Harbor Lights (15 page)

Though Laurie gave her a knowing look, she nodded. “Great idea. I’ll be back here at noon, okay?”

“That’s perfect. I’ll give Jess a call and make the arrangements.” She crossed the room and gave Laurie a fierce hug. “Thank you for coming down here. It wasn’t necessary, but I’m so glad you did.”

“Even if I did butt into your personal life?”

“That’s what best friends are supposed to do,” Shanna told her, then grinned. “Doesn’t mean I have to take your advice, though.”

Laurie gave an exaggerated sigh. “In that case, I’m claiming the right here and now to say I told you so.”

“Duly noted.”

It wasn’t until Laurie was out the door that Shanna finally released a sigh and reached for her phone. She called Kevin’s cell.

“Whatever you do, do not come back here with the kids later,” she told him.

“Laurie,” he guessed at once. “She’s still here.”

“Right now she’s out exploring, but she’ll be back here at noon to go over wedding details with Jess.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he said. “She’s a little too intense with her cross-examinations.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’ll call you tonight, okay? Will she be gone then?”

“Yes.”

“Shanna?” He sounded suddenly hesitant.

“What?”

“The kiss…” His voice trailed off as if he’d grown uncomfortable with the subject as soon as he’d introduced it.

“It was an excellent kiss,” she said, a hitch in her voice.

“It was,” he agreed. “But—”

“But we probably shouldn’t repeat it,” she supplied before he could. Hadn’t she just told herself this would be his reaction? His deep sigh of relief at her words told her she’d been right.

“It’s just that my life right now is a mess,” he explained. “I have a lot of things to figure out.”

“Believe me, I get that,” she said. “Mine’s not exactly on an even keel, either.”

“Then this was a onetime aberration,” he said.

“Agreed.”

Even as she said the word, disappointment spread through her. She’d have to worry about that another time, though. Right now, she had way too much on her plate, including trying to find a way to get Laurie out of town before she crossed paths with Kevin again.

As soon as he’d hung up after his conversation with Shanna, Kevin went inside the house and rounded up Davy and the twins.

“Put on your bathing suits,” he told them.

“We’re having a picnic on the beach,” Caitlyn guessed, already stripping off clothes as she went in search of her bright blue ruffled one-piece bathing suit.

“Yes,” Kevin told them. He scooped Davy into his arms and took him into his room to change him into his bathing suit, then donned his own.

Then he gathered up all of the paraphernalia they’d need—sunblock, a blanket, beach towels, sand pails, swim rings. Gram walked into the foyer as he was eyeing the mounting pile of necessities with a frown.

“How on earth did you ever manage to take us all to the beach?” he asked.

“Each of you carried your own toys and towel,” she reminded him. “I took the blanket and picnic basket. Let the girls help.”

When Carrie and Caitlyn raced down the stairs, Kevin gestured to the assembled beach supplies. “Pick what you want to play with,” he instructed. “And grab a towel.”

That still left him with the picnic basket Gram had packed, the blanket and Davy, who was too little to tackle the steps down to the beach on his own. Gram grinned, clearly seeing the dilemma.

“Why don’t I come down in an hour with the picnic?” she suggested.

“Would you mind?”

“Of course not. I’ll drop it off before I drive over to the church.” She gave him a considering look. “Are you sure you can manage all three of them? You won’t have a minute’s peace trying to keep your eye on them every second.”

“You handled five of us,” he reminded her.

“And you were all older than these three,” she said.
“Except for Jess, and even she was Carrie and Caitlyn’s age by then. You all helped by looking out for her.”

“We’ll be fine,” he said with confidence. It was a couple of hours on the beach. No big deal. Then there’d be naps, and after that his sister and Trace would return and this nightmare of babysitting would be over. Not that he didn’t love Caitlyn and Carrie, he adored them. But despite what he’d said to Shanna, he’d been in over his head from the beginning of their visit.

