Driftwood Cottage

by Sherryl Woods

  “Please don’t drag Nell into this,” she pleaded.

  “I won’t ‘drag’ her into anything. I’ll plant the idea. She’ll do what she wants to do.” He gave her a knowing look. “You should understand all about that kind of thing. You planted the notions that had Kevin and the others luring Connor down here to discover Heather was living in Chesapeake Shores, did you not? You’re not above a little meddling, Megan O’Brien, so don’t pretend you are.”

  “Guilty,” she admitted. “I just worry that one of these days it will all blow up in our faces.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we’ll be out of town,” he said, grinning. “Now, why don’t you forget all that packing that seems to have you completely befuddled and come over here?”

  She saw the glint in his eyes and immediately felt her blood stir. Someone, though, had to be practical. “But we’re leaving tomorrow,” she protested.

  “And whatever there’s no time to pack, we can buy in Paris. We’ll find you a whole new wardrobe from the skin out,” he said, reaching for her and pulling her into his lap. “Then, again, we could spend the whole vacation naked. It is, after all, our honeymoon.”

  She settled against his chest. “If you think I’m going to miss one single second of Paris by staying shut up in a hotel room, you’re crazy as a loon, Mick O’Brien.”

  He laughed. “If that’s the case, all the more reason to start the honeymoon now.”

  She smiled at his eagerness. “You have a point.”

  When Mick kissed her, she forgot all about Connor, packing and even Paris. And that was probably exactly what he’d intended.

  The mediation with Clint and Barbara Wilder was not going according to plan. Armed with reports from his private investigation that showed Mrs. Wilder had, in fact, come from a troubled past, Connor had pressed her attorney for a meeting and a quick, amicable settlement. The director’s wife had flown in from Los Angeles on the red-eye and arrived in his office looking exhausted.

  A petite wisp of a woman with eyes too big for her small face, Barbara Wilder looked fragile and younger than her years. That weariness and impression of fragility vanished in a heartbeat, though, when Clint walked into the conference room. She stood up straighter and stared him down, fiery sparks of anger in her eyes. Her attorney gently touched her arm and she sat back down.

  “Babs,” Wilder said coolly. “You look beat.”

  “How gallant of you to mention it,” she retorted. “You beckoned. I came. Let’s get this over with.”

  For one brief instant, Connor thought he saw an unsettled expression in his client’s eyes, as if he’d never expected his wife to have any fight left. Before Wilder could respond and start an argument, Connor stepped in.

  “I believe all of us want to wrap this up as fairly as possible,” he began.

  “Maybe you do,” Barbara Wilder snapped. “I doubt Clint does—not if that offer he put on the table is any indication.”

  “It’s a generous offer,” Connor insisted.

  She whirled on him. “In what universe? We have documents showing the millions of dollars in assets he’s hidden away. Has he mentioned those to you? Did he admit to you the long list of affairs he’s had during our marriage?”

  Clint sat back, listening, his expression smug. When she’d wound down, he turned to Connor. “I assume you can counter that.”

  “I can,” Connor confirmed. “But I’d rather this not get ugly.” He took a longer look into Barbara Wilder’s eyes and saw not avarice, but sorrow, not revenge, but fear. Out of the blue, for the first time since he’d been handling divorces, he saw the other side more clearly, in human, rather than monetary terms.

  When she met his gaze, there were tears in her eyes. “Obviously you have the pictures,” she said. “I was sixteen years old and living on the streets when I resorted to letting myself be photographed in the nude. At the time, I thought it was better than the alternative.”

  Connor winced at her matter-of-fact recitation. “The alternative?”

  “Prostitution. Pictures of myself were one thing, but I don’t think I could have sold my body to one man after another the way so many young girls in my position wound up doing. I was a naive kid from Wisconsin. You’ve heard this story before, I’m sure. I came out to Los Angeles with such high hopes. I didn’t know that it would be impossible to get an audition with no agent and no experience. Everyone back home said I was beautiful, that I ought to be in the movies. I’d gotten the lead in my school plays practically since first grade. When things got bad at home, I ran toward a dream. It turned out to be a nightmare.”

  She regarded Connor with defiance. “I’m not proud of those pictures, but I’m not ashamed, either. I did what was necessary to survive.”

  That, of course, was the part Connor couldn’t have known. Once again, he had to face the human side of a very real tragedy. Sympathy wasn’t in his client’s best interests, but he could practically hear Heather yelling in his ear that he had to take this woman’s story into account, not use it against her.

  Mrs. Wilder gave him a plaintive look. “I hate what I did. I certainly don’t want it to go public so that my kids will find out about it.” She turned to her husband. “But if that’s the way it has to be for me to get what’s fair, then you go for it, Clint. I’m not the one who’ll come out of this looking sleazy—it’ll be you. See how many of your leading ladies will crawl into your bed once they’ve seen how you treated the mother of your children.”

  Connor drew in a deep breath. “She’s right,” he told his client.

  “I don’t give a damn,” Clint exploded.

  “You have two children,” Connor reminded him. “They will care if their father drags their mother through the mud just to save a few bucks he can well afford.”

