The Inn at Eagle Point

by Sherryl Woods

  She was thinking about that as she stepped out of the car and bumped straight into her father, of all people. The scowl on Mick’s face gave her pause.

  “Dad, I had no idea you were back in town.” She gave him a peck on the cheek, but his scowl just deepened.

  “Where the devil did you think you were going flying down Shore Road like that?” he demanded. “Did you even see there was another car on the road?”

  “I didn’t hit you, did I?” she retorted defensively. “Of course I was watching for traffic. Have you ever known me to get a ticket for reckless driving?”

  “It only takes once to have an accident that could end your life or someone else’s.” He whipped off his sunglasses and studied her. “You been crying?”

  “No. I got something in my eye,” she lied. “You know what it’s like when you drive a convertible.”

  “Nice try, but then only one eye would be red and swollen. Both of yours are red.” He tucked a hand under her arm and turned her in the direction of Sally’s. “We’ll have lunch and you can tell me about whatever’s on your mind.”

  Since he didn’t seem likely to release her, she allowed herself to be steered toward the café. She sat down, folded her arms across her chest belligerently until it dawned on her, thanks to Mick’s smirk, that she probably looked like a stubborn kid. She tried to make herself relax and drink the diet soda that Sally brought to her along with Mick’s coffee as soon as they were seated. Heaven forbid a regular actually wanted to order something different.

  “What can I get you?” Sally asked. “The meat loaf’s real good today, if I do say so myself. It comes with mashed potatoes and green beans.”

  “I’ll have that,” Mick said, his gaze never leaving Jess’s face.

  “Nothing for me,” she said.

  Mick rolled his eyes. “She’ll have a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich on whole wheat toast. Bring her fries, not chips.”

  Now it was her turn to scowl. “You don’t have to order for me like I’m five.”

  “I do, if that’s how old you’re acting.”

  Sally chuckled. “Nice to see some things never change. You two have been squabbling since Jess was a baby. I’ll have that order back in a sec.” She cast a look at Jess. “Unless you’d like to make any changes to yours?”

  “No, a BLT will be fine.”

  Mick took a slow sip of his coffee, watching her over the rim of his cup and waiting. That was the thing about Mick, as impatient as he was about most things, he’d always been able to outwait one of his stubbornly silent kids. At twelve it had been disconcerting. Now, it was annoying.

  Jess finally risked meeting his gaze. “What are you doing home already?”

  “I killed the San Francisco project and decided to get back here for a while.”

  “Really?” She felt a little flicker of delight. “Because of the inn’s opening?”

  He nodded. “That and the stuff that’s going on between Abby and Wes.”

  Jess frowned. “What’s going on between them?”

  Her father gave her an odd look, clearly surprised that she didn’t know about what was happening in her sister’s life. “He wants custody of the girls,” Mick said. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before he gets it, though. Didn’t Abby fill you in when she got back from New York?”

  Jess winced. She’d hardly given her a chance. She’d hidden away upstairs when Abby had first arrived at the inn this morning, then they’d had the blowup over the stove. No wonder Abby had been in such an impossible mood, she thought, then corrected herself. No, sending that stove back had nothing to do with whatever was going on between Abby and Wes. She knew her sister well enough to know that.

  “We didn’t have much time to talk this morning,” she told her father.

  “But enough time to have an argument, I’m guessing,” he said to her. “Is that what sent you flying down the road? You and Abby have a difference of opinion over something at the inn?”

  She nodded. “She was right. I was wrong.”

  Mick looked as if he’d never doubted that much. “You tell her that?”

  Jess shook her head. “Of course not. She just made me so darned mad with her high-handed attitude. How could I admit she was right?”

  “You’ll have to tell her sooner or later.”

  “I know.”

  Her father’s expression turned uncomfortable. “Look, Jess, I know there have been times, quite a few of them I suspect, when you’ve thought I favored Abby over you.”

  “I know you love me, Dad.” She meant that, too. She did know that he loved her in his own, distracted way.

  “But that’s not the same as thinking that I support you or believe in you, is it?”

  She sighed. “Not really.”

  “Well, just in case I didn’t make it clear when I was here before, I support what you’re doing with the inn and I believe you’re going to make it work. That doesn’t mean I don’t think you also need to listen to outside advice from time to time, whether it comes from Abby or someone else. This is a new venture for you. Like anyone else starting something for the first time, you’re not going to know everything right off the bat. I sure as hell didn’t when I started my company. I met with every architect who’d see me, tried to work for a few developers to figure out how they did things. I didn’t waltz out of college, stick a fancy sign up outside my office and become a success the next day.”

  “Point taken,” Jess conceded, then felt compelled to add, “Abby’s never run an inn before, either.”

