“Expensive, too,” Mick said wryly, thinking of the range he’d had delivered that morning as an inn-warming present. Somehow Abby had kept Jess away from the kitchen during the delivery and that new chef of hers had promised to bar her from the premises until all the food had been prepared for tonight and the party was under way. At some point in the evening he planned to duck into the kitchen and show it to her.
“Nice to see she inherited one of my traits,” Megan joked. “Though there are others that might have been more useful.”
Mick shoved his hands into his pockets. “You look good, Meggie. Not a day older than when you left.”
She laughed at that. “And you’re still full of blarney, Mick O’Brien.”
He stood there, uncertain what to do or say next. Fortunately, Megan hadn’t lost her ability to navigate uncharted emotional waters or her knack for ending an awkward moment.
“I should get back,” she told him. “I’m glad we ran into each other here, Mick. It’ll make tonight easier.”
She touched his hand, a caress so light and fleeting, it was almost as if he’d imagined it. And then she was gone, striding along the hard-packed sand and away from him. Again.
Trace decided not to wait for his meeting in the morning with his attorney before settling things with Wes. Instead, he took a cab straight to Wes’s apartment, which was only blocks from where Abby lived with the girls. Trace wasn’t crazy about the proximity, but it made sense for them to be close by for the sake of the twins.
He was wondering how he was going to make it past the somber doorman when opportunity presented itself in the form of two couples heading inside for a party. He made himself part of the group the second they’d been waved in and headed with them to the elevator, glad that he’d found the apartment number before leaving Maryland.
Upstairs, he rang the bell, then waited for Wes to appear. Instead, it was Gabrielle who answered the door. She was as beautiful as she’d appeared in the society-page pictures he’d seen, even without makeup and with her hair yanked back in a ponytail that made her look younger than thirty-two, the age given in the article accompanying one of the photos.
“Who are you and how did you get up here?” she demanded heatedly. “If you’re another reporter, I have no comment.”
She was about to slam the door in his face when Wes wandered into the living room.
“I’m here to see your fiancé,” Trace told her, pushing his way into the room.
Wes regarded him with alarm. “Call security, Gabrielle.”
Trace leveled a look at her. “That won’t be necessary.”
She stood where she was, her expression uneasy. “Wes, what’s this about?”
Wes shot a defiant look toward Trace. “I imagine he’s here about the restraining order I got against him.”
Gabrielle’s eyes widened at that. “A restraining order? Why?”
“I don’t want him anywhere near Carrie and Caitlyn,” Wes said.
His girlfriend blinked at that. “You think he’s a danger to the twins?”
Trace answered for him. “No, he thinks I’m a danger to him. What he really wants is to remove me from Abby’s life, isn’t that right, Wes? You figure if you can make it impossible for me to be anywhere near the girls, Abby will cut me out of her life, too.”
“No, it’s just about the twins,” he insisted. “You pose a threat to them.”
“You’re going to have to explain that one to me,” Trace said.
“I don’t have to explain anything to you,” Wes said belligerently. “I made my case to a judge and he agreed.”
“You made your so-called case to a man who’s just made thousands of dollars on a deal you recommended, thanks to a bit of inside information passed along by Gabrielle. Isn’t that what really happened?” Trace asked.
Wes looked stunned that he’d put those pieces together.
Trace regarded him with amusement. “I told you I had contacts in the city. Our mutual friend Steve was happy to make a few calls for me.” Trace turned to Gabrielle. “Aren’t you in enough of a mess without adding insider trading to the mix?”
She sat down hard on the edge of a dining room chair, looking shaken. “Wes? Is he telling the truth? You used information I mentioned to you?”
Wes nodded. “I had to. I needed this favor. It was the only way to be sure that Abby would bring the girls back to New York.”
“I think maybe you can forget about that,” Trace said. “She’s not very happy with you at the moment. As for me, I expect you to clear this matter up first thing in the morning or I’ll slap you with a defamation of character suit that’ll make every paper in the city.”
Wes tried to stare him down, but Trace didn’t so much as blink. Finally the other man sighed. “I just want to keep on seeing my girls.”
“You will,” Trace promised. “As long as you never pull something this stupid again. Abby would never keep your daughters from you. She knows they adore you. How many times does she have to tell you that before you believe her?”
“But you—”
“I know you’re their father, Wes,” he said solemnly. “I swear to you that I will always respect that unless you give me cause to think you’re the one who’s a bad influence on them. Please don’t ever give me the ammunition to believe that.”
“You say that now, but I know you’ll try to make them hate me,” Wes said, still not convinced by Trace’s pledge.
Trace tried again. “I won’t say a negative word about you to Caitlyn or Carrie. Neither will Abby. You may not know me, but surely you know her well enough to know she would never do that. She’d never let me do it, either. Your daughters are amazing and if things work out with Abby and me, I’ll be as good to them as if they were my own, but I won’t ever try to keep you out of their lives.”
