Behind them Henry giggled. “You guys are crazy.”
Kevin grinned at his stepson. “You are not the first to notice that, my boy. How about you and me team up against this hotshot? I think we can take him.”
Henry nodded eagerly. “Awesome!”
“That doesn’t strike me as fair,” Connor said, “but bring it on.”
An hour later, he’d destroyed the two of them. He regarded Kevin with satisfaction. “Who’s crying now? I see a double hot fudge sundae in my future.”
“Okay, okay, we bow to your superior expertise,” Kevin said, winking at Henry. “Why don’t you run upstairs and see if Davy’s awake? We should probably get home.” He glanced at Connor. “I was supposed to take little Mick back to Heather, but I assume you’d rather do that yourself.” He studied him pointedly. “Or am I wrong?”
“I’ll take him,” Connor said, his voice suddenly tight as he scowled at his brother. “So, you knew when you came to Baltimore the other night that Heather and little Mick were living here in town?”
“Guilty,” Kevin said.
“Yet you saw no need to mention it,” Connor said accusingly.
“Hey, all of this is between the two of you. The rest of us are innocent bystanders.”
“Innocent, my behind,” Connor said. “Since when has any O’Brien ever stood on the sidelines when it comes to stuff like this? You’re all a bunch of meddlers.”
Kevin didn’t even attempt to deny it. “You know now—isn’t that what counts? Well, that and what you’re going to do about it. Any idea about that?”
Connor sighed. “Not a clue.”
Kevin’s expression brightened. “I have a thought or two.”
“Says the man who was not meddling,” Connor said. “Forget it, big brother. Keep your ideas to yourself. If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. You might circulate that message to the rest of the family, as well.”
Kevin laughed. “You have to be kidding. You said it yourself, meddling is the family hobby. The only way you’re going to deal with Heather in private is if the two of you move cross-country.”
Connor thought of the shop Heather had just opened. It was as cozy and welcoming as their home had once been. He doubted she’d be open to abandoning it, and he was in no position to make such a suggestion anyway. What could he offer her except more of the same? Sadly, all of his vows came with conditions, conditions she could no longer accept.
And that meant they were at a stalemate, with no obvious solution in sight.
3
At six o’clock, with the last customer gone, Heather locked the shop’s front door and began counting her receipts for the day. Sales had been decent for this early in the season, but things were going to have to get a whole lot better if she was to pay the bills and support herself with this business.
At a tap on the front door, she looked up, expecting to see Shanna with the boys, but it was Connor who stood there, their son in his arms.
“Shanna got held up at the store, so Kevin picked up Davy and Henry. I said I’d bring little Mick to you.” He set his son down on the shiny wood floor.
Though he’d started walking weeks ago, when he wanted to move fast, Mick had reverted to crawling. Now he fell to all fours and shot across the room to grab on to her leg.
“Hi, big boy,” Heather said, scooping him up, then meeting Connor’s gaze. “Thanks. Anything else?”
“I thought maybe we could grab a bite to eat,” Connor said, hands shoved into his back pockets. He looked surprisingly vulnerable for a man who could command a courtroom and sway juror opinions.
“Why?” she asked.
“To catch up?”
It was more of a question than an answer, which again showed just how ill-at-ease he was. Heather smiled despite her determination to keep him at arm’s length. It would be way too easy to forget all about her resolve and drift back into a relationship with this man, a relationship that would go nowhere, not because they didn’t love each other but because he wouldn’t allow it. No matter how much it hurt, she had to keep reminding herself that what he was able to give wasn’t enough.
“Thanks, but I don’t think so,” she said softly.
“It’s a burger and some fries, not a lifetime commitment,” he protested.
“And isn’t that exactly the problem?” she replied. “Have dinner with your family, Connor, or a friend. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You and I are friends,” he said stubbornly. “I miss my best friend.”
“So do I,” she admitted, “but things aren’t that simple, Connor. Not anymore. What you’re offering just isn’t enough for me. I owe it to myself and little Mick not to settle for so little.”
“Friendships last a whole lot longer than most marriages,” he countered, as he had all too often in the past when defending his decision never to wed.
“Probably because friends are more forgiving than spouses,” Heather replied, as she had before. “Or because people don’t understand that they have to work at marriage. Relationships are never static. They have to evolve over time as the individuals in them change.”
Connor frowned. “You still believe in marriage, don’t you? Despite all the evidence you’ve seen that it never lasts or that people wind up being miserable, you still have this optimistic view that love can conquer everything.”
“I do,” she said. “I know I grew up with a lousy example in my own life, but that just made me want to try harder to be sure my own marriage is everything it can be. I know I have what it takes to get through the rough patches.”
“Then why not look at this as one of those rough patches and work through it?” he asked with apparent frustration.
