Mick laughed, then shrugged sheepishly. “According to my wife and even my son-in-law—Caitlyn’s stepfather—my ways tend to backfire, at least at first. I thought maybe you’d have more finesse.”
“I think getting Caitlyn down the aisle is going to take more than finesse,” Noah replied candidly. “She’s worried about giving up on something she’s been working toward for a long time now. You probably know a lot about that kind of drive and determination.”
“I certainly do,” Mick said. “Took me a little too long, though, to figure out there’s more to life than a career. I’m a happier man since I discovered that.”
“You could tell Caitlyn about your epiphany,” Noah suggested.
“I’d be happy to, but it took me years to figure out what’s truly important. I lost all that time with my wife because of it. Caitlyn knows that, too. We don’t have that kind of time to waste. There’s a bit of urgency to this situation.”
Noah could hardly argue with that. “But she respects you, sir. She doesn’t want to disappoint you.”
Mick shook his head. “At the moment, anything I say is considered suspect. She knows what I’m expecting, an engagement and then a wedding. She won’t think I’m taking her needs into account.”
Noah actually found himself commiserating with this man who’d apparently always thought he possessed all the answers when it came to his family. For a man who’d had his own life planned out for some time, Noah had been feeling a bit at a loss himself now that he had to take Cait’s dreams into account. Balancing her goals with his own required some of that finesse Mick was talking about.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure Cait’s happy,” he told Mick. “Even if that doesn’t include me.”
Mick regarded him with shock. “You’d give up without a fight?”
Noah shook his head. “Not without a fight, no.”
Mick nodded happily. “Okay, then, let’s talk this through and come up with a plan,” he said eagerly. “I spoke to our priest yesterday and he’s ready to cooperate.”
Noah smiled. “You don’t leave much to chance, do you?”
“Not if I can help it,” Mick confirmed.
“She’s not going to be happy thinking we’re in cahoots,” Noah reminded him.
“Play this right and she never has to figure that out,” Mick replied confidently.
Noah wanted to believe that was possible, but he knew better. Cait, of all people, had her grandfather’s deviousness pegged. As Mick began to toss out ideas, some more outrageous than others, Noah started to realize the depths of it himself.
* * *
Caitlyn was trying to focus on Nell’s instructions, but she was too distracted by the thought of Noah being interrogated by her grandfather. They’d been alone too long. Just when she was about to burst into her grandfather’s office to rescue Noah, Jenny walked into the kitchen, a grin on her face.
“You!” she exclaimed, giving Jenny a mock scowl.
Jenny Collins Green, whose mother was married to Caitlyn’s great-uncle Thomas O’Brien, laughed. “My mom called about your news. I understand you’re blaming this situation on my bridal bouquet, so naturally I had to fly home from Nashville to defend myself. Caleb’s in the recording studio night and day with his new album or he’d be here, too. He’s thinking there might be a hit song in this predicament you blame on the two of us.”
“Of course he does,” Caitlyn said, then asked plaintively, “You couldn’t have tossed that bouquet in Carrie’s direction?”
“She didn’t need my help,” Jenny replied, pausing to give Nell a warm hug before turning back to Caitlyn. “Your sister will fall in love all on her own. She’s had lots of practice at looking for the right man.” She shrugged. “Besides, everybody knows I was never a tomboy. I had very little control over where that bouquet went.” She looked around the kitchen. “Where is this man who managed to slip past your defenses?”
“In Grandpa Mick’s office being grilled,” Caitlyn said with a shudder. “Do I need to be worried for his safety?”
“You don’t have a ring on your finger yet, so no,” Jenny said. “Mick’s not about to kill the groom-to-be before he has the two of you married.”
Caitlyn laughed, relaxing at last. “I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. Grandpa Mick has a single goal right now and it trumps any desire he might have to make Noah pay for his role in this.”
Jenny regarded Nell fondly. “Mind if I steal your helper? I think a walk in the fresh air before dinner will be good for her. She seems a little tense.”
“Go,” Nell encouraged. “She’s been of no help to me with her mind totally focused on what’s going on between Noah and her grandfather.”
Outside Jenny headed straight for the pier that jutted out into the bay. There was a bench at the end. At this time of day, it was drenched in sunshine that had finally managed to take the morning’s chill out of the air. They sat down on the warm weathered wood. Jenny turned her face up to the sun.
“God, I love it here,” she murmured. “I don’t think we’ve had sunshine for a week in Nashville. Spring is usually gorgeous there, but this year, not so much. I actually think I’m waterlogged from all the rain.”
Caitlyn drew in a deep breath and felt the last of her tension drain away. “I miss this, too,” she confessed. “I was so eager to be gone on my big adventure I hadn’t expected to, but I do.”
“Ever think about coming back here to live?” Jenny asked.
“Sure, maybe someday.”
“Once you’ve gone off to save the world, I imagine.”
Caitlyn smiled. “Something like that. How about you?”
“I already have my house here,” Jenny reminded her. “The one I grew up in.”
“That’s right. After your mom married Uncle Thomas and he built a house for her, they fixed your old house up for you, didn’t they?”
