“Since my first trips back were so quick, Mick’s been taking me on a tour of the town to see all the changes that have come about since I left,” Megan reported. “The downtown area has certainly expanded. There are several new restaurants I’m dying to try.”
“Speaking of which, we came by to see if you’d like us to bring you some lunch,” Mick said. “We’re thinking of trying the little French place on Shore Road if it’s not too busy.”
“I saw their menu when I walked past it the other day. I’d love a slice of their quiche and a Caesar salad,” Bree said at once. “It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to get away for lunch. From now on I’ll have to bring something with me.” She grinned at her father. “Or will you be providing this delivery service daily?”
“Oh, I’ll be around for the foreseeable future. All you have to do is call my cell and I’ll pick up whatever you want.” He gave her a penetrating look. “Or you could call an order into Sally’s, then close long enough to run over to pick it up.”
Bree immediately shook her head. “It’ll be better to bring something from home.”
Mick’s gaze narrowed. He turned to Megan. “Told you so.”
“Told her what?” Bree demanded.
“That something happened there the other day.”
“It’s not important, Dad. Besides, I don’t like the idea of locking the door and walking away during business hours, not even for a few minutes.” She was proud of herself for thinking of the perfect excuse to throw him off the scent. This wasn’t about Jake, and she didn’t want him thinking it was.
“Everyone in town shuts down to run an errand,” he argued.
“And I’ve heard people complaining about it for years. Nothing’s more frustrating than making a quick trip to grab something from a shop only to find a sign on the door saying they’re closed for fifteen minutes or a half hour or whatever. Who knows when that time started or when it’ll end? Most potential customers go away and don’t come back. They don’t waste their time waiting around.”
“She’s right,” Megan confirmed.
“Okay, you win,” Mick said. “You two are the shoppers, not me.”
Bree was relieved that she’d managed to steer the conversation away from Sally’s and her abrupt departure from the café earlier in the week. Unfortunately, it seemed her father hadn’t forgotten it.
“As long as you’re not avoiding Sally’s because of Jake,” he said pointedly.
“Of course not,” Bree said hurriedly, avoiding her mother’s gaze.
“Why do you think Jake’s involved?” Megan asked, her gaze shifting from Mick to Bree and back again. “Does this have anything to do with—”
Bree cut her off. She didn’t want her mother mentioning last night’s scene. No doubt Mick would hear about it eventually, but she didn’t want it to be here and now. “Mom, really, there’s no issue.”
“But—”
“Leave it alone, please,” she requested, casting a pleading look at Megan, who finally nodded with obvious reluctance and fell silent.
“Come on, Meggie,” Mick said when two customers came through the door. “Let’s grab that lunch and bring something back before Bree starves to death.”
“I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” Bree said. “Take your time.”
The truth was, though she was hungry, she wasn’t looking forward to another uncomfortable conversation with either of her parents.
Mick tried to get comfortable on the tiny wrought-iron chair at the French café, but it was a lost cause. It was a testament to how much he wanted to please Megan that he didn’t insist on going to the pizza shop down the street where the chairs were meant for normal-size people.
After they’d ordered and he’d finished squirming and resigned himself to being uncomfortable, he gazed into Megan’s eyes. “Okay, do you want to tell me why Bree was so anxious to rush us out of her shop?”
“Was she?” Megan asked, her expression all innocence but her eyes filled with guilt. “I assume it was because customers came in.”
“She was jittery as a june bug before those people ever crossed the threshold. Did I miss something last night?”
“You were at the party the whole time I was,” she replied. “How could you have missed anything?”
“I was outside for most of the evening. A whole lot of things could have gone on inside and I wouldn’t have known about it. Did she and Jake have words? I saw him when he finally showed up. He wasn’t inside more than a few minutes before he took off down the street with Mack chasing after him.” He frowned. “Something’s up with those two. Bree and Jake, I mean.”
Megan shrugged. “I didn’t overhear their conversation.”
“But you know there was an argument,” Mick concluded. “Don’t even try to deny it. The truth’s written all over your face. If Jake caused a scene or upset her, then I should know about it and I want to hear it from you, not in the form of gossip from somebody else.”
Megan covered his hand with hers. “Leave it alone, Mick. Bree’s a big girl. She can handle her own personal life.”
“Like hell,” he muttered. “Did you ever get a glimpse of the way that jerk in Chicago treated her, the way she let him treat her? I know you went out there.”
Megan blinked. “How did you know about that?”
“I have radar where you’re concerned. I caught a glimpse of you in the crowd on the opening night of her first play.”
“You didn’t,” she said, stunned. “I was so careful to stay in the shadows and away from all of you.”
His lips curved slightly. “I know. I watched you slipping back inside after intermission. You waited until the lights went down.”
“For all the good it apparently did me,” she said wryly.
“It was nice of you to come,” he said.
“I’m her mother,” she said simply. “I couldn’t stay away. Now tell me what you meant about Marty.”
