Mick frowned at that. “If the man were here because he wanted to tell her he was in love with her, I might agree, but that’s not it, is it, Mr. Reynolds? He wants her to come back and be his workhorse again, the way she was before.”
“I imagine Carrie will be smart enough to understand the distinction,” Nell said. “And if it’s a job she wants to go back to, we’ll have to live with that.”
“Ma!”
Nell ignored him. “Mr. Reynolds, I think if you truly want our Carrie back working for you, you’ll need to improve your presentation. She’s not as gullible as she once was. I suggest you spend the night at the Inn at Eagle Point and put your best proposal on paper. We’ll let Carrie know you’re in town and, if she’s interested, she’ll meet you in the dining room there first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t have time for this,” the designer snapped impatiently. “I’ve come all the way from New York as it is. I’m scheduled to fly to Milan tomorrow.”
“I’m sure you have an assistant who can change your travel arrangements,” Nell said mildly.
“I don’t,” he grumbled. “That’s the sort of thing that Carrie handled. The last two people in that position quit.”
“It’s so difficult to find competent help these days, isn’t it?” Nell said sympathetically. “Little wonder you’d like our Carrie back. Make sure you tell her how valuable she was to you. I’m sure that will make an impression.”
Seemingly resigned to following Nell’s suggestion, Reynolds asked, “Where’s this inn you mentioned?”
Mick gave him directions, then watched him leave before turning his gaze on his mother.
“You’re a lot sneakier than I gave you credit for being. You know if he starts listing all the little menial tasks he wants her to do, Carrie will throw his offer back in his face.”
“I think she’s smart enough to see that he’s looking for one of those gofer people,” Nell agreed. “He’s not interested in the kind of relationship Carrie thought she wanted with him. I also think she’s smart enough to recognize that Sam is twice the man Marc Reynolds is, that she’ll have a real partnership with him. And that her work here—a business she’s building on her own from the ground up—will fulfill her in ways that job with Marc Reynolds never did.”
“It’s a big risk,” Mick said. “Letting him dangle money and a fancy lifestyle in front of her.”
“She had all that once and she still came home,” Nell reminded him.
“Because that jerk broke her heart,” Mick countered.
“No, because she knew it was where she belonged. If she’d only come to lick her wounds for a bit, would she be opening a day-care center? No, she’d have been on a plane back to Europe within a month. There were other designers she could have worked for, if that’s what she truly wanted.”
“I hope you’re right,” Mick said.
“Other than you, do you know of a single person in this family who knows what’s in the hearts of our young ones better than I do?”
Mick smiled. “Now that you mention it, no.”
“Then trust me. Carrie will send him on his way, that is if she shows up for that meeting at all.”
“You going to tell her he’s at the inn waiting to hear from her?”
Nell seemed to give the question a surprising amount of thought, then shrugged. “Could be I’ll just leave it to fate. You do the same. We can consider it a test of that grapevine this town is reputed to have.”
With that she walked down the steps and headed across the lawn toward her own cottage.
Fate? Mick stared after her. Or the Chesapeake Shores grapevine? Ma’s sneakiness quotient just ticked up another notch.
* * *
“So, have you made your decision? Are you leaving?” Sam asked Carrie when he saw her in front of her house as he was heading home from work. She was on her knees pulling weeds, a streak of dirt on her face. He wanted to drag her into his arms and beg her to stay. Instead, he waited for her reply.
She regarded him curiously. “Leaving? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not planning a trip.”
“I meant for good. That’s why Marc Reynolds was here today, wasn’t it? To lure you into coming back to him?”
She sat back on her heels and stared, clearly startled. “Sam, I never saw Marc, and even if I had, I certainly wouldn’t be going anywhere with him. That part of my life is over and done with. I’m exactly where I want to be.” Her gaze narrowed. “I thought you understood how important you and Bobby are becoming in my life, how determined I am to make this day-care center a success.”
Relief washed over Sam, but he still had this tiny, niggling doubt tormenting him. “How can you say that with such certainty, if you don’t know what he was offering?” he asked, though it did strike him as odd that the designer apparently hadn’t even spoken to her. Was that Mick’s doing?
“I can say it because it doesn’t matter what he offers. I’m not going anywhere.” She studied him curiously. “Sam, how do you even know that Marc was in town? Did you run into him? Did he say something to make you think I’d be jetting off with him?”
Regretting that he’d opened a whole can of worms that had somehow been left on the shelf by everyone else involved, Sam explained about Marc’s visit to Sally’s and the ensuing excitement.
“That’s when I walked in. I never set eyes on him myself. Sally said she pointed him in your grandfather’s direction.”
Carrie appeared taken aback yet again, but then her lips curved. Next thing he knew, she was laughing. “I’ll bet that meeting went well. No wonder I haven’t seen Marc. I probably need to investigate to make sure he’s still in one piece.”
“You don’t seem overly concerned about whether he is or not,” Sam said. This time he was able to bask in the relief that washed over him.
“There’s almost nothing my grandfather could do, short of murder, that Marc doesn’t deserve,” she said, a surprisingly bloodthirsty note in her voice. Then she sighed. “But I really should check to see what’s going on.”
