*
* *
Trace was feeling very pleased with himself over his
strategy to keep Abby around where he could get to know her again. He had no
idea what was going on in her life these days, but he'd noted the lack of a
ring on her left hand about two seconds after he'd realized she was the woman
in his office. Years ago he'd seen her with another man, seen an engagement
ring on her finger, in fact, but that ring had been nowhere in sight yesterday.
He had no idea why this mattered so much to him, but it did. Maybe he just
wanted a chance to even the score, to get her all tied up in knots so he could
abandon her the way she'd walked out on him. The prospect of payback did have a
certain sweetness to it.
Then again, if he'd learned nothing else in that meeting, he'd discovered that
she was a woman who could hold her own. She'd come in there prepared for battle
and she'd handed over a sound financial proposal to back up her position. He
wondered if Jess had any idea how lucky she was to have someone with that much
business savvy in her corner.
Convincing the board to hold off on the foreclosure and to give the new
management a chance to get the inn on solid ground had been relatively easy.
Not that he intended to let Abby know that. He wanted her to be grateful that
he'd fought the good fight on her sister's behalf.
He walked into the Chesapeake Shores Yacht Club promptly at twelve-fifteen,
expecting to find Abby waiting for him. He'd deliberately chosen the yacht club
where they'd be seen by the town's movers and shakers. Abby had always hated
its pretentious atmosphere, which meant he'd have the upper hand.
A scan of the dining room showed she was nowhere in sight. Had she bailed on
him, after all? The possibility rankled.
"Hey, Liz," he greeted the hostess, who'd been in his high school
class. "Any sign of Abby O'Brien?"
"It's Abby Winters now," she corrected him. "She called and said
she was running late. Something about the twins getting sick. She'll be here as
soon as she can get here. She said to call her if you don't feel like
waiting."
Trace winced at the mention of a married name and nearly groaned at the mention
of twins. Maybe he'd gotten it all wrong after all. Maybe Abby wasn't available.
Maybe that was why she was so anxious to get back to New York. If so, he'd just
gone out on a limb for nothing. Well, not for nothing. The inn did deserve a
chance to make it, but he couldn't deny that he'd had his own agenda.
He took the slip of paper that Liz held out with Abby's number written on it.
After dialing, he jotted down a takeout order for Liz as he waited for Abby to
pick up. "Ask the kitchen to put a rush on this, would you?" he asked
Liz, just as Abby finally answered. She sounded completely frazzled.
"Good, you're still there," he said, then announced, "I've
ordered takeout. I'm on my way over."
"Bad idea, Trace," she protested. "I can be there in twenty
minutes."
"Which means I can just as easily be
there
in twenty minutes,"
he reminded her.
"But it's a little chaotic over here."
"Then you need to stay put," he said. "I've ordered the food.
It'll be ready in a few minutes and I'll head on over. Tell your grandmother
not to fix lunch. There's plenty for her, too."
"Why are you being so nice?"
"Because I'm a nice guy."
"A nice guy wouldn't be blackmailing me into staying in Chesapeake
Shores."
"I prefer to see it as protecting the bank's investment," he
countered. "See you soon."
Actually he was delighted by this turn of events. Ever since he'd seen Abby
again, he'd wanted to check out the lay of the land, so to speak. What better
way than to survey it for himself?
*
* *
The last person Trace expected to find waiting for him when
he reached Abby's was her father. Mick was sitting on the top step, his
expression forbidding, his seemingly deliberate positioning on that step pretty
much blocking Trace's path.
"Heard you were coming over," Mick said, his tone not the least bit
welcoming.
Trace held up the takeout bags. "I have a meeting with Abby. I brought
lunch."
Mick patted the step beside him. "Maybe you should sit down so you and I
can have a talk before you get together with Abby."
Just as Mick uttered the words, the screen door banged open. "Trace,
you're here!" Abby said with forced gaiety. "Come on inside."
Mick scowled. "Trace and I were about to have a chat."
Abby scowled at her father. "It can wait," she said firmly.
Trace watched with interest, wondering how the test of wills would play out. To
his amusement, it was Mick who finally backed down. He stood up and moved out
of the way.