Jenny nodded. “Caleb loves it here, too, and of course, he feels this huge debt of gratitude to Bree for giving him a chance by casting him in her play so he could get his career back on track. Oddly enough, though he’s new to town and we live most of the time in Nashville, we have real roots here.”
“I imagine he’s also grateful to Bree for giving him the perfect excuse to stick around, so he could try to win you back,” Caitlyn said. “No one was very happy about that, me included.” She gave Jenny a penetrating look. “We were all wrong, weren’t we? You’re happy.”
Jenny nodded. “You were and I am. Caleb is my soul mate, no question about it.” She glanced over. “Can you keep a secret?”
“I may be one of the few in this family who can,” Caitlyn said. Before Jenny could say another word, Caitlyn’s jaw dropped. “You’re pregnant, too, aren’t you?”
A beaming smile spread across Jenny’s face. “Two months, so we’re not telling anyone just yet. I’m only telling you because I think it’s so amazing that no matter where we live, our kids will probably spend time here together on summer vacations or something. Maybe they’ll even be best friends, the way my mom was with your mom and your aunts.”
“Does anyone else know?”
Jenny shook her head. “Caleb is about to burst trying to keep the news to himself. We both know, though, that once the word leaks, our agents are going to want it plastered all over the tabloids. They’re publicity hounds.”
“And it makes great news after that whole nasty scandal that tore the two of you apart when they printed photos of him with another woman,” Caitlyn said.
“You’d think our secret wedding in New York would have done the trick with that,” Jenny said with a touch of bitterness. “But I suppose it never hurts to reinforce the fact that we’re very happily married now, thank you very much. If it can keep a few female predators at bay, I’m all for it.”
; “Living in the limelight must be tough, especially with a sexy country singer for a husband.”
“It has its drawbacks,” Jenny agreed. “Nobody knows that better than we do, which is one reason I like the privacy that comes with being back here from time to time. Mick would probably personally break the kneecaps of anyone in town who spread gossip about us. He even terrified Ethel into silence after Caleb and I reconciled, and you know how she loves to spread the latest news about everyone in town. Her shop may sell souvenirs and penny candy, but all the locals know it’s gossip central.”
Caitlyn laughed. “Grandpa Mick’s protectiveness and meddling do have their positive benefits, don’t they?”
“Try to remember that,” Jenny advised. “Now, let’s go back to the house and get Noah out of Mick’s clutches before he’s brainwashed.”
Much calmer after her conversation with Jenny, Caitlyn nodded. “Let’s do it.”
As she stood up, she gave Jenny an impulsive hug.
“What was that for?”
“Just a reminder that as much as I might grumble about catching your bouquet, I am grateful that it brought Noah into my life.”
“The bouquet didn’t do that,” Jenny told her. “All it might have done was open a tiny crack in your heart so you’d recognize him when he came along.”
* * *
Mick had given Noah a lot to think about. He’d been surprisingly helpful with suggestions for getting Caitlyn on board with the idea of planning their future together sooner rather than later.
And when Noah had shared a few of his own thoughts, cobbled together after a little computer research on Chesapeake Shores, Mick’s expression had brightened with delight. In some ways the gleam in his eyes had been worrisome, but he’d assured Noah he’d trust him to handle things...until he couldn’t.
Noah understood the warning implied by his words. Mick had a timetable in mind and he expected Noah to get the ball rolling quickly.
Now he glanced around the living room, then finally drifted toward a window to admire the scenery and, hopefully, avoid another interrogation from any of the other O’Briens milling around.
Eventually he spotted Caitlyn coming up the walkway from the cliff overlooking the bay with another young woman by her side. Since the two of them looked nothing alike, he assumed it was someone other than her twin. He walked outside to meet them.
“This is Jenny Green,” Caitlyn told him. “Jenny, this is Noah.”
He regarded Jenny appreciatively. “Something tells me I owe you a debt of gratitude for tossing that bridal bouquet in Caitlyn’s direction.”
Jenny laughed. “You sound much happier about that than she does. Nice to meet you, Noah. I’ll leave you to fill Caitlyn in on your grilling by her grandfather.”
As she went inside, he felt Cait’s steady gaze studying him. Her expression was filled with concern.
“No need to look so panicky,” he told her. “I’m still in one piece. And Mick hasn’t dragged me over to the dark side and gotten me to agree to any conspiracies where you’re concerned.” That much was true. He hadn’t actually agreed to any of Mick’s proposed schemes, not a specific one, anyway. They’d merely agreed to a goal. He doubted, though, that Cait wanted to view them as allies on any level whatsoever.
“I think that may bother me even more,” she claimed. “It tells me Grandpa Mick is being even sneakier than usual. What did the two of you talk about?”
“How much we have in common,” Noah said, keeping the response truthful, but not exactly enlightening.
Cait frowned. “Such as.”
“How much we both love you,” he replied simply. “And how much we want you to be happy. Those two things create an unbreakable bond between us. We both agree on that.”