Wes’s relief was obvious. “I just had to be sure, you know. They’re the most important people in my life, next to Gabrielle. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost them.”
“You’re not going to lose them,” Trace said again. “At least not because of me.”
Wes hesitated, his gaze locked with Trace’s. Eventually he reached for the phone. “I’ll call my attorney now. He’ll have that order lifted by morning.”
“Thank you,” Trace said. “And we understand each other?”
Abby’s ex-husband nodded.
“Okay, then,” Trace said, satisfied. “I’d better get going. There’s a party at the inn tonight and I’d like to get there before it’s over.” Despite his earlier anger, Trace felt some sympathy for Wes and his fears about losing his girls. “Just so you know, I’m pretty sure Abby plans to bring Caitlyn and Carrie up to spend some time with you next week.”
Gabrielle’s eyes lit up as much as Wes’s did. “Oh, I can’t wait,” she said eagerly, slipping her hand into her fiancé’s. At a warning glance from Wes, her expression faltered. “I know Abby despises me, but maybe if she knew how much I love the girls, she’d change her mind.”
“Maybe so,” Trace said. He’d heard the sincerity in her voice and knew without a doubt that whatever else he thought of Wes or, for that matter, Gabrielle, they truly did love the twins. He’d have to remember that the next time he wanted to throttle the man.
Jess was in her element, Abby thought as she watched her sister weaving through the throng of people who’d come for the party. She gave every single guest—except for Megan—enough of her attention to make them feel special, then moved on to someon
e else. She even spent a few minutes with the twins telling them how beautiful they looked in their new party dresses.
Everywhere she turned, Abby heard compliments about the inn’s fresh decor. Even the mayor, accompanied by Mrs. Finch wearing an enamel broach of a spray of her beloved lilacs, paused to tell her how delighted he was to have the town’s most luxurious tourist hotel open for business again.
“The inn may be small, but it always stood for quality,” Bobby Clark told Abby. “I suspect Jess will be doing a booming business in no time.”
Mrs. Finch’s eyes turned misty, her expression nostalgic. “It reminds me of the way it looked when Mick first built it and my David and I used to come here for Sunday dinner every week.”
“I’ll bring you this Sunday,” the mayor promised. “We’ll give the new menu a test run. Something tells me it will surpass the old one, if tonight’s appetizers are any indication.”
Lawrence Riley approached just in time to hear the comments from Mrs. Finch and the mayor. He beamed at Abby. “Now that’s the kind of thing I like to hear,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek even as he shook the mayor’s hand. “I have to admit, Abby, you and Jess surprised me.”
“All I did was pay the bills,” Abby insisted. “Everything else is Jess’s doing. She had a vision for what she wanted the inn to be and I think she’s accomplished it.”
“Darn straight she has,” Mick said with pride, circling an arm around Abby’s waist. “Can I steal this beautiful woman for just one minute?”
He led Abby to a secluded corner.
“What’s up, Dad?” Abby asked, noticing his worried expression.
“It’s your mother. Have you seen her standing over there all by herself? You brought her here, Abby. You have to do something.”
Abby stared at him incredulously. “Me? You’re an adult. You’re more than capable of carrying on a conversation with her. Has it occurred to you that everyone else may be waiting for some signal from you about whether she’s to be welcomed or shunned?”
Mick was too much of a Southern gentleman to ignore Abby’s claim. “You think so?”
“Dad, everyone in Chesapeake Shores knows she walked out on all of us. Their loyalty is to you. She certainly understood that. When she came to visit us, she barely left the house. Most of the time she was here and gone before anyone in town knew about it.”
Mick looked startled by that.
“Come on, Dad, take her around a bit. She has old friends here who I’m sure are just dying to catch up with her. In the meantime, I’ll round up Bree and Connor and make sure they spend some time with her, even if neither one of them is wildly enthusiastic about it.”
“I notice you didn’t mention Jess.”
“She’s going to be an even harder sell than I anticipated. I’m not going to push it tonight. It could spoil this whole evening for her. It’s enough that she hasn’t tossed Mom out on her backside, which I know she wants to do.”
He hesitated. “I think I know a way to help with that,” he said.
“How?”
“Just leave it to me.” He took off across the room, his expression grim. When he reached Megan’s side, he bent down and whispered something in her ear. Abby saw her mother shake her head, but Mick was adamant about whatever he was saying. Then the two of them headed for Jess, her mother with obvious reluctance.
“Oh, no,” Abby whispered. This wouldn’t be good. She hurried through the crowd to try to stop them, but she was stopped by too many people en route. By the time she reached the other side of the room, Mick had a firm grip on Jess’s hand and was dragging her toward the kitchen. That’s when Abby got an inkling about what he was up to and relaxed.
