“You wouldn’t have thought that a couple of hours ago when Dad’s crew was at work. This was a beehive of activity. He’s anxious to get it finished.”
“How’s the inside coming?”
“The floors are solid again, and the new drywall is mostly up.” He met her gaze. “You want to take a look? It’s still pretty rough, but you’ll get the idea of what’s happening.”
“I’d love to see,” she said eagerly. “I’ll have to take my time, though.”
“Forget trying to maneuver around on your crutches,” he said. “There are too many obstacles. Dad would have a fit if I let you try to walk around in there, especially without a hardhat. I’ll carry you.”
“Come on, Connor. There’s no need for that.”
“It’s my way or no way,” he said, his jaw set stubbornly.
Since she could see the sense of doing it his way, she agreed, even though being held close to his chest reminded her all too clearly of desires she thought she’d put behind her.
He carried her from room to room, pausing to set her on a chair in the kitchen so she could look around to her heart’s content. “It’s going to be fabulous, isn’t it?” she asked, delighted to see her dream becoming reality. “With all these windows, there will be so much light. I can already see the breakfast nook right over there and the sink with the view of the backyard.”
For all of her happiness over seeing how well Mick had translated her random ideas into a real home, she couldn’t help being saddened by the realization that she would never live here.
“Upstairs?” Connor asked, studying her closely.
She imagined seeing the master bedroom that should have been theirs and shook her head. “Not today. I should probably get home.”
He looked vaguely disappointed, but nodded at once. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Thanks for bringing me, though. Tell Mick I think it’s going to be amazing.”
“He’ll be pleased you’re happy,” Connor said.
Heather bit back a sigh. Happy was a far cry from what she was feeling right at this moment. It was just a house, after all. What mattered was that she was alive after a terrible accident, that she had her son and had reconnected with her mother. She had her whole future ahead of her. There would be another house, maybe even another man, though the one she truly wanted was right in front of her.
Her gaze was drawn to Connor, who was looking at her with so much love written all over his face. She could have him, could have it all, but still she held back.
And the worst of it was, even she didn’t understand why.
It was the end of the day and Heather had spent the entire afternoon downstairs in the store. She hadn’t been able to do much, but it had felt good to see people for a change. It had also been a revelation to see how good her mother was at interacting with the customers. She was a natural-born saleswoman, especially when it came to fabrics and quilt patterns.
“We had a good day today,” Bridget announced as she closed out the register.
“I could tell,” Heather said. “You’re very good at making a sale. Several of those women walked out of here with a whole lot more than they’d intended to buy.”
“And they’ll be back for lessons,” her mother said. “I signed them up for the next session.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“I thought perhaps I could work with an advanced class and you could work with the beginners,” her mother suggested tentatively. “Or vice versa. What do you think?”
Heather smiled. “Does that mean you’re staying?”
Her mother nodded. “If you’re sure it won’t be an imposition.”
“Absolutely not,” Heather said. “You’ve certainly fit in here. You’ve been a huge help. And I’d love the company.”
“Well, you’ll have to forgo my company tonight. Nell and I are going to bingo. In fact, I’m already running late. We’re meeting at Sally’s first, so I’d better scoot.”
Heather regarded her with alarm. “What about little Mick? I can’t get him upstairs on my own.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Bridget said blithely. “Connor will be along any second.” The door opened and she brightened. “There he is now. Right on time. Enjoy your evening, you two.”
Heather stared after her with a frown.
“Don’t blame her for conspiring behind your back,” Connor said, guessing at the cause of her irritation. “Gram told me about bingo, then suggested I take you and little Mick out for dinner. Seemed like a great idea to me.”
“Yet you didn’t think to consult me,” she said irritably, though she had to admit she was surprisingly happy to see him. These impromptu visits might be disconcerting, but a part of her clearly looked forward to them. She’d missed talking to Connor at the end of the day, missed sharing a life with him. Seeing him now was a teasing reminder of what they’d had and of what they could have again if only she could believe he truly wanted it.
Connor gave her a solicitous look. “Would you rather stay in? We could order pizza.”
“Am I to assume that having dinner with you is the price I’ll have to pay in order to get back upstairs?”
He grinned. “Pretty much.”
“Then let’s go out. I’m tired of eating in so much, even though Mom’s cooking is a whole lot better than my own.” She met his gaze. “She’s staying on, by the way.”
“I thought she might be. How do you feel about that?”
“I’m sad about what’s happened with her and my dad, though not surprised. Still, it’ll be good having her here, I think, especially for little Mick.”
“And for your relationship with her,” Connor guessed. “You seem to have mended fences.”
“It’s true, we have. We understand each other much better now.” She gave him a wry look. “And she no longer hates your guts for leading me astray, so that’s a bonus.”
“One for which I’m eternally grateful, that’s for sure,” Connor responded.
Since Connor was making no move to leave and kept glancing toward the door, Heather finally called him on it. “Are we going to dinner or not?”
