A Chesapeake Shores Christmas

by Sherryl Woods

  “Is there a problem, Ma?”

  “You tell me,” she said, glancing up at him with a scowl. “Connor just called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving. He says he’s not coming home.” She regarded him accusingly. “I thought you were going to fix this, Mick. Even through all the years you and your brothers have been sparring, there hasn’t been a single holiday this family hasn’t been together. Now’s no time to change that.”

  Mick stilled, stricken by the reality that his argument with his son could well ruin the family holiday. He gave his mother a look filled with regret. “To be honest, I don’t know how,” he admitted.

  “Of course you do,” Nell said impatiently. “An apology would be a good start.”

  “I’m not the one—”

  His mother cut him off. “Do you want to be right or do you want your son here for Thanksgiving?”

  Mick winced.

  “Megan will blame herself for this unless you tell her otherwise,” Nell said. “Are you willing to let her shoulder the guilt when it should be you?”

  “Guilt about what?” Megan asked, walking into the kitchen just in time to overhear the end of the conversation.

  Mick exchanged a look with his mother, but could think of no way to sugarcoat the news. “Connor won’t be here tomorrow.”

  Predictably, Megan’s face fell. “I see.”

  She turned and left the room, but not before Mick saw the sheen of tears in her eyes.

  “See what I mean?” his mother said to him. “She’s blaming herself.”

  “I’ll go after her,” Mick said, resigning himself to making some uncomfortable explanations.

  “Let me,” Nell said, handing him the pot holders. “Take the other pie out of the oven.”

  Since he had no earthly idea what he could possibly say to put a smile back on Megan’s face, he let his mother go. But the minute he’d removed the pie from the oven and set it on the rack to cool, he grabbed his cell phone and called his son.

  Connor answered, his voice wary. “What do you want, Dad?”

  “I could lie and say I called to wish you a happy Thanksgiving, but we both know I’m not exactly pleased with you at the moment.”

  “That goes both ways,” Connor said.

  Mick tried to find the words to make amends without retracting his displeasure with Connor’s stance. “Look, I know I told you to stay away, but I said it in the heat of the moment.” He drew in a deep breath and forced himself to add, “Tomorrow’s a holiday. You should be here celebrating with the rest of us.”

  “No, Dad, you were right to tell me not to come home,” Connor said, surprising him. “I don’t think I could sit there with everyone tomorrow and pretend I’m happy that you and Mom are back together. It’s best that I stay away.”

  Mick had expected Connor to seize the opening, not throw it back in his face. Tamping down his frustration, he tried again. “Connor, I’m trying to say I’m sorry, that I made a mistake,” Mick said. “Just accept my apology and come home.”

  “Too late. I’ve made other plans,” Connor told him.

  “What plans?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Connor said. “They don’t include a visit to Chesapeake Shores and a meal I wouldn’t be able to choke down.”

  Mick lost patience. “So instead you’ll stay away and spoil the day for all of us? I didn’t raise you to be that selfish, son.”

  “You didn’t raise me at all,” Connor retorted. “Gram did.”

  The barb was a direct hit, but Mick had an answer for it. “Well, we certainly know she didn’t raise you to behave like this.”

  “How is this any different from the way you treat Uncle Thomas and Uncle Jeff?”

  “Since both of your uncles and their families have always been welcomed here on holidays, no matter what my personal feelings, I’d say my actions speak for themselves.”

  “Well, I won’t be a hypocrite.”

  “Boy, you need to watch who you’re calling a hypocrite,” Mick said grimly.

  “Dad, I’m going to hang up before we both say things we’re going to regret. I do wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. I’ve called Abby, Bree, Jess and Kevin.”

  “And what did they have to say when you announced you were boycotting the family celebration?”

  “Pretty much what you said,” he admitted. “That I’m being a selfish jerk.”

  “If you won’t listen to me, maybe you should listen to them.”

  “I’m not coming, Dad. Sorry.”

  “I notice you didn’t mention a call to your mother. I assume you have no intention of apologizing to her. You’ll just let her feel guilty for keeping you away.”

  “Dad, you’re the one who ordered me to stay away. You can do any explaining that’s necessary.”

  He hung up before Mick could counter with another argument. Not that he had any. To his regret, Connor was proving he was more stubborn than all the rest of them combined, and that was saying something.

  * * *

  Late that night after Nell had gone to bed and the rest of the family had left, Megan turned to Mick.

  “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” she began quietly.

  Mick knew what was coming and tried to forestall her. “Don’t, Meggie.”

  “No, I have to say this, Mick. I think we need to postpone the wedding. I know I’ve mentioned the possibility before, but my mind’s made up this time. How can we have a wedding when we’ve made Connor so miserable that he won’t even celebrate Thanksgiving with the family? It would be wrong.”

  Mick winced. Whatever his mother had said to Megan earlier, she’d left the truth to him. He drew in a deep breath, then admitted, “Connor’s upset about the wedding, yes, but there’s more. It isn’t all about us.”

