After Connor’s departure, Heather thought for a long time about what had happened, about how defeated he’d looked when he left. The image was burned in her mind. She couldn’t prevent her tears from spilling over, though she certainly tried. Crying seemed like such a waste of energy, but the tears had been bottled up for too long. She cried as she hadn’t in all the months since she’d walked away from their home in Baltimore and their life together.
Once started, she couldn’t seem to stop, not even when her mother walked into the room, took one look at her face and gathered her close. If anything, the rare display of unquestioning, unconditional sympathy made her cry harder.
After a while, she wasn’t even sure why she was crying—over a lost opportunity, the end of a dream, her mother’s unexpected comfort or a mix of everything.
“This is about Connor, I imagine,” her mother said eventually. “I saw him leaving here as I was on my way in, and he didn’t look a bit happier than you do. He told me his side of things. What’s yours?”
Heather stared at her in shock. “He told you that he’d asked me to marry him?” she asked, tears still streaming down her cheeks.
“He did.”
Heather tried to make sense of that, but she couldn’t. “Did he also tell you it wasn’t the first time?”
Her mother nodded, still stroking her hair as she had when Heather had come to her with some childhood hurt.
“I think it will be the last time,” Heather told her with a sad sniff.
“And you’re unhappy about that?” Bridget said.
Heather nodded. “I’m absolutely certain it would be a huge mistake for us to marry now,” Heather said with a touch of her old spirit. “He doesn’t really want to get married.”
“But he asked. Isn’t that cause to celebrate?”
Heather shook her head. “You’re not hearing me. I turned him down—not just today but every time he’s asked since the accident.”
“But why would you do that?” Bridget asked, clearly mystified. “I know you love him.”
“He didn’t ask because he wants to be married,” Heather said. “He asked because he made some deal with God.”
To her shock, her mother smiled. “Did he now? To save your life, I imagine.”
Heather nodded. “That’s what he said.”
“Then he’s an honorable man, wanting to live up to his end of the bargain.”
“Of course he’s an honorable man,” Heather said impatiently. “There was never any doubt about that.”
“From where I sat, there was,” her mother said wryly.
Heather scowled at her. “This is so not the time for another lecture on your low opinion of Connor.”
Again, her mother’s lips curved into a smile. “I might have been wrong about him. Wouldn’t you enjoy rubbing that in my face from now till Kingdom come?”
“You’re not taking this seriously,” Heather accused. “He’s furious because I turned him down, and now I can’t even go home, because there’s no way I can manage on my own. I’ll be locked away in this hospital forever.”
Her mother actually laughed at that. “You always did have a flair for drama,” she teased. “If you want to go back to your apartment, I’ll come with you. I can stay on for a while longer.”
“I thought Dad was insisting you come back home,” Heather said, though she took heart from the unexpected offer. She wanted so badly to be out of this place and back to normal, or at least what passed for normal these days without Connor living under the same roof.
Her mother waved off the concern. “Your father can manage on his own for a while longer,” she declared, an oddly guilty expression on her face. “The truth is, I haven’t felt such a sense of freedom in years. Who knows? Maybe I’ll settle in Chesapeake Shores, too. It seems like a nice town.”
“Without Dad?” Heather asked, unable to hide her shock.
Her mother merely shrugged. “You never know. Maybe it’s time to shake things up.”
Heather brushed at the last of her tears as if to clear her vision, then stared at her mother. “Are you serious?”
Bridget hesitated, then admitted, “I might be. But I do know I intend to stay right here until you’re back on your feet and are able to manage on your own again.”
Though she was still reeling from her mother’s unexpected offer and the hint that she might make a permanent move, Heather seized on the prospect of an obvious solution to another of her problems. After all, she’d learned quilting from her mother. “Would you be willing to teach the quilting class at the shop for me, just for a few weeks?”
Her mother’s eyes immediately lit up. “I’d love it,” she said enthusiastically. “Megan took me by to see the shop and showed me some of the quilts you’ve made. You haven’t forgotten any of the lessons I taught you. In fact, your stitches are better than mine and you’re more creative than I ever dreamed of being. You’re willing to break the rules for your own designs. I never dared.”
“But without the basics I learned from you, I never would have risked trying my own designs,” Heather told her. “I’m so grateful to you for sharing your talent with me. And I would love it if you’d work with my class. They’re all really nice people. I think you’d enjoy them. Some are around my age, but there are a couple of older women, too.”
“I’ll be happy to do it, but I think you could teach it yourself, at least in another week or two,” Bridget said. “We could find a way to get you down the stairs.”
“Oh, I plan to be there,” Heather said. “But I wouldn’t mind a few of your lessons myself. It’ll be like a refresher course for me.”
“Then that’s settled,” Bridget said, looking pleased. “Now let’s talk about this latest proposal of Connor’s.”
“No,” Heather said, her good mood vanishing.
“Later, then,” her mother said a little too agreeably.