  He grinned. “No, but she does have a financial expertise that neither you nor I have. I’ve got her looking into some investments for me because of that. You should be grateful she’s watching your back on the financial side, too.”

  “I am. I’m the one who begged her to come down here, remember?”

  “But then when she gives you advice you don’t like, you blow a gasket, am I right?”

  “Yes. Okay, Dad, I see what you’re saying.”

  “You’ll make peace with her, then?”

  She nodded.

  His eyes sparkled with knowing amusement at her lack of enthusiasm. “Today?”

  “Okay, yes, today,” she said, a note of impatience in her voice. “If she’s still at the inn when I get back, I’ll talk to her and apologize.”

  He clearly caught the out she’d left for herself. “And if she’s gone back to our house, you’ll come over there,” he said, making it a statement, not a question.

  “You’re a worse nag than she is,” she grumbled.

  “Family trait,” he said unrepentantly. “Don’t think for a minute that you don’t have the same gene.”

  She laughed at that. “Guilty,” she admitted just as Sally set her lunch down in front of her. She picked up the sandwich and bit into it. It was the first real tomato of the summer and the flavor burst on her tongue. It reminded her of countless summer picnics on the beach with Abby, Bree, her brothers and Gram. Carefree days spent with the people she loved most in the world. She met her father’s gaze and saw that he’d known exactly what he was doing when he ordered it. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Anytime, kiddo. Sometimes we all need to be reminded of the memories that make us who we are.”

  “Okay, an excellent BLT will do it for me. What does that for you?” she asked curiously.

  “The scent of lilies of the valley,” he said at once. “That was t
he perfume your mother always wore. Sometimes when I walk outside on a spring day and they’re in bloom, I can imagine Megan right there beside me.”

  Jess blinked back the unexpected sting of tears at the nostalgia in his voice. “You still miss her, don’t you?”

  “Don’t tell another soul,” he said, leaning closer. “But I miss her every single day of my life.”

  Jess reached for his hand. Warm and callused, it wrapped around hers. “Me, too,” she whispered. In fact, she wondered if there would ever come a day when she grew out of being the scared little girl who’d stood inside at the window, Abby holding her hand, as they watched their mother drive out of their lives.

  Though Gram had wanted everyone at the house for Mick’s first dinner at home, Abby had opted out. She wasn’t ready for another run-in with Jess.

  Mick gave her a hard look when he heard her plans. “Did you and your sister have a talk this afternoon?”

  “No, why?”

  He muttered a curse under his breath. “She promised me she’d see you and straighten things out.”

  Abby gave him a startled look. “You know about the fight we had?”

  “I spotted her driving along Shore Road like a bat out of hell. I made a U-turn back toward town and went after her. Sat her down at Sally’s and had a little heart-to-heart with her.”

  “And she actually listened to you?” Abby asked incredulously.

  “I thought she had.”

  “Well, apparently she had a change of heart,” Abby replied wearily. “And I’m not up for another discussion about why she can’t have the outrageously expensive range she wants. I’m going into town, so you all can enjoy your dinner. I’ll take the girls with me.”

  He looked as if he might argue about her going, but eventually he sighed. “Go, if that’s what you need to do, but leave the girls here. I’ll see that they get to bed on time.”

  The thought of an evening out, on her own, was so alluring, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse his offer. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Enjoy yourself. Maybe you ought to think about calling Trace and asking him to join you. I can’t imagine you two have had much time alone.”

  “It might be better if we didn’t have any,” she commented.

  His gaze narrowed. “Why is that?”

  “A significant difference of opinion about the future,” she said, summarizing it.

  “Do you want to explain that?”

  She shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Another male perspective might help.”

  She grinned at the thought of her father giving her relationship advice. “I think maybe you should concentrate on figuring out how you’re going to handle Mom being back in town.”

  He frowned immediately. “Don’t start on that.”

  “Not starting,” she said, holding up her hands in surrender. “Not meddling.” To prove it, she leaned down and gave him a kiss on his cheek. “Night, Dad. Thanks again for looking after the girls tonight and for trying to talk to Jess.”

  “Night, angel girl. Enjoy yourself.”

  Her eyes misted at the endearment. It had been years since Mick had called her that. He’d had special nicknames for all of them, but they’d fallen by the wayside as they’d become adolescents and then adults. Hearing it again reminded her of just how close they’d once been, how she’d flown into his arms when he’d come home at the end of the day. She walked back across the room and gave him a fierce hug.

  “I love you,” she whispered, her voice hitching.

  “Love you, too,” Mick said, his voice thick.