  She regarded him blankly. “More?”

  “You know he and I had a disagreement,” Mick began, feeling a flush climb into his cheeks. There was no way around an admission of his part in this now. Avoiding her gaze, he said, “What you don’t know is that I told him to stay away.”

  Megan stared at him, clearly aghast. “You told your own son to stay away on Thanksgiving?”

  “No, I told him to stay away, period.”

  “Oh, Mick, how could you? This is his home.”

  “Okay, I know it’s bad. I was wrong, but I was angry,” Mick said.

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “Look, I called him today and apologized, okay? I even pleaded with him to come tomorrow, but he turned me down flat.” He gave her a defiant look. “That’s the last time I grovel for anything with that boy.”

  “Somehow I doubt you did much groveling,” Megan said wryly. “It’s not in your nature. You probably just ordered him to come tomorrow the same way you’d told him to stay away.”

  “The point is, I made an effort. He refuses to do the same. He’s just dug in his heels and is refusing to listen to reason.”

  Megan gave him a sad smile. “Does that sound like anyone else we know?”

  “Me, I’m sorry to say.” He touched a hand to her cheek. “Meggie, you know I’m right about not postponing the wedding because of this. We’ll always be able to find an excuse for not moving forward, but all that really matters is whether we know in our hearts it’s the right thing for us.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that simple, Mick. It was when we were barely out of our teens and first met, but now there are too many other people to consider.”

  “When Kevin was going through all of his heartache after Georgia died and you wanted to wait before telling anyone we were thinking of marrying again, I agreed,” Mick reminded her. “This is different. Connor’s just choosing to be impossible.”

  “No, he’s still angry with me for leaving and with you for taking me bac
k, to say nothing of how hurt he must have been when you banished him.”

  “That’s his problem,” Mick said stubbornly. “If he won’t even come home to spend a holiday with his family, how are we supposed to get through to him?”

  “We need to give it more time,” Megan insisted. “However long it takes.”

  Mick regarded her with a too-familiar unyielding look. “We’re getting married New Year’s Eve, Meggie, and that’s that. I’ll do whatever I can in the meantime to reach Connor, and you can do the same, but we are not postponing our wedding.”

  She frowned at the finality in his tone. This was the side of him that hadn’t changed, one she wasn’t sure she could tolerate even after all the other strides they’d made. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been so certain of everything, so sure their relationship was solid. Now this.

  She met his gaze. “Not even if I say it’s important to me that all of our children are happy about this marriage, that going forward without their blessing is a deal-breaker?”

  Mick hesitated, then shook his head. “Not even then.”

  She sighed. “Oh, Mick, then we’ve got bigger problems than Connor that we need to fix.”

  * * *

  Though Nell, Abby, Bree and Jess had all come over Wednesday night to help with preparations for the big Thanksgiving feast, Mick couldn’t enjoy having the women of his family all under one roof again. Megan’s words still rang in his ears. He knew he’d pushed her too far, but how could he back down?

  He heard laughter coming from the kitchen, but Megan hadn’t joined in. He would have recognized her laugh at once. The joyful sound had always filled him with such a sense of peace and satisfaction.

  Mick grabbed his jacket and a cigar and went out on the porch, even though the night air was about to hit the freezing mark.

  He’d just settled into a rocker when the door opened and light spilled across the porch. He saw Megan hesitating in the doorway.

  “Mick, it’s too cold for you to be out here. Come back inside.”

  “I’m fine,” he said gruffly.

  “Well, Nell needs you. She wants you to get the turkey ready. It’s too heavy for any of us to lift it into that big old tub of salt water and then carry it to the spare refrigerator in the mudroom so it can soak tonight. That’s always been your job.”

  Even though it was the perfect excuse for joining the rest of the family, he wasn’t anxious to risk a lecture from his outspoken daughters or another glimpse of the sadness in Megan’s eyes.

  “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes,” he told her.

  Apparently his response didn’t satisfy her, because she grabbed her jacket from the peg by the front door and came outside.

  “Is this the way it’s going to be tomorrow?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You sitting off on the sidelines because you and I don’t see eye to eye about Connor or the wedding,” she said bluntly. “Because if it is, if this house is going to be filled with tension, I’ll leave. I won’t be responsible for everyone having a miserable holiday.”

  Alarm shot through him at the serious note in her voice. “No,” he said at once. “You should be here for Thanksgiving. If you go now, we’ll never put things to rights between us.”

  “Well, we’re not doing that with you out here sulking, either.”

  “I wasn’t sulking. I was smoking a cigar. I like a good cigar in the evening,” he claimed.

  “You also like being in the kitchen when it’s crowded with family. This has always been one of your favorite holidays. Now come back inside. Maybe you and I can just agree to disagree until Friday. Then we’ll find some time to sit down on our own and talk things through.”

  “Seems reasonable,” he said, taking heart. By Friday maybe Megan would see reason about not caving in to Connor’s manipulative efforts to keep them apart.