“He talked down to her, patronized her when he wasn’t flat-out denigrating her work. Why she put up with it is beyond me. It’s a relief to know that’s behind her. I won’t stand by and let anyone else get away with treating her that badly.”
Rather than suggesting that Jake wasn’t treating Bree badly, as he’d hoped Megan would, her expression merely turned thoughtful.
“Okay, I’ll admit this much. I overheard some of what was said last night,” she said eventually. “Bree handled what happened. Those two obviously have issues we know nothing about.” She met his gaze. “Any idea what went on between them? They’d barely started seeing each other when I left town. They were just starting high school then.”
Mick shook his head, filled with guilt. “Ma might have mentioned a couple of times that she thought they were getting too serious, but Jake always struck me as a kid with a good head on his shoulders. Worked hard, too. Henry Caulfield over at Shores Nursery told me that even as a teenager, Jake was the best employee he’d ever had. He wasn’t satisfied just to mow lawns and do the backbreaking landscaping work. He wanted to know every aspect of the business. Didn’t surprise me a bit that he bought the company when Henry decided to retire. He’s expanded it, too.”
Megan gave him an impatient look. “I don’t give two hoots about his work ethic. I want to know if Nell was right. Were those two more involved than we realized?”
Mick had always done his best not to look too closely at the relationships in his daughters’ lives. If it had been up to him, not a one of them would have dated until they hit thirty. Since that was impractical, he’d closed his eyes to whatever might be going on right under his nose. He’d counted on Nell—and Megan before her—to instill a sense of right and wrong in the three of them when it came to boys. He’d had enough to contend with keeping Kevin and Connor on the straight and narrow, determined to see that they grew up with a healthy respect for women.
In response to Megan’s question, he shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Ma. She spent more time around them than I
did.”
“Mick, you have eyes in your head,” she said, her exasperation plain. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t have guessed if any of our girls were sleeping with someone?”
“Denial,” he said succinctly, even now uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. He’d rather walk an open beam ten stories in the air than discuss the possibility that Bree and Jake had been having sex. “Can’t we talk about something else?”
“Such as?”
“Us,” he suggested hopefully. “Can I talk you into sticking around here next week?”
“I can’t,” she said with little evidence of regret. “I have to be back at work on Tuesday. I was pressing my luck by taking Thursday off before a holiday weekend.”
“You could quit and move back here,” he said, knowing it was a long shot but deciding it was worth the risk. “If you want to keep on working, open your own art gallery, like I suggested before. I imagine our tourist trade could support a quality gallery.”
“No,” she said flatly, not even considering the idea.
“How are we supposed to resolve things between us with me here and you in New York?” he asked in frustration.
“Time,” she explained patiently. “Besides, I don’t even know if we can resolve things between us.”
He looked into her eyes and saw the real turmoil there. She obviously didn’t have his faith that they could work things out. “Time, huh?”
She nodded.
“We’re not getting any younger, Meggie. Let’s not waste too much of whatever time we’ve got left.”
“Being sure is not the same as wasting time,” she said.
He couldn’t argue with that, so he merely announced, “Then I’ll be seeing you in New York on Wednesday.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Did you think I’d let you go back up there and think of all the reasons we can’t make this work? I’m going to follow you and show you how we can build a new life, even if I have to prove it one day at a time.”
“What about your job?”
He grinned at her. “Haven’t you heard? I’m turning over a new leaf. I’ve got half a dozen men and a couple of women who can run my company as well as I can. I’m going to let them.”
Now her mouth gaped. “You can’t be serious.”
Mick tucked a finger under her chin and leveled a look directly into her eyes. “Don’t you know by now that when it comes to you, I’m always serious?”
She swallowed hard and shook her head. “It wasn’t always that way,” she reminded him.
“True enough,” Mick said with real regret for the time when his priorities had gotten all screwed up. “But it was that way in the beginning and it will be from now on.”
“Until the next big job comes along,” she said, an undeniable note of bitterness in her voice.
He started to argue, then realized the only way to prove it to her was over time. “You’ll see,” he said softly. “Things will be different, Meggie. I guarantee it.”
He had a feeling a good hard kiss might go a long way toward proving his point, but he knew sparking the old chemistry between them wasn’t the way to win her heart in the long run. Slow and steady, that was the ticket.
But for a man of action, it surely was going to test his patience.
14
D espite his very firm resolve to avoid Bree at all costs and despite Sally’s proximity to Flowers on Main, Jake refused to give up his daily lunch routine. Going elsewhere would be a sign of weakness and he was not going to allow Bree the satisfaction of knowing he was running scared.
Still, he parked down the block on the far side of Sally’s and on the opposite side of the street to minimize the chances of an unexpected encounter with the woman who plagued his dreams…and pretty much his every waking moment.
He, Will and Mack were enjoying their lunch—though Jake had one eye on the door just in case Bree decided to wander in—when Griffin Wilder pushed open the door to shout that someone was robbing the flower shop.
“Call 911!” Griffin hollered at Sally, then took off again.
