“Apparently you don’t have siblings,” he said direly.
“No, but…” Her voice trailed off as understanding dawned. “They meddle!”
“They meddle,” he confirmed. “I’ve already made Bree take a vow of silence about me helping you out today. If we show up at the inn, Jess will try to make something out of it, and the next thing you know Abby will be chiming in with her two cents. She’s the worst of the lot. She’s the oldest, and she stepped in as a surrogate mother hen when our mom and dad divorced. She thinks that gives her the right to an opinion on almost everything related to our lives.”
Kevin sighed dramatically. “The only one not likely to chime in is my brother, Connor, but that’s only because he’s in Baltimore and won’t hear about this for a day or
two. He’s in his first year with a big law firm, so he barely has a minute to himself, much less time to listen to the family grapevine.”
Though she understood the problem, Shanna thought it all sounded rather wonderful. As an only child who’d lost both of her parents a few years ago, she’d always longed for a great big family of exactly the kind he was describing. That was one reason, she now believed, that she’d been so eager to marry Greg Hamilton. It had nothing to do with his wealth or his family’s prominence in Philadelphia society. Greg was a single dad with sole custody of his son, and she’d had an instant family. That had overshadowed all of the warning signs that she was making a terrible mistake.
“I hear the French bistro around the corner is really good,” Kevin prompted. “How about that, instead? Please. Take pity on me and keep my family out of both our lives.”
“Sure,” she said, though not without some disappointment. “That makes sense. It’s close and I’ll be able to get back in here and do a few more things before I quit for the night.”
Kevin looked so genuinely relieved, she was glad she’d acquiesced.
To her surprise, Shanna found herself adding, “On one condition.”
“What?” he asked, instantly suspicious.
“You’ll tell me more about your family.”
“Why?” he asked, clearly bewildered by the request.
“I was an only child and have what I used to refer to as
Little House on the Prairie
syndrome. I idealize big families. I always imagine these amazing holiday gatherings, brothers and sisters pestering each other but being there for each other, no matter what. Is it like that with your family?”
“It is,” he said, then gave her a wry look, “though it’s not always the blessing you seem to be envisioning.”
“I want to hear about that, too,” she said eagerly, leading the way out of the shop and locking the door behind them.
“You’re going to be bored silly,” he warned her as they strolled down the block and turned onto the road that ran along the beach. There were several sidewalk cafés along the block, all of them busy. Across the street, couples and families strolled along the beach.
“You won’t bore me,” she said with certainty.
Even if his stories turned out to be dull, she had a feeling she’d find them fascinating, because of the insights they’d give her into who Kevin O’Brien really was. Or maybe who he had been before his life had been turned upside down by tragedy.
“I don’t like this,” Megan O’Brien declared to Mick. “I don’t like it one bit.”
During one of their now-nightly phone conversations, Mick had been filling her in on Kevin’s ongoing lack of motivation. She’d seen for herself how lost he was on her visits to Chesapeake Shores, but like everyone else she’d been making excuses for him. Clearly, though, it had gone on long enough. Everyone might grieve at their own pace, but sooner or later it was time to get on with life, especially with a child to consider.
“Have you tried to get through to him?” she asked Mick.
“Of course I have,” Mick said. “I tried to get him to go with me this morning, just to give him something to do. He turned me down flat, then stormed off. I haven’t seen him since.”
“Oh, Mick, you don’t think he’s drinking, do you?”
“Absolutely not,” Mick said at once. “I haven’t seen him have more than a beer or two in the evening since he moved home, and he hardly leaves the house, so I think I would know.”
“Well, something has to be done. He can’t go on like this,” she said.
“That seems to be the general consensus around here, but not one of us has been able to come up with a plan.”
“I’m coming down there,” Megan announced. “I’ll be there on Friday.”
“Not that I won’t be happy for any excuse to have you here,” Mick said, “but what is it you think you can accomplish that the rest of us haven’t?”
“I’m his mother. Surely I can think of some way to get through to him, even if having me around does nothing more than make him angry. At least that would demonstrate
some
kind of emotion.”
“Meggie, are you sure?” Mick asked worriedly. “He’s not been very receptive on your last visits.”
“Because I’ve been tiptoeing around like everyone else, trying to give him space. He’s mad at me. We all know that. I left and he took your side and he can hold a grudge with the best of the O’Briens. It’s time to put that in the past. Like it or not, I
am
his mother, and I
will
make him listen to me.”
Mick chuckled. “I’m impressed by your determination and I agree he should let go of the past, but this may not be the best time to get through to him,” he warned. “He already has a lot on his plate.”
“Since when did you give two figs about timing?”
Mick chuckled. “Never,” he conceded. “I just don’t want him trampling all over your feelings.”