  “I’ll just ask one thing of you in the meantime,” she said. “We don’t talk about the wedding in front of the others.”

  He stared at her incredulously. “Meggie, you know it’s going to come up. Bree will want to discuss the flowers. I hear the twins have big plans for their role in the ceremony. They’re dying to get your agreement. How can we put them off?”

  “We’ll just say the plans haven’t been finalized. That’s innocuous enough.”

  His gaze narrowed. “You won’t say we’ve canceled?”

  “No.”

  “Or postponed?”

  “No, not until after we’ve talked on Friday and settled a few things.”

  He nodded. “That’ll do.”

  “I’m only agreeing to that because I don’t want the holiday ruined and I don’t want a lot of tension between us. Is that understood? My concerns are still there. I won’t claim our happiness at the cost of losing our son.”

  “Now you’re being dramatic,” he grumbled, not able to hide his impatience. “Connor’s not lost. He’s just stubborn.”

  “If we’re not careful, it could come to that,” Megan insisted. Before he could respond, she held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “But from this moment on, the topic’s off-limits until Friday.”

  Mick winced at the determination in her voice. “Agreed,” he said, because he had no choice. He was no more eager to start a big family hullabaloo than she was.

  6

  Thanksgiving day dawned with crisp fall air, bright blue skies and just a scattering of wispy white clouds floating overhead. Megan had a hundred blessings she knew she should be counting, but all she could think about were two overwhelming regrets. Her son wouldn’t be here to share the holiday with the family, and Mick was being as impossible as ever.

  Her talk with Nell the day before had been comforting, but had done nothing to dissuade her from her determination to postpone the wedding. Last night’s conversation with Mick had only reinforced her stance. She just had to convince Mick she meant what she said and keep him from trying to bulldoze right over her very valid objections to moving forward with their wedding plans.

  In the meantime, though, in the spirit of the holiday, she could at least make an overture to her son. It might not be welcome, but she had to try again to reach out to him. No matter how many tries it took, she would eventually get through to him. Anything less was unacceptable.

  Carrying her cell phone onto the porch, she hit Connor’s number on speed dial. The phone rang at least a dozen times, with no response and no answering machine pickup. She was about to give up when she finally heard his voice.

  “Hello, Mother,” he said, sounding annoyed and coolly distant.

  “I wanted to wish you a happy Thanksgiving,” she said cheerfully, determined to try to keep the conversation upbeat. “And to tell you how sorry I am that you won’t be joining us.”

  He was silent for what seemed like an eternity before he responded with a grudging, “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  Ignoring his tone and continuing on the positive note she’d hoped to establish, she said, “You know, from the day each of you were born, you, your brother and your sisters have been right at the top of my list of blessings.”

  “And yet you walked away and left us behind,” he responded bitterly. “I thought people were supposed to embrace blessings, not toss them aside like garbage.”

  “Oh, Connor, how many times do I have to tell you that it wasn’t like that,” she protested, unable to hide her dismayed reaction, yet knowing she would say the words over and over until he believed them. “I know just hearing me say how much I regret what happened doesn’t mean anything, but it’s true. There are so many things I would have done differently if I’d had the chance.”

  “In the end, though, you still would have left, wouldn’t you?” he said accusingly.

  She hesitated, but she knew a lie, ev
en now, wouldn’t serve her well. “Yes, I still would have left.”

  “Then that says it all,” he said, his tone resigned.

  “No,” she corrected. “It only says how badly my marriage to your father had disintegrated at that time. It says nothing about how much I loved you.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said dismissively.

  “Obviously it does. Connor, please reconsider and come home today,” she said hurriedly, sensing he was about to hang up. “It’s not too late for all of us to be together. It’s one day. Can’t you do that much? We don’t have to talk about our relationship or the wedding. Families should be together on Thanksgiving. We can deal with all the rest another time.”

  For the space of a heartbeat, she took hope from his silence. Unfortunately, it didn’t last.

  “No. I don’t want to be where I’m not welcome,” he said.

  Though he sounded like a stubborn kid, Megan heard the hurt just below the surface. He’d always been like that, covering his deepest feelings so no one could detect his vulnerabilities. For many years he’d covered with wit and laughter. Now he relied on belligerence.

  “Connor, before I let you go, I want to make one thing absolutely clear,” she said, hoping she could get through to him. “No matter how angry your father was, no matter what he said, he loves you with his whole heart. So do I. And as long as either of us is around, this will be your home and you will be welcome here.”

  She could tell he was taking in her words, probably deciding whether he could trust them. She kept talking.

  “Families fight,” she said. “People say things in the heat of the moment. You must know that, given the number of arguments you and Kevin had growing up. But when push comes to shove, O’Briens stick together. We’re bound together by love. I know what it was like to be outside that circle. I was outside, because I chose to be, just as you’re choosing to stay away now. When the time comes and you’re ready, you will be welcomed back, just as I have been. I promise you that. Just, please, don’t stay away too long, because as time goes by, it gets harder and harder to go back.”