A Chesapeake Shores Christmas

by Sherryl Woods

  “The timing has to be right,” Megan replied defensively. “Not just for me, but for everyone in the family.”

  “Meaning Connor,” Abby concluded. “Don’t you think he has more on his mind these days than whether you and Dad marry again?”

  “Of course he does. And we need to help him through this,” Megan said.

  “By postponing your own happiness?”

  “I’m happy enough right now. Your father and I are together, even if we haven’t remarried. I’ve reconciled with you, Bree, Jess and Kevin.”

  Abby gave her a hard look. “You know who you sound like right now? You sound like Connor. I’ll bet you he’s said something very much like that to Heather a thousand times over the years. He loves her, he’s happy, they have it all except a ring and a marriage license, yada-yada-yada. Based on the fact that she’s just walked out on him and left his son here with us, I don’t think she bought it. Dad’s not on board with it coming from you, either, and if you don’t wake up and see that, you’re going to blow it, Mom. Dad has his pride. Surely you know all about that. It’s what kept him from following you when you left us.”

  Megan winced at the certainty she heard in Abby’s voice. “Your father’s not giving up on us,” she said, but after the way he’d just stormed out of the house, she no longer felt quite as confident about that. “And if he does, then it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Oh, Mom, you know better than that. If Dad’s pride kicks in and he feels as if you’re going to keep finding excuse after excuse to postpone the wedding, he’ll walk away.”

  Megan knew that Abby had a point, but she couldn’t allow herself to be bullied into agreeing to a wedding date just because Mick had all but uttered an ultimatum. Besides, it hadn’t come to that yet. He might be frustrated. He might even be annoyed. But he wasn’t going to throw in the towel, at least not yet.

  “Your father and I will work this out,” she assured Abby. “I promise.”

  Abby regarded her skeptically. “I hope so, Mom, for your sake, because I don’t know if you’ll ever be truly happy if you blow this chance with Dad.”

  Though she wasn’t about to admit it aloud, Megan wondered about that, as well.

  * * *

  At loose ends after walking out on Megan, Mick eventually made his way to Sally’s. To his surprise, he found both Kevin and Connor already there. He scowled at his younger son.

  “I thought you were supposed to be off making things right with Heather.”

  “I would be, if I could find her,” Connor admitted, sounding thoroughly frustrated. “She’s not answering her cell, and no one I’ve called will admit to knowing where she is.”

  “Probably serves you right,” Mick muttered, sliding in next to Kevin and ordering coffee and a slice of warm apple pie with ice cream on top.

  Connor frowned at him. “Gee, thanks for the support, Dad.”

  Mick was about to reply, but Kevin stepped in before they could start a full-scale argument. “Why are you here looking as if you lost your best friend?” he asked Mick. “I thought you liked to spend every minute with Mom when she came to town.”

  “Your mother and I aren’t seeing eye to eye at the moment,” Mick admitted.

  Connor’s expression brightened. “Have you given up your plan to marry her?” he inquired hopefully. “I’ve known from the beginning it was a bad idea. It’s about time you saw the light.”

  “You don’t know anything,” Mick retorted. “We’ll get married, but it might not be on the timetable I had in mind.”

  Kevin frowned. “Why not? I thought a New Year’s Eve wedding had been all but carved in stone.”

  Just as Sally set down his coffee and pie, Mick cast a pointed look in Connor’s direction. “Your mother seems to think we’ll never be happy if Connor can’t accept the two of us being back together. She also doesn’t think we should get married while his life’s in turmoil.”

  Connor regarded him with disbelief. “So this is one more thing that’s my fault?”

  “Just telling it like it is,” Mick said, jabbing his fork into the pie and spearing a large chunk of apple dripping with melted vanilla ice cream. “Your mother wants us all to be one big happy family, and until that happens, she’s not on board with the wedding.”

  “You do realize that getting everyone in this family happy at the same time is like trying to herd cats, don’t you?” Connor said. “There are too many of us. Life happens. Things go wrong. People fight.”

  “Well, all of that has to stop,” Mick declared. “I mean it. I want this wedding and, by God, nothing is going to stand in its way!” He scowled at Connor. “Especially not you.”

  “Hey, I have my own problems to worry about,” Connor protested. “You’re on your own with Mom.”

  “If only that were true,” Mick grumbled.

  Kevin held up a hand. “Okay, hold on here. If Mom wants Connor to be happy, then let’s take a step back and focus on him for a minute. Connor, do you have any more ideas about where Heather might have gone? Did you try her family?”

  Connor winced. “They’re not very happy with either of us. They didn’t approve of our decision to have the baby without getting married. I doubt Heather would have gone running to them. If nothing else, she wouldn’t want to admit she’d left their grandchild behind with me.”

  “Is there a place she liked to go off to when she wanted to think?” Kevin persisted. “Maybe the beach or the mountains, any place like that?”

  Connor shook his head.

  “How well do you even know this woman?” Mick asked. “You don’t seem to have any clue about her habits.”

  “I know Heather as well as you know Mom,” Connor claimed.