Before she could ask a lot more questions he didn’t particularly want to answer, he told her, “Now we need to get inside. Nell pulled me aside on my way out here and told me she’s about to put that famous Irish stew of hers on the table.” He grinned at her. “It’s nothing like what you made for me, is it? Do I need to prepare myself to be politely enthusiastic?”
“Trust me, this will be an experience like none you’ve ever had before. Nell’s food is like manna directly from the Irish gods.”
“Then I’ll look forward to it,” Noah told her.
“She’s given me the recipe.”
“I thought your mom had already done that.”
“It seems she left out a few essential ingredients,” Caitlyn admitted. “Mom’s not exactly an attentive student when it comes to cooking apparently.”
Noah nodded. “That explains a lot.”
Cait’s laugh rang out. “It does indeed. Hopefully that culinary gene skipped over a couple of generations and landed in me, but don’t count on it.”
“You have plenty of other things going for you,” he told her honestly.
“Ah, flattery,” she said. “Is that part of your tactic these days?”
“I didn’t know I needed a tactic,” he claimed innocently.
“You’ve been closeted with my grandfather for close to an hour. Only a fool would believe there weren’t tactics being discussed, no matter how you’d like me to believe otherwise.”
Now it was Noah’s turn to laugh. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”
The game, if he wanted to think of it that way, was just beginning.
5
“Well, we got out of town without a shotgun wedding,” Caitlyn remarked to Noah when they finally had some time to sit down and talk. Their schedules had been so hectic once they were back at the hospital and on duty that they’d barely crossed paths for the past week. He’d even slept at his own place or in the on-call room at the hospital. That should have been a relief since it had postponed any serious discussions, but her bed had felt awfully lonely without him.
Noah grinned. “I’m not sure I see that as a good thing. I half wonder if it’s not going to take something as dramatic as that to get you down the aisle.”
Caitlyn frowned at him. “Pressure’s not helping,” she remarked. Even though Nell’s words and the reassurances from her mother had helped, she still wasn’t ready to take the plunge into a marriage she wasn’t convinced would be best for her and Noah both. And a marriage license under those circumstances would not guarantee the best life for their child, either.
With time on her hands, she’d spent the afternoon trying to master Nell’s recipe for Irish stew and thought she’d finally gotten it. She spooned it into bowls and set it on the kitchen table in the small apartment that she’d made cozy with mismatched castoffs from a variety of O’Brien homes. A bouquet of daffodils that reminded her of home sat in the middle of the old oak table.
“Try this,” she said, still standing. “I think it might be a huge improvement over last time. Of course, it was probably a mistake to make it so soon after you had Nell’s. I doubt there’s any comparison.”
Noah took a taste, while she watched him nervously.
“It’s good,” he said slowly, then grinned. “Very good, in fact. You might have a very limited repertoire of recipes, but we won’t die of starvation.”
Her expression brightened at his teasing. “Seriously, Noah? It’s actually good?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“If you thought it would put me in a good mood, you might,” she said. “You are anxious to get your own way, after all.”
“Sweetheart, if I thought praising your cooking would do the trick, I wouldn’t be in the kitchen cooking most of our meals myself when I’m over here.”
She frowned at his attempt at humor. “You’re losing ground, pal.” Then she couldn’t help chuckling. “Okay, I now have one edible dish I can safely prepare for company. It’s better than last week, when I had none.”
She joined him at the table and took her own first bite of the stew, then sat back in astonishment. “Wow! It really is good.”
“I told you.”
She sipped her water and peered at Noah over the rim of her glass. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about the weekend. Or maybe I should say you’ve been pretty evasive whenever I’ve asked.” She gave him a stern look. “No more, Noah. I want to know what you and my grandfather discussed while I was in the kitchen with Gram. I doubt it was sports. Other than knowing there are football and baseball teams in Baltimore, you don’t know enough to hold your own in that conversation.”
“Hey, I play basketball.”
She rolled her eyes. “With a bunch of medical residents, who are equally clueless about other sports. When I mentioned the Ravens to Mike Hardesty, he thought I’d gone bird-watching.”
“He did not,” Noah said. “He was just pulling your leg.”
“I’m telling you the man didn’t have a clue.” She waved off the subject. “Not the point. I want to know what you and Grandpa Mick did talk about.”
He shrugged. “The future, my plans, the state of medicine today, things like that.”
Though he’d made a valiant effort to sound casual, as if none of it had amounted to much, Caitlyn knew better. She sat up a little straighter. “What future?”
“Yours and mine,” he replied readily.
“That’s what I was afraid you meant. Did you tell him we’d be getting married?”
“Of course not. You haven’t agreed to that.”
She saw the loophole. “But you said you were eager to get married, didn’t you?”
He gave her an innocent look she didn’t come close to buying.
“I told him it was a possibility, that it was certainly what I wanted,” he conceded.
Caitlyn groaned. It was every bit as bad as she’d feared. “So now he knows if there’s a holdout, it’s me. No wonder you’re still in one piece and I have a half-dozen messages from him on my cell phone.”
Noah shrugged, his expression unrepentant. “I gave him the facts about where I stand. He drew his own conclusions.”
The Christmas Bouquet Page 6