"Guess I'll go over to the inn and deal with that overgrown
rhododendron," he muttered, picking up a pair of hedge clippers.
Abby faltered. "Does Jess know you're coming?"
"It was her idea," Mick assured her.
"Then it sounds like a great idea," Abby enthused.
After watching Mick amble away, Trace turned to Abby. "Why do I have the
feeling that you just saved me?"
"Because I did. He's not happy about this little scheme of yours."
"It's not a scheme. It makes perfect financial sense," he reiterated.
"Blah-blah-blah," she said. "We both know otherwise."
Trace met her gaze and held it. "Do you really think I'd use Jess's loan
as a way to, what, get even with you? I thought we'd settled that the other
day."
"Not to my satisfaction," she told him. "From what I hear,
you're trapped here for at least six months. Why not make my life miserable by
trapping me here, too?"
"I'm not trapped. I made a deal with my father. This is a six-month trial
run. Of course, I know the outcome will mean I leave and Laila will get the job
she should have had all along, but my father's optimistic things will work out
differently."
"Would you be here working at the bank if your dad hadn't forced you into
it?"
"He didn't force me into it," Trace said. "I agreed mostly to
prove a point."
"What point?"
"That my sister should be the one working there."
She smiled. "By doing what? Failing miserably?"
"Not miserably," he said. "Just look at the deal I struck with
you. I'd say I proved myself with that."
"We're not going to agree on what's going on here, are we?"
He shrugged. "Probably not."
"Then let's have lunch. Gram's set the dining room table. She seems to
think this meeting requires more formality, being strictly business and
all."
Trace chuckled. "Is she as ticked at me as your dad is?"
"Pretty much."
"Then this should be fun," Trace said, holding the door, then
following her inside.
*
* *
To Abby's regret, Gram was nowhere in sight when they
reached the dining room, and the table had only been set for two. Trace grinned
when he saw it.
"Now, isn't this an interesting turn of events?" he murmured.
"Could it be that your grandmother's matchmaking?"
"Absolutely not!" Abby said fiercely.
"Because you're married? At least I assume with kids, there must be a
husband in the picture."
"There was," she admitted, regretting the divorce for a fleeting
moment, if only because she sensed the existence of a husband would get that
wicked gleam out of Trace's eyes.
"Separated? Divorced?" he asked, as he removed containers of chopped
salad from the bags he'd brought. Without asking, he went about dishing the
salad onto the formal, gold-trimmed china Gram had put on the table.
"Divorced," she said, gritting her teeth against the personal turn
the conversation was taking. "Look, we're here to discuss the inn, not my
life."
"Just catching up," he said, as he reached into a second bag and
removed a container of what appeared to be the yacht club's decadent chocolate
mousse, one of Abby's all-time favorite desserts. Sometimes that mousse had
been the only way Trace or her family could lure her into that stuffy
atmosphere. They'd even ladled an extra dollop of whipped cream onto the top,
just the way she liked it.
She frowned as he set it in front of her place. How had he remembered that? And
why had he bothered? Was this just another way to get to her, to throw her
off-kilter right before he hit her with some other blow she wasn't expecting?
She waited warily until he sat down, then asked, "What's going on here,
Trace?"
He regarded her innocently. "We were supposed to meet over lunch. I
brought lunch. I don't see anything sinister in that. In fact, I thought I was
being downright considerate given that your kids are sick. Twins, right? I
think that's what Liz said."
"Carrie and Caitlyn," she said tightly, still not entirely trusting
all this thoughtfulness. "They came down with the measles yesterday. In
fact, they should be waking up soon from their naps, so we need to get our
business out of the way. Did the board meet?"
"They did."
"Don't make me drag this out of you. Just tell me what they decided."
"Everything remains in place, as long as you're on board."
Abby wasn't sure why she'd been hoping for a reprieve. Maybe she'd thought that
collectively the board might see through Trace's scheme and overrule him.
Obviously she hadn't taken into account his persuasiveness or his
determination.