  “Now, why would you say a thing like that?” Mick demanded. “I know your mother better than any other person on this earth.”

  “You apparently didn’t know how miserable she was when you were married,” Connor suggested. “Or did you just ignore all the signs?”

  Mick bristled, but he couldn’t deny Connor’s guesswork. He had known Megan was unhappy back then. He just hadn’t believed she would ever leave him. “I made my share of mistakes, and turning a blind eye to her unhappiness was at the top of the list,” he admitted to his sons. “Which is why I’m here to tell you to learn from them. If you love this woman, then you need to figure out the things that matter to her.”

  “Oh, I know what matters to Heather,” Connor said bleakly. “She wants to get married. She told me she didn’t. She swore to me she understood how I felt about marriage. Even after she got pregnant, she claimed she was okay with us just living together and being a family. She said all the right things, exactly what I wanted to hear.” He sighed heavily. “But she didn’t mean a word of it.”

  Mick looked in his son’s eyes and saw the pain and confusion there. It was something to which he could relate. Megan had often told him what he needed to hear at the time, and he’d been too full of himself to see it for the attempt it was just to keep peace between them during the rare time they had together back then.

  “So, how are you going to fix this, son?” he asked Connor. “Do you know what you’re going to say once you’ve found her? What you’re going to do?”

  Connor shook his head. “Not a clue, to be honest. I can’t back down on the stance I’ve taken. That’s who I am, what I believe.”

  “And that means more to you than she does, than keeping your family together?” Mick pressed.

  Connor nodded, but he looked less certain. Like way too many of the O’Briens, he clearly wanted to have things his own way, even if that way was selfish and shortsighted.

  “You’d rather lose her than bend?” Kevin asked, regarding his brother incredulously. “If there’s one thing I know about marriage, it’s that it involves give-and-take. Both people need to c
ompromise.”

  “Getting married when I don’t believe in it wouldn’t just be bending or compromising,” Connor insisted. “It would be going against my own principles.”

  “A noble stance,” Kevin said. “But I guarantee it won’t keep your bed warm at night, and it will assure that you see your son only on holidays and the occasional weekend. You’re a divorce lawyer. You know how things like this go.”

  “There’s no divorce involved,” Connor said. “We were never married.”

  Kevin shook his head. “You say that as if it simplifies everything. Doesn’t it actually make the whole custody thing even trickier? What kind of legal claim do you have to that boy? Is your name even on the birth certificate?”

  “Of course it is.” Connor scowled at him. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours always,” Kevin said. “Except when you’re being too pigheaded to admit what you really want.”

  “I want Heather and my boy back home,” Connor said emphatically.

  “But only on your terms,” Kevin said. He glanced at Mick and raised his cup of coffee in a mocking toast. “And isn’t that the O’Brien way?”

  Mick sighed heavily. “It is, indeed.”

  Something told him he and his son needed to find a new way, or they were both going to lose the most important people in their lives.

  9

  Ever since he’d seen his father, baby Mick had turned fussy. Clearly he’d tired of unfamiliar faces and wanted his mommy or his daddy back. Megan was at her wit’s end. She’d paced the floor with him. Nell had found some of Davy’s colorful toys and rattles in the attic and brought those down, but the baby wasn’t interested.

  “He’s probably teething,” Nell concluded. “I’ll get something cold for his gums.”

  Unfortunately that didn’t work, either. He just screwed up his little face and cried harder. Finally, in desperation, Megan called Connor.

  “You need to get back to the house,” she said when he answered.

  “Why? Giving up already on babysitting?”

  “Save the sarcasm,” she said. “Your son needs to see a familiar face. Since I can’t reach his mother and I can find you, you’re the one who needs to step up.” The baby let out another howl just then, as if to echo her point.

  “I’ll be right there,” Connor said with surprising alacrity. He hesitated, then added, “In the meantime, if you could sing to him, it might help. He likes that when Heather does it, not so much when I do. I can’t carry a tune, and he clearly objects to that. He’s probably a budding music critic.”

  Megan chuckled. “You know, you were exactly the same way,” she reminded him. “You loved it when your father or I sang, but let Abby or Bree try to calm you that way and you screamed so loudly you drowned them out.”

  Connor was silent, perhaps surprised that she remembered anything about his childhood. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said eventually.

  Satisfied that he was on his way, Megan cuddled the baby against her shoulder and walked around the house singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” It had been Connor’s favorite, better than any lullaby. Amazingly, the baby settled right down in her arms.

  “Ah, these O’Briens,” she murmured. “Ireland’s in their blood, no matter how far removed they are from Dublin.”

  Back upstairs as she put the now-sleeping baby into his crib, she heard Connor sprinting up the stairs.

  “He’s asleep,” he whispered in surprise when he walked into the room.

  “Singing worked like a charm,” Megan told him. “I’m sorry I made you come back here for no reason. I just felt so awful for him being alone in a strange place.”

  “It’s okay. I think I needed a glimpse of him, anyway.” Connor sighed heavily as he stood looking down at his son. He brushed a finger gently over the boy’s cheek. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”

  “He looks exactly like you did at that age,” Megan told him.