“I can take it,” she assured him. “I deserve whatever he
wants to dish out. And maybe if he’s venting all of his anger at me, he’ll release some of the pent-up emotions he has about Georgia. Where is he now?”
“I have no idea,” Mick admitted. “Like I said, he took off this morning in a huff, and Ma says she hasn’t seen him since.”
“What about Davy?” she asked incredulously. “He didn’t just go off and leave Nell to take care of him, did he?” Even as she asked, she saw the irony, since that was exactly what she’d done years ago, left Mick’s mother to raise her children. It had been unintentional, but that’s how it had turned out when her plans to bring them to be with her in New York had been ditched for a whole variety of reasons that she now knew were nothing more than flimsy excuses.
“No, he’s very reliable when it comes to his son. He knew Davy was with me. He called earlier to check on him, but when Ma told him Davy was already asleep, Kevin said he’d be home in a couple of hours.”
“Maybe he’s spending time with one of the girls,” she suggested. “Or Jake. They used to be good friends.”
“Maybe,” Mick said, though he sounded doubtful. “He’s not been in any mood to socialize, though. Jake’s stopped by more than once, suggested a guys’ night out, but Kevin’s refused. I suspect he’s off somewhere by himself, brooding.”
“For hours on end?” she asked, her concern growing. “He was always a social kid, not a loner. This really isn’t good, Mick. I’m worried.”
“You think I should go look for him? I could take a ride around town.”
“He’ll be furious if he thinks you’re checking up on him,” Megan said. “Then, again, it would put my mind at ease if I at least knew he wasn’t in real trouble.”
“Then I’ll go right now,” Mick said at once.
The immediate response surprised her. There’d been a time when Mick wouldn’t have wanted to involve himself in messy, emotional situations. He’d been focused almost entirely on his career. His family had taken a distant second place. It was the reason she’d finally left him.
All that was water long since under the bridge, she reminded herself. Lately Mick had been proving time and again that he’d changed his priorities, that he was putting his family first. More and more, Megan was reminded of the caring man she’d married. That he was as attentive to her as he’d been when they’d first been courting helped, as well.
“You’ll call me when you find him?” she asked him now. “No matter how late it is.”
“I’ll call,” he promised.
“In the meantime, I’ll make my flight arrangements for this weekend,” she said. “Even if he rejects me again, at least Kevin is going to know that I care enough to be there for him.”
“As long as you’re prepared for things not to go smoothly,” Mick said.
“No one ever said the path to reconciliation was destined to go smoothly,” she reminded him. “I still have a long way to go with each of our children.”
“As do I,” Mick conceded.
“The point is to keep trying. Now, go find our boy, Mick. Make sure he’s safe.”
“He’s not a boy,” Mick said.
“I don’t care how old he gets to be, when he’s hurting, he’s still my boy,” she said fiercely. “And I’m always going to want to make it better.”
She had to wonder, though, if this time that was going to be beyond her capabilities.
S
hanna frowned as a classic Mustang convertible passed by on Shore Road for the fourth time. Though he made a halfhearted attempt to disguise his interest, it was evident the older driver was studying her and Kevin on each pass. There was no question that he was looking at them, because they were the only two people left at the café. They’d been lingering over coffee for a while now. Kevin hadn’t noticed the man’s odd behavior because his back was to the street. When she spotted the car yet again, she reached for Kevin’s hand.
“Turn around,” she said in an urgent undertone. “There’s someone watching us. I thought I might be imagining it, but he’s back again. This has to be the fifth time he’s gone around the block and slowed down right in front of us.”
Kevin regarded her blankly. “What? Who?” He shifted around, took one look at the approaching car, and groaned. He turned back to her with an apologetic expression. “That would be my father.”
“Your father?” She took another look and saw the resemblance: the same square jaw, the same thick black hair, though his had some gray and Kevin’s was cropped short in a way that kept its natural wave under control. If she’d
been able to see them at this distance, she suspected the man’s eyes would be the same vivid blue. She turned back to Kevin with a puzzled expression. “Why on earth do you think he keeps circling the block?”
“I don’t know for sure, but if I had to hazard a guess, he’s spying on me.”
Shanna stared at him, then glanced back to note that the car had, indeed, slowed to a crawl. The driver lifted his hand in a casual wave, then made a sharp left into a metered, pull-in parking space across the road.
“Maybe he’s looking for you because something’s wrong at home,” she suggested.
Kevin shook his head and gestured toward the cell phone on the table. “He and my grandmother both know how to reach me.”
“Well, he’s definitely coming this way, so obviously he was looking for you.”
“More’s the pity,” Kevin said grimly. He stood up and met his father before he reached the table. “Dad.”
