I know it,” she said, giving him a crooked smile. “You, however, may be too stupid and stubborn to admit it. You are a guy, after all.”
“I’m not discussing Abby with you.”
Laila wasn’t easy to deter once she’d gotten her teeth into a subject. “Come on, Trace. Admit it. It just about killed you when she left town. I was here. I saw what it did to you.”
“Then why would you want to remind me of all that now?”
“Because this could be your chance to find out what happened.”
“I know what happened. Abby made a decision to cut me out of her life. End of story.”
“That’s not the end of the story,” his sister contradicted. “It’s only the part of the story you know. Find out the rest. Maybe it will put an end to that whole episode once and for all, so you can move on.”
“I moved on years ago,” he claimed.
“Baloney!”
He stared at her, his lips twitching. “What are we, five?”
“I’m not, but that seems to be your maturity level when it comes to this one thing. Adults face each other and deal with their issues.”
“I’m not the one who left. Have you had this conversation with Abby?”
“I did ten years ago,” Laila admitted.
Trace flinched. “Really? And what did Abby reveal to you that she didn’t bother telling me?”
“She told me to butt out, as a matter of fact.”
He laughed, but there was little humor in the sound. “Seems like good advice to me.”
He was struck by the same nagging thought that had come to him at the bank on his first day there. “You haven’t shared any of this with Dad, have you?”
“About you and Abby? No, why?”
He studied her face, trying to decide if he could trust what she was saying. “It just seems awfully convenient that Dad decides to push this whole idea of getting me to work at the bank right when there’s going to be a battle with the O’Briens that was bound to bring Abby back to town.”
“You mean that possible foreclosure at the inn?” she asked innocently. “Do you think that’s why Abby’s here?”
“Don’t you?”
“I suppose that makes sense,” she conceded. “Abby’s always been smart about business, and she’s always been the first one Jess turns to.”
“And none of that crossed your mind when you heard about the bank foreclosing on Jess’s property? Or when you heard that Dad was dragging me back here?”
“Believe it or not, I don’t spend a lot of my spare time coming up with conspiracies with Dad. And if it had been up to me, you’d still be in New York, and I’d be in that big corner office at the bank dealing with Jess.”
“Okay, then,” Trace said, deciding he might as well take her at her word. He was probably imagining a conspiracy where none existed. After all, Abby was here and he was just about one hundred percent certain to see her. How that inevitable confrontation had been set into motion hardly mattered. He just had to brace himself for it, so he didn’t make a complete fool of himself when they crossed paths. Throwing her across his desk and kissing her was probably a bad idea. And actually he hoped he wouldn’t want to.
Gram fixed a Sunday dinner that could have fed an army and insisted that all of them sit down at the table together, including Caitlyn and Carrie, whose table manners left a lot to be desired. Still, Abby thought they provided an excellent buffer between her sister and her father. Jess was shooting distrustful glances at Mick, to which he seemed to be oblivious. He kept asking questions about the inn that were supposedly innocent. Under the circumstances, though, they were as highly charged as an entire crate of explosives.
“No business at the table,” Gram finally said when Jess looked as if she was about to throw down her napkin and bolt. “I’m sure we can think of other things to talk about. After all, when was the last time we had a chance to be together under this roof? Let’s make this meal as special as the occasion calls for.”
“How are Uncle Jeff and Uncle Tom?” Abby asked, seizing on the first thing that came to mind.
“How would I know?” Mick responded bitterly. The implication in his tone was that he didn’t much care, either. Obviously neither time nor Gram had mellowed his mood when it came to his brothers.
The breakup of the business partnership had taken a personal toll. It had exposed all of the philosophical and environmental differences of the brothers. Since like all O’Briens, none of them were willing to back down from a stance, working together had been a really bad idea from the beginning. That they’d actually completed Chesapeake Shores at all had been a miracle.
Gram scowled at Mick, then turned to Abby. “They’re fine. Tom’s working on legislation to protect the bay and trying to get funding to clean up the waters of both the bay and its tributaries. Jeff’s running the management company that handles the leases on the shops downtown. His daughter, Susie, is working for him.”
“Gosh, I haven’t seen Susie in ages,” Abby said. “She was still a kid when I left for New York.”
“She graduated from college last year,” Jess said. “Magna cum laude, right, Gram?”
Gram ignored the hint of sarcasm in Jess’s voice and said evenly, “I believe that’s right. Jeff was real proud of her.”
“How’s your mother, Abby?” Mick suddenly blurted. “You see her, don’t you?”
Abby saw the deep hurt in his eyes and felt the same pity she always did when her mother plied her with questions about the rest of the family. “We get together for lunch every couple of weeks and she spends time with the girls on Saturdays when she can. She’s doing well. She loves living in the city.”
“I’m sure she does,” Mick said with undisguised bitterness, clamping his mouth shut when Abby pointedly nodded toward the girls to remind him that they didn’t need to hear so much as a whisper spoken against their grandmother.
“Grandma Megan’s beautiful,” Caitlyn said, then looked at Mick with confusion. “Do you know her?”
Abby realized that since her kids had never seen Mick and Megan together, they couldn’t possibly understand the complexities of the relationship.
The shadows in Mick’s eyes deepened as he responded to his granddaughter. “I used to,” he said softly.
“Grandma Megan used to be married to Grandpa Mick,” Abby explained.
That stirred a spark of interest in Carrie’s eyes. “Did you get a ‘vorce like Mommy and Daddy?”
Mick nodded. “We did.”
“Did you still love your kids?” Caitlyn asked worriedly. “Mommy and