  Connor regarded her skeptically. “Don’t all grandmothers say that?”

  “Only if it’s true. If I had your baby book here, I could prove it to you.”

  Connor frowned. “Where is it? I haven’t seen it in years. I figured it was stuffed in some box in the attic.”

  Megan shook her head. “It’s in New York, along with all the others.”

  “You took our baby books with you?”

  She nodded. “Looking at them gave me comfort. They also reminded me of what I’d left behind. I also kept scrapbooks of clippings for each of you, along with all the pictures Gram and your father sent after I’d gone. Someday I’ll return them to all of you, so you can show them to your children. Your whole lives are summed up in those albums and in your school yearbooks. I have those, too.”

  Connor looked as if he didn’t know what to make of her sentimental actions. “I had no idea,” he murmured.

  “No idea about what?” she asked. “That I’d missed you? Of course I did. You’re my children, Connor. I had so many memories stored in my heart, but they weren’t nearly enough. Not a day went by that I didn’t yearn for a glimpse of each of you. I craved news about what you were doing. I missed the days when you’d come running into the kitchen after school to grab a glass of milk and a handful of cookies and tell me about your day.”

  She smiled at him. “I remember the first time you mentioned a girl and I knew you had your first crush. I also remember when she broke your heart by going to a Valentine’s party with someone else. I think you were eleven.”

  “Twelve,” he corrected, grinning. “Jennifer McGee. She was something! She had the most beautiful blond hair I’d ever seen. More important, she could hit a baseball a country mile. That impressed the daylights out of me.”

  Megan laughed. “I remember.”

  His expression sobered. “Heather played on the girl’s softball team in high school. By college, though, she’d given it up to be a cheerleader. She still had a good eye, though. She probably should have been a coach or something. She helped me with my game almost as much as the team coach did.” He looked startled for a moment, as if he’d just realized something. “Isn’t it funny that it was baseball that drew me to Jennifer when I was just a kid and then to Heather? They even looked a little bit alike. I had no idea I had a type when it came to women.”

  “You shouldn’t be so surprised,” Megan told him. “You’ve always been consistent about the things that matter to you.” She grinned at him. “Some might even say stubborn. I assume there are other things you love about Heather now that you’ve gotten to know her.”

  For a moment she thought he might not reveal anything more about his innermost feelings, but then he said softly, his gaze on his son, “She’s the calmest woman I know. She reminds me of Gram in that way. I feel at peace when I’m with her, at least until lately. Lately all we do is argue.”

  “About getting married?”

  He shook his head, surprising her. “Not really. I know that’s something she wants, but she doesn’t throw it in my face every five minutes. In fact, she doesn’t mention it at all.”

  “What, then?”

  He glanced at her, then turned away before admitting, “She thinks I’ve been too hard on you. And she was furious when I refused to come home for Thanksgiving.”

  “If you’d come, would you have brought her?” Megan asked.

  Connor was silent for a long time, then shook his head. “I wasn’t ready to spring her on everyone and try to explain our relationship and the baby. To be honest, I think that’s why I felt relieved when Dad ordered me to stay away. I was hurt, sure, but what I really felt most of all was relief that I wouldn’t have to deal with all of this yet. I’ve been putting it off so long it’s gotten to be a habit. A bad one, I know.”

  Megan hesitated, then dared to put her hand over his on the
side of the crib. “Oh, Connor, secrets have a way of making things so much more complicated than they need to be. Did you really have so little faith that we would understand or at least try to accept your relationship?”

  He gave her an incredulous look. “You have to be kidding! Dad doesn’t understand anything, just as I anticipated. Kevin’s done nothing but give me grief. I expect to be hearing from Abby, Bree and Jess before long.” He hesitated then added, “The only one who hasn’t gone on about this is actually you.”

  “Because I just want to understand,” she said. “And maybe because I blame myself for the way you feel about marriage. Isn’t that why you’re so conflicted in the first place?”

  “That’s part of it, and then I see marriages unraveling every single day at work. People who supposedly loved each other get angry and bitter and downright nasty, and I’m the one who has to fight for what’s fair for my client without allowing myself to think for even a second about what’s fair to the other person or to the kids. Even though I hated that you left, at least you and Dad never battled over everything. Back then, I was furious with him for giving you so much without a fight, but now I see how much better it was for us that you kept things civilized.”

  “Do you know what I regret about that?” she said. “Mick and I were so busy being civilized and trying to make things easier that you, your brother and your sisters apparently decided that I didn’t care enough to fight for you. You all came to the conclusion, I think, that I was happy to be rid of you, when nothing could have been further from the truth.”

  “I guess it’s easy to misjudge a situation when you don’t know all the facts, isn’t it?” he said, looking uncomfortable at the admission.

  “It is,” she agreed, then hugged him. “But we’re correcting that now, Connor. We’ve made a start.”

  And with any luck, they would find their way back to the easy, loving relationship they’d once had. It would just take time. She was willing to wait forever, if necessary, but she knew that Mick had far less patience.