She arrived just in time to hear Jess protest that she didn’t have time to spare right now.
“You’ll be glad you made time for this,” Mick told her, not loosening his grip. He opened the kitchen door and held it until Jess finally stepped through.
Even from where she was waiting, Abby could see her shocked expression as she saw the Viking range she’d wanted so desperately. She looked up at Mick, her mouth agape. “You bought this?”
“Your mother and I did,” he said. “We both wanted you to know how proud we are of you.”
Megan looked uncomfortable, but she went along gamely. “It was your father’s idea.”
“But your mother was on board the second I told her about it,” he insisted.
Abby smiled at his determination to include Megan in his generous gesture, his magnanimous attempt to help mend fences between her and their daughter. She also had a feeling that Megan would write him a check for her share before the night was over. She’d long since stopped taking any kind of alimony from Mick, and she wouldn’t accept this expensive gesture, either.
“But how did you know how much I wanted this?” Jess asked. Her gaze shifted and she spotted Abby. “You told them, I suppose.”
Abby shrugged. “I might have mentioned how disappointed you were when it had to go back.”
Jess laughed. “Disappointed? I was an absolute shrew to you.” She crossed the room and hugged her, then went back to face their parents. “Thank you so much, Dad.” She swallowed hard, then added, “You, too, Mom.”
Abby saw Megan blink back tears, saw Mick give her waist a squeeze, and knew that everything she’d hoped might happen tonight would come about eventually. It might take time. It might not be easy, but her family would be whole again.
24
A s Abby watched while the party wound down, Bree and Connor were slowly drawn back into Megan’s orbit. It wasn’t so much a thawing as a mix of determination on Megan’s part and longing on theirs. It seemed that every time Abby glanced their way, her brother and sister were laughing and her mother was looking more and more relaxed. Relieved, she reached for a flute of champagne, then turned to find her cousin Susie standing beside her.
“Did your dad come tonight?” she asked Susie. “I haven’t seen him.”
Susie shook her head. “Jess invited him, but Dad didn’t want to risk getting into some kind of argument with Mick and spoiling the evening. Those two are still like oil and water. It’s ridiculous, if you ask me, but you know how stubborn they are.” She glanced pointedly toward Megan. “It’s probably a good thing Dad stayed away tonight, though. One family reunion is probably about all this occasion could stand. How did you pull that off?”
“Gentle persuasion,” Abby claimed. “And a whole lot of prayer.”
“Uncle Mick keeps circling back to her,” Susie said. “Do you think there’s any chance they’ll get back together after all this time?”
“I’m really, really trying not to think that far ahead,” Abby claimed. “Now tell me about you. How’s the real-estate business around here?”
“Surprisingly good. In fact, just last week I made a huge sale.”
“Really?”
“One of Mick’s original houses, in fact, just up the road from here.”
Abby’s eyes lit up. “The Marshalls’ house? I saw the For Sale sign when I first got back to town.”
Susie nodded, though her expression had grown oddly wary.
“I used to love that house,” Abby exclaimed. “I always thought the glassed-in sunporch was amazing. Who bought it?”
Now there was real worry in Susie’s eyes. “You don’t know?” she asked cautiously.
Abby frowned at t
he question. “Why would I know?”
“I just thought…Oh, well, never mind.”
Abby’s suspicions went on full alert. Trace? Surely not. He wouldn’t do something like that without mentioning it to her, would he?
“Was it Trace?” she demanded.
Susie flinched at the direct question or perhaps it was because of her sharp tone. “I should never have said anything,” Susie said, obviously dismayed. “I’m sure he meant it to be a surprise.”
“Yes, I’m sure he did,” Abby said tightly, then regarded her cousin apologetically. “Susie, don’t worry about spilling the beans. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I just opened my big, fat mouth when I shouldn’t have,” Susie grumbled. “Great job of protecting my client’s confidentiality.”
“It’s not as if you blabbed to the universe,” Abby soothed her. “You told me only because you assumed I already knew.”
“I hope Trace understands that.”
“Believe me, he’ll have more important things to worry about,” Abby said grimly. Like trying to explain why he’d bought a house in Chesapeake Shores without saying a single word to her. Either, like Susie, he’d made a whole lot of assumptions about his powers of persuasion or he was making his own intentions clear and leaving it to her to stay or go.
She fingered the cell phone in her pocket and was about to go outside and call the louse, when she turned and saw him walking toward her. Susie spotted him, as well, and immediately gave Abby a quick kiss on the cheek. “I think I see my cue to leave heading this way.”
“Chicken,” Abby called after her, then turned to wait for Trace.
“You look amazing,” he said. He leaned down to kiss her, but Abby dodged the gesture. The flare of heat in his eyes died at once, replaced by wariness. “Something wrong?”
“When were you going to tell me?” she demanded. “The day I left for the airport to go back to New York?”
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