A Chesapeake Shores Christmas (2 page)

“That’s one way to go,” he agreed. “But the last time I bought you a ring, you said it was too ostentatious and never wore it. Once this one’s on your finger, it’s going to stay there, so you might as well have a say in choosing it. It’s one of those partnership decisions you’re always going on about.”

Megan chuckled. “Okay, fine. I’ll be at the jewelry store in an hour. What will you be doing?”

“I think I’ll stop by Ethel’s and get some candy for our grandkids. I’m all out of the kind they like to find tucked in my pockets.”

“I thought both Abby and Kevin told you to stop feeding their children candy every time you see them.”

“Grandfather’s prerogative,” he said airily. “And don’t be bugging me about that. I know you keep a stash of candy on hand for them, too. And Ma has her cookie jar filled with their favorites.”

“Guilty,” she admitted, then pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I do love you, Mick O’Brien.”

She hurried off to the boutique in the next block, her step surprisingly light. The sky had turned clear blue, as if to match her improved mood. She just prayed that the hope and anticipation she was feeling right now could weather whatever reactions the rest of the family had to their news.

When the entire O’Brien family assembled for dinner these days, it took several extra leaves in the table and the patience of a saint to be heard over the commotion of the children. Normally Mick loved these family gatherings, especially now that Megan was so often a part of them again.

For too many years after his wife had left him, he hadn’t been able to sit down in the dining room without feeling her absence as an ache in his heart. That’s why he’d stayed away so much, using the excuse of work to avoid the emptiness he felt in his home.

He glanced down the length of the table, feeling a sense of satisfaction at seeing Abby and her twins, Carrie and Caitlyn, with Trace beside them, then Jake and Bree, who was expecting their first child. On the other side of the table were Kevin and his son, Davy, along with his new wife, Shanna, and their recently adopted boy, Henry. Connor was next to Kevin, giving grief to the youngest of them all, Jess, who’d finally found her niche in life running The Inn at Eagle Point. Nell, who’d cared for the children in Megan’s absence, sat next to Jess, periodically scolding Connor just as she had so many times when they were children.

And then at the end, where she’d always belonged, was Megan. She, too, was studying their family with an expression of misty-eyed nostalgia. She lifted her gaze to meet his and smiled. Mick winked at her, then stood and tapped a spoon on his glass of wine until he drew everyone’s attention.

“Okay, everybody, settle down,” he said. “I have something to say.”

“Uh-oh, somebody’s in trouble,” Connor taunted, his gaze immediately going to Jess.

“Not me,” she insisted. “I’ve been an angel lately, right, Dad?”

“A perfect angel,” Mick concurred. “And nobody’s in trouble. Your mother and I have some news.”

“You’re getting married!” Abby exclaimed, shoving back her chair and hurrying to throw her arms around him.

As the oldest, Abby had done her best to fill a mother’s shoes when Megan had left them. She’d also fought hard to bring about this reconciliation, though it had clearly taken far longer than she’d anticipated. Mick staggered back with the exuberance of her hug, then chuckled. “Way to steal my thunder, girl.”

Bree stared at him, wide-eyed, a mix of hope and dismay on her face. “It’s true? You and Mom are getting married again?”

“On New Year’s Eve,” he confirmed, as Megan lifted her left hand to display the ring he’d placed on it yesterday.

“That’s why you wanted me to reserve the inn for a private party,” Jess concluded. Like Bree, she seemed disconcerted by the news, but not entirely unhappy about it.

Abby released him and went to her mother. “Mom, I’m so happy for you. I know how long you’ve wanted this.”

Bree dutifully made her way to Megan and hugged her, followed with slightly less exuberance by Jess. Kevin stood and shook Mick’s hand.

“Congratulations, Dad!” he said with lukewarm enthusiasm. With obvious reluctance, he turned toward Megan. “You, too, Mother.”

