The Inn at Eagle Point

by Sherryl Woods

  Bree’s jaw dropped. “Mom’s coming here?” There was shock and maybe even a touch of dismay in her voice.

  Abby scowled at her tone. “You’re not going to make a big deal out of that, are you? Things could be tense enough as it is. I haven’t even had the nerve to tell Jess yet. It’ll be hard enough to make her see that this is a good thing without having to do battle with you, too.”

  “I’m just surprised,” Bree claimed. “How’d you talk her into it?”

  “Laid on a ton of guilt,” Abby admitted.

  “And Dad? How did he take it?”

  Abby made a face. “He wasn’t overjoyed at first, but he’s not going to make a fuss,” she said. “I hope.”

  “Skip hoping and go straight to prayer. This could blow up in your face, big sis.”

  Abby beamed at her. “Which is one reason I’m so glad you decided to come home. You’re going to be my backup and help me keep everyone on their best behavior.”

  “I doubt all the diplomats at the United Nations could pull that off,” Bree said dryly. “O’Briens aren’t known for their reticence, much less their tact. Witness the last Christmas dinner when Gram insisted on inviting Uncle Tom and Uncle Jeff and their families. Dad was barely civil to his own brothers.”

  Abby very much feared she was right. “Okay, enough about all the drama around here, what’s going on in your life?”

  “Same old thing,” Bree said, dodging the question. “We really should get out to the house. I’m anxious to see Gram.”

  Abby was struck by her omission. “But not so eager to see Dad?”

  “Mick’s never known quite what to make of me,” Bree admitted. “I spent too much time in my room, reading and writing in my journal. The rest of you are all so outgoing, just the way he is, but I hang around in the background, observing life instead of living it, according to some theories I’ve heard recently.”

  Abby picked up on the hurt in her voice. “Who said that?” she demanded sharply. Whoever it was definitely had a cruel streak and she didn’t like that, not where her sensitive sister was concerned.

  Bree waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. We’re talking about Dad. Mostly, I don’t think he even noticed me, especially after Mom left.”

  Abby sighed, knowing that Bree was at least partly right. “He barely noticed any of us then.” She reached across the table and gave her sister’s ice-cold hand a squeeze. “He’s changing, Bree. I think you’ll see it right off. He’s really trying to reach out.”

  Bree gave her an amused look. “Same old Abby, always wanting everything tied up in a nice, neat bundle, everyone getting along. Haven’t you learned that life’s not like that?”

  There was a bitter undertone to her voice that startled Abby. It was true that Bree had always been the quiet one, a bit of an outsider in her way, but she’d been totally focused on her goals and content in her own skin. It wasn’t like her to take potshots at anyone else.

  Abby forced herself not to take offense and to keep her tone even. “Trust me, after dealing with Wes, I know just how badly life can suck. I prefer to focus on the positive. Sue me.”

  Bree winced at her response. “Sorry. That was uncalled for. I know you’ve had a tough time. I’m just exhausted. Once I’ve settled down and had some rest, I promise not to be so bitchy.”

  Abby accepted the apology. Even though she desperately wanted to dig deeper and find out what was behind Bree’s mood, she let it go. There’d be time enough to find out, though that would only happen if Bree wanted it to. There wasn’t a woman in the world who could keep her own counsel as well as she could.

  Trace had accepted his mother’s invitation to a family dinner with an ulterior motive. Tonight was the night he intended to force his father into making a decision to give the job at the bank to Laila. She’d been doing excellent work the past few weeks under the guise of helping him out of the jams he manufactured, but the pretense was starting to wear thin on all of them. Besides, he had several important design jobs with deadlines rapidly approaching. He wouldn’t have to manufacture the crises in a couple of weeks. They’d be real enough.

  Because he didn’t want Laila to have to sit through his exchange with his father, he decided to have it out on the ride home from work. He’d hitch a ride back into town with his sister after the evening ended, assuming she was still speaking to him by then. She still had reservations about his attempts to manipulate things in her favor.

  “Tell me why you’re not driving yourself over for dinner,” his father said, regarding him with suspicion.

  “This suit’s hardly the right thing to wear on my Harley and Mother would flip out if I showed up in jeans,” he said, then added, “And I thought we could have a little time alone to talk without Raymond hovering over us at the bank or Mom hovering over us at the house.”

  Understanding dawned on his father’s face. “This is about your sister, then.”

  Trace nodded. “She’s been excelling at every single thing she’s done, hasn’t she?”

  For a moment, he thought his father might not acknowledge Laila’s accomplishments out of pure stubbornness, but eventually he sighed and said, “She’s proved herself to be more than competent.”

  Trace slanted a look at him. “You’re not surprised by that, are you?”

  “No, of course not. She didn’t get that master’s degree in business by not knowing a thing or two,” he admitted.

