Whether Connor was around or not, at least her son wouldn’t be lacking when it came to strong male role models. She just couldn’t help wishing that his daddy would be the most important one.
* * *
Rather than going home, Connor drove over to The Inn at Eagle Point, hoping to find his sister Jess there. Jess was younger, which meant she still thought he hung the moon, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Better yet, she was single, which meant she had little to say on the subject of his reluctance to wed the mother of his child. All of his other siblings were now so happily wed and starry-eyed, they could no longer seem to grasp his point of view. How they’d accomplished that given the example they’d all grown up with was beyond him.
He found Jess in the inn’s cluttered office with a mountain of paperwork spread out on the desk in front of her.
“This is what you do for excitement on a Saturday night?” he taunted, settling down in a chair and propping his feet on the desk.
“It is when it’s the end of the month and I haven’t touched any of these papers until now,” she said. “If Abby catches sight of this mess, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I thought our big sister hired an accountant to take care of the bills,” Connor said, referring to Abby’s intervention a few years earlier to keep the inn from bankruptcy before it even got its doors open.
“She did, but there are still some things only I can handle,” Jess said with a sigh. “It’s the most boring part of the job.”
“Which is why you neglect it,” Connor guessed.
She nodded. “Exactly. At least you’re not blaming it on my attention deficit disorder,” she said. “Everyone else does. Any time I mess up, it’s because of the ADD. I’m tired of people using that as an excuse when I let things slide. Sometimes a screwup is just a screwup.”
“Are you referring to a specific mistake or yourself?” Connor asked, his gaze narrowing. “Because nobody calls my sister a screwup.”
She grinned. “Thanks, but sometimes that’s exactly what I am. I’m sure Abby would be happy to fill you in on all the ways I’ve messed up. I’ll bet she keeps lists.”
He hated hearing Jess talk about herself in such disparaging terms. She’d overcome a lot of difficulties to achieve everything she had. “In the end, though, you’ve made a success of the inn, Jess,” he reminded her. “You should be proud. All the rest of us are, Abby included.”
“Mostly I am,” she admitted, then sighed. “I suppose I’m just having those end-of-the-month blues tonight.”
She leaned back and propped her own feet on the desk. “So what brings you to town, especially on a Saturday night? Did you come to see Heather and your son? It’s about time, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Honestly, I didn’t even know they’d moved here,” he admitted. “How awful is that? Heather never said a word.”
“She probably thought you wouldn’t be interested,” Jess said.
“Yeah, that’s what she said.”
“Are you? Interested, I mean?”
“If it were up to me, she and little Mick would still be living with me in Baltimore,” Connor said candidly, then sighed himself. “But I do understand why she bailed. I won’t give her the one thing she wants.”
“A ring on her finger?” Jess guessed.
“Exactly.”
“Is it about a ring or a commitment?”
Connor considered the question. “I’d say the ring. I was committed to her a hundred percent, and she knew it.”
“But don’t you see, Connor, the ring is proof of that,” Jess said, leveling a look at him he hadn’t expected. “I get where she’s coming from.”
Connor frowned. “I thought you’d be on my side.”
“Hey, I am always on your side,” she told him. “It doesn’t mean I can’t see another point of view. Plus, I actually get how women think, which is more than you can say or you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Then you think I should marry Heather?” he asked.
“Not if you don’t love her,” his sister responded at once, then grinned. “But I think you do.” She shrugged. “Then again, what do I know about that? My own experience with grand passion is seriously in need of a major overhaul. I haven’t stuck with anyone for more than a minute. It’s making Dad very nervous. One of these days he’s going to take on my love life and try to fix it. If you can keep him distracted from that with your situation for, say, another ten years, I’d appreciate it.”
Connor studied her with amusement. “Dad has someone in mind for you?”
“No one specific, but I’ve seen him looking long and hard at every single man who’s ever in the same room with me, weighing what kind of candidate they’d make.” She shuddered. “It’s embarrassing. I wouldn’t put it past him to come up with some kind of dowry to get me down the aisle.”
Connor gave her a thoughtful look. “You’ve got to be worth at least a couple of cows and a herd of sheep, don’t you think?”
She scowled at him. “You are not even remotely amusing.”
“Look, if you don’t want to risk Dad getting involved, then go find the man you want,” Connor said. “That’ll put a stop to it.”
“You say that as if it’s as easy as plucking the ripest, sweetest peach from a tree in mid-July. In this town the pickings are pretty slim.”
“You run an inn full of tourists,” he reminded her.
“Available men do not come to a romantic little seaside inn alone,” she replied. “Would you?”
Connor winced. “Now that you mention it, no. Okay, start offering packages for business meetings. The new golf course should be opening soon. I’ll bet you could attract a law firm, for instance, to come for a weekend of meetings and golf.”
Jess’s eyes immediately lit up. “That’s a great idea! I could design
