“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