A Chesapeake Shores Christmas (4 page)

“So, Dad, what’s going on between you and Connor?” Kevin asked point-blank, studying him intently.

“Who says there’s anything going on?” Mick replied defensively. “You saw the way he stormed out of the house. He’s not happy about your mother and me remarrying.”

“I know that, but when I spoke to him the other day and suggested he come down and go fishing today, he mumbled some kind of ridiculous excuse that didn’t make a bit of sense. I reminded him I needed his help to get the boat ready for the lighted boat parade the first weekend in December, and he blew that off, too.”

“Maybe he’s busy,” Mick suggested. “He’s working hard to make partner at the law firm, and he probably spends a lot of his spare time with that woman he’s been seeing.”

Kevin looked surprised. “You know about Heather?”

Mick brightened. “Is that her name?”

Kevin frowned at him. “You were just taking a stab in the dark, weren’t you, you sneaky old man? You had no idea he was dating anyone.”

“He’s a good-looking, successful young man. I never thought he was living the life of a monk.”

“But you didn’t know about any specific woman,” Kevin persisted.

“Nope,” Mick confirmed with a satisfied grin. “So, how serious is it?”

“Ask Connor.” Kevin’s expression turned sly. “Or aren’t the two of you speaking?”

“Now who’s resorting to guesswork?”

“I wouldn’t need to, if either one of you would give me a straight answer. Dad, if marrying Mom is going to come between you and Connor, maybe you should rethink it.”

“You’d have me put my life on hold because any one of you can’t be an adult and accept that I know exactly what I’m doing?” Mick asked incredulously.

“Look, Mom and I are getting along okay now, but I’ve had time to reconcile the perspective I used to have with the realities of what actually happened back then,” Kevin said, his tone reasonable. “Connor’s not had enough time, plus he’s even more hardheaded than you or I on our bad days. Why not have a spring wedding? Mom can walk along the pathway that’s lined with all those lilies of the valley she planted. It’ll be beautiful.”

“I am not waiting until spring just so your brother can make peace with this. If he knows he has that kind of power over the two of us, he’ll find some other way to force us to postpone that date. Years could go by while he manipulates the situation. In case you haven’t noticed, neither your mother or I are getting any younger.”

“I wouldn’t suggest you use Mom’s advancing age as an excuse for pressing ahead with a New Year’s Eve wedding,” Kevin said with a grin.

Mick scowled at him. “Of course not. Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Sometimes you do say things without thinking through the consequences,” Kevin said. “Something tells me that’s what happened with Connor.” He studied Mick intently. “Is that it, Dad? Did you back him into a corner?”

“We’ll work it out,” Mick said. “That’s what O’Briens do. We work things out.”

“Unless those
things
you’re talking about happen to be between you and Uncle Jeff or you and Uncle Thomas,” Kevin said knowingly. “How many years have the three of you been at odds? The only thing you and Thomas have managed to agree on is that Shanna and I belong together.”

“Whole different story,” Mick insisted. He heard the bell over the store’s front door ring, spotted Daisy Monroe coming inside with her pet poodle clutched in her arms and seized on the excuse. “You have a customer. Take care of her. I’m going home.”

The whole conversation with Kevin had left him more disgruntled than ever. He was in no mood to call Megan, but judging from the message she’d sent via Abby, he didn’t have a choice. Maybe he could bluster his way through it.

He walked down to Shore Road, found an unoccupied bench facing the bay where cell phone reception would be good, then placed the call.

“Meggie, my love, how are you?” he said exuberantly when she answered.

“I was better before you started avoiding me,” she said, her tone testy. “What’s going on, Mick? Don’t you dare lie to me and tell me it’s nothing.”

“Just a little glitch,” he claimed. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Mick O’Brien!”

“I’m telling you everything’s going to work out. Don’t you have that big show at the gallery this week? Tell me about that. Is everything coming together? I’m planning on flying up, you know.”

“Do not change the subject on me,” she said. “I want to know what’s going on. I’m not some outsider. Nor do I need to be protected from things.”

“Is this another of those partnership things you keep bringing up?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what it is,” she told him. “If there is anything going on with our family, then I need to be kept in the loop.”

Mick debated continuing with further evasiveness, but he could tell from her tone that she was losing patience. Sooner or later she’d learn the truth. She might as well hear it from him. At least he could put the best possible spin on it, assuming he could come up with one.

“I stopped by to see Connor the other day,” he admitted eventually. “After I dropped you at the airport, in fact.”

“And the two of you fought,” she guessed at once. “Oh, Mick, why couldn’t you just leave it alone? I warned you he needed more time.”

“With a wedding in a couple of months, time is exactly what we don’t have. I decided to move things along.”

“What happened?”

“I just told you. I went to see our son,” he said defensively.

“And?”