“Toward what?” she asked reasonably. She waved her hand when he didn’t come up with an answer. “Never mind. We’ve been over all of this before. Why belabor it? I respect your decision, Connor. I just don’t agree with it.”
“I never lied to you, Heather,” Connor said, his voice again filled with frustration. “You knew how I felt almost from the day we met. I didn’t change the rules at the last minute.”
“I’m not accusing you of that. I just think it’s sad that you made such a rule based on what happened with your parents. They’ve gotten over the past. Why can’t you?” She tilted her head and studied him. “You know what I hope? I hope you don’t go through your entire life not taking chances, not grabbing on to life. If you keep holding a part of yourself back, never committing to anyone, it would be such a waste.”
“You act as if marriage is the only commitment that matters,” he said irritably. “It’s a piece of paper, Heather. That’s all. It’s only as strong as two people want it to be.”
“Oh, Connor,” she said, shaking her head sorrowfully. She knew he believed that, which was probably the saddest part of all. “We’re never going to agree about this. I think you should go. I have things to finish up in here, and then I have to feed little Mick and put him to bed.”
For a moment, he looked as if he might prolong the argument, but then he just gave her a curt nod and left.
“Daddy!” little Mick said mournfully, staring after him.
Heather hugged her son just a little bit tighter. “You’ll see Daddy again tomorrow, sport. Grandpa Mick and all your uncles will be there, too.”
Whether Connor was around or not, at least her son wouldn’t be lacking when it came to strong male role models. She just couldn’t help wishing that his daddy would be the most important one.
Rather than going home, Connor drove over to The Inn at Eagle Point, hoping to find his sister Jess there. Jess was younger, which meant she still thought he hung the moon, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Better yet, she was single, which meant she had little to say on the subject of his reluctance to wed the mother of his child. All of his other siblings were now so happily wed and starry-eyed, they could no longer seem to grasp his point of view. How they’d accomplished that given the example they’d
all grown up with was beyond him.
He found Jess in the inn’s cluttered office with a mountain of paperwork spread out on the desk in front of her.
“This is what you do for excitement on a Saturday night?” he taunted, settling down in a chair and propping his feet on the desk.
“It is when it’s the end of the month and I haven’t touched any of these papers until now,” she said. “If Abby catches sight of this mess, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I thought our big sister hired an accountant to take care of the bills,” Connor said, referring to Abby’s intervention a few years earlier to keep the inn from bankruptcy before it even got its doors open.
“She did, but there are still some things only I can handle,” Jess said with a sigh. “It’s the most boring part of the job.”
“Which is why you neglect it,” Connor guessed.
She nodded. “Exactly. At least you’re not blaming it on my attention deficit disorder,” she said. “Everyone else does. Any time I mess up, it’s because of the ADD. I’m tired of people using that as an excuse when I let things slide. Sometimes a screwup is just a screwup.”
“Are you referring to a specific mistake or yourself?” Connor asked, his gaze narrowing. “Because nobody calls my sister a screwup.”
She grinned. “Thanks, but sometimes that’s exactly what I am. I’m sure Abby would be happy to fill you in on all the ways I’ve messed up. I’ll bet she keeps lists.”
He hated hearing Jess talk about herself in such disparaging terms. She’d overcome a lot of difficulties to achieve everything she had. “In the end, though, you’ve made a success of the inn, Jess,” he reminded her. “You should be proud. All the rest of us are, Abby included.”
“Mostly I am,” she admitted, then sighed. “I suppose I’m just having those end-of-the-month blues tonight.”
She leaned back and propped her own feet on the desk. “So what brings you to town, especially on a Saturday night? Did you come to see Heather and your son? It’s about time, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Honestly, I didn’t even know they’d moved here,” he admitted. “How awful is that? Heather never said a word.”
“She probably thought you wouldn’t be interested,” Jess said.
“Yeah, that’s what she said.”
“Are you? Interested, I mean?”
“If it were up to me, she and little Mick would still be living with me in Baltimore,” Connor said candidly, then sighed himself. “But I do understand why she bailed. I won’t give her the one thing she wants.”
“A ring on her finger?” Jess guessed.
“Exactly.”
“Is it about a ring or a commitment?”
Connor considered the question. “I’d say the ring. I was committed to her a hundred percent, and she knew it.”
“But don’t you see, Connor, the ring is proof of that,” Jess said, leveling a look at him he hadn’t expected. “I get where she’s coming from.”
Connor frowned. “I thought you’d be on my side.”
“Hey, I am always on your side,” she told him. “It doesn’t mean I can’t see another point of view. Plus, I actually get how women think, which is more than you can say or you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Then you think I should marry Heather?” he asked.
