what you’ve always taught us,” Abby agreed.
Unfortunately, she was very much afraid it was going to take a lot more than family spirit and loyalty to save Jess’s inn.
3
Mick hadn’t been home for a month, not that Chesapeake Shores felt much like home anymore. He’d spent most of that time in a frustrating battle of wits with officials over building permits for his latest planned community north of San Francisco. Given the number of hurdles, he was beginning to question the wisdom of going through with the development. Then again, he’d put his reputation on the line for this one, and what would it say if he folded up and went away without a fight?
He’d just finished a meeting with his associates from O’Brien & Company, his contractors and the subcontractors about the latest delay when his cell phone rang. Glancing at caller ID, he saw that it was his mother, who rarely ever called him these days. In the past she’d only called in an emergency, and there’d been plenty of those with five kids in the house.
“Hey, Ma, how are you?” he said, walking away from the other men so he could have the conversation in private.
“Fit as a fiddle,” she said. “Wish I could say the same for your daughter.”
Mick felt his pulse speed up. “Is something wrong with Abby? Or Bree?” he asked. Then added almost as an afterthought, “Or is it Jess?”
“Interesting that your concern for Jess came last,” she said, her tone accusing. “That’s always been the problem between you two. Sometimes I think you forget you have three daughters. It’s little wonder the girl works so hard to try to get your attention.”
“I hope you didn’t call just to give me another lecture on how I’ve shortchanged Jessica. We’ve had that conversation too many times to count.”
“Then it amazes me that it has yet to sink in,” she retorted. “And actually that’s exactly why I called. When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“A few days ago, I suppose,” he said, searching his memory, but unable to come up with anything more precise. That gave some credence to his mother’s accusations, but he wasn’t planning to admit that anytime soon. He hadn’t spoken to Abby or Bree, either.
“More like a month, I imagine,” she said. “If I had to guess, I’d say it was when she drove you to the airport. I doubt you’ve given her a second thought since then.”
He winced as the barb hit its mark. “Okay, that’s probably right. What’s your point? She’s a grown woman. She doesn’t need her dad checking up on her.”
“Checking up on her, no,” his mother agreed with undisguised impatience. “But how about checking in just to see how she’s doing, maybe asking how the inn is coming along, inquiring if she could use any help in getting it ready to open? Would those things be too much to expect from a loving parent, especially one with an entire construction company at his disposal?”
Mick bristled at the suggestion that he wasn’t interested in his own daughter’s life or that he’d been unwilling to help her out. “Jess made it plain she didn’t want my interference. You sat right there at the kitchen table when I offered to send one of my guys around to look things over and she turned me down flat.”
“Mick, for a bright man, you can be denser than dirt,” she chided. “Maybe she didn’t want one of your men over there. Maybe what she needed was you.”
Mick might be past fifty, but he still hated being called on the carpet by his own mother. He’d rather face down a hundred bureaucrats than be made to feel that somehow he’d let down his family. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know he’d failed them by making life so miserable for Megan that she’d left him. He hadn’t been able to fix that, and it was likely that whatever was going on right now with Jess wasn’t something he could fix, either. What kind of man was he? He’d built an international reputation as an architect and urban planner, but he couldn’t keep his own damn family together.
“Ma, why don’t you just say whatever’s on your mind? Is Jess in some kind of trouble? Does she need money? One of my crews? What? You know I’ll do whatever I can to help. All she needs to do is ask.”
His mother sighed heavily. “Mick, you know she’ll never do that.”
“Why, for God’s sake?” he asked, frustrated. “Who else should she ask? I’m her father.”
“Exactly. And she’s been trying to prove herself to you since the day her mother left. She thinks that was her fault because she was too much trouble, because she wasn’t smart enough.”
“Jess is smart as a whip,” he protested, exactly as he always did.
“Well, of course she is, but learning came hard for her. She thinks that was what sent her mother running. Kids as young as Jess was back then always think a divorce is their fault.”
“You’ve been watching Dr. Phil again,” he accused. “Don’t try to psychoanalyze my relationship with Jess.”
“Well, somebody has to fix it. It’s way past time. How soon can you get back here?”
“A few weeks, maybe. Longer unless you tell me what the hell is going on in plain English that my poor denser-than-dirt male brain can comprehend.”
“Don’t smart-mouth me. I’m still your mother.”
Mick nearly groaned. “Ma, please.”
“I think it’s possible she’s going to lose the inn before she even gets the doors open. If that happens, it will break not only her heart, but her spirit.”
The news caught him completely off guard. Even he recognized how that could affect his daughter, assuming it was true and not just the product of the local gossip mill. “What makes you think she’s going to lose the inn?”
“I’ve heard rumors the bank is considering foreclosure. And before you dismiss that as nothing more than speculation, I’ll tell you my source was reliable.”
Mick’s frustration mounted. “Dammit, I knew she was getting in over her head, but she signed all the paperwork and plunged into this without talking any of it over with me.”
“Because she needed to prove to you that she could do this all on her own.”
“Well, exactly what will she have proved, if the bank forecloses?”
“Michael Devlin O’Brien, don’t you dare come back here if all you’re going to do is throw her mistakes in her face. She needs her father, not a judgmental businessman.”
Now it was Mick’s turn to sigh heavily. If what his mother was saying was true, it put him between a rock and a hard place. “Ma, we both know I could fix whatever’s going on with one call to Lawrence Riley, but you know as well as I do that Jess won’t thank me for it.”
“True enough,” she admitted. “But we have to do something, Mick. Jess needs to make a success of this.”
“Do you really think she could lose the inn? Maybe it’s