“I couldn’t make him see reason,” he admitted.

“In other words, he’s still opposed to our marriage.”

“You could say that.”

“Well, thank goodness Thanksgiving is right around the corner. We’ll all be together then. If we can get Connor to come for the whole holiday weekend, it’ll give me more time to get through to him. And you can use the time to apologize for whatever you said.”

“I don’t owe him an apology,” Mick said indignantly. “He’s the one who ought to be apologizing for trying to interfere in our plans. He told me about that ridiculous prenuptial agreement he wants us to sign. I told him I wasn’t interested.”

Megan fell silent. Mick was tempted to fill the void, but he knew perfectly well that the odds were he’d only make matters worse.

“Mick, how bad did things get between you and Connor?” Megan asked eventually, her voice filled with trepidation.

“He said some things,” Mick admitted. “I said some things. It might have gotten a little heated.”

Megan groaned. “I know what that means. It means it all got wildly out of hand.”

“It wasn’t all my fault,” he insisted.

“Maybe not, but it’s up to you to make it right,” she told him emphatically. “I mean it, Mick. Talk to Connor and settle this.”

“It’s already settled,” he said stubbornly.

“Meaning you’ve dug in your heels and so has he,” she said wearily. “Okay, I’ll call him and try to smooth things over. Maybe we can bond over how infuriating we both find you to be.”

“No,” he said hurriedly. “Leave it alone, Megan. I insist that you stay out of it.”

“Excuse me?” she said, her voice soft and deadly calm.

“I didn’t mean to make it sound like an order,” he said, scrambling to soothe her ruffled feathers. “It’s just that I need to deal with Connor.”

“Then do it,” she said direly. “Call me and let me know how it goes.”

“Will do,” he said as if it were going to be a quick fix.

When she’d hung up, Mick breathed a sigh of relief. As bad as the conversation had been, somehow he’d managed to avoid telling her that he’d banished Connor from Chesapeake Shores. Which meant he either had to get his son home for Thanksgiving or prepare to cancel his plans for a wedding on New Year’s Eve.

4

I
t was two days before Thanksgiving before Megan came back to Chesapeake Shores. Though there had been precious little time for anything other than preparations for their big show opening, she’d managed to have at least a few conversations with Phillip about starting a gallery of her own. She had pages of notes she wanted to go over during the long holiday weekend. He’d given her a lot of things to think about.

Though Phillip was willing to consider a branch of his Upper East Side gallery, they’d both agreed she might be happier with a business over which she had total control. Phillip would act as her mentor and would help her to arrange shows with some of his regular artists, most of whom she’d come to know well over the years. Many would be happy to have a new outlet for their work.

Megan had enough savings to get things in motion, but she would need additional capital to operate for the first year. She planned to see Lawrence Riley—her son-in-law Trace’s father—at the bank over the next couple of days to discuss a small business loan. She was optimistic that her experience in New York, combined with the business plan she’d devised with Phillip’s help, would be enough to impress the bank president.

Despite her determination to do all of this on her own, she was realistic enough to understand that her remarriage to Mick would come into play. Somehow, though, she would find a way to show Lawrence Riley and everyone else here in town that she might be Mrs. Mick O’Brien once more, but she nevertheless had her own separate and independent life. It would probably be difficult for some people to adjust to that idea, but she wanted to start that process now.

Beyond her business plans, there were a million and one details to finalize even for the small family wedding that she and Mick envisioned. Not the least of the things she hoped to accomplish was building on the overture she’d made to Connor on her last visit.

It was so important to her that all of the children be comfortable with her coming back to town once again as Mick’s wife. That was going to be even trickier, she feared, than teaching their neighbors to view her in a new way, especially after whatever had happened between Connor and Mick. She still needed to get to the bottom of that. Something told her she knew only part of the story. Even during Mick’s quick visit to New York the previous week, he’d remained stubbornly evasive about the details.

When she arrived Tuesday morning, she insisted Mick drop her off on Main Street. “Bree and I can talk about the flowers for the wedding. Then I want to stop by the bank to see Lawrence.”

Mick frowned. “Why would you need to see him?”

“If I’m going to open that art gallery we talked about, I’ll need to arrange for a loan.”

“Nonsense,” Mick said at once. “I’ve already told you that I’ll give you whatever money you need.”

She scowled at him. “And then it won’t be my business, will it? No, Mick. We’ve talked about this. I need to do this on my own. I have a solid business plan.”

To her annoyance, he looked skeptical. “Maybe you should run it by me first. I have a lot of experience dealing with Lawrence. I know the kind of questions he’s likely to ask.”

“Absolutely not!” she said stubbornly, then backed down at his hurt expression. “It’s not that I don’t want you to see the business plan, Mick. I’m sure your insight would be very helpful, but I just feel this is something I have to handle on my own.”