In the general commotion, it took a minute for Mick to note that Connor had remained totally silent. Mick caught his younger son’s eye and saw a surprising amount of barely banked anger in his gaze.

“Connor? You’ve been awfully quiet,” Mick said, giving him a warning look. “Isn’t there something you want to say?”

Connor stood and cast a sour look at everyone else in the room before turning the brunt of his anger on Mick. “Are you all out of your flipping minds?” he demanded heatedly. “Have you forgotten that Mom ditched us all, Dad included? And now you’re going to welcome her back so she can break all of our hearts again? Well, not me.”

“Connor O’Brien!” Mick said, his voice booming in warning. “Keep a civil tongue in your head.”

“Save the lecture, Dad,” Connor retorted. “I’m out of here.”

As he tore out of the room, Mick turned to Kevin. “Go after him,” he ordered.

“No,” Megan said, standing. She looked shaken, but determined. “I’ll go.”

“Mom, maybe that’s not such a good idea,” Abby protested.

“I’m the one he’s unhappy with,” Megan said. “It’s up to me to fix it.”

“She’s right,” Nell said, speaking for the first time. “Let her go.”

Mick wanted to stop Megan, to do whatever was necessary to protect her from more hurtful accusations, but he knew better than to try. “If that boy says one disrespectful word to you, if he—”

She gave him a chiding look. “I’ll handle it. The rest of you enjoy this wonderful meal Nell fixed for us.” She gave Nell’s shoulder a squeeze before leaving the room.

Filled with regret, Mick watched her go. Abby returned to her seat beside him and patted his hand.

“It’s going to be okay, Dad,” she said, setting aside whatever reservations she’d had. “Mom will get through to Connor. She has with the rest of us.”

Mick wanted to believe Abby was right, but he knew what the others might not understand. Connor’s whole reason for becoming an attorney, the drive behind his success, was a grim determination to help other men get even for their wives’ betrayals. He already had a reputation in his young career as the kind of attorney any man would want in his corner during a particularly acrimonious divorce. Mick couldn’t help but be proud of his success, but he worried about the embittered motivation behind it.

On the surface, Connor had seemed like a typically carefree teen, taking Megan’s departure in stride, but it had affected him deeply. It had left him jaded about marriage in general, and especially about Mick’s marriage to Megan. During the divorce, when Mick had acquiesced to most of Megan’s requests, when he’d supported her lifestyle in New York until she’d been able to pay her own way, Connor had viewed it as a sign of weakness. When Mick had told him he intended to do right by the mother of his children, Connor had told him he was a fool, then stormed from the house. Even as a young teen, he’d had a temper and a tendency to speak his mind. To this day he and Mick had an uneasy relationship because of his ill-considered remarks back then. Usually, though, he disguised his hostility behind a jovial facade that the others rarely saw through.

So, while it wasn’t surprising that Connor wasn’t happy about Mick’s announcement, it was a shock to see the facade slip. Mick had hoped for a different reaction, but with Connor resentments ran deep. Since Mick had been carrying his own deep-seated grudges against his brothers for years, he understood how difficult it was to let go of the past. He’d just hoped for better from his son, for Megan’s sake, if not his own.

One way or another, though, he wouldn’t let Connor ruin what should be the happiest time of his life—the chance to finally get it right with Megan and bring his family back together. If Megan couldn’t get Connor to listen to reason, Mick would. One way or another, the O’Briens were going to celebrate the new year with a wedding. He’d see to it.

2

M
egan caught up with Connor as he was trying to start his car. She slid into the passenger side of the expensive two-seater sports car and closed the door, then gave him a defiant look.

“Wherever you’re headed, you’re stuck with me,” she told him.

He scowled at her, but when she didn’t budge, he shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

He threw the car into gear and shot out of the driveway and along the coastal road at a pace Megan knew was designed to terrify her. She clung to the door and kept silent until they reached town, where he was forced to slow down. He pulled to a stop in a parking space on Shore Road facing the bay, his jaw set, his scowl firmly in place.

