll need, custom cabinets for supplies, a front desk, an island workspace in back. Whatever you want, that’ll be my gift to you.”
“The trust fund was more than enough,” she objected.
“I bought that fancy stove for Jess. A few cabinets and storage nooks and crannies is the least I can do for you. Or would you rather have me buy you one of those big coolers that they keep the flowers in?”
She hesitated, then asked, “Would you build the cabinets yourself?”
He recognized what she was really asking. Would he be right there, spending time with her, making himself a part of this crazy new project of hers?
“I have crews that are better at this than I am,” he told her. Her immediate expression of dismay told him he’d been right about what she really wanted, so he quickly added, “But if you don’t mind that things might be less than perfect, I suppose I can still find my way around with a few tools and some wood.”
She jumped up and threw her arms around him, the way she had when she was little and he’d just come home from a business trip. “I want you to do it,” she said, giving him an exuberant kiss on the cheek. “Then I’ll be able to tell everyone who comes in that the interior was hand-built by the famed architect Mick O’Brien. If you’re involved, it’s going to be amazing, I just know it. Heck, one of these days my shop could qualify to be put on the National Register of Historic Places.”
“More like a few hundred years,” he retorted. “And that’s assuming someone doesn’t come along after the two of us are dead and tear them out so they can sell hot dogs.”
She laughed at that, her entire demeanor suddenly carefree. Mick didn’t kid himself that it would be that easy to wipe away all the hits she’d taken in Chicago, but if opening a flower shop could put that kind of sparkle in her eyes even for a little while, he was not going to be the one to question it.
Jake, Will and Mack were having lunch at Sally’s when he noticed his friends exchanging meaningful looks, which could only mean they had something to say about Bree and they weren’t sure how he was going to react.
He set down his BLT and frowned at them. “Just say it,” he ordered. “What have you heard about Bree that you think I haven’t?”
“She’s staying in town,” Will said, his expression sympathetic. “Sorry, pal. I know that’s going to be tough on you.”
Jake shrugged as if it were of no importance. “Yeah, she mentioned something about that when I talked to her.”
“You talked to her?” Mack said incredulously. “You had an actual conversation with Bree O’Brien, the woman of your dreams, the woman you’ve never gotten out of your head?”
“And you never said a word to us?” Will added, radiating indignation. “Didn’t you think it was worth a mention, at least?”
“Not really.”
“When did this happen?” Mack asked.
“What did she say?” Will wanted to know.
“And what did you say to her?” Mack asked.
Jake shook his head. “You two sound like a couple of amateur reporters for the local weekly. It was no big deal.” Which, of course, was the biggest whopper he’d ever uttered as an adult.
“Do you believe him?” Will asked Mack.
“Not for one second. He’s either delusional or putting on a show for our benefit.”
“I thought Will was the shrink,” Jake said irritably to Mack. “Now you’re one, too?”
“I’m as intuitive as the next guy,” Mack responded.
“Which means not at all,” Jake snapped back. “Can we drop this?”
“Since you and Bree are so chummy again all of a sudden, do you know what she’s planning to do?” Will asked Jake.
“She mentioned she might stick around. That was the sum total of the conversation. Believe me, I had no interest in having a long heart-to-heart with her.” Sleeping with her, now that interested him, but he was pretty sure this was the worst possible time to mention that.
“I might know something,” Mack admitted. “I was with Susie the other night.”
Jake and Will both stared at him with shock.
“You and Susie O’Brien? Since when?” Will demanded.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Mack said, though the faint reddening of his ears said otherwise. “I ran into her. We had a couple of drinks.”
“Well, well, well,” Jake began, amused. “And you two thought I was holding out. Last time I checked, Susie O’Brien had told you hell would freeze over before she ever accepted a date with the likes of you.”
“Which is why this wasn’t a date,” Mack explained patiently. “It was a couple of drinks. Not a date.”
“Who paid?” Will asked.
“I did,” Mack said. “What kind of man do you think I am?”
Jake lifted a brow at that, but Will was grinning.
“Sounds like a date to me,” Will said. He glanced at Jake. “You?”
“I’d call it a date,” Jake concurred, so happy to have the attention shifted to another of the O’Brien women he would have called it anything anyone wanted him to just to prolong the conversation.
Mack glared at both of them. “Do you want to hear what I found out about Bree or not?”
“Not,” Jake said at once.
“Don’t listen to him,” Will commanded. “Talk. He needs to know what’s going on, whether he’ll admit that or not.”
“Bree rented the empty space two doors down from here. For two years.”
Jake swallowed hard and tried not to let his immediate sense of panic show. Two years? A lease? This couldn’t be good. He’d reconciled himself to running into her for a few more weeks, maybe even a couple of months, but he’d convinced himself she’d go running back to Chicago and her boyfriend there sooner or later. He’d banked on sooner. Later was bad. Very, very bad. Two years was an eternity of keeping his defenses up.
