“Why would you do that?” he asked.
“Because it’s obvious to me that the two of you will manage to mess it up for a second time, if you’re left to your own devices,” she said with more than a touch of impatience. “And I’d like to see my granddaughter happy.”
“What is it you think we’re going to mess up?” Trace asked, though he knew she wasn’t talking about their new and mostly awkward business relationship.
She merely rolled her eyes, as if she found the question ridiculous, the answer obvious. “Go,” she ordered.
Trace left, stripping off his shirt as he went. Nell carried in a tray filled with the remains of their aborted lunch and set it on the counter, then took the shirt from him and tossed it into the dryer.
“Shall we have a cup of tea while we wait?” she asked, not waiting for his reply as she put cups on the table and started pouring.
Trace was smart enough not to object to the ritual. He’d learned years ago that Abby’s grandmother marched to her own drummer and it was best to go along. Those who didn’t want to do that at least had the good sense to stay out of her way.
“That should warm you up,” she said, as if it weren’t nearly eighty degrees outside and even warmer in the kitchen, despite the overhead fan circulating the air. When she’d stirred a tiny bit of sugar into her own tea, she leveled a look at him. “What do you want from Abby?”
“I want her to keep the renovations at the inn moving along on schedule and to keep her sister on budget,” he said without hesitation.
“Nonsense,” she said. “That’s your excuse. What you want is another chance with her. At least be honest with yourself about that much.”
Trace frowned at her assessment. He didn’t want Abby back. He wanted to retaliate for the way she’d treated him, wanted to make her suffer the way he’d suffered, wanted to turn her life inside out, the way his had been when she’d walked off without a word of explanation.
“You’re wrong,” he said flatly. She had to be. Otherwise, it would mean he was a glutton for punishment.
“Am I?” she responded. “Then this is about revenge for something that happened ten years ago? You certainly do know how to hold a grudge, don’t you?”
He didn’t like hearing the truth, not from a woman who’d always been kind to him, if not entirely approving of his relationship with Abby. “I wouldn’t put it exactly that way.”
“Then how would you put it?” she inquired, her tone mild. “You say it’s not about wanting her and it’s not about revenge. I say it has nothing to do with securing the bank’s loan on the inn. What does that leave?”
Trace wanted to squirm exactly the way he had years ago when she’d asked him what his intentions were toward her granddaughter. He’d been honest then. He’d admitted he wanted to marry Abby. He simply hadn’t been willing to set a timetable for it. He’d seen the disappointment in her eyes, but he hadn’t been willing to commit to something that life-altering, not when his goals for himself kept shifting as he tried to find solid footing for fighting his father and going after his own career.
To Nell O’Brien’s credit she hadn’t kicked him out or banished him from Abby’s life. She’d left the two of them to figure things out on their own, but he’d sensed her displeasure every single time they’d crossed paths after that. He’d always wondered if that unspoken disapproval from the woman she respected most in the world had anything to do with Abby’s abrupt departure.
“You used to have an answer for everything right on the tip of your tongue,” she said to him when he remained silent.
“I’ve learned that answers aren’t always simple and that the first ones that come to mind may not be the right ones,” he told her.
“You’re not being tested. There’s not a right or wrong answer, just the truth.”
He gave her a wry look. “Maybe that’s why I’m having so much trouble with it. I’m not sure I know the truth.”
She nodded, looking surprisingly satisfied. “Now we’re getting somewhere. It takes a certain amount of maturity to realize that things aren’t always black and white. Want to know what I think?”
He sat back and grinned, happy to be off the hot seat, if nothing else. “By all means.”
“I think you’re still crazy in love with Abby, just the way you were all through high school and college. I also think you’re still angry and hurt about the way she left. What I don’t understand, what I never understood, was why you didn’t fight harder for her back then.”
Trace thought back to those first humiliating days and weeks after she’d left town. He’d just turned twenty-two. He was still operating more on hormones than sense. He was battling with his father over his future, determined to strike out on his own with his design work. Abby’s abandonment when he’d needed her support the most had been a crushing blow. Somehow he’d lumped that in with his father’s attitude and concluded she had no more faith in his artistic talent than Lawrence Riley did.
Later, when the pain was still eating at him, he’d discovered the blow had truly been to his heart, not just his ego. That’s when he’d realized that pride didn’t matter in the end. All that mattered was finding her and getting her back.
“I went after her,” he said eventually. It was something only his sister knew. He’d figured the fewer people who knew about it, the less embarrassment he’d suffer if Abby ditched him for a second time. It wasn’t surprising then that Nell looked shocked.
“I never knew about that,” she said. “Abby never mentioned it.”
“She didn’t know about it, either,” he admitted. “My timing was lousy. I waited too long. Laila told me where she was. She thought of Abby as a big sister. They stayed in touch. I followed Abby to New York. Instead of going straight to her, I spent months finding work to be a hundred percent sure I could support her. Then I went down to Wall Street one day, determined to set things right or at least to take a stab at picking up where we’d left off.”