  As she left the house, she reminded herself that there had always been a handful of men who, unlike Wes, had loved her unconditionally. Her dad was one of them. Her brothers were on that list. And as she drove, she picked up her cell phone and called the fourth. Trace answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, there. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you tonight. I heard Mick was back in town, so I figured you all would be having some big O’Brien family dinner.”

  “Everyone else is at the house,” Abby told him. “But I’m footloose and looking for company. You available?”

  “I can be. I’m finishing up a design right now. I can shower and shave and be ready in a half hour. You want to meet somewhere?”

  Abby thought about that, then thought about the sparks that had been dancing between them ever since she’d returned to Chesapeake Shores. It might be idiotic to want to see where they led, given what she knew about his intentions for the future, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from saying, “Why don’t I just come by your place? I’d like to see what you’re working on.”

  There was a long hesitation, as if he knew that there was more on her mind than peeking at a couple of designs. “You sure about that? You and me alone could be dangerous.”

  “And I’m in a reckless mood,” she told him. “Shower fast. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  He laughed then. “Should I bother with clothes?”

  “Well, of course,” she said, amusement threading through her voice at the eagerness she heard in his. “Let’s at least preserve the illusion that this is an innocent visit.”

  “Abby, Abby,” he murmured. “What’s gotten into you tonight?”

  “I think Gram would say the devil, but I prefer to think that for once in a long time I’m just going after what I want.”

  “And what you want is me?”

  “Tonight, yes,” she said, her tone sobering. “Can you accept that?”

  “I can as long as you swear to me there’ll be no regrets.”

  She thought about that, thought about what it had been like years ago being with him. As difficult and sad as it’d been when she’d walked away after discovering what it was like to make love with Trace, she had never regretted sharing that experience with him.

  “No regrets,” she promised him now. “Can you say the same?”

  “If there are any, I’ll find a way to live with them,” he said. “I want you, Abby O’Brien Winters. Always have. Always will.”

  She smiled. That was all she needed to hear.

  20

  T race opened the door to his apartment wearing jeans undone at the waist and nothing else. No shirt. No shoes. His hair was still damp and tousled and he smelled of soap and maybe a faint hint of refreshing aftershave. Abby swallowed hard at the sight of him and had to restrain herself from jumping into his arms before the door closed.

  “You look good,” she murmured, her gaze locked on his chest and a sculpted set of six-pack abs. How did a man who worked at a drafting table and computer—or in a bank—all day stay so fit? However he did it, someone should pay him a fortune to go on billboards to advertise his regimen. She was pretty sure he could deliver a ton of profits to some company in the fitness industry.

  Heat in his eyes, Trace closed the door behind her, then backed her against it. “You look pretty amazing yourself,” he murmured, brushing her hair aside to kiss her neck. “Smell good, too.” His tongue flicked across her skin. Her temperature shot so high, she was surprised she didn’t singe him.

  “Taste even better,” he said in a low voice that sent shivers dancing through her.

  Abby was having difficulty standing. She placed her hands on his shoulders, then jerked them away. His skin was too warm, too smooth, and way too tempting. All of
this was moving way too fast…yet not nearly fast enough. After the day she’d had, after being basically accused of being stuffy and rigid, she wanted nothing more than to mindlessly go with the flow, to be ruled by passion for once.

  She caught the immediate glint of amusement in Trace’s eyes as she pulled back. Of course, with the door at her back, she didn’t have a lot of wiggle room. With his eyes locked with hers, he reached for one of her hands and lifted it back to rest on his shoulder, then placed the other one on his chest.

  “Stay,” he whispered. “I like having you touch me. It stirs up all sorts of indecent thoughts.”

  Abby frowned at him. “We’re pretty much tossing out the whole innocent-visit thing, aren’t we?”

  He held himself perfectly still, his gaze steady on hers. “Up to you.”

  With his heat flowing through her, and his faintly masculine aroma surrounding her, Abby knew she couldn’t walk away, knew there was no point at all in pretense. As a girl she might have been awkward and undecided in a situation like this, but she was a woman now, a woman who knew her own mind, at least when it came to this. At least for tonight.

  Instead of answering, she stood on tiptoe and sealed her mouth over his. With her hands linked behind his neck, her body was pressed into his. She could feel every hard plane, every rippling muscle, to say nothing of the very dramatic evidence of his arousal.

  The kiss ended eventually with both of them breathless, their eyes glazed over with desire. At least his were, and she knew hers had to be the same.

  “Where’s the bedroom in this place?” she asked boldly. “Or do you have some macho thing about ripping our clothes off right here in the foyer?”

  He grinned. “It is an intriguing thought, but I think this occasion calls for a little more romance and finesse. Wine?”

  She shook her head, her gaze on his steady.

  “Something to eat?”