  “Does that mean you’re ready to give her a shot at the job?” Trace pressed.

  His father pulled off to the side of the road and turned to him. “Are you really that sure that a career at the bank is something you’ll never want? You’re determined to walk away?”

  His father didn’t even try to hide his disappointment, but at least he seemed to recognize that the battle was all but over to keep Trace working with him.

  Trace nodded. “I love the design work, Dad. More than that, I’m successful at it. I set my own pace, take jobs that will challenge me.” He grinned as he loosened his tie and opened the collar of his shirt. He’d stripped off his jacket even before getting in the car. “Best of all, I don’t have to wear a suit and tie, except for the occasional meeting with a prospective new client.” That last alone was a huge plus in his book.

  Trace saw the dismay in his father’s eyes, but Lawrence Riley had always been a man who knew when to cut his losses. “Okay, then, I’ll speak to Laila tonight. Make her an offer.”

  “The same one you made me,” Trace warned. “You can’t offer her less, not in terms of money or in the scope of her responsibilities. In fact, you ought to be offering her more, just to prove you have faith in her, to show that her hard work has won you over.”

  His father frowned at the suggestion. “Now you’re telling me how to run the bank?”

  “No, I’m telling you how to make sure Laila takes this job and how to mend fences with her in the process.”

  “You think I haven’t learned my lesson on both counts? She’s already told me once what I could do with what she described as a ‘handout.’”

  “Well, she’s a Riley. She has her pride, too.”

  His father pulled back onto the road. They rode in silence for a few minutes and then he asked, “Does that mean you’ll be heading back to New York right away?”

  Trace hadn’t meant to get into this tonight, but his father had just given him the perfect opening. “The truth is I’m hoping to stay right here in town.”

  “In that tiny little apartment?”

 
“Actually I’ve made an offer on a house. I think you’ve probably been there. It’s owned by the Marshalls, up on the north end of Shore Road, past the inn.”

  His father whistled. “That’s one that Mick O’Brien built, isn’t it?”

  “It is and it’s amazing, Dad. It’ll be perfect for a family.”

  His father gave him a quick, sharp look. “You have one of those?”

  “I’m hoping to,” he admitted.

  A smile tugged at his father’s lips. “Abby, I assume.”

  “If she’ll have me, but this is not for public discussion, Dad. I haven’t proposed yet. I haven’t even told her about the house. I’m afraid it will make her skittish.”

  “You filed your loan application at the bank yet?”

  “I’ve filled out the paperwork and pulled all the credit reports, but obviously someone else will need to go over everything.”

  “Leave the file on my desk first thing tomorrow. I’ll handle it myself. I know what they were asking for that place. You have enough for a down payment? If you need help, I can—”

  “Thanks, Dad, but I’ve got it covered.”

  His father gave him an approving look. “That’s good, then. Your mother’s going to be thrilled about this.”

  “Please don’t mention it just yet.”

  “If you insist, but my marriage hasn’t lasted all these years with me keeping things from her.”

  “I know and you won’t be in that position for long, I promise. I want Abby to have this opening at the inn behind her so she can think straight about the two of us. If I push it when she’s feeling overwhelmed, I think she’ll turn me down flat.”

  “You’ve loved this woman for a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Seems like most of my life,” he agreed.

  “I’m glad it’s finally working out, then.”

  Trace studied his smug expression and thought, not for the first time, that his father had been hoping for just this outcome when he’d dragged Trace home. He chuckled.

  “You happy with yourself?” he inquired.

  “Me? I didn’t have anything to do with this,” his father claimed.

  “You weren’t hoping that Abby would ride in on her white horse to save Jess, when you brought me here to work at the bank and deal with that financial mess at the inn?”

  “I knew it was a possibility Abby would come,” he admitted, “but no more than that.”

  “Dad, you always loved playing the long-shot horses at Pimlico and Laurel. Something tells me you weren’t above doing the same thing with my love life.”

  His father responded with a deep-throated chuckle. “You’ll never gather enough evidence to prove that.”

  “Well, just in case that was your intention, thanks,” Trace said.

  Coming back to Chesapeake Shores, whatever his father’s motives had been in getting him here, couldn’t have been timed any more perfectly. It seemed he was within stretching distance of grabbing everything he’d ever hoped for.

  Abby and Bree were drowning in last-minute party preparations, while Jess was at the front desk reviewing both the party guest list and the first week’s reservations. The inn’s first visitors would arrive the morning after the party and bookings were solid for the rest of the summer. Even though Abby had thought everything was under control, glitches kept popping up—some of them, she discovered, because Jess had failed to make follow-up phone calls. After discovering that had happened with both the caterer who would be working with their chef and the florist, she was about to throw in the towel, when she caught Bree studying her.