Just then her cell phone rang. She glanced at caller ID, then took the call. “Hey, Jess. What’s going on?”
She listened to her aunt, another smile spreading across her face. “Yes, you can short-sheet his bed, and no, I won’t be in it.”
She disconnected the call and grinned at Sam. “Mystery solved. Gram dispatched him to the inn to work on a proper presentation to make to me in the morning. Jess says he’s expecting me at nine.”
“You going to be there?”
She stepped closer, stripped off her gardening gloves and framed his face with both hands. “Yes,” she said, causing his heart to sink.
“Okay, I guess you need to hear him out,” Sam said, deflated.
“I’m not going to hear him out,” Carrie corrected. “I’m going to tell him goodbye once and for all. Then I’m going to find you and kiss you senseless, till you realize you’re the only man I want in my life now.”
Sam smiled at last. Now there was a plan he could definitely get behind.
“Stick to your guns, okay? I’d hate to have to find him and beat the tar out of him for hurting you again.”
“You’d probably have to get in line to do that,” she said. “But I love that you’re willing to go that far to protect me.”
“I’ll go as far as I have to,” he promised her quietly. She and Bobby were his life. As much as it surprised him, he knew he’d do whatever it took to keep them both safe and happy.
22
Carrie stood in the doorway to the inn’s dining room and studied the man she’d once thought she loved. The sight of Marc no longer moved her as it once had. It seemed she’d recently fallen for a guy whose shirt was rarely tucked in, whose idea of fashion was a formfitting T-shirt that these days was most often smeared with jelly and whose hair was usually in need of a trim. Sam was a man whose world had been shaken by loss, and then turned upside down by instant parenthood, and yet he’d fou
nd a way to cope. Marc couldn’t cope with making his own airline reservations.
In fact, Sam was quite a contrast to the man sitting at a table by the window, his attention focused on his tablet, rather than the spectacular view outside. Marc apparently couldn’t even deal with the loss of an assistant with public-relations skills, though Carrie had to wonder if it was those skills he missed or her all-around adoration and twenty-four-hour availability for any and all tasks that made his life easier.
Now he was tapping impatiently on the tablet screen, his brow knit with a frown. He was too absorbed to notice her approach.
“I heard you wanted to see me,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from him.
He glanced up at that, delight spreading across his face. She had no doubt that much at least was genuine. If he needed her, which was the only explanation for his arrival in Chesapeake Shores, then he’d be all but certain she’d respond to his distress call and turn her life inside out to accommodate him. He’d no doubt dismissed her continued avoidance of his calls, considering that to be no more than an insignificant fit of pique.
“You look great!” he said, his gaze intent. “I don’t recognize the designer, though. Whose line are you wearing?”
“No idea,” she said with a disinterested shrug. “I bought the clothes because they’re practical for work.”
He looked startled. “You have another job? I hadn’t heard.”
“I’m not surprised. News of my opening a day-care center wouldn’t likely be on your radar.”
He frowned at that. “A day-care center? You mean for children?”
“That’s usually who they’re meant for,” she said, smiling at his reaction.
“Hold on, you’re going to be a paid babysitter?” he asked incredulously.
She didn’t bother taking offense. “It’s a little more meaningful than that, but basically, yes. I should thank you. Had it not been for the whole fiasco with you, I never would have recognized what I was meant to do.”
“Taking care of other people’s children is not your calling,” he scoffed. “If you think that, you’re just settling. You were meant for much more.”
“Such as making your airline reservations, dealing with the media, planting little items in the gossip columns to keep your name out there?”
“Of course. All of that is almost as essential in the fashion industry as the designs themselves.”
“And no one’s been able to fill that niche for you the way I did? I assume that’s why you’re here. You discovered I’m indispensable? Or were my replacements too demanding? Maybe they expected time off? Or weren’t willing to go along with the bedroom perks?”
He looked startled by her sarcastic tone. “I thought you loved your job.”
“I loved you, you idiot! And I did the job exceedingly well to try to get your attention.”
“Well, you have it now. I want you to come back to work for me, Carrie. I need you. There, I said it. Does that make you happy, knowing I can’t function without you? I was foolish to let you leave, especially over some schoolgirl crush you thought you had on me.”
She regarded him with shock. “That’s what you think it was, a schoolgirl crush?” She sighed and shook her head. “That certainly explains a lot.”
“Meaning?”
“It tells me the kind of man you are. You took advantage of a woman you thought had a silly, meaningless crush simply to make your life easier.” She shook her head. “How could I possibly have been so blind?”
He winced at the scathing note in her voice. He finally seemed to realize she wasn’t going to fall into line quite so readily and changed tactics. “Okay, I admit it. I didn’t treat you well. I was careless with your feelings. It won’t happen again, Carrie.”
She sighed at his pitiful attempt to appear contrite. “As apologies go, that one lacked a certain amount of sincerity,” she said. “But you are right about one thing. It won’t happen again, because I’m not coming back, Marc.”
He waved off the statement. “Of course you are. I’m prepared to make a very generous offer, much more than you were making before. It’s certainly more than you’ll ever make as a babysitter.”
