Flowers on Main

The back booth at Sally’s all but had a Reserved sign sitting on it. Every day, right at noon, Jake Collins, Mack Franklin and Will Lincoln sat in that booth and ordered the day’s special. Today it was ham and cheese on a croissant with potato salad, Jake noted as he glanced at the chalkboard behind the counter on his way to the booth. When he got there, he stopped short. He wasn’t sure which shocked him more, that it was already occupied or that the person whose face was buried in the menu was Bree O’Brien.

It took less than a heartbeat for him to note that her bare shoulders were pink from the sun, that she wore the turquoise sundress that had always been a favorite of his, that she looked exhausted.

Before any of that could really sink in, he wheeled around and bumped straight into Mack, then brushed past him without stopping.

“Where are you going?” Mack demanded.

“Let’s go to Brady’s for lunch,” Jake said in a clipped, urgent undertone as he paused just long enough to give Mack a hard look that begged him to stop asking questions.

Mack stared at him blankly, obviously not picking up on Jake’s signal. “Why?”

“Because I’m in the mood for a crab-cake sandwich and a beer,” Jake said impatiently, weaving past three women blocking the aisle.

He didn’t wait to see if Mack followed but headed right back out onto the street, where he stopped and sucked in a deep breath. Damn, that woman should not be able to get to him like this, not after six years. And she’d done it without even once looking him in the eye or opening her mouth. It was pitiful. He was pitiful. Why should it matter to him that she looked as if she hadn’t slept in a week?

“Would you mind telling me why you’re both out here?” Will asked when he came upon them standing on the sidewalk in the blazing late-July heat. His crisply ironed sport shirt was wilting and he’d tugged off his tie. He was clearly anxious to get inside in air-conditioning.

“I have no idea,” Mack responded with a shrug. “Jake’s apparently developed a sudden craving for a crab cake.”

When Jake met Will’s gaze, he saw the knowing amusement in his friend’s eyes. That was the problem with hanging out with the same bunch of guys since elementary school. None of them had one damn secret from the others. Will, with his Ph.D. in psychology, was capable of guessing the source of Jake’s suddenly skittish mood.

Will sighed. “I was wondering when he was going to find out that Bree’s in town.”

Mack looked momentarily surprised, then nodded. “Just now apparently.”

“It took longer than I expected,” Will said.

Jake stared at them. “You knew Bree was here and didn’t warn me?”

“I’d heard,” Will admitted.

“Me, too,” Mack said, looking chagrined. “We figured she’d be gone before the two of you crossed paths.”

“How’d she look?” Will asked, his gaze on Mack rather than Jake.

Mack shrugged. “Jake was blocking my view.”

“Well, it’s probably better that Jake finally got a glimpse of her,” Will said thoughtfully. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“Absolutely. Her family’s here,” Mack added. “It’s not like she’d stay away forever.”

“Would you two stop talking as if I’m not here,” Jake grumbled. “This isn’t about Bree O’Brien. I just decided I’m in the mood for a crab-cake sandwich. That’s it.”

“Last time I checked, Sally made a halfway-decent crab-cake sandwich,” Will remarked, calling him on the blatant lie.

“Hardly anyplace around here that doesn’t,” Mack agreed.

Jake tired of their amusement at his expense. “Oh, give it a rest,” he grumbled. “If you want to eat here, we’ll eat here. I just thought it would be good to try someplace different. We’re in a rut.”

“And you realized that not five minutes ago?” Will inquired skeptically. “We’ve been in the same rut for five years.”

“Six,” Jake muttered. “It’s been six years.”

The three of them had started eating lunch together every day right after Bree had left Chesapeake Shores. It had been Will and Mack’s halfhearted attempt to boost Jake’s spirits, even though they weren’t a hundred percent certain what had happened between Jake and Bree. The couple had broken up, that much Jake’s friends knew, and also that Jake was hurting. That was all that had mattered.

His buddies had rallied around him, being supportive in the only way guys knew how, by hanging out with him and trying to keep him distracted, and by not mentioning the source of his discontent unless he brought her up first. Which he hadn’t. Today was one of the few times in all these years that Bree’s name had even crossed his lips.