Swallowing her desire to start another argument she wouldn't win, she leveled a
look at him. "How do you see this working? I do have a career, Trace, and
it's in New York. I can easily oversee all the expenditures from there, stay on
top of payments and so on."
He shook his head. "Not good enough. Come on, Abby, you know Jess. The
second your back is turned, she'll go right back to her impulsive spending, and
you'll be scrambling to cover for her."
She regarded him earnestly. "I'll make sure that doesn't happen. You have
my word on it."
"Not good enough."
She bristled at that. "Excuse me?"
"I've had some experience with how unreliable your word is,
remember?"
"That's ridiculous. It's another situation entirely. And besides, I never
gave you my word about anything ten years ago."
"You told me you loved me. I took you seriously."
"I did love you," she said, frustrated by his determination to use
old news to manipulate the present.
"And yet you vanished without so much as a goodbye, much less an
explanation. I'm not taking any chances on that happening again, not until the
bank feels comfortable that these loans are protected."
"You mean until
you
feel comfortable," she said. "It has
nothing to do with what anyone at the bank needs. There's plenty of cash in the
inn's account to cover expenses, and you know it. This is payback, pure and
simple, Trace, and I resent it. You're taking out our drama, if you want to
call it that, on my sister. You know perfectly well she'll pay back every penny
of those loans. So does the bank. This is about you and me."
"Is it really?" he said, his expression innocent.
"I had no idea you could be so vindictive and hateful."
"Which just goes to prove that we never really knew each other at all,
because I didn't have any idea you were capable of being cruel and a
coward."
His words cut right through her. She knew she deserved them, because that was
exactly what she had been, cruel and cowardly. That didn't make it any easier
to hear them or to have them coming back to haunt her all these years later.
She regarded him with bewilderment. "If you think so little of me, why on
earth do you want me around here now?"
"Because you were always the most intriguing, infuriating person in
Chesapeake Shores," he said. "I figure your presence will keep the
next few months from being boring."
"So, what—I'm the mouse and you're the big bad cat who gets to toy with me
just for entertainment?"
"Something like that."
She stood up, shaking with indignation. "You're despicable," she
said, grabbing the crystal pitcher filled with ice water.
His gaze narrowed. "You really don't want to do that," he warned.
"Oh, but I do," she countered, dumping the contents over his head.
She gave him a considering look as he sat there drenched, his expression
startled. Then she smiled in satisfaction. "Yep, that was exactly what I
wanted to do."
Then she whirled around and went upstairs to check on the girls. Pleased with
her little demonstration of temper, she was taken aback when she heard his
laughter echoing after her.
She met Gram in the hallway.
"What's going on?" her grandmother asked.
"I just dumped a pitcher of water over Trace's head."
Her grandmother's eyes twinkled, but she fought to contain a grin. "Was
that wise?"
Abby sighed. "Probably not, but it felt darn good."
Thinking of how she—and perhaps even Jess—were likely to pay for it, though,
made her just the tiniest bit nervous.
6
M
aking
himself at home, Trace wandered into the kitchen, found a dishtowel to mop up
his face and sop some of the water from his shirt, then took another towel into
the dining room to clean up the mess there. He regarded the dish of chocolate
mousse with regret. It hadn't exactly turned out to be the peace offering he'd
intended it to be.
"Chocolate mousse? Abby's favorite," Nell O'Brien noted as she walked
into the dining room and spotted it in his hand. "Nice touch, though I
imagine suggesting the yacht club for your meeting was your idea of a power
play. You know perfectly well she hates that place."
He winced at the accuracy of her comment. "None of it worked out quite the
way I'd planned," he commented wryly.
"I don't suppose she poured that pitcher of water over your head because
you brought her dessert," she said.
"No, I believe it had more to do with a few unflattering things I said to
her."
She shook her head. "You two act like you're six and still on the
playground. Go in the kitchen and take off your shirt. I'll throw it into the
dryer, and then maybe I'll give you a few tips on handling my
granddaughter."
Trace frowned at her, not entirely trusting the seemingly magnanimous offer.
Nell hadn't been one of his biggest fans ten years ago. He couldn't imagine why
that would suddenly change.
"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 acknowledged. "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."