“Marc, there’s not enough money in the world to persuade me to come back and be one of the minor planets orbiting around you,” she said, standing. “I hope you take the time to look around town while you’re here. It’s a great place and it’s filled with people who know what’s important in life. Goodbye, Marc.”
She turned on her heel and walked away. This time she didn’t look back. Nor did she have a single regret. She could hardly wait to find Sam and make good on her promise. Kissing him senseless would wipe this depressing encounter right out of her head.
* * *
“Thanks for meeting me here,” Connor told Mack as they sat on the deck at Brady’s. The first crisp hint of fall was in the air and the warmth of the sun felt good.
“Why are we here instead of in your office?” Mack asked. “Or at the pub or Sally’s?”
“Because I wanted this conversation to be private. If you’d stopped by the office, someone might have gotten wind of it, and if we’d met at the pub or the café, word would have spread in a nanosecond. Even more likely, someone in the family would have joined us.”
Mack studied him intently. “You’re sounding awfully mysterious. What’s going on?”
“I have news,” Connor said. “And I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it, much less how Susie will react.”
Mack saw exactly where this was heading. “Another adoption? Susie’s definitely not ready to consider that, Connor. She’s better, but she’s still reeling from last time.”
“It’s not exactly another adoption,” Connor said. He drew in a deep breath. “Let me just get this out. The mother changed her mind again. Things didn’t work out with the boyfriend, and once again, she’s decided she’s not cut out for motherhood. She called my former law office and said she wanted to go through with the adoption.”
Jaw dropping, Mack simply stared at him. When he could finally gather his thoughts, his temper kicked in. “Are you kidding me? Why in heaven’s name would we take another chance with her? She clearly has no idea what she wants. I can’t ask Susie to agree to this, maybe even to bring that baby girl home, and have this woman change her mind yet again. Having that baby literally ripped out of her arms this time would be the final straw for Susie.”
“I know,” Connor agreed, his tone quietly reasonable, a sharp contrast to Mack’s incensed reaction. “It’s a terrible risk, and there are no guarantees. There could very well be maneuvering room in the law for her to decide again that she wants to keep her baby.” He leveled a look into Mack’s eyes. “But here’s the thing—this baby is real. It’s available. It needs the sort of loving home you and Susie could provide.”
“For the moment,” Mack said direly.
“Yes, for the moment,” Connor agreed.
“Let somebody else face the prospect of heartbreak,” Mack said heatedly. “We can’t do that to Susie again.”
“Are you sure? Are you 100 percent certain the risk isn’t worth it?” Connor sighed. “I’m really not trying to sell you on this. It has to be your decision, Mack. You know Susie better than any of us.”
Mack raked a hand through his hair and regarded Connor with dismay. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t bear the thought of Susie hurting like this ever again.”
“Or this could be the best thing that ever happened,” Connor said and reached into his pocket. He pushed a small square of paper in Mack’s direction.
Mack flipped it over and saw a sweet little face with a tiny bow of a mouth, huge brown eyes and a fluff of dark hair with a pink bow on an elastic ribbon. He drew in a sharp breath and something in his heart turned over.
“This is her?”
Connor nodded.
“She’s beautiful,” Mack whispered, awed by the possibility that she could be his daughter. If h
e was this taken with her after only a glimpse, how would Susie feel? Could he deny her the right to make this decision for herself, even though it came fraught with peril? “Connor, what am I supposed to do?”
“Take that picture home and talk to your wife,” Connor said quietly. “You know that’s the only real choice you have.”
“Is there any way we can protect ourselves this time?” Mack asked. “Any way to make this decision binding and scrap the waiting period when the mom can suddenly take her from us?”
“I can try, given the circumstances. I can make a strong case for not allowing you to get burned twice, but the law really does give the birth mother a fair amount of protection.”
“Even after she’s proved her immaturity?” Mack said.
“Like I said, I can try.”
Mack touched a finger to that tiny, precious face, then picked up the photo and tucked it into his pocket. He stood up. “I’ll let you know.”
“Don’t wait too long,” Connor warned. “Her attorney wants to move on this, get the baby settled into a good home.”
Mack couldn’t seem to prevent a hint of bitterness from creeping into his voice. “Any home would have to be better than where she is right now.”
“Before you judge the mom too harshly, think about this. She really is trying to do right by her baby. And you and Susie could be the beneficiary of that.”
Mack sighed. “You’re right. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
* * *
At home, while he waited for Susie to get there, Mack opened the door to the nursery Susie had decorated with so much joy and hope just a few months earlier. Unless she’d gone in there when he wasn’t around, it had stood empty ever since she’d slammed the door shut on the day they’d gotten the news that the baby wouldn’t be coming home with them.
And now he was about to ask her to get back onto that emotional roller coaster, even knowing how fragile her recovery was.
He heard the front door open and close, then heard her calling his name.
“Back here,” he called out.
He heard Susie’s footsteps getting closer, then nothing. He turned and saw her at the end of the hall, unable or unwilling to come into the room they’d decorated as a nursery.
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