“Feel better?” she inquired. “You do know that getting us killed probably won’t solve anything.”

“At least you wouldn’t get to marry Dad and ruin his life again,” he said, his tone petulant.

“Does your father seem as if his life’s ruined?”

“Maybe not, but only because he’s living in a dreamworld right now. Just wait till you take off again.”

“Maybe what we really need to talk about is how I ruined
your
life,” she suggested. “That’s what this is actually about.”

“You’re irrelevant to my life. You have been for years.”

Megan blinked back tears at the deliberately cruel words. “If I truly meant nothing to you, you wouldn’t sound so bitter,” she said quietly. She tilted her head and studied him. “You’ve fooled us all, you know. You have this easy, lighthearted way about you, but I think hurts run even more deeply. You’re like your father that way.”

“Don’t try analyzing me, Mother. You don’t know anything about me.”

“Is that so?” she countered. “Let’s see. I know you graduated at the top of your class from college, that you could have played pro baseball, but chose to go to law school. I know that you won a highly coveted job as a law clerk with a top Baltimore firm. I know when one of the senior partners was getting a divorce, he chose you to represent him and bragged that he’d never seen anyone fight harder for a client.” She gave Connor an assessing look. “I assume that was because you saw me in his wife and your father in him. Obviously my divorce from your father was good for something.”

Connor looked faintly surprised by her recitation. “What, did you hire a private detective to dig up all that information when you started seeing Dad again? You must have figured you’d need a way to worm your way back into all our lives.”

Megan sighed. “I didn’t need to hire anybody, Connor. I’ve kept tabs on each of you. Abby and I grew close again after she moved to New York. I went to Chicago to see Bree’s plays. I even came to a few of your college ball games.”

He snorted with disbelief.

“Remember the game against Carolina?” she said. “You hit an inside-the-park home run, and when you slid into home base, you broke your wrist.” She shuddered at the memory of his face contorted with pain. “It took everything in me not to run to you on the field.”

“You could have read about that in the paper,” he said.

“I could have,” she agreed. “Or someone in the family could have mentioned it to me. But if I’d found out either of those ways, would I have known that a pretty blonde cheerleader left with you in the ambulance?”

He sighed and closed his eyes. “Okay, fine. You were there. Big deal.”

“It was for me,” she said quietly. “Knowing that I had no right to come to you even when you were hurt tore me apart, Connor.”

“So it was all about you, as usual.”

“No, it was about
you,
and knowing that you wouldn’t have appreciated me showing up out of the blue at the hospital. It’s always been about you and your sisters and Kevin. Everything I did, I did because I thought it was for the best for you. Even leaving your father.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “You can’t spin that now. Leaving was all about you, Mother. You can’t deny that. You didn’t give a second thought to what it would be like for us after you ran off to make an exciting new life for yourself.”

“Okay, I’ll admit that I needed to leave and build a new life for myself, but I thought that would be better for all of you, too. You wouldn’t have a mother who resented your father the way I did. You’d have one who was strong and sure of herself again.”

“That sounds to me as if it was all about you.”

“Well, it wasn’t,” she said defensively. “Surely you know by now that I planned for all of you to come to New York with me. I had rooms ready, schools picked out. I even had your father’s blessing.”

“Funny, but I don’t recall spending even a day in New York.”

“Because you and Kevin took your father’s side and refused to consider moving. You didn’t want to leave your friends. You wouldn’t even spend time with me when I visited you here. Abby said she wasn’t going anywhere without Jess and Bree, and they threw fits at the thought of leaving Chesapeake Shores. Your father and I finally agreed to give it more time, to start with visits.”

“How’d that work out? I’ve been to New York a dozen times, and never once did I see you,” Connor retorted.