“Not if you don’t love her,” his sister responded at once, then grinned. “But I think you do.” She shrugged. “Then again, what do I know about that? My own experience with grand passion is seriously in need of a major overhaul. I haven’t stuck with anyone for more than a minute. It’s making Dad very nervous. One of these days he’s going to take on my love life and try to fix it. If you can keep him distracted from that with your situation for, say, another ten years, I’d appreciate it.”
Connor studied her with amusement. “Dad has someone in mind for you?”
“No one specific, but I’ve seen him looking long and hard at every single man who’s ever in the same room with me, weighing what kind of candidate they’d make.” She shuddered. “It’s embarrassing. I wouldn’t put it past him to come up with some kind of dowry to get me down the aisle.”
Connor gave her a thoughtful look. “You’ve got to be worth at least a couple of cows and a herd of sheep, don’t you think?”
She scowled at him. “You are not even remotely amusing.”
“Look, if you don’t want to risk Dad getting involved, then go find the man you want,” Connor said. “That’ll put a stop to it.”
“You say that as if it’s as easy as plucking the ripest, sweetest peach from a tree in mid-July. In this town the pickings are pretty slim.”
“You run an inn full of tourists,” he reminded her.
“Available men do not come to a romantic little seaside inn alone,” she replied. “Would you?”
Connor winced. “Now that you mention it, no. Okay, start offering packages for business meetings. The new golf course should be opening soon. I’ll bet you could attract a law firm, for instance, to come for a weekend of meetings and golf.”
Jess’s eyes immediately lit up. “That’s a great idea! I could design a special brochure advertising small corporate retreats, then send it to all of the law firms and other corporations in Baltimore and Washington.”
She shoved aside papers on her desk, found a notebook and jotted down notes, her brow knit in concentration. Connor might as well have been in Baltimore.
Eventually, his subtle cough caught her attention. She grinned sheepishly.
“Sorry. I got caught up in the idea. You should be proud, since it was yours. And you know I have to write everything down when it’s fresh, or it will have flown right out of my head by morning.”
“I’d sit right here and brainstorm with you all evening, but to be honest, I’m starved. Can I interest you in dinner?”
Her expression brightened. “Let’s go to Brady’s for crabcakes. Now that you’re a big-time lawyer, you can buy.”
“It’ll be mobbed on a Saturday night,” he protested. “We could just eat here. Word is you have a first-class chef.”
“Our kitchen’s already closed. We don’t stay open this late until the season kicks in. Don’t worry about getting into Brady’s, though. Dillon lets me sneak in the back way. Oh, he yells at me for doing it, but he hasn’t stopped me yet.”
“All because you introduced him to his wife,” Connor replied. He stood up. “Okay, let’s do it. We can sit in the bar and check out the other singles. Maybe one of us will get lucky.”
Jess patted his cheek. “You’re already luckier than any man has a right to be. You just need to wake up and see it.”
Connor groaned. “Are you really going to hop on this bandwagon, too?”
“Of course I am. I like Heather. I love your little boy. And you, big brother, should claim them before somebody else snaps them up.” She gave him an impish grin. “Not that I’m meddling, of course.”
“Of course,” he said wryly.
In the O’Brien family, everyone had an opinion, and not a one of them was shy about expressing it. More’s the pity.
Overnight the springlike weather had taken a turn back toward winter. Temperatures dropped, dark clouds rolled in and what started as rain on Sunday morning had turned to sleet by lunchtime. Heather thought about calling Megan to cancel, but she knew that not only would she be depriving Connor and their son of time together, but it would look as if she were running scared.
She had little Mick bundled up and was about to head out, when Connor appeared at the door.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, letting him step inside but no farther. It wasn’t just that he was soaked from the run from the car to her apartment. She didn’t want him in this new sanctuary of hers.
“The roads are getting slick. I didn’t want you to drive over to the house. I figured I’d pick you up.” He hunkered down in front of little Mick. “Hey, buddy, you ready to go to Grandpa’s?”
“G
a’pa,” little Mick echoed, nodding eagerly.
Even though Heather hated admitting it, the thoughtfulness of the gesture wasn’t lost on her. “Thanks, but it’s just a couple of miles, Connor. I’m sure it would have been fine. Besides, the car seat’s in my car.”
“I have one, too,” he said, shrugging at her look of surprise. “I got it awhile back. It just made sense so we wouldn’t have to transfer the one from your car to mine if little Mick’s with me.”
“You’re right. It does make sense. Okay, then, we’ll ride with you.”
Connor frowned at her. “Where’s your winter coat? It’s turned really cold out there. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had snow before tonight.”
“This late in March?”
“It can happen,” he insisted. “Grab a scarf, too. And some gloves. You never remember your gloves.”
Heather hid a smile as she dug in the closet for her warmer coat, scarf and the gloves that had somehow ended up on the floor instead of in her pockets. Connor was right. She rarely wasted time hunting for them. And he was always pestering her about them. It was one of so many little ways he’d tried to take care of her.
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.
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