He bolted from the booth. “I need to get back to work,” he declared, throwing a handful of bills on the table. “I’ll catch you guys later.”
“Well, he took that news well,” Will said loudly as Jake was fleeing.
Mack’s voice carried even more clearly. “No big deal, wasn’t that what he said?” He laughed. “I told you the man was delusional.”
Jake sighed. He wasn’t delusional. He was in more trouble than he’d been in for six long years, and the only way he could think to get out of it was to get a red-headed vixen out of town before she drove him out of what was left of his ever-loving mind.
5 _____
Megan found herself worrying about Bree for several days after Mick left. It was par for the course that after not getting his way about luring her back to Chesapeake Shores, he’d forgotten all about the fact that he’d used their daughter’s problems as bait. She supposed he’d call again or turn up in New York whenever it suited him, oblivious to his lack of consideration in not checking in to reassure her about Bree. Or maybe he’d assumed she would call, if she cared. It would be just like him to wait her out as some kind of perverse test.
Annoyed no matter which tactic he was employing, she picked up the phone and dialed the once-familiar number at the house in Maryland. Nell answered on the first ring. Megan could envision her in the kitchen, her morning cup of tea and a freshly baked scone in front of her.
Oh, how she’d missed those scones and their morning chats when she’d fled to New York. Before that, when Nell had been living in her own small cottage designed by Mick, she’d walked over nearly every day with freshly baked scones for the two of them to share while they talked about anything and everything.
Nell had been far more than a mother-in-law. She’d been a friend, though the one topic that had been off-limits was Megan’s frustration with Mick’s increasingly long absences. Nell would have understood, but Megan hadn’t felt it fair to drag her into the middle of their problems.
Instead, she’d wound up leaving Nell to care for her children. It had never been her intention, but she couldn’t help noting the irony in it.
“Megan!” Nell said, sounding vaguely wary, but definitely not surprised. “How are you?”
“Doing well, and you?”
“Never better. I imagine you called to speak to …” Her voice trailed off.
Megan chuckled at her confusion. “It is a puzzle, isn’t it?” she replied. “It’s not as though I’ve stayed in touch with anyone there in any sort of predictable way.”
“The truth is, at first I assumed you’d called to speak to Abby, but of course you’d call her on her cell or at the new house or at her office. Is it Mick you’re calling for?”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you,” Megan said, deciding to take advantage of the opportunity that had presented itself. She wanted to make amends to this woman who’d always been so kind to her. The overture was long overdue. “We didn’t get much time alone when I was there for the opening of the inn. You were unhappy I’d come, weren’t you?”
“At first,” Nell admitted in her typically blunt way. “But the visit went smoothly enough. I saw you were making an effort.”
“I was. I wanted it to be a first step with my children and with you. I know you were furious with me when I divorced Mick and left town.”
“Not furious,” Nell claimed. “Disappointed, and it was about the children, not me or even my son. I knew as well as anyone why you felt you needed to leave Mick. It saddened me that it had to come to that, but I couldn’t blame you.”
“Have I ever told you how grateful I am that the children had you?”
“They should have had their mother,” Nell said fiercely.
Though the remark stung, Megan agreed with her. “Yes, they should have. And I wanted them here, you do know that, don’t you?” she said, a pleading note in her voice. Nell O’Brien had mattered to her, and she’d always regretted losing that connection along with the rest of her family, to say nothing of losing the older woman’s approval.
“Seemed to me it was a halfhearted effort at best,” Nell said, not conceding an inch.
“I can’t deny it looked that way. Somehow I let Mick convince me they were better off with the two of you,” Megan explained. “I didn’t fight him and I should have. Once I was settled here, I should have fought tooth and nail for joint custody at the very least. I know that now, but my visits there were such disasters, no matter how often I came or how hard I tried, it seemed best to let them stay where they were happy.”
“Children don’t always know what we’re thinking. They only understand our actions,” Nell reminded her.
“Believe me, I know that. And the message I sent to all of them was that I didn’t care, when that was the furthest thing from the truth.”
Now that the door had been opened, Megan poured out all the things she’d felt back then. “I loved them so much I couldn’t bring myself to rip them from the life they’d known. I thought visits to me in New York would help make them feel part of my life here, but they were all so angry, none of them wanted to come and, when I insisted, they were sullen. Mick was so sure they’d come around if we gave them time. Instead, it allowed their wounds to fester. They ended up hating me.”
The explanation—too little and much too late—was received in silence. “Spilt milk,” Nell said eventually. “You and Abby have found a way back to each other. You’ll do the same with the rest of them.”
“I hope so. And that’s the other reason I was calling. Mick told me there’s something going on with Bree. Do you know anything about that?”
“A bit, but she just walked into the kitchen. Why don’t I let you speak to her.” Nell’s next words were muffled, but then she said, “You take care of yourself, Megan love. And come back soon for another visit. You’re welcome here anytime.”