Good friends that they were and happily single, Will and Mack had also dragged Jake out regularly for happy hour and tried to interest him in other women. More often than not, they were the ones who met someone attractive and left with her, while Jake went home alone to his empty bed and dark thoughts. He’d gotten used to the pattern and to the loneliness. It was pitiful, all right, but it was the life he had.

And it beat the pain he’d felt when Bree had left. He wasn’t going through anything like that again, even if he wound up living like a hermit for the rest of his days, which his sister, Connie, told him regularly he was in grave danger of doing.

“Maybe it’s a good sign,” Will speculated, his expression thoughtful. “Him wanting to shake things up finally.”

“Could be,” Mack agreed.

The two men exchanged a look, then turned toward Mack’s SUV, which was parked closer than Will’s fancy foreign sports car or Jake’s bright green Shores Nursery and Landscaping truck.

“We’ll go to Brady’s,” Mack said, throwing a commiserating arm across his shoulders. “And then we’ll beat some sense into you.”

2 _____

Bree heard what sounded like a collective sigh being released and looked up to find herself the object of a roomful of staring customers and to see Sally regarding her with an oddly disapproving expression.

“What’s going on?” Bree asked.

“You didn’t see him?” Sally asked.

“See who?”

“Jake.”

Bree felt as if someone had slugged her in the stomach. “Jake was here?”

“For about two seconds. Took one look at you and flew right back out the door. Took two more of my best customers with him.”

“Oh, God, I had no idea. I thought …” Her voice trailed off. She had no idea what she’d thought. For six years she’d tried not to let a single thought about Jake creep into her head. When it did, usually when her defenses were down and she felt most vulnerable, it left her feeling raw and guilty, even though she’d done nothing wrong. As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she winced at the lie. If she were being totally honest, she’d done plenty wrong.

Glancing up at Sally and trying to gather her composure, Bree said, “I … I …” She couldn’t seem to think straight. The order she’d planned had flown right out of her head with Sally’s mention of Jake. “Can I have another minute, please? Whatever I get, I’ll make it takeout so I won’t tie up the booth. I just need to sit here for a couple of minutes, okay?”

Sally nodded, her expression more sympathetic. “I’ll be back.”

As soon as Sally was gone, rather than glancing at the menu again as she’d promised, Bree’s thoughts spun right back to Jake and the tragic way their relationship had eventually fallen apart.

Sure, what had happened was just one of those things. Losing a baby—one she’d told no one except Jake that she was carrying—should have drawn them closer. Most couples pulled together after a tragedy like that.

Instead, Bree had taken it as a sign that they weren’t meant to be. She’d seized on the miscarriage as an excuse to flee to Chicago and go after the future that had seemed so elusive just a few days earlier.

Jake’s reaction had been exactly the opposite. Ecstatic about the unexpected pregnancy, he had been talking about a wedding, a family and the future with such high hopes and excitement. As much as she’d loved him and hoped for that same future eventually, rather than sharing his joy, she’d felt miserable and, far worse, trapped.

And then, almost before she’d had time to grapple with the idea that she was pregnant, the baby was gone and, God help her, she’d felt free. She’d taken off for Chicago and the job awaiting her there without a backward glance, leaving Jake alone to mourn not only the loss of their child, but of her and all the dreams he’d spun.

Oh, they’d gone through the pretense of staying in touch at first, even occasionally talking about the future, but it had quickly been clear to Bree that the relationship was over. She’d struggled for weeks trying to think of the kindest way to say that to Jake.

In the end, he’d figured it out for himself after surprising her in Chicago one weekend and discovering her sequestered in her tiny apartment with Marty. There’d been nothing going on, but obviously Jake had felt the chemistry between her and the famed playwright. Ironically he’d known before she had admitted it to herself that she was falling in love with the charming, charismatic older man.