  Barbara Wilder regarded Connor with surprise, while his client stared at him with barely banked fury. They all waited.

  “Okay, fine,” Clint said, shoving back his chair. “Double it, but that’s my final offer.” He stormed from the room.

  Barbara Wilder stared after him.

  Her attorney stood up and shook Connor’s hand. “You did the right thing. Thank you.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Mrs. Wilder said softly, tears in her eyes. “The saddest part of this is that even now, after everything he’s done, I’d still rather have him than all the money in the world.”

  “You’re better off without him,” Connor told her candidly.

  She gave him a rueful smile. “You’re not the first to tell me that. I suppose one of these days, I’ll believe it.”

  After everyone had gone, Connor walked back into his office and sat down. He found himself wanting to pick up the phone and call Heather, to tell her about what had happened here today, the epiphany he’d had. Okay, maybe epiphany was too strong a word for what had happened. He’d simply opened his eyes and seen two sides to a very sad story. He couldn’t help wondering if that was an entirely good thing. It might make him more human, but it could make him a less effective attorney, at least when it came to divorce law.

  He supposed the old saying was true—time would tell.

  As Friday drew closer, Heather became more and more anxious. Though she was pretty sure she could avoid most contact with Connor, they were bound to be thrown together more than she’d prefer. She had a hunch he’d see to it.

  When Bree popped in on her way to her theater company rehearsal, she regarded Heather with curiosity. “Why are you so jumpy? Is it because Connor’s coming down tomorrow for the weekend?”

  “I just didn’t expect him to start spending so much time here,” Heather admitted, unable to keep a plaintive note out of her voice. “He hardly ever came to Chesapeake Shores before.”

  “Because you and his son weren’t here,” Bree said. “You’re the big draw.”

  “It’s little Mick who’s the draw,” she contradicted, though she knew otherwise, too. She just didn’t want to acknowledge the truth—it was too disconcerting. “I don
’t know why Connor wouldn’t let me send little Mick up to Baltimore tomorrow with Abby.”

  Bree gave her a disbelieving look. “Really? You have no idea why he preferred coming here to that option? Do you really need me to spell it out for you?”

  “Okay, maybe it is about me,” she conceded reluctantly, “but why now? And to what end? Nothing’s changed. I still want a future. Connor doesn’t.”

  “Oh, Connor wants a future with you,” Bree said. “He just wants it the easy way.”

  She pulled out a chair at the table where Heather gave her quilting lessons and lowered herself slowly into it. “Let me give you a little insight into my brother,” Bree said. “Things have always been easy for him. He cruised through school without having to study too hard. He was a star ballplayer without much effort. He even managed to get himself noticed by a big law firm without much of a struggle. He wins some huge percentage of his cases in court.”

  “I think he’s worked harder for all that than you’re giving him credit for,” Heather said. “I was there when he was studying until all hours in law school. I saw the time he put in to win those cases in court.”

  “My point is that he doesn’t have a lot of experience at losing or having to fight for things. The minute he realized he wouldn’t go straight into the majors playing baseball, he walked away. He takes high-profile, tough cases, but only if he’s convinced he can win. You’ve been a surprise to him, Heather. He actually lost something that mattered. At first, I suspect he was flat-out stunned. Now that he’s getting his feet back under him, he’s decided that losing is not an option.”

  “It’s a fight he can’t win,” Heather told her determinedly. “Not without compromise.”

  “He’ll figure that out,” Bree assured her. “Eventually. Until then, you might as well accept that he’s going to be in your face. If you can’t deal with that, you’ll need to be somewhere farther away than Chesapeake Shores.”

  Heather sighed. She knew Bree was right. She’d just have to toughen up and not let Connor’s presence get to her. Because losing the future she truly wanted for herself—Connor and her son—was simply not an option. Neither was running away.

  All day Friday, Heather jumped every time the door of her shop opened; but by closing time there was still no sign of Connor. Nor had he called.

  Fortunately, little Mick was too young to really grasp that Daddy was supposed to be coming to pick him up, but she could envision a time in the future when Connor would be setting their son up for disappointment with this kind of behavior.

  Annoyed, at least in part because she’d gotten herself all wound up over nothing, she decided to take her son to Sally’s for dinner. He could smash an entire plate of French fries if he wanted to, and she could have the burger she’d been craving all day. She figured they deserved to splurge by eating out.

  A half-hour later, their food was barely on the table when little Mick began excitedly waving a French fry in the air and shouting, “Da!”

  Heather looked up and saw Connor emerging from his car in front of the restaurant. He waved at his son, as if meeting them here had been the plan all along.

  Inside, he nudged Heather until she moved over to make room for him.

  “You’re late,” she announced testily.

  He gave her an innocent look. “Am I? I don’t recall mentioning when I’d be here.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, then realized he was right. “Okay, whatever.”

  He grinned at her. “Careful, Heather, or I’ll start to wonder if you missed me.”

  “Not likely. I just didn’t want your son to be disappointed.”

  He didn’t look as if he bought the explanation. In fact, he merely grinned impudently. “Maybe this was just my sneaky way of getting to have a meal with the two of you.”

  She frowned at the suggestion. “You couldn’t possibly have known I’d bring Mick here for dinner.”