An hour later, he had more proof that he was out of his depth. He was more than half-buried under sand and nearly immobilized, thanks to an idiotic scheme he’d devised to keep the three kids occupied until Gram brought lunch. Carrie and Caitlyn had loved the idea of pouring bucket after bucket of sand over him. Davy’s buckets were barely half-filled, but he followed suit.

“Now it’s time to dig me out,” he told them.

Carrie and Caitlyn merely giggled and dumped more sand on top of him.

“This is too much fun, Uncle Kevin,” Carrie said. “When we get enough sand, we can build a castle on top of you. It’ll be the biggest one ever.”

“Not a good idea,” he said, trying to kick the sand off his legs. It was too heavy. He tried lifting his arms, to no avail. Next time, if he was ever stupid enough to suggest this again, he’d know to keep his hands free.

Just then he heard laughter behind him and turned his head to find Abby regarding him with barely suppressed amusement. Trace, holding the picnic basket, was behind her, not even trying to hide his grin at Kevin’s situation.

“Quite a predicament you’re in,” Abby commented, her eyes sparkling.

“Mommy,” Caitlyn screamed and ran for Abby, imme
diately followed by Carrie. Davy tottered along behind the two of them and held out his arms to Trace, who set down the picnic basket in order to pick him up.

“Do you think one of you could get me out of here?” Kevin inquired testily. “Or are you enjoying this too much?”

“The enjoyment factor is pretty overwhelming,” Abby said.

Kevin scowled at Trace. “I do you a favor and this is the thanks I get?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who buried you,” Trace said. “And don’t tell me these kids came up with the idea all on their own.”

“It was my idea, okay?” he admitted.

“What would you have done if we hadn’t come along?” Abby inquired curiously. “Say, if one of them decided to take off and go for an unauthorized swim?”

“I was just working on that,” he insisted. “They were going to dig me out. And they know the rules about going in the water, right, girls? Not unless you’re with an adult.”

Caitlyn, the little traitor, said, “But you
are
here, Uncle Kevin.”

“I rest my case,” Abby said. “Besides, it sounded to me as if they had big plans to construct a castle on top of you. Dad would be proud.”

The weight of all that sand was beginning to make him feel a little claustrophobic. He fixed a hard look on his soon-to-be brother-in-law, since his sister clearly wasn’t interested in coming to his rescue.

“I’d appreciate a little help now,” he said.

Trace grinned and set Davy down on the sand. “Okay, kids, let’s dig Uncle Kevin out of the sand. Then we can have a picnic.”

“Picnic now!” Carrie said, jumping up and down in excitement.

“Nope, not till Uncle Kevin can join us,” Trace said firmly.

“We could feed him,” Caitlyn suggested, her expression thoughtful.

“Dig, now!” Trace said more firmly.

All three kids started removing the sand, tossing it aside by the bucketful. It seemed to take a lot longer to remove than it had to cover him. Kevin finally kicked off the last of it and stood.

“Since reinforcements are here, I’m going for a swim to get the rest of this stuff off,” he told his sister.

“Maybe leaving him in charge of our children wasn’t such a great idea,” Abby said, a hint of worry in her eyes.

He caught the glint in Trace’s eyes as he met Abby’s gaze. “Really? Are you regretting the past couple of days we’ve had to ourselves?”

“No, but…”

“The kids are in one piece,” Trace reminded her. “Kevin’s still sane, which makes him an excellent babysitter to my way of thinking. In fact, right this second, he qualifies for sainthood in my book.” He gave Abby a lingering look. “Know what I mean?”

She blushed.

“I’m thinking we should enlist him again in another couple of weeks,” Trace said, his gaze locked with Abby’s. “What do you say?”

Abby moved toward him. “Maybe so,” she murmured, lifting her face for a kiss.

Kevin groaned, not just because the idea of babysitting again made him a little queasy, but because watching the heat between those two reminded him a little too sharply
of what he’d felt when he’d kissed Shanna earlier. And then he’d foolishly told her they shouldn’t do it again. What had he been thinking?