That’s what they’d fought about, the excuse he’d used for breaking up. And once again, despite the quick and painful stab of guilt she’d experienced, all Bree had felt was relief that she hadn’t been the one to end things. She’d even convinced herself that allowing Jake to be the one to break up was her final gift to him. For a woman who prided herself on being insightful about human nature, somehow she’d been delusional about that. What she’d been was cowardly.

She had treated him so badly. She could admit that now. Jake was a wonderful, sexy, amazing guy, and maybe they could have made things work, but she’d felt relieved that she hadn’t had to find out. She’d known deep down that she would have come to resent him if she hadn’t had a chance to find out what she was made of as a playwright. She’d needed that chance to work with a respected regional theater, to be mentored by someone like Martin Demming. It was all she’d dreamed about from the first time she’d seen a play onstage and put her own words and characters down on paper.

Sally returned, cutting into her thoughts. “Have you decided yet?”

“The special’s fine,” Bree said, though she had no idea what it was. Her appetite had fled anyway, so it hardly mattered.

Sally made a note of it, then hesitated. “Look, maybe I shouldn’t say anything, because I have no idea what happened between you and Jake, but you should know that he, Will and Mack come in here every day at noon and sit in this booth. They’re regulars.”

The words were innocuous, but the tone was heavy with implications. It amounted to a warning from the usually diplomatic Sally.

“And you don’t want me chasing them away,” Bree concluded. “I understand. I’ll do my best to stay out of their way. I’ll probably be leaving town soon anyway.”

But even as she said the words, knots of tension formed in her shoulders again. That ought to tell her something, she thought. She crawled out of the booth, aware that other customers were staring, friends of Jake’s no doubt, people who probably hated her as much as he did. She went to wait for her order by the register, paid Sally and fled.

She took the meal to a picnic table in the park along the waterfront. While osprey and even the occasional eagle swooped high above her, she picked at the sandwich, then scattered the bread for the waiting seagulls.

Now what? she wondered. The debate over whether to stay or go was raging inside her, turning her stomach queasy.

Staying, which she’d only recently begun to consider, was rife with problems. It wasn’t as if this were Chicago, where she and Jake would never cross paths. Here in Chesapeake Shores they were bound to. How could she come back and disrupt his life after what she’d done to him? Obviously he still hated her, if he’d fled the café without even acknowledging her. Worse, she couldn’t really blame him. What she’d done was cruel.

When she thought about all that, the guilt was overwhelming. How could she possibly stay here, especially when it was clear that Jake wasn’t the only one judging her? She’d squirmed under all those accusing eyes in the café, felt the sting of Sally’s disapproval. Chances were not one of them knew even half of what had happened, but they’d chosen sides anyway. Jake’s side. After all, he was the one who’d been left behind. She might be an O’Brien, with all that implied in this town, but she’d left. She was no longer one of them.

Then, again, how could she allow what had happened so long ago to keep her from finding peace for herself? Over the past three weeks she’d increasingly come to believe that she belonged right here. She hadn’t figured out what she wanted to do with herself, much less any of the details, but when she thought of staying, she felt a kind of serenity that had eluded her for some time now.

“I want to come home for good. I want to live in Chesapeake Shores,” she said aloud, while the waiting seagulls regarded her solemnly, hoping for more scraps. The words sounded right, convincing. Surprising.

Like her sister Abby and her brothers, Bree had been only too eager to leave behind the town that had absorbed so much of her father’s time, then skyrocketed his career as an architect, developer and urban planner in a way that had taken him away from them. Now, it seemed, she was ready to come home. The decision, barely made, felt right.

Except for its impact on Jake. If she decided to stay, first she had to find some way to coexist with the man whose heart she’d broken. Unfortunately, based on today’s reception, it seemed unlikely he’d make that easy for her.

“Maybe it shouldn’t be easy,” she murmured as the seagulls watched her quizzically and a couple of weekday tourists regarded her curiously.

She smiled wryly. She must present quite a sight, with no makeup, the sea breeze whipping strands of her hair out of the clasp meant to hold it atop her head and talking to herself. If she were a character in one of her own plays, there would be quite a story behind this scene.

In fact, there was quite a story behind it. What she couldn’t quite predict for the real-life version was whether it would turn out to have a happy ending or wind up a tragedy.