“Because you turned down every invitation,” she reminded him quietly. “And I don’t recall you phoning on any of those visits you made, either. Relationships work both ways, Connor, even between parents and their nearly grown children. Every time I knew you were coming—and I did know about most of those trips—I sat by the phone, hoping against hope that this would be the time you’d reach out to me.”

“So now you’re the neglected saint of a mother and I’m the terrible son?”

She gave him a pitying look. “Oh, Connor, no. I’m just trying to make you see that there are two sides to every story. You have your perspective, and I have mine. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Don’t you think it would be worth it to try to find it, to make peace after all this time? I’m still your mother, and I’ve always loved you.”

“How convenient that you’ve discovered this maternal love after all these years!”

“Do I need to remind you of the time I devoted to you, to all of you, before I left?”

“Give me a break, Mother. This is all about stopping us from interfering with your plan to marry Dad again, your scheme to take advantage of him. I won’t allow it, you know. There will be a prenup this time. I’ll see to it.”

“Fine,” she said readily. “Bring it on. I’ll sign it happily, though I think your father might have other ideas. My relationship with your father has never been about money. We were church-mouse poor when we started out.”

“But not by the time you left,” he reminded her. “You were happy enough to take a bundle of his money so you could live in New York.”

“I took only what was necessary to find a place that would be a good environment for you children,” she corrected. “When you didn’t come, I moved into a smaller place and never took another dime from him.” She met his gaze. “Did you know that? I’ve paid my own way for years now, Connor. That’s not going to stop if your father and I marry.”

He seemed startled by the news. “You’re planning to work?” he scoffed. “Doing what?”

“My boss and I have been discussing the possibility of me opening a branch of his art gallery here. Now that your father and I have set a wedding date, I’ll speak to Phillip about proceeding with that.” She gave him a steady look. “Any other concerns?”

“A boatload of them, but I’m sure you’ll have an answer for everything,” he said sourly.

“And I imagine some of them will be things you don’t particularly want to hear,” she replied. “Now, since we’re parked on Shore Road and neither of us ate a bite of our meal, why don’t we get something to eat? My treat.” Again, she leveled an unyielding look at him. “Or you can take me home, then sulk for the rest of the afternoon and complain that I bailed on you yet again.”

She held her breath as she waited for him to make his choice. It seemed to take an eternity as he weighed the options.

“I suppose I could eat,” he said grudgingly.

She resisted the temptation to reach over and ruffle his hair, as she said, “You always could. You and Kevin were bottomless pits.”

“We were growing boys,” he countered as he got out and, to her surprise, came around and opened the car door for her. It was evidence, she thought, of Nell’s stern emphasis on manners. It also demonstrated that no matter how badly Connor wanted to hate her, on some level he still had at least a tiny grain of respect left for the mother she’d been before the fateful day when she’d left Mick to save herself and turned all their lives upside down in the process.

Mick paced around the kitchen as Nell and Abby cleaned up after their dinner.

“I think I should go looking for them,” he said for probably the tenth time since Connor had stormed off and Megan had gone after him.

“No!” Nell said emphatically. She and Abby had taken turns talking him out of doing anything rash.

“Mom needs to deal with Connor,” Abby repeated. “If she’s smart, she’s probably somewhere in town feeding him a steak about now.”

Mick paused. “You think they went to dinner? I could drive around, look for his car. Make sure no blood has been shed.”

“No!” Abby said, regarding him with impatience. “Dad, you can’t fix this. It’s up to Mom.”

“Some of what happened was my fault,” he argued.

“A lot of it was,” Nell agreed, “but that’s not the point. This is between your son and his mother. You can sort out your issues with him later.”

“Well, I can’t just sit around here,” he grumbled. “I’ve never been any good at sitting on the sidelines and waiting.”

“But this time that’s exactly what you’ll do,” Nell said firmly. “Now grab a dish towel and dry some of those pots and pans.”

Mick sighed and took a towel from Abby, who promptly announced she was going to get Trace and her girls and head for home. She nodded silently toward Nell and mouthed to him, “Talk to her.”