Probably that it had been a mistake, he reminded himself.

Even worse, she’d agreed with him.

Right this second, though, he couldn’t imagine why either one of them thought that anything that had felt that good could possibly be a mistake.

M
ick was in the air somewhere over Kansas when he realized that he’d never even tried to reach Megan to tell her he’d been called to Seattle on another emergency. Any other week, it would have been no big deal to let her know when he landed, but at this very moment, she was probably arriving at the airport in Baltimore for a few days in Chesapeake Shores. And there would be no one there to greet her. The situation had disaster written all over it. She’d take the incident and blow it all out of proportion.

He grabbed the in-flight phone, used his credit card and dialed her cell phone. To his frustration, the call went straight to voice mail.

“Meggie, it’s me. I got called to Seattle late last night, and I grabbed the first flight I could get out this morning. I know I should have called you right away, but it was late, and then with all the rushing around this morning, I didn’t think of it until just now. I’m so sorry. If you get this message while you’re at the airport, why don’t you see if there’s another available flight to Seattle and join me? You’d love it out there. Let me know if you decide to do that. Otherwise, I’ll give you a call when I get to my hotel. I should be on the ground in another couple of hours.”

He winced as he hung up. She was going to be fit to be tied, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. He made his next call to Kevin.

“Dad, I thought you were on your way to Seattle,” Kevin said.

“I am, but I just remembered something and I need your help, okay?”

“Sure, what can I do?”

“Your mother’s on a flight down from New York. You need to get to the airport to pick her up or to help her switch to a flight out to the West Coast, whichever she wants to do.”

“You forgot Mom was coming?” He sounded incredulous and maybe even a little amused by Mick’s obvious predicament.

“I didn’t forget it exactly,” Mick said defensively. “I had a lot of things happening at once.”

“Oh man, she’s going to be furious,” Kevin murmured.

“Don’t you think I know that?” he said impatiently. “Which is why you need to step on it and get to the airport.”

“Why me? Abby’s a lot closer. She could be there from her office in a half hour.”

“She could be,” Mick acknowledged. “But seeing you just might distract your mother from how mad she is at me.”

“Dad, you know how I feel about her,” Kevin began.

Mick cut him off. “I also know you need to get over it. Take Davy with you. Pretend it’s all about him. He’ll love seeing the planes going in and out and being there to greet his grandmother. Come on, son, help me out here.”

Kevin sighed heavily. “What time is Mom’s flight due in?”

“The information’s on a pad by the phone in my office, but you don’t have much time. Grab the details I’ve written down and Davy, then hit the road.”

“You realize there are now two of us annoyed with you, me
and
Mom?”

“You’re wasting time. You can yell at me later, okay?”

“Believe me, I will take you up on that,” Kevin said, hanging up on him.

Mick sat back and closed his eyes, trying to envision Megan’s reaction to arriving at the airport and not seeing him waiting for her in the terminal. If Kevin wasn’t there in his place, she might turn right around and go back to New York. She might never return to Chesapeake Shores again. Any reaction was possible. Megan’s unpredictability was one of the things he loved about her, but it didn’t always work in his favor.

Of course, he could try selling her on the idea that the mix-up was all her fault. If she’d been living back at home where she belonged, she would have known about this trip as soon as he’d found out about it, and she could have been right here next to him, sipping a Bloody Mary and watching an action movie. Yep, that was the way he should play it.

And then duck, when she took a swing at him.

Kevin held tight to Davy’s hand in the crowded terminal and kept his eyes peeled for his mother. Based on the information he’d found in Mick’s office, she should be walking in from the gate area any time now. The arrivals board indicated her plane had landed five minutes earlier, which meant it probably hadn’t even reached the gate yet.

“G’ma,” Davy said.