The crab-cake sandwich was sitting heavily in Jake’s stomach. One beer had turned into two before he’d cut himself off and returned to work. He planned to lock himself in his office at the nursery and spend the afternoon catching up on paperwork. As much as he hated that side of the landscaping business, at least it required concentration, which meant his mind wouldn’t be wandering to thoughts of Bree the way it had all during lunch, despite Will and Mack’s best attempts to talk about anything and everything else.

They’d exhausted Orioles baseball, the upcoming football season with the Ravens, politics and even the usually lively recitation of Mack’s dating exploits. The latter, unfortunately, had cut a little too close to the unspoken topic of Bree, so Jake had cited a busy afternoon schedule and cut the meal short.

En route to his desk, he kicked his trash can across the office, then threw a stack of seed catalogs on the floor. It was when a chair hit the wall that his sister came flying into the room.

“What on earth has gotten into you?” Connie demanded, ducking behind the door when an empty soda can came flying in her direction.

“If you have an ounce of sense, you’ll get the hell out of here,” Jake growled, turning his back on her to stare out the window at rows of shrubs and trees currently being examined by an elderly couple at the behest of one of his best salesmen. He recognized the Whitcombs. He’d been working for them since his days of cutting grass as a teenager. They’d been asking lately about crepe myrtles to fill in their landscaping. The trees that flowered in late summer came in an increasing range of colors now. Molly Whitcomb had her heart set on a dark purple one, while Walter liked the more traditional pink. Jake wondered idly who was winning the battle.

He heard his office door click shut and turned around expecting to find himself alone, but his sister was calmly sitting on the chair opposite his desk, her expression patient.

“So, you don’t have an ounce of sense?” he asked, amused despite his sour mood.

“That’s what I hear,” she said. “I certainly don’t run from trouble, the way you apparently do.”

Jake bristled. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You and Bree—just about face-to-face at Sally’s, and you turn around and take off. Sound familiar?”

He scowled at her. “How did you hear about that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, did you honestly think that news wouldn’t be all over town within five minutes? That’s the joy of cell phones, little brother. The local grapevine works at lightning speed these days.”

“More’s the pity.”

“So, do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

She shrugged. “What else is new? You haven’t wanted to talk about Bree for six years. Now, personally, I think you’d get her out of your system a whole lot faster if you’d rant and rave and tell the universe exactly what you think about her.”

“Bree is out of my system,” he insisted. And what he thought of her wasn’t fit for saying aloud. “I broke up with her, remember?”

Connie gave him a sympathetic look, the kind that made him want to break things.

“You may have said the words, Jake, but she broke your heart long before that. Don’t even try to deny it. I was here. I saw what it did to you when she left for Chicago. And something tells me there was a whole lot more to the story than you’ve ever admitted.”

“I do not want to discuss this,” he reminded her fiercely. “I mean it, Connie. The subject of Bree is off-limits. If you bring up her name again, I’ll fire you.”

“No, you won’t,” she said serenely. “But I’ll drop it for now. Or at least I will after you’ve answered one question for me. What are you going to do if she’s back here to stay?”

“Bree’s a hotshot playwright in Chicago. She’s not staying, so it’s not going to be an issue.” Please God, let me be right about that.

“I’m just asking, what if—”

Jake cut her off. “Drop it, Connie. I mean it.”

She sighed. “Consider it dropped, for now anyway. Are you coming for dinner tonight?”

Ever since her divorce five years ago, he usually had dinner with Connie and his seventeen-year-old niece two or three times a week. A good deal for him, Jake acknowledged, because his sister’s cooking was a whole lot better than his. So was their company most of the time. It seemed best to steer clear tonight, though, with the whole conversation about Bree still a little too fresh. If Connie could pester the daylights out of him, his niece was worse. Jenny Louise thought his love life “sucked,” and considered it her own personal mission to point that out to him on a regular basis. If she’d caught wind of the incident at Sally’s, he’d never hear the end of it.

“No,” he told Connie flatly.

“I’m fixing your favorite—meat loaf and mashed potatoes and fresh green beans.”