Mick got the message. After Abby had gone, he put the last of the pans back in the cabinet and turned to his mother. “Ma, sit down.”

She regarded him with a narrowed gaze. “Why?”

“Because you’re the one person who hasn’t said how you feel about Megan and me getting married again.”

She looked him directly in the eye and said, “I’m happy for both of you. This has been in the wind for a long time now. I’ve had time to get used to the idea.”

Though her words and tone were meant to be convincing, Mick didn’t buy it. “You do know that our marriage isn’t going to displace you, right? This has been your home for a long time now, and Megan and I both want you to stay right here.”

She gave him a defiant look. “What if I want to go back to my own cottage and get on with the life you two disrupted when you split up?”

Startled, Mick stared at her. “
Is
that what you want?”

She sighed softly. “I can’t say for sure, but it holds a certain appeal. It’s not as if I’d be at the ends of the earth. The cottage is within walking distance. And it’s mine. I fixed it up exactly the way I wanted it when you built it. It’s warm and cozy, which would be a nice change from rattling around in this big old place now that all your children are grown and have moved out.”

Mick felt a deep sense of loss at the thought of his mother going off to live on her own. Still, he said, “It’s your decision, Ma, as long as you know you’re welcome here if you want to stay. This became your home the day you moved in here to help me with the kids. I dumped most of that responsibility on your shoulders because I couldn’t cope. I’ll owe you till the day I die.”

“You don’t owe me a thing. I did what was necessary,” she insisted. “And I’m thinking you and Megan should have a fresh start without me underfoot. She probably has her own ideas about how she’d like the household to run.”

“She’ll more than likely be working, Ma. The house would continue to be your domain.”

“Like some glorified housekeeper,” she said with asperity, then held up a hand. “I didn’t mean that to sound so harsh. I do know you both want me here, and I appreciate that. We have a couple of months to think about it. Maybe I’ll go over to the cottage tomorrow and see how it’s holding up. It could probably use a fresh coat of paint and airing out. No matter the care I’ve taken of it, a house suffers when it’s not lived in.”

“I’ll come with you,” Mick offered. “Anything you want done, I’ll take care of it. And if you change your mind and decide to stay here, that’s fine, too.”

Her expression suddenly brightened, and a twinkle lit her eyes. “It might be nice to have my own place if I should have a gentleman caller.”

Mick stared at her. “Excuse me?”

“You never know, young man. I’m old, but I’m not in my grave yet.”

“Far from it,” Mick said, shaking his head. He wondered if Nell O’Brien would ever stop surprising him. He had a hunch if she had her way, there might be a few more shocks in store.

Even though they’d managed to get through dinner, Megan wasn’t deluding herself that anything between her and Connor was truly settled. Once again, he’d resorted to the kind of civility that had fooled all of them into believing he’d weathered the divorce without scars. Now that she knew otherwise, she’d be more attuned to the hostility that seethed just beneath the surface. One dinner without fireworks wasn’t going to change that.

By the time Connor dropped her off at the house, she was emotionally wrung out. Finding Mick pacing impatiently in the foyer did nothing to soothe her.

“It’s about time,” he muttered when she walked inside. “Where’s Connor?”

“On his way back to Baltimore,” she said wearily.

“Why didn’t he come inside?”

She lifted a brow. “So you could badger him?”

He frowned at her. “I wasn’t going to badger him, just tell him a few facts of life.”

“Well, he doesn’t need to hear anything more from either one of us at the moment. He needs time to process what’s happening. Once again, we’ve turned his view of the world upside down.”

“This isn’t about him,” Mick grumbled.

“Of course it is,” Megan said. “What I did years ago had an impact on each one of our children. So did the way you chose to handle it—by running off to one job site after another. What I thought of as consideration for their feelings in letting them stay here in their home with you, they interpreted as me not caring at all. There were bound to be repercussions.”