He’d been practicing the word ever since Kevin had ex
plained who they were meeting at the airport. Apparently tired of looking at a sea of legs, he held up his arms. Kevin hefted him up so he could see.

“G’ma!” he shouted excitedly, pointing.

Sure enough, there she was, striding toward them with a hesitant smile on her face.

“This is a surprise,” she said, setting aside her carry-on bag to take Davy, who was practically crawling out of Kevin’s arms to get to her. “Where’s your father?”

Kevin didn’t want to be the one to break the bad news. Instead, he told her, “He said he left you a voice mail. Maybe you should check that.”

Megan frowned, but reached in her pocket, turned on her cell phone, then listened to her messages. Then, she clicked it off and snapped it shut. “Well, that sounded familiar.”

“Mom, it really was last-minute,” Kevin said, surprised by the need to defend his father. “I heard the phone ring really late last night, way too late for him to call you, and he left the house at the crack of dawn. He was already gone when I got up at six to go for a run.”

“My flight didn’t take off till after ten this morning. The recording says he didn’t call till nearly eleven, after I was in the air.”

Kevin could see how angry she was and could almost understand it. For once, he realized how many times she must have been an afterthought when some crisis changed Mick’s schedule at the last minute.

“He mentioned something about you joining him in Seattle,” Kevin said. “I’ve checked and there’s a flight leaving in two hours that has seats available.”

Megan shook her head at once, her jaw set in a too-familiar stubborn line. “I’ll come with you, if that’s okay.
Now that I’m here, I’d like to spend some time with Davy and the twins. I’ll fly back to New York tomorrow.”

Kevin winced. His instructions had been to get her to Seattle or to keep her here. It seemed she wasn’t inclined to cooperate with either plan. Big surprise.

“You won’t wait for Dad to get back?” he asked.

Her quelling look was answer enough. Kevin grabbed her bag. “Any other luggage?”

She shook her head, then focused her attention on Davy, who was exclaiming over everything he saw en route to the parking garage.

“I’m predicting this one is going to be a journalist someday,” Megan said with a laugh as she settled him in his car seat with surprisingly practiced skill. “He has a keen eye for details.”

Kevin chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it. Me, I think of him as a little motormouth.”

“Broadcast journalism, then,” she said, climbing into Mick’s SUV. She turned to Kevin, her gaze warm. “I’m glad Mick sent you in his place.”

“That was Dad being devious,” he admitted. “He hoped my presence would distract you, so you wouldn’t be quite as mad at him.”

“Well,
that
didn’t work,” she said. “I can still be plenty mad at him and happy to see you at the same time. At least we’ll have some time to talk.”

“Mom, don’t,” he said, his mood promptly turning dark. “Let’s not go over the same old ground again.”

“I wasn’t going to bring up the past. I was merely going to ask how you’re doing. I hear you bought a fishing boat.”

Kevin nodded.

“Have you gotten your captain’s license yet?”

“No, I have a few more classes before I can be certified.”

She leaned back, her eyes closed. “I remember how much you loved fishing,” she said, her expression nostalgic. “It didn’t matter how tiny the fish or how big, you’d get so excited when you’d reel it in.” She glanced over at him with a smile. “And then you’d want to throw it back. Being so softhearted isn’t an especially good trait for a man running a fishing charter.”

Kevin sighed at the observation. “Tell me about it.” This wasn’t the first time it had occurred to him that he wasn’t as well suited for this new career as Jess had assumed. He’d seized on it only because he hadn’t been able to come up with an acceptable alternative.

“You know what I always thought you’d do?” Megan said.

Curious, he shook his head. He couldn’t imagine that his mother had even the slightest insight into what kind of man he’d become. He’d been sixteen when she’d left, a year younger than Abby and light-years from having any direction in his life.

“I thought you’d follow in your uncle Thomas’s footsteps,” Megan said. “I was so sure you’d become an environmentalist, work to protect the Chesapeake or some other fragile, endangered ecosystem.”