Jake almost regretted turning her down. Not only was the meal his all-time favorite, but nobody made it better than his sister. She used their mom’s old meat-loaf recipe, complete with mushroom gravy. Unfortunately, he knew in this instance, it also came with a scoop of sisterly advice and a side of meddling from Jenny Louise.

“No, thanks,” he said.

Connie studied him for what seemed like an eternity, then nodded. “Okay, then, I’ll save you some and bring it in tomorrow,” she said at last. “You can have it for dinner tomorrow night.”

“I won’t turn that down.” He walked around the desk and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Thanks, sis.”

“I could bring enough for two,” she said, her expression innocent. “You know, in case you wanted to have someone over.”

Jake frowned. “I’m not talking about Bree, I’m not talking to Bree, so I’m sure as hell not inviting her over for dinner.”

A satisfied grin spread across Connie’s face. “Did I say a single word about Bree?” she inquired, then answered her own question. “I did not. The fact that you immediately leaped to that conclusion speaks volumes not only about your obsession with her, but the absence of any other woman in your life.”

On that note, she sashayed out the door, apparently very pleased with herself. Jake would have thrown something after her, but he figured she’d just take that as more proof that she was right.

Which she was, damn it all to hell.

There was a big, noisy deli on the corner a few blocks down the street from Megan’s condo. She made it a point to stop there on her way home from work whenever the prospect of the silence in her apartment didn’t appeal to her. With Abby and the twins now living in Chesapeake Shores instead of just a few dozen blocks away here in New York, she was at loose ends more often than she liked.

She was almost to the deli’s door when she glanced through the window and spotted Mick sitting at a table sipping coffee. Shock stopped her in her tracks. Her heart flipped over in her chest, just the way it had the first time she’d met him more than thirty-five years ago. How was it possible to still feel that rush of emotion after all these years, especially with a bitter divorce and fifteen years of separation behind them?

When she’d felt a little twinge of affection—okay, more than a twinge and more than affection—a few weeks ago, she’d blamed it on being back in Chesapeake Shores surrounded by family, if only for a few days. Of course she’d felt a little sentimental. Today, right here in New York where she’d made a new life for herself, the rush of emotion caught her completely off guard. It was also a whole lot more worrisome. She’d never tried to deny that she still loved Mick. But she also knew it was folly to consider going back to him. No matter what Abby believed, Megan knew he hadn’t changed, not enough anyway.

As she debated with herself whether to go or stay, he glanced up and caught sight of her. A smile broke across his face and in that instant, she was lost. No one had ever looked at her the way Mick did, as if the sun rose and set with her.

She gave him a little wave, then went inside. Drawing in a deep, calming breath, she prepared herself to face him without losing control of her emotions or the situation. She was a smart, accomplished woman. It ought to be easy enough.

Ever the gentleman, Mick stood as she approached. His kiss grazed her cheek, but then he pulled back, looking as embarrassed as a schoolboy caught stealing a kiss in the cloakroom.

“Sorry,” he murmured as he slid into the booth opposite her.

She regarded him with amusement. “It’s okay, Mick. There’s nothing inappropriate about giving your ex-wife an innocent peck on the cheek. Now tell me, of all the delis in New York, what brings you to the one in my neighborhood?”

He gestured toward the cell phone in the middle of the table. “I was going to call you. I thought maybe we could grab dinner, if you don’t have plans.”

So he had come to see her, she thought, not sure whether she was pleased by that or more terrified than ever.

When she still hadn’t responded after a couple of minutes of silence, he regarded her with an impatient expression. “Do you have plans?”

She shook her head, determined not to make it easy for him or maybe struggling to decide if spending more time with him was wise.

He obviously had some idea of what she was up to because he frowned. “Then will you have dinner with me?” he inquired with exaggerated patience.

Since she’d planned to eat right here anyway, she finally nodded. “Sure, we can grab a bite here.”

He glanced around the deli with its rush of customers and clattering silverware, with its legion of abrasive waitresses and waiters. “Here? I was thinking someplace, you know, a little classier than this.”