She watched as Mick O’Brien gave him a jovial slap on the back as if this meeting had been totally accidental. “Son, I didn’t expect to find you here.” He glanced in Shanna’s direction. “And with this lovely young lady.”
Kevin gave a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Dad, this is Shanna Carlyle. She’s opening a bookstore next to Bree’s shop. I was helping her at the shop earlier.”
“Good for you,” Mick said, retrieving a chair from a nearby table and pulling it up to theirs. “Think I’ll join you for a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind.” Then as an obvious afterthought, he added almost hopefully, “Unless I’m interrupting.”
Kevin, his expression resigned, sat back down. “You’re not interrupting.”
“Well, that’s good then.” He beamed benevolently at them as if bestowing a blessing.
It took every bit of restraint Shanna possessed not to chuckle at Mick O’Brien’s undisguised eagerness to figure out what was going on between the two of them. If Kevin weren’t so obviously miserable at having been discovered with her, she probably would have laughed. She hadn’t had anyone so blatantly checking out any of her dates since she’d left home for college, and back then it had been
her
dad.
“Mr. O’Brien, it’s a real pleasure to meet you,” she said when Kevin remained silent. “I fell in love with this town when I visited last year. I’m so excited that I was finally able to get some retail space to open my shop.”
“You’re exactly the kind of young, energetic person the town needs,” Mick said. “You’ll keep Main Street interesting, just the way it was intended to be.” He paused long enough to order a decaf coffee from the perky young waitress, who’d been hovering nearby, her rapt gaze on Kevin all evening. When she’d left, he asked Shanna, “How did you and my son meet?”
“Dad!”
He blinked at Kevin’s reaction. “What? It’s a logical question.” He winked at the waitress when she brought his coffee. “Thanks, Mary.” He turned his attention back to Shanna. “So, how did you meet?”
“He was looking for Bree yesterday and stopped in my shop. He came back today and saw that I was practically buried under a pile of unassembled bookshelves. He offered to pitch in.”
She was surprised by the look of dismay that passed over the older man’s face.
“Kevin put your shelves together?” he asked, sounding worried.
“He did.”
“And they’re still standing?”
She frowned at his reaction. “Well, of course they are. Why wouldn’t they be?” she asked, indignant on Kevin’s behalf.
“Dad’s not a fan of my construction skills,” Kevin told her.
“You said yourself this morning that you don’t have any,” Mick reminded him. “This isn’t news.”
“Well, he did a fine job on my shelves,” Shanna insisted. “You can inspect them yourself.”
Mick backed down, obviously chagrined at having maligned his son in front of her. “No need for that. I guess I’m just surprised.”
“For any number of reasons, I’m sure,” Kevin added wryly. “Dad, is everything okay at home? Davy’s not sick, is he?”
“No, no. I just decided to go for a ride. You know I like to take the Mustang out on a nice night from time to time.”
“Which necessitated circling this block several times?” Kevin inquired.
Mick actually blushed at that. “Thought I saw you here, but I wasn’t sure at first. Then I had a bit of trouble finding a parking space.”
Kevin took an exaggerated look up and down the street, where parking spaces abounded. “Really? There are plenty now.”
“Well, there weren’t ten minutes ago,” Mick told him, taking a final sip of his coffee and then standing. “Nice to meet you, Shanna. You let me know if you need any more help getting your store ready to open. I’d be glad to help out.”
“Thanks, but I think it’s all under control now,” she said.
“See you at home, Kevin,” he said, then turned on his heel and walked away.
Beside her, Kevin released the breath he’d obviously been holding.
“For a minute there, I thought he was going to tell me not to stay out too late,” he grumbled. “Do I look like I’m sixteen?”
“I think he was sweet. He was obviously curious about what was going on with the two of us.”
“Which he will now report far and wide,” Kevin said, his expression grim. “You should have locked your shop door when you saw me coming today. You could have saved yourself a lot of grief.”
“But then my shelves wouldn’t be up,” she reminded him. “That’s worth a little meddling.”
“We’ll talk again in a day or two,” he said direly. “See if you still feel that way.”
She studied him for a moment, then risked a question that had been on her mind most of the day. “How is it that you have time to help me out? Is your job really flexible?”
The frown, which she’d come to recognize as an immediate response when she was cutting a little too closely to a nerve, returned.
“I’ve been taking some time off.”
The response told her a lot, yet nothing at all. “Vacation?” she asked. “Or are you between jobs?”
His frown deepened. “Is there some reason you’re so curious about my employment history?” he asked testily.
Shanna backed down at once. She’d
definitely
hit a nerve. “I’m sorry if I was prying. Sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me.”
He sighed then. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m just sensitive, because my family’s been bugging me
to get back to work. Not because I’m sponging off of them. I have money and I’m paying my share of expenses around the house. They think I’m drifting.”