“We are, but my mom is supposed to get little Mick and take him over to the house for dinner with her and Dad.”
“Another of those decisions to which I wasn’t privy?” she muttered testily.
“It’s hard to have a romantic dinner with a toddler present,” he said.
Heather studied him with a narrowed gaze. “You didn’t say anything about a romantic dinner.”
“Didn’t I?” he asked innocently. “My mistake. We’re going to Brady’s. There’ll be candlelight, wine, the whole nine yards.”
“Why?”
“Because you deserve it,” he said simply, looking relieved when Megan finally walked in. “Mom, great! Mick’s all ready. Since he’ll probably be asleep by the time we’ve finished dinner, he can just stay over, right? He has extra clothes in my room.”
“No problem,” Megan said.
Heather looked from one conspiring O’Brien to the other. “Hold on. There is no reason he can’t come home and sleep in his own bed.”
Connor’s gaze caught hers and held. “There might be.”
A tingle of anticipation shot down her spine at the less than subtle innuendo in his voice, but she couldn’t allow him to run roughshod over her. “There won’t be,” she retorted stubbornly.
He smiled. “We’ll play it by ear,” he told his mother. “I’ll give you a call.”
Megan laughed. “Whatever works. I’ll wait to hear from you. Now have a wonderful evening, you two, and don’t worry about a thing. Mick bought a new toy of some kind today, so I imagine that will keep both of them occupied. I swear, I think the reason he wants all these grandkids is so he can play with all the toys.”
Little Mick overheard the mention of his grandfather and ran to Megan. “G’pa Mick?”
Megan scooped him up. “Yes, he’s waiting for
us, sweet pea. Let’s go see him.”
Connor turned to Heather. “What about you? Are you ready to go?”
She thought for an instant about saying no, about insisting that he help her back upstairs, then asking him to leave, but temptation won. Romantic dinners had been few and far between in their past. Early on, there hadn’t been the money for them, and later there hadn’t been the time.
She lifted her gaze to Connor’s and smiled. “I’m ready,” she said. At least for dinner.
As for what he was so clearly planning afterward, she’d been ready for that since the day they’d met, which was how they’d wound up with little Mick in the first place. No matter how hard she’d fought to put the attraction behind her, it obviously hadn’t worked.
Connor wasn’t foolish enough to think that a candlelit dinner and some wine would turn the tide for his relationship with Heather, but he was hoping it would shake up the status quo. What he hadn’t counted on was running into his sister Jess and Will the minute they walked in the door at Brady’s. Jess’s eyes lit up.
“You’re on a date?” she asked.
“Not really,” Heather said a little too quickly. “Why don’t you join us?”
Will cast a look toward Connor, seeking a reaction. Connor sighed and shrugged. “Sure, why not?” he said with resignation. Maybe a buffer was exactly what they needed. It might keep the evening from getting more intense than Heather was ready to handle. She certainly seemed to feel the need for someone to intercede, or she wouldn’t have uttered the impulsive invitation.
“Will, I think maybe we’re intruding,” Jess said, holding him back. “We’ll all have dinner another time.”
“No, really,” Heather said, an unmistakable note of desperation in her voice. “It’ll be fun.”
Jess continued to look uncertain. “If you’re sure…”
“We’re sure,” Connor told her.
Over crab dip and wine, Heather visibly relaxed, and Connor recognized that he’d made the right decision. She was a lot more comfortable having the other couple around. Jess, bless her, told way too many tales about his misadventures as a boy, with Will chiming in to add more. Heather laughed more than she had in a long while.
By the time they left Brady’s, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling.
“That was fun,” she declared when they were driving back to her place. “I’m so glad they joined us. They make a cute couple.”
“Don’t say that to Jess,” he warned. “She claims Will drives her crazy.”
“But he obviously adores her,” Heather said.
Connor shrugged. “That seems to be plain to everyone except my sister.”
She hesitated, met his gaze, then looked away. “Thank you for not making too much out of my insistence that they have dinner with us.”
“Why did you?”
“To be honest, I think I was nervous,” she admitted.
“With me?”
She nodded. “Crazy, isn’t it? We know each other so well. We even have a son together, but it almost felt like a first date.”
Connor smiled. “That’s exactly how I wanted it to feel. It was that fresh start I mentioned to you the other day.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “But you didn’t have first-date plans for afterward, did you?”
He chuckled. “How’d you guess?”
“Getting rid of little Mick for the night was a pretty big clue. You forgot about my mom, though. Bingo’s probably over by now.”
Connor pulled into a parking place in the alley behind her apartment, then turned and met her gaze, his expression suddenly sober. “Which is why she’s spending the night at Gram’s.”
Heather swallowed hard. “She is? She actually agreed to that?”
“It was her idea, as a matter of fact. I get the feeling she’s pretty confident that she’s about to get her wish for the two of us, and she wants to do whatever she can to assure it happens.”
He saw the mix of emotions in Heather’s eyes. Desire and yearning were there, but fear and confusion were, too.