“Why?”

“To prove to everyone that I’m my own person now.”

“Well, before you go dashing off to the bank, you need to come with me,” he said, looking thoroughly disgruntled. Instead of parking on Main Street as she’d requested, he drove around the corner to Shore Road. At the end of the block, he pulled into a spot in front of an empty corner storefront. Large windows faced both Shore Road and Seagull Lane, while the door opened at an angle to both streets. It was a prime location, no question about it, and more square footage than she’d dreamed of having.

“I was planning on giving you this as a wedding present,” Mick said. “But I can’t very well have you going off to get a loan from the bank to lease something else in the meantime.”

Megan turned to him, mouth agape. “You leased this?”

“I bought it,” he corrected. “Well, truthfully, I already owned it. Jeff and I still own all the property in the business district. He manages the leases. I’ve put the lease for this in your name for as long as you want it.”

“Mick, I can’t afford the rent on a property this size,” Megan protested. “It’s bound to cost a fortune.”

“It’s yours for a dollar a year,” he said, his jaw set stubbornly. “The lease is already drawn up and signed.”

The generosity of the gesture brought tears to Megan’s eyes, but she shook her head. “Mick, you know I can’t accept this. I told Connor I wasn’t marrying you for your money, that I intended to stand on my own two feet. Accepting a free rental property is the same as taking money from you.” She shook her head. “I just can’t do it.”

“Leave Connor out of this. I want to do this for you,” he said. “I know you value your independence, but a husband ought to be able to do something nice for his wife. Opening this gallery means a lot to you, and I want to be some small part of that. Bree let me do the finishing construction on her flower shop, and Jess allowed me to do a few small things for her at the inn. She even accepted that fancy stove her chef wanted. Think of this the same way, as my contribution to getting your business up and running.”

Reluctantly, Megan nodded. Arguing further not only seemed ungrateful, but pointless. “It’s an amazing gift, Mick. Thank you.” Shoving aside her reservations, she regarded him eagerly. “Can we go inside? What was here before? I can’t recall that I was ever in this space.”

He shook his head. “I doubt you were. It sold sunglasses, beach floats, boogie boards, bathing suits and some sporting equipment. Probably would have gone over in Ocean City, but with Ethel’s selling a lot of the same things for a whole lot less money, it didn’t stand a chance. Jeff tried to warn the owners, but they were a couple of young guys with big ideas and a bankroll from their fathers. Couldn’t tell them a thing. They barely covered their overhead. Lasted through the summer, then threw in the towel after Labor Day.”

“Well, their loss is my gain,” Megan said as she waited for Mick to open the door.

Once inside, Megan knew she couldn’t possibly change her mind and say no. The property was ideal. It was filled with natural light. The walls had already been painted in the same neutral tone as the gallery in New York.

“You’ve had it painted?” she asked, sniffing the scent of fresh paint in the air.

Mick nodded. “I called Phillip and asked him what color he recommended. That’s as far as I’ve gone, though,” he assured her. “I haven’t done anything to upgrade the lighting yet, because I thought you’d want to have a say in that.”

Megan pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You really are amazing.”

He studied her worriedly. “You’re not mad at me for being presumptuous?”

“How can I be?” she said. “This is an incredible space, and the location couldn’t be more perfect.”

But she did wonder if she’d just set a dangerous precedent. Mick had always been the kind of man who, in his zeal to make his family happy, had a way of taking over. Give him an inch, he took not just the proverbial mile, but most of the county. It was going to take every bit of strength she possessed to stand up to him.

After leaving Mick, Megan walked over to the bank. She was aware when she stepped into the lobby that several of the people who’d worked there for years were giving her surreptitious looks, but no one actually met her gaze as she walked over to Lawrence Riley’s longtime secretary, a woman with whom she’d once had at least a casual friendship.

“Hello, Mariah,” she said quietly. “Is Lawrence available?”

Mariah hesitated just long enough to indicate that she, like many others, hadn’t forgotten that Megan had walked out on the town’s most prominent citizen and left five children behind. Her disapproval obviously hadn’t lessened over time.

“Did you have an appointment?” Mariah asked coldly. “His calendar’s pretty jammed today.”

“I’m sure it is, but if he could spare a few minutes, I’d really appreciate it.”

With obvious reluctance, Mariah picked up her phone. Before dialing, she asked, “Can I tell him what it’s about?”

“I’m hoping to start a business here in town. I’d like to discuss a small business loan.”

For an instant Mariah’s mouth gaped, then she turned away and mumbled something into the phone. When she turned back, she said, “He’ll see you now.” There was no mistaking how unhappy she was about that.

“Thanks, Mariah,” Megan said, then ventured a smile. “It’s good to see you. You’re looking well.”

She walked away quickly so the other woman wouldn’t be forced to utter a reply she didn’t mean.