Jake knew that with Griffin’s bad knee and hobbling gait, there was no way the old man would ever get there in time to save Bree. Jake was out of the booth in a heartbeat, followed by Will and Mack.
“Might know he’d want to go play hero,” Mack moaned as they bolted down the block.
“It’s a surprise to me,” Will said. “I thought they still weren’t speaking.”
“Will the two of you shut up, please. Bree could get hurt. That’s the only thing that matters right now.” The very thought of some thief laying a hand on her scared the daylights out of him.
Just as they reached Flowers on Main, the wannabe criminal fled through the front door, knocking over buckets of flowers and nearly tripping. Even though he had a good head start, Bree tore past Jake, Will and Mack, brandishing some sort of flimsy stick that was probably meant to stake plants. Jake took one look at the sight and groaned. He should have known she wouldn’t let some robber get the better of her. He had to stop her before she got herself killed. He sprinted a few feet and caught her around the waist, then nodded to Will and Mack.
“Catch the idiot, okay? He’s probably scared out of his wits by now.”
“We’re on it,” Mack said. “But you might want to point the police in the right direction.”
Even as Mack spoke, Bree was struggling to free herself. “Will you let go of me?” she demanded, trying to kick him in the shins. “I could have handled this. It was just some scared kid, who thought he could score some quick cash. He didn’t even have a gun. He was just pretending.”
“And you’re sure of that how?” Jake asked, one arm still firmly clamped around her waist to keep her from joining in the pursuit of her would-be robber.
Just then a shot rang out down the street and Bree went limp in his arms. So much for her theory, he thought, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was one instance in which he would have preferred to be wrong.
He patted her cheek as he gazed into her dazed eyes. “Hey, are you okay?”
She blinked up at him, her expression bemused. “He did have a gun, didn’t he?”
“Apparently so,” Jake said wryly, clinging to her a little more tightly.
“I could have been shot,” she murmured, shuddering as reality finally sank in.
“You don’t have to remind me of that,” he said. He was pretty sure every bit of blood had drained from his head when he’d heard the sound of that shot.
Alarm flared in her eyes. “Will and Mack?”
Jake could have kicked himself for not giving a thought to his friends. For the past few minutes, Bree had been his only concern. He looked away from her pale face.
“They’re heading this way,” he assured her. “They have the kid by the scruff of his neck. Mack has the gun.”
The sound of a siren finally split the air and a Chesapeake Shores officer cruised to a stop just in time to take the kid off their hands, cuff him and shove him into the back of the car.
Jake stayed right beside Bree as she gave the officer her statement and officially identified the robber, who’d gotten away with nothing, not even pocket change. Jake felt nauseated at the thought of how easily this could have turned out differently. When Bree started to go back into her shop, acting for all the world as if this had been nothing more than a minor disruption to her morning, he almost lost it. He waved Will and Mack toward Sally’s, promising to join them there in a minute.
Inside the shop, he closed the door and locked it, then scowled at Bree. “Sit down,” he ordered.
“Why? I’m fine.”
He rolled his eyes at her stubbornness. “And in about two seconds, all of this is going to sink in and you’re not going to be so fine, and I do not want to have to pick you up off the floor. Sit.”
She scowled, but she sat.
“Do you keep anything to drink in this place? Anything to eat?”
&n
bsp; She shook her head. “I usually order takeout from Sally’s, then get it after you’ve been there.”
He stared at her blankly. “Why?”
She gave him a wry look. “Oh, please, you know perfectly well you have dibs on the place from noon to one. Sally’s orders.”
Jake muttered a curse under his breath. It seemed that despite his best efforts to appear unfazed by Bree’s return, half the town knew better anyway. If he was going to have the reputation of a fool, he might as well throw himself wholeheartedly into being one. Still shaking with fear, he hauled her out of the chair and into his arms. He sealed his mouth over hers and kissed her the way he’d been wanting to since he’d first set eyes on her weeks ago. That kiss at the bistro had been a mild-mannered peck by comparison to this soul-searing claiming of her mouth.
Desire exploded through him. Not good, he told himself, but ignored the warning. It was too good. Too damn good. He’d missed the way she tasted, the way she melted against him, the way she came alive under his touch, the soft little purr in the back of her throat that told him he was doing something exactly right.
He’d lost her once, could have lost her today forever. Knowing that terrified him.
Confused, he backed off. Did he want this again, this desperate neediness, this hunger, this passion? Hadn’t he learned his lesson the first time?
Apparently not, because the answer was yes. He wanted her. He wanted it all.
Except for the heartache. He could do without that. Remembering what it had been like when she left had him turning for the door, fleeing from the shop, past Sally’s, then leaping into his truck and driving straight out of town to a hilltop overlooking the bay where he could be alone and think. Thirty minutes there, with all his thoughts filled with Bree, he cursed himself for not realizing he couldn’t shake her so easily. Finally he drove back to the nursery, where Connie was waiting for him, her expression smug.
“Not a word,” he said as he stormed past her and slammed the door to his office in what was becoming a habit.
“I was just going to warn you,” she called after him.
Flowers on Main Page 19