“I don’t have to stay tonight,” he said softly, holding her gaze. “But I want to.”
She hesitated, then whispered, “I want you to, but, Connor, it doesn’t—”
He cut her off. “It doesn’t have to be a guarantee of anything. I just need to show you how very much I love you.”
He waited for what felt like an eternity before she nodded. “Let’s go home.”
They hadn’t counted on just how awkward it would be to make love with a cast on Heather’s leg from thigh to ankle. Though she’d gotten used to the cumbersome weight of it, the once-familiar moves and dexterity they were both used to was next to impossible. At one point, she came close to knocking Connor out when she made a sudden move with her leg. Not that any of her moves could be all that sudden, she concluded, unable to control her laughter.
Next to her, Connor fell back, his chest heaving. Though she wanted to believe he was breathless with desire, she knew he, too, was trying to stifle his own laughter.
“What was I thinking?” he murmured, pulling her next to him and holding her close.
“You? I’m the one who’s been living with this cast for more than a month now. You’d think I’d have seen what a ridiculous idea this was. I’m sure we could find a way to get where we both want to go, but I have to admit I’m content just to be right here in your arms again.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Not that I’m not incredibly frustrated right at this moment.”
“Tell me about it,” she said ruefully.
He looked into her eyes, his gaze searching and hopeful. “Can I get a rain check?”
“You mean for when it’s less likely I’ll clobber you with my cast?”
“That would be good.”
Heather sobered and looked into his eyes. “Connor, I don’t know. What if we start over and it gets complicated and doesn’t go anywhere? We have little Mick to think about now. I don’t want him to be confused.”
“We’ll be careful about what we say and do around him,” Connor promised her. “We’ll make sure he doesn’t think anything’s changed unless it really has.”
“What about me? I’m already confused,” she ad mitted. She gestured at the two of them, half dressed and tangled together. “We were always good together. That was never the issue.”
“I think that’s the point, though,” Connor said, his brow knit thoughtfully. “We always got the sex right. And we’ve never denied loving each other. Shouldn’t those be two of the things that matter the most? We’ve let all the other stuff get in the way.”
“All the other stuff—like you not believing in marriage?” she said wryly. “That’s huge, not some petty little difference of opinion over broccoli.”
“We’ve both always loved broccoli,” he reminded her.
She gave him a chiding look. “You know what I meant.”
“Of course I do. Look, the one thing I know with absolute certainty, the one thing that has never changed, is that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That was true when we were living together. It was true after the accident, and it’s true tonight. The commitment has been real practically from the day we met. With the ring and the piece of paper or without them, that will never change.” He looked directly into her eyes. “You are the love of my life, Heather Donovan. I’ve never doubted that. Not once.”
Heather heard something in his voice then that reassured her as nothing else ever had. He had the same passion, the same conviction, he had when he argued a case before a judge. And she knew better than most that he couldn’t fake that kind of sincerity. If he said it, he meant it.
And, in the end, wasn’t that what marriage was all about—taking a leap of faith that two people could fight for and hold on to the feelings they had in their hearts when they got engaged, on their wedding day and for all the years to come?
“Yes,” she said softly, knowing in her heart that it was time to take
that leap with Connor. If he, with all of his misgivings, all of his personal history, could do it, then so could she. If he could do it, lying here in her bed without the pleasure and passion of making love to cloud his judgment, then she had to believe in the two of them at least as deeply as he did.
He blinked and stared. For a moment, he looked as if he didn’t dare to believe he’d heard her right. “Did you just accept my proposal?”
“Well, technically, you haven’t made one, at least not recently,” she said, smiling. “But yes, that’s what I was doing. I was agreeing to marry you.”
He stood up, gesturing at their half-dressed state. “Even after this fiasco?”
She laughed. “This wasn’t a fiasco. This was what finally made me believe we would make it. If we could laugh together when we so desperately wanted to be doing something else, if you could weather my awful moods since the accident and ignore all the times I’ve turned you down, then what we have has to be real, just the way I always thought it was.”
Connor let out a whoop and dove for the phone.
“What on earth are you doing?” she demanded.
“I never let Mom know that little Mick would be staying over,” he said, then grinned when Megan apparently answered. “She said yes!” he announced.
Heather could hear Megan’s delighted response, and then Mick was on the phone demanding to speak to her. Connor handed her the phone.
“It’s about time, young lady,” he said enthusiastically. “Welcome to the family!”
“You’ve made me feel like an O’Brien all along,” she told him, misty-eyed by the thought of being a part of this wonderful family forever.
“Well, now it will be official. Why don’t the two of you come right over here, so we can get started on the wedding plans?”
Heather smiled at the suggestion. She’d heard that Mick was never one to waste time. “Now might not be the best time,” she told him, her gaze on Connor.
Apparently Connor figured out what his father wanted because he took back the phone. “Not tonight,” he said pointedly. “See you tomorrow, and thanks for keeping little Mick.”
Driftwood Cottage Page 30