  “I found you, didn’t I? That indicates a certain understanding of your behavior patterns.”

  “My behavior patterns?” she repeated indignantly. “What does that mean?”

  “When you’re upset, you always crave hamburgers. I’m late. You’re upset. Voilà, here you are at Sally’s.”

  She scowled at his observation. “Do you have any idea how incredibly annoying you are?”

  “You’ve mentioned it a time or two,” he said readily, beckoning to Sally and indicating he’d have a burger and fries as well. “I’d like a chocolate milk shake, too.”

  Heather’s gaze narrowed. “You don’t like chocolate milk shakes.”

  “No, but you do. I’m being thoughtful, since I know you’ll never order one for yourself.”

  “Once again, annoying,” she declared, though she was touched by the apparent effort he was making.

  “I don’t even get one brownie point?” he asked, his gaze on her, even as he moved his son’s French fries from reach. Too many were being scattered onto the floor. Connor had always been a stickler for not letting little Mick throw his food around. Once the fries were out of reach, Connor handed him one, then gave Heather a beseeching look. “Come on, one point’s not a big deal. Give me something to work with here.”

  “Maybe one point,” she conceded, then regarded him warily. “Connor, you can get a thousand and one points and it still won’t be enough.”

  He shrugged off her warning. “We’ll see.”

  Sally dropped off his meal. When she was gone, he took a bite of his burger, then met Heather’s gaze. “How was your week?”

  “Fine. Yours?”

  “Interesting.” He met her gaze. “Do you really want to hear about it?”

  She hesitated. “The Wilder case, right? You had your mediation session?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m not sure I want to know anything about that.”

  He grinned. “It’ll save you picking up the tabloids this week.”

  “As if,” she muttered. “Okay, tell me what happened.”

  Connor never revealed the details of his cases, and he didn’t this time, either. Instead, he told her about how he’d felt during the proceedings. Her surprise mounted as she listened.

  “You’re serious?” she asked when he’d finished. “You went to bat for his wife?”

  “Very carefully,” he said. “After all, he was my client. I just tried to make him think about his children and pointed out that he needed to be reasonable for their sakes.”

  “And he didn’t slug you? The world didn’t come crashing down on your heads?”

  Connor laughed. “No. In fact, other than Wilder slamming a couple of doors on his way out, it went pretty smoothly.”

  “And therein lies a lesson,” she told him. “I am so proud of you.”

  “I almost called you,” he admitted. “It went down the way it did because of you. I kept thinking about how you’d feel if you knew all the facts that I knew.”

  She was more pleased than he could possibly imagine. “You tapped into your compassion, Connor. Isn’t that really the best kind of justice?”

  He didn’t immediately respond, which suggested he wasn’t quite ready to go that far, but that was okay. If this case had taught him there were two sides to every story, perhaps he’d be looking for one with his next case. After all, what was the old saying—every journey begins with a single step? Connor had just taken his first step.

  Connor took hope from the fact that his impromptu meal with Heather had gone well. He’d actually done exactly as he’d told her, calculated his arrival to make sure they’d meet on neutral turf. There’d been a small risk, he supposed, that she wouldn’t behave true to form, but Heather had always been a creature of habit. It was another of the things he loved about her. He usually knew exactly what to expect, which was just one reason why her taking off on him had shaken him so badly. He hadn’t anticipated it.

  “Feel like a walk?” he asked when they’d finished eating.

  She studied him as if seeking an ult
erior motive. “You should probably take Mick home and get him into bed.”

  “He’ll fall asleep while we’re walking. Remember how we’d take him out and walk around the block when he wouldn’t stop crying? It always worked like a charm.”

  Heather finally nodded with undisguised reluctance. “Okay, just a short walk. I’m beat.”

  At the end of the block, they crossed Shore Road, then took the sidewalk that ran along the bay. It was balmy for late April, and the pleasant night had drawn a crowd of people for an evening stroll. Connor recognized several locals, even though he’d been mostly away for years now. Surprisingly, Heather seemed to know as many people as he did, possibly more. She greeted many of them by name.

  “You astonish me,” he said. “You’ve only been here a few months and you already know half the people in town.”

  “It comes from having a store. You know how curious everyone in this town is when a new business opens. They all stop by to check it out, even if the thought of owning or making a quilt never crossed their minds. Add in my connection to the O’Briens and they can’t seem to stay away. I’m sure they’re all dying to ask questions about the two of us, but most have been too polite to do it.”

  “Most?” he said. “Have some been hassling you?”

  “Not really. Some people just can’t seem to censor their words.”

  “How’ve you handled that?”

  “With the truth—that you and I have a son together. There’s no point in denying that.”

  “People aren’t judging you, are they?” He was prepared to leap to her defense, if need be.

  “No, everyone’s been wonderful, Connor. Really.”

  He studied her intently. “Then you’re happy with your decision to move here?”

  She turned to him, her eyes shining. “I really am, Connor. I already feel so at home here, and your family has been remarkable, your mom especially.”

  “I’m glad,” he said.

  Her gaze narrowed. “That didn’t sound particularly convincing. Did you want me to be unhappy?”