Something told Heather she was just going to lie in wait until Heather was at her most vulnerable before taking Connor’s side again. Who would have thought Bridget Donovan and Connor would ever take the same stance? It was one of the more ironic turn of events since the accident. And Heather had a feeling they both still had plenty to say.
Connor couldn’t bring himself to go anywhere near the hospital. In fact, even after he discovered a few days later that Heather had been released and had moved back into her apartment with her mother there to look after her and little Mick, he stayed away. So far he’d managed to cajole other people into picking up his son and bringing him over for his visits with his dad.
Though his caseload was already picking up with the kind of legal matters he wouldn’t have bothered with in Baltimore, there was still not enough work to distract Connor from the lousy mood he was in. He expected someone in the family to call him on it, but he hadn’t expected it to be go-with-the-flow Jess.
He was sitting in the kitchen at the house just after dawn, staring into his cup of coffee, when his younger sister walked in, scowled at him, poured herself some coffee, then sat across from him. It was obvious to someone who knew her well that she had something on her mind. Connor braced himself.
“This has to stop,” she said. “You have the whole family tiptoeing around you, terrified they’re going to say the wrong thing about Heather.”
“Since when has anybody in this family avoided any topic that suited them?” he asked, considering Jess’s comment a gross exaggeration. “Everyone in this family is always in trouble with one person or another for being too outspoken.”
“Come on, Connor. You snapped at Gram!” she said indignantly. “What has she ever done to deserve that?”
Connor flushed, recalling the incident with immediate shame. “I never meant to,” he said. “She made a comment about Heather and little Mick. I took it the wrong way and told her it was none of her business what Heather and I did or didn’t do. I apologized almost as soon as the words came out of my mouth. Gram understood.”
“Well, of co
urse she did,” Jess responded with exasperation. “That’s what Gram does, no matter how badly we behave, but, Connor, you have to see how wrong that was.”
“I do. It won’t happen again.”
“It will unless you fix things with Heather. If I loved somebody as much as you obviously love her, and he loved me back, you can bet I wouldn’t be dillydallying around and letting him get away just because I had my doubts about whether I had what it takes to make a marriage last.”
Connor regarded her with surprise. “It’s not about me doubting myself,” he insisted. “If I committed to getting married, I’d make it work.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“I gather the grapevine hasn’t reported that I asked Heather to marry me,” he replied. “Several times, in fact.”
Jess blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“Well, hallelujah! Why doesn’t anyone know about this? And why are you walking around in a funk?”
“Because she turned me down flat each and every time.”
Now it was his sister’s turn to look stunned. “You’re kidding me. Why? Did she say?”
“She didn’t believe I’d really done a one-eighty on the whole marriage thing.” He gave her a wry look. “It probably didn’t help that I admitted I’d made a pact with God when I was scared she was going to die.”
Jess stared at him. “You told her that?”
He nodded.
She punched him in the arm. “You’re an idiot.”
“That seems to be the consensus.”
“How are you going to fix it?”
“I’m not,” he said. “No matter what I say now, she won’t believe it.”
“Then stop talking and show her you’re ready to be the kind of husband she’s always dreamed about. Actions speak louder than words. At least that’s what a shrink we both know is always telling me.”
Connor grinned for the first time since the uncomfortable conversation had started. “How is Will these days?”
“Annoying,” Jess said at once. “Irritating. Impossible. Underfoot too darn much, thanks to you.”
“If the guy doesn’t get to you, why do you waste so much energy making sure you’re never alone with him? Seems to me that’s a dead giveaway that you have a thing for him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Besides, I didn’t come over here to talk about Will.”
“No, you came as the family’s duly designated representative to make sure I straighten things out with Heather. You can report back that it’s not going to happen. Not this time. If anything, things between us are worse than ever.”
“Because you’re too stubborn to swallow your pride and grovel.”
“Ask your friend Will what kind of prayer a relationship that requires groveling will have.”
She gave him an irrepressible grin. “The way I hear it, most of them do, especially when the man keeps doing really dumb stuff.”
“Asking Heather to marry me was dumb?”
“Of course not,” she said at once. “But taking no for an answer certainly was. After the way you held out on her for years, I don’t blame her for one minute for turning the tables on you.”
“I don’t think it was about revenge,” he said.
“No, Heather’s too sweet to want revenge. She just doesn’t believe in this sudden change of heart. Not many women would.”
Connor sighed. Even though he didn’t like what Jess was telling him, he realized there was a kernel of truth in it.
“Actions, huh?”
She nodded.
“Such as?”
“Did you ever really court her?”
“You mean flowers and candy, that kind of thing?” he asked.
“For starters.”
“Never. Who had money for stuff like that back in college?” His expression brightened. “I did take her a huge bouquet of peonies from Bree’s shop the other day. She’d always talked about how much she liked peonies.” He hesitated. “Or was it pansies? Maybe that was the problem. I took the wrong flowers and she concluded I hadn’t been paying attention.”