Even as the words left her mouth, Kevin felt an odd stirring of excitement. “We used to talk about that, didn’t we?”

She nodded. “Whenever Thomas was around for holidays, you’d pester him with a million questions.” She gave him a sideways glance. “Maybe you should talk to him now, get a feel for what he’s doing these days. Have you even seen him recently?”

Kevin shook his head. “You know how it is with him and Dad.”

“I also know how persuasive Nell can be. She wants them reconciled, so sooner or later it’s bound to happen, and I don’t just mean the polite lip service they pay to each other on holidays.” She shrugged. “You don’t need Mick’s permission to see your uncle.”

At Kevin’s frown, she immediately said, “I’m not trying to tell you what to do.”

“No, I know that. I’m just thinking about how Dad would react if I turned into one of those tree huggers he’s so disdainful of.” Even as he said it, he grinned. Mick would be appalled, especially if he thought his brother had influenced Kevin into joining forces with the enemy.

“I think you’re selling your father short. Mick might not be the activist that Thomas is, but he cares about the bay. He made a lot of compromises with Chesapeake Shores—perhaps not enough to suit his brother, but enough to make a difference. He respects what Thomas does.”

“Really? Then why aren’t they speaking?”

“Because they can rile each other faster than a rattlesnake can strike. They do it without thinking, and then stubbornness kicks in.”

Kevin laughed, thinking of how many ridiculously small rifts in their family had quickly escalated out of control. “You could be right about that. It’s definitely a family trait.”

“Unfortunately, one I apparently possess, as well,” Megan admitted with obvious regret. “Without even having the O’Brien genes.”

“That’s what happened with you and Dad, isn’t it?” he asked with sudden insight. “You had a fight, then both of you dug in your heels.”

She nodded. “Not that we didn’t both make mistakes, but they were definitely compounded by the heat of anger and pure stubbornness.”

“Don’t do that again, Mom,” Kevin said, surprising himself by trying to play peacemaker. “I know what Dad did today is wrong, but he wants you back more than anything. I’ve had a hard time accepting that, but I do know it’s true.”

“And yet he’s in Seattle and I’m here,” she said quietly.

“You could join him,” he suggested mildly. “Or at least stay here till he gets back. Don’t compound his mistake by making one of your own.”

She met his gaze, her chin set, then sighed. “We’ll see.”

Kevin turned aside so she wouldn’t see his satisfied grin. Mission accomplished. More than that, his mother had given him a whole lot to think about in terms of his future.

Saturday was Shanna’s busiest day at the store. Thankfully, she’d been able to get a new shipment of books in on Friday and the shelves were once again fully stocked. Today, there’d been no lull, no chance to run over to Sally’s to grab a quick sandwich, not even long enough to call in a take-out order and pick it up.

When Kevin walked in the door around three o’clock, she was so relieved to see him, she almost threw her arms around him.

“If you can pick up a sandwich for me at Sally’s, I will love you forever,” she told him, barely aware of the startled expression her comment elicited. “I neglected to bring lunch with me today. I keep forgetting that Saturdays are too busy for me to get out of here. I’m starving.”

Kevin pulled a familiar white sack out from behind his back. “Tuna on rye, chips and a diet soda,” he told her.

She did throw her arms around him then. “You’re an angel.”

He lifted a brow at that. “Hardly. I passed by earlier and could see you were swamped, so I took a guess that you wouldn’t have time for lunch unless it magically appeared.”

“I do love magic,” she said, ripping into the bag. She took a bite of the thick sandwich and sighed as if it were gourmet fare. “Did you get something for yourself?”

“I ate earlier at the house.” He hesitated, then added, “My mother’s here.”

Her hands stilled and she met his gaze. “You don’t sound entirely happy about that.”

“We have our issues,” he admitted. “But, actually, today it went okay. She mentioned an idea that I haven’t been able to shake.”

“What kind of idea?” Because he looked more excited than she’d ever seen him, she set the sandwich aside to listen.