Lawrence was standing when she reached his office. “Megan,” he said, his welcome far more jovial than Mariah’s had been. “I heard you might be returning to town. It’s all Abby’s been able to talk about lately. Of course, my wife and I aren’t so sure how we feel about having to share Carrie and Caitlyn with their Grandma Megan. We love those little girls as if they were our own grandchildren.”

Megan smiled. “They’re wonderful, aren’t they? I think they have plenty of energy and affection to satisfy all of us.”

“True enough,” he said. “I understand there are wedding plans afoot. Trace mentioned something about New Year’s Eve.”

“If all goes well, yes,” she said.

He gestured toward a chair. “Sit down. Tell me what I can do for you.”

“I’m hoping you’ll approve a small business loan,” she said, then withdrew her business plan from her briefcase and handed it to him. “All of the facts and figures are in there, along with an outline of my experience in New York. You’ll see that I’m more than qualified to run an art gallery, that I have numerous connections to the New York art world. I can make a success of this, Lawrence.”

“What’s Mick’s involvement going to be?” he asked bluntly.

“Financially, none,” she said firmly.

Lawrence looked startled. Before he could express his obvious reservations, Megan held up a hand.

“However,” she said, “he did make me a generous gift of a long-term lease on a property on Shore Road for a dollar a year. I just learned of that this morning, so the amount in my plan set aside for rent can be eliminated or devoted to expanding my inventory. Since overhead can kill a business that’s just starting out, this has the potential to make a tremendous difference in how quickly I can turn a profit.”

“I see,” Lawrence said, nodding approvingly. “You know I don’t make decisions like this alone, Megan, but I will take this before the loan committee next week. I’ll get back to you after that meeting. Of course, it would be a sure thing if Mick were going to be involved….” His voice trailed off.

“But he won’t be,” she repeated emphatically. “This application should stand on its own merits, Lawrence. I don’t want to mislead anyone by having them believe Mick is even a silent partner.”

He stood then, calling an obvious end to the meeting. “I have to say I’m impressed with your business acumen. I’ll do my best on your behalf, Megan. Once I’ve looked this plan of yours over more carefully, if I see any obvious red flags that need to be addressed, I’ll contact you before the meeting next week.”

“Thank you for seeing me, Lawrence, especially at the last minute.”

“Of course. We’re practically family, after all. Your daughter’s made my son very happy.”

Megan smiled. “And vice versa. Abby couldn’t have found a better man for herself or a better stepfather for the twins.”

“I just wish they’d hurry up and make me a grandfather again,” he grumbled as he walked with her through the lobby. “They don’t seem to be in any hurry, though.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve had to learn to keep my mouth shut about things like that.”

Megan said goodbye again at the door, pulled on her coat and stepped outside. Only after she’d walked down the block did she finally start to relax. She was pretty much oblivious to her surroundings when Bree stepped out of Flowers on Main and snagged her arm.

“Mom, were you just going to walk on by without stopping?” she asked.

“Oh, sweetie, I wasn’t even paying attention to where I was,” she said, then stood back to take a look at her daughter. “You’re showing! When I was here before, you barely had a baby bump at all.”

Bree grinned and put a protective hand on her rounded stomach. “I know. Isn’t it amazing?” she said excitedly. “It’s finally starting to seem real to me. I think Jake’s still in shock. He just sits and stares at my belly as if it’s growing right before his eyes.”

“Your father was the same way when I was pregnant for the first time with Abby,” Megan confided. “It was almost impossible to keep him from pointing out my expanding waistline to strangers on the street.”

“Do you have time to come in for a minute?” Bree asked. “We can talk about flowers for the wedding.”

“Actually I’d planned to do that today. Then I got distracted,” Megan said, following Bree inside. Jake’s teenage niece Jenny was working at the cash register. Megan greeted her with a hug, then followed Bree into the back room. The mingling of so many flowery scents could have been overwhelming, but Megan breathed it in with delight.

“So, why were you so distracted?” Bree asked.

Megan described her meeting with Lawrence. “I couldn’t tell if he was truly impressed with my plan or just placating me so he could leave it to the committee to turn me down.”

“He won’t turn you down, Mom. He wouldn’t dare. Dad would raise a huge ruckus.”

“I don’t want a loan just because your father might get upset if it’s denied.”

“Mom, if you want this business, take the loan however you get it,” Bree advised. “I’m sure Dad’s the reason the bank okayed my loan and Jess’s initially, even though he didn’t cosign either one of them. After that one little blip at the inn, both loans have turned out to be very good investments. O’Briens are a safe bet and Lawrence knows it. As for the kind of things Dad does behind the scenes, I had to learn to turn a blind eye after he got the town to go along with my plans for a regional theater on part of the land in the park.”