“And what happened?”
“Abby walked out of this fancy skyscraper, arm in arm with a guy in an Armani suit, a diamond the size of a rock on her left hand. I’d gotten my life together, gotten my career off the ground, but I couldn’t compete with that.”
“You were scared off by a fancy suit and a piece of jewelry?” she asked, regarding him with disappointment for the second time in all the years he’d known her.
He shook his head. “No, what sent me away was the expression of total happiness on Abby’s face, the love I saw shining in her eyes when she looked at him. I knew that look. I knew what it meant. I couldn’t delude myself anymore that I could fix things. Abby had moved on.”
She regarded him with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“It was my own fault, because you’re a hundred percent right about one thing. I should have fought harder, and I should have done it a whole lot sooner.”
“If you know that, why are you taking it out on Abby because things didn’t work out?”
“I’m not taking it out on her,” he swore. “In my stupid, most likely misguided way, I’m fighting for a second chance.”
“By telling her she was cruel and cowardly?” she asked incredulously. “I was on my way downstairs and I heard what you said to her.”
He regarded her with a chagrined expression. “That may have been a mistake.”
“Really? Do you think so?”
Her sarcasm made him wince. “You have to admit it got her attention,” he said defensively.
“So it did,” she acknowl
edged. “Call me crazy, but wouldn’t you rather have her kissing you than dumping water over your head?”
Before Trace could reply, Abby walked into the kitchen and stared at her grandmother with an indignant expression. “Are you giving him advice about me?”
“Somebody certainly needs to,” her grandmother retorted without batting an eye. “If you’ll excuse me, though, I think I’ll go outside and work a bit in the garden. My tomato plants can use the attention.”
“Gram,” Abby said in a tone that had her grandmother hesitating in midstride. “From here on out let me deal with Trace, okay?”
“Suits me,” she said, an unrepentant twinkle in her eyes. “From now on, though, just try doing it in a way that doesn’t require one of you to wind up stripping off clothes in order to avoid pneumonia.”
If Abby didn’t adore her grandmother, it would have been incredibly tempting to throw something at her after she’d made that glib remark, then sashayed off to leave Abby alone with Trace and his rock-hard abs and bare shoulders. She marched into the laundry room, snatched his still-damp shirt from the dryer and tossed it at him.
“Put this on and go,” she ordered.
“Not just yet,” he said, sitting right where he was, though he did put the shirt back on.
Worn to a frazzle by trying to straighten out her sister’s financial mess and by the twins, who were starting to feel just well enough to be demanding and impossible, Abby didn’t think she could cope with Trace, too. “Go,” she repeated. “I really don’t have time for this.”
Just then Carrie and Caitlyn slipped into the kitchen, their feet bare, their strawberry-blond hair a tangled mess, and enough spots on their sweet faces to make them look pitiful.
“Mommy, can we have ice cream?” Caitlyn pleaded, before catching sight of Trace. “Who’re you?”
“This is Mr. Riley,” Abby said tightly. “My daughters, Caitlyn and Carrie.” She gestured to them in turn, though it was likely a wasted effort. No one meeting them at first could tell them apart.
If she expected the sight of them to send him fleeing, he proved her wrong. Instead, he grinned and cupped Caitlyn’s chin, turning her head this way and that as if in admiration. “Quite a display you’ve got going on there,” he said, then turned to Carrie. “You, too. Have you counted to see which one has the most spots?”
Carrie looked vaguely intrigued by the idea. “Why? Would the winner get a prize?”
“Absolutely,” Trace said. “All the ice cream you can eat at Sally’s once you’re well.”
Both girls regarded him with wide eyes. “Really?”
He nodded. “That’s what I got when I had more spots than my sister when I was about your age and we both got chicken pox at the same time.”
Caitlyn’s expression turned serious. “I don’t think Mommy would let us eat as much ice cream as we want.”
Trace looked up at Abby with an appealing smile. “Come on, Mom. There should be some reward after you’ve been sick.”
“Are you suggesting that being well again isn’t reward enough?” Abby found herself asking, feigning a stern demeanor.
Trace looked at the twins. “I say no. What about you girls? Don’t you think there should be a prize?”
“Yes,” they shouted in unison.
Abby couldn’t help laughing at their enthusiasm. “Okay, ice cream for the winner when you’re well. For now, though, you get juice. After you’ve finished that, I want you to go back upstairs, count those spots and then take a nap.”
“But we’ve been sleeping and sleeping,” Carrie argued. “We’re not tired anymore. And we itch too much.”
Caitlyn nodded. “We really, really itch.”
Abby had foreseen this problem. “Okay, I’ll be right up and you can get into the tub. I have something that will soothe the itching.”