“Are you?” she asked before she could stop herself. “Sorry, there I go again.”
This time he didn’t take offense. Instead, he shrugged. “It’s true. I am drifting. I was a paramedic before I went overseas. I was a medic in Iraq. That’s how I met…” He drew in a deep breath.
Shanna stayed silent and waited, sensing that he was struggling to find the words to finish the story.
“It’s how Georgia and I met,” he said at last, a catch in his voice. “When I came back, I got a job with a rescue unit in Virginia, while she was stationed at Fort Belvoir. Then she went overseas again. Six months into her tour, that’s when she was killed. I quit my job and moved home.”
“With all that training, I’m sure—”
Kevin cut her off. “Never again. I don’t want to go back to that kind of work. I can’t explain it, but I don’t.”
“Then what will you do?”
He gave her a wry look. “That’s the million-dollar question.” He stood up abruptly. “Look, it’s late. I need to be getting home. I’ll walk you back to the shop.”
“It’s just around the corner,” she protested. “I’ll be fine.”
He gave her an impatient look. “My truck’s just around the corner, too. I’ll walk you back.”
She gave in. “Thank you,” she said. “Let me get a cup of coffee to go and pay the bill.”
His eyes widened. “You planning on an all-nighter?”
She laughed. “I’ll get decaf, but I can’t seem to get anything done without a cup of coffee.”
“Maybe you should consider getting some sleep instead. I’ll be over here first thing to help you again. We’ll have everything in place by the end of the day tomorrow.”
“I can’t ask you to spend another day dealing with shelves and boxes.”
“You didn’t ask. I volunteered. Besides, consider it a favor to me. If I’m with you, I’m not being subjected to questions and worried looks at home.”
“Then this is a good deed on my part?”
“Something like that.”
“In that case, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You get the coffee going, prove you’ve mastered that machine of yours, and I’ll bring some of Gram’s scones. She always bakes on Friday morning.”
“Now, that’s an offer I can’t resist,” she said as she accepted her change and the take-out cup of coffee from their waitress, who thanked her politely, though her gaze never left Kevin’s face.
“Good night, Kevin,” Mary said, her tone breathless. “Come back soon.”
“Good night,” he replied distractedly, clearly oblivious to the young woman’s undisguised interest.
“I think you have a fan,” Shanna said as they walked away.
He regarded her blankly. “Who?” At her gesture, he glanced back. “Mary? She’s a kid.”
“She’s old enough,” Shanna said, though she was vaguely relieved that he didn’t share the girl’s interest.
A few minutes later, in front of her shop, Kevin said, “I’ll wait till you’re inside with the door locked. I still think it would be better if I walked you up to your apartment. I don’t like the idea of you in here all alone late at night.”
“First of all, it’s not that late, barely ten o’clock. Second, Chesapeake Shores is a very safe town. It says so in all the brochures.”
“Do you think the local Chamber of Commerce would announce it if we’d been having a crime wave?”
Shanna laughed at that. “Probably not, but everyone I’ve asked, including the local police chief, has told me it’s true.”
“You spoke to the chief?”
“Of course. I wanted to know if I’d need an alarm system.”
“Very smart.”
“Just because I get flustered over putting together a few shelves doesn’t mean I didn’t do my homework,” she said, bristling at what she took as a hint of condescension in his voice.
“Hey, I wasn’t suggesting you didn’t go into this business with your eyes wide open. I was just praising your foresight.”
Shanna winced. “Sorry. My best friend’s skepticism about all this has made me a little touchy.”
“She thought the store was a mistake?”
“She thinks it’s insane, actually. But she’s coming to check it out for herself next week. I intend to prove her wrong.”
“Good for you.” He held open the door so she could go inside, then advised, “Lock up.”
She gave him a quelling look that had him backing away, hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
“Just a suggestion,” he said.
“Top of my to-do list,” she assured him, closing the door, then making a dramatic show of turning the lock.
Kevin gave her one last wave, then headed down the
block toward his truck. She stared after him, wondering at the feeling of disappointment that swept over her when he was out of sight. She felt a moment’s empathy for poor Mary back at the restaurant. What was wrong with her? Had she expected him to come inside, sweep her off her feet and smother her with passionate kisses? Of course not. But a friendly peck on the cheek might have been nice, she thought wistfully.
As soon as the thought came to her, though, she reminded herself that Kevin O’Brien was off-limits. He had more baggage than a passenger jet. So did she. It was a lethal combination. She needed to remember that.
But the scary truth was, it was getting harder and harder.
To Kevin’s very deep regret, his father was at the kitchen table when he walked in there in the morning. The lingering scent of his grandmother’s fresh scones was in the air. An airtight container, filled with the traditional scones, sat on the counter.