  “What’s Jess done now?” her sister asked quietly.

  Protective as always, Abby immediately tried to minimize it. “She forgot to confirm a couple of things. No big deal. It’s handled now.”

  Bree shook her head. “How on earth is she going to keep this place running without you?”

  “She’ll be fine,” Abby insisted, not wanting to reveal her own doubts about that very thing. “I’ve already started interviewing bookkeepers. The new chef has a good head on her shoulders, and she understands that her responsibilities include more than cooking. She has to manage the restaurant operation.”

  “But what Jess really needs is a business partner,” Bree said. “You know she’s not going to listen to anyone else.”

  “She will,” Abby insisted. “She has to, and I think she understands that. This is her dream, after all. She’ll fight for it.”

  “Until something more important or more interesting comes along,” Bree said.

  Abby frowned. “Why are you so down on her today?”

  Bree’s cheeks flamed. “I’m not. I want her to succeed. It’s just hard for me to see you working your butt off for her dream, while she keeps letting critical stuff fall through the cracks.”

  “It’s all handled,” Abby repeated. “This party’s going to be amazing, and the actual opening will be a huge success. You’ll see.”

  “If you say so,” her sister said, though her demeanor radiated doubt.

  “I do.”

  Just then Trace wandered in. Abby felt the color rise in her cheeks as he headed right for her and claimed her mouth with a heated kiss.

  “My, my,” Bree said, her eyes wide. “This is something no one told me about.”

  Trace whirled around, his expression startled, then grinned when he spotted her. “Hey, Bree. Welcome home.”

  “Too bad nobody welcomed me like that,” she said, getting to her feet. “I think I’ll head back to the house. It’s a little steamy in here all of a sudden.”

  “Don’t leave on my account,” Trace said. “I was hoping to steal Abby for an hour or two for lunch. You’re welcome to come with us.”

  “Do come, Bree,” Abby pleaded. “You haven’t had crabs since you got here.” She turned to Trace for confirmation. “We can go to Brady’s, can’t we?”

  “Absolutely. Nothing I like better than watching a couple of women get down and dirty with a pot of butter, a mallet and a couple of dozen crabs.”

  Bree laughed. “You have a very odd sense of what’s sexy, but I’ll pass, thanks. Gram’s ordered crabs to have at the house tonight.”

  “That’s right,” Abby said. “I forgot. We could go someplace else.”

  Bree shook her head. “Being a third wheel to you two got old years ago. Have fun.” She stared pointedly at Abby. “I think you and I need to talk later. I’m just putting you on notice.”

  Abby could imagine how that conversation was likely to go. The only person in their family more adept at interrogation than Mick was her sister. She might not be forthcoming herself, but she had a reporter’s hard-hitting, uncompromising interview skills. Oh well, she and Trace had handled her father okay. Now that she’d had a fair warning, she could have her answers all worked out and completely unrevealing for her nosy sister.

  “Bree looks good,” Trace said when he and Abby were seated at one of the new little cafés along the waterfront with their thick, grilled sandwiches and glasses of iced tea. Panini Bistro had only three or four tables inside, but they made up for that with plenty of outdoor seating with bright blue-and-white-striped umbrellas to offer shade on these increasingly warm late-June afternoons. Every table was occupied, mostly with people in swimsuits who’d walked over from the beach.

  Abby shook her head at Trace’s observation about Bree. “There’s somethin
g off with her,” Abby said. “She seems brittle, like she’s about to break into a million pieces, but she won’t open up.”

  Trace studied her expression. “You’re really worried about her.”

  Abby nodded.

  “Do you suppose you could think about something else for a minute? Or do you want to talk about your sister?”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do about Bree until she decides to talk.” She met his gaze. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Look, I really hate to bring this up right now. You have more than enough on your plate, but I need to know how you want me to handle something.”

  She stared at him with alarm. “You sound serious. What’s wrong? Nothing’s messed up with the inn’s finances again, is it? I’ve been watching every penny.”

  He held up a hand. “Slow down. It has nothing to do with the inn. It’s Wes. I heard from him earlier today.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “You heard from Wes? Why? Did he call you? What did he want?”

  Trace reached in his pocket and withdrew the papers that had arrived at the bank bright and early this morning. He’d been seeing red ever since a process server had barged into his office with an indignant Mariah right on his heels. He’d managed to get his temper under control before coming to see Abby.

  “He sent this,” he said, handing over the legal documents.

  Abby gave him a questioning look, then took the papers and started to read. “You have to be kidding me!” she exploded. “He’s taken out a restraining order to keep you away from the girls? He can’t do that. You’d have to pose some kind of threat.”

  “That would usually be the standard,” Trace agreed. “He has to have some judge in his pocket to pull this off. Or maybe they’re fake, though they look authentic to me, and they’ve been notarized.”