Caitlyn turned to Trace. “Can you come, too?”
Abby stepped in before he could reply. “Mr. Riley doesn’t have time to help you two take a bath. Besides, that’s not something you ask strangers to do.”
“But he’s not a stranger,” Caitlyn replied, looking puzzled. “He’s your friend.”
“That’s exactly right,” Trace said, giving Abby a pointed look. “Your mom and I are very old friends. But she is right about one thing, I do need to go back to work.”
“But when we’re well, you’ll come with us to have ice cream, won’t you?” Caitlyn asked.
Carrie nodded. “To make sure we get all we can eat.”
“That’s a date,” he said, his gaze locked with Abby’s in a way that made her toes curl. “It was very nice to meet you, Caitlyn.” His gaze went straight to the right girl. He then turned to her sister. “You, too, Carrie. I hope to see you both again soon.”
How had he been able to immediately tell them apart? Abby wondered in amazement. He’d accomplished it despite the matching nightgowns, identical mussed hairstyles and spotty faces. How had he picked up so quickly on the personality differences—Caitlyn’s somber reflectiveness and Carrie’s feistiness—that set them apart? Obviously he’d given them his full attention, something few adults bothered to do.
“See you soon, girls,” he said as he headed for the back door.
Abby was about to release a sigh of relief, when he paused beside her and dropped a deliberate kiss on her forehead. “Bye, Mom.”
The twins giggled appreciatively, but Abby was left speechless. Trace knew he’d gotten to her, too. His expression was smug as he left, then waved jauntily from the back steps.
“Can we have ice cream at Sally’s tomorrow?” Caitlyn pleaded. “We’ll be all better by then.”
“Yeah,” Carrie echoed. “And we want to see Mr. Riley again. He’s nice.”
Abby wanted to tell them not to trust all that sweetness and charm, but how could she? He had been nice to the twins. And if she didn’t trust anything else about Trace, she knew with absolute certainty that he would never intentionally hurt her daughters.
When Trace got back to the bank, Mariah called out to him as he was en route to his office. “Your father wants to see you.”
Reluctantly, Trace turned in that direction. He paused at Mariah’s desk and leaned down. “What kind of mood is he in?” he asked in an exaggerated whisper. “Warpath? Or peacekeeping?”
She laughed. “I think you’re safe enough. Go on in.”
When he entered, his father looked up from the financial paper he was reading, then beamed at him. “There you are. Where have you been?”
“I had a business meeting.”
“With Abby O’Brien?”
“Abby Winters,” Trace corrected. “But yes. I was meeting with her.”
His father seemed to take a closer look at him. “Are you sure this was about business? And why is your shirt wet? She didn’t shove you in the bay, did she?”
Trace didn’t intend to discuss the whole incident with the pitcher of water with his father. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I wanted to make sure she agreed to run things for Jessica. These loans could go bad very quickly if we don’t stay on top of this.”
“I assure you I intend to keep a very close eye on the situation,” Trace said.
His father gave a nod of satisfaction. “I thought you might.” He waved him off. “That’s all. You can get back to work now. I believe Raymond has some paperwork he wants you to take a look at.”
�
��I’ll check with him,” Trace promised. “Then I have an appointment I need to get to.”
“Bank business?”
“No, I’m looking at a couple of places to rent.”
He almost laughed at his father’s reaction. He looked as if he couldn’t quite decide whether to be irritated that Trace might be moving out of the house or overjoyed that he might be planning to stay around Chesapeake Shores after all.
“Why rent?” he asked eventually. “Buying makes more sense.”
“Not for six months,” Trace said firmly.
“You won’t find a short-term lease anywhere in town,” his father protested. “You might as well stay put with your mother and me.”
“Actually I already have a few possibilities. And it’ll be better if I’m on my own. Sometimes I work on my design projects until late at night—”
“What design projects?” his father demanded. “You’re working for the bank now and it’s going to require your full attention.”
“It won’t require twenty-four hours a day,” Trace said evenly, determined to stick to his point and not get drawn into a fight with his father over his freelance work. “And when I work, I have things strewn all over the place. It would make Mother crazy, to say nothing of how I’d react if the maid came through and tried to tidy things up for me.”
“I see your point,” his father said. “Okay then, suit yourself.”
Trace intended to do exactly that. With luck, he’d be in his own place by the weekend. He’d have his studio set up in no time and be back at work on the two assignments he’d just accepted by the first of next week. Between those jobs and his plans for frequent contact with Abby, the next six months should fly by.
Abby had finally gotten the twins down for another nap, checked on all her e-mails from work and responded to them and was now on the porch with a glass of iced tea, when Jess’s car came flying up the driveway and screeched to a halt, kicking up dust. As soon as Jess emerged, it was evident she was in a really lousy mood.
The Inn at Eagle Point Page 10