Jess merely shook her head. “Sadly, most women learn by the time they’re in their teens that men never hear a word we say unless we toss in things like football and baseball scores to get their attention.”
“Now who’s being downright cynical?” he said.
“Please,” she retorted. “We both know Mom left Dad because he never paid a bit of attention to what she said or what she needed.”
“Actually, she told me she’d never communicated to him what she really wanted,” Connor said. “You can’t blame Dad for not getting a message she never delivered.”
“Here we go again, with you taking Dad’s side over hers,” Jess said. “None of that’s the point. I’m telling you that you need to prove to Heather that you know her better than anyone on earth. Anticipate her needs for a change.”
“Look, I get what you’re saying, but I am clueless about how to do that,” he admitted.
Jess rolled her eyes. “Okay, if you were laid up in bed or at least stuck in the house, what would you want more than anything? Think back to when you had that really awful sprained ankle and had to stay off your feet for what felt like an eternity. Remember?”
“It was midway through football season my senior year,” he recalled. “That may have been the most frustrating week of my entire high school sports career.”
“Exactly,” Jess said, obviously pleased with herself for stirring his memory. “Now, what did you want the most?”
He thought about it for a minute before the answer dawned on him. “To get out.”
His sister beamed at him. “See, big brother, you’re not so clueless, after all. Pack a picnic lunch. In fact, I’ll have that done for you at the inn. Then you can go by, pick up Heather and take her to the beach for the afternoon. Let Bridget deal with little Mick. Make the afternoon all about Heather.” Her gaze held his. “And whatever you do, do not bring up marriage or your hurt feelings or this deal you made with God.”
“Got it,” he said. “Anything else?”
Jess’s expression turned dreamy. “Just treat her as if she’s the most special person in your life.”
Connor figured that wouldn’t be that difficult, because she was. Always had been.
Jess stood, then leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t mess this up,” she warned. “Aye-aye, boss.”
“Mock me all you want, but I’m your secret weapon.”
“How so?”
“I’m female. I know how I’d want a man to court me. I’ll coach you through this, one date at a time.”
Connor thought she was overly optimistic, but what did he have to lose? If Jess’s methods got him and Heather talking again, it would be a start, a step in the right direction. Worst-case scenario, if these tactics didn’t work for him, he could pass all the tips along to Will, and maybe his equally clueless friend could finally break the stalemate he seemed to be having with Jess herself.
Heather had thought that being home would cure her gloomy mood, but the truth was that her apartment suddenly seemed too small with her mother living there, too. Heather had made one futile attempt to go downstairs to her shop, but had had to give it up. Standing on crutches at the top of the steps had been too daunting. As unsteady as she was with that ungainly cast, she’d feared tumbling straight to the bottom. She’d vowed to try to work up the nerve another time.
She’d had plenty of company the past few days, but even that had grown tiresome. Truthfully, she thought, there was probably nothing that would improve her mood, not even winning the lottery or being miraculously cured overnight. The problem wasn’t really being incapacitated, it was knowing that things were actually over with Connor. His silence since her release from the hospital spoke volumes. And, if she hadn’t gotten the message from that, there was the fact that every other O’Brien except Connor had been by to pick up lit
tle Mick.
Only now could she admit that even after leaving Connor, she’d harbored a hope that they’d find their way back to each other. Ironically, he’d finally offered her everything she’d always wanted, but only because he was paying back a debt he felt he owed to God. That was no better way to start a marriage than if one person was dragged to the altar unwillingly.
She’d been in such a foul mood just thinking about their last encounter that her mother had actually taken little Mick downstairs to the store with her.
“If you want to sit up here and stew, that’s fine,” Bridget had said. “Just don’t let your little boy see you acting this way. You don’t want to change the way he feels about his daddy. Kids pick up on moods, you know.”
“You mean the way I always sensed the tension between you and Dad,” Heather had retorted.
Her mother had looked taken aback by that. Without saying a word, she’d gathered up Mick, his toys and his snacks and walked out of the apartment.
When someone tapped on the door, then opened it without waiting for a response, Heather scowled as she looked toward the intruder. Then her heart rate bumped up as she realized it was Connor. Then her scowl only deepened.
“Did you hear me invite you in?” she asked, not even trying to hide her irritation.
Connor smiled, clearly undeterred. “No, but then I didn’t want to take a chance that you wouldn’t. Your mother gave me her key.”
“Since when are you and my mother in cahoots?”
“I’m guessing it’s since you apparently got on her last nerve this morning. What’s going on over here?”
“See how cheerful you’d be if you were confined to this place day after day,” she retorted.
He made an unsuccessful attempt to fight a smile. “Gee, and you’ve been home for what? Three days?”
“Four,” she snapped.
He laughed at that. “Sorry. My mistake. It does seem, though, that I’ve come by just in time to save you from this self-imposed confinement. Who’d have thought that a few measly little stairs would be too daunting for you to tackle?”
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