“I suppose.”
“Did you want her to get to know my uncle better?” he asked, staring straight ahead at the road when he said it.
Connie seemed to choke. “Excuse me?”
He glanced over at her. “I was just wondering if you thought maybe he’d be a good influence on her.”
“Well, of course he would be, but that’s not why,” she said hurriedly. “It’s about making her think about something besides clothes and boys.”
“Sure.”
“Connor, is there something on your mind?”
“Not a thing,” he swore. “It’s just that I think Uncle Thomas is great, and of course Kevin thinks the world of him. We’d all like to see him happy.”
Her gaze narrowed. “You don’t think he’s happy now?”
“Generally speaking, yes, but unlike me, he’s one of those men who actually is happiest when he’s married. He just hasn’t had much luck staying married, because he cares too much about his work.”
“I don’t understand how any woman couldn’t appreciate the passion he has for such a wonderful cause,” Connie said, jumping to Thomas’s defense in a way that Connor found telling. “What he does is admirable.”
“I didn’t know his first wife very well,” Connor admitted. “I was just a kid when they got married and divorced. The second one had some issues of her own that made them a very bad match.”
She nodded. “He mentioned something about that,” she told him.
“Really? Then you’ve talked about personal issues?”
She peered at him with undisguised amusement. “Yes, Connor,” she said with exaggerated patience. “We’ve talked about more than bacteria in the water.”
“Good to know,” he said.
“Connor, you’re not going to make too much of this, are you?” she pleaded, a frantic note in her voice. “Not that there’s anything to say, of course, but I wouldn’t want anyone in your family—or mine—to get the wrong idea. Or Thomas, either, for that matter.”
“And what would be the wrong idea?”
“That there’s anything …” She blushed furiously. “You know, anything personal going on between your uncle and me. We’ve spent very little time together, and the focus has been almost exclusively on this project.”
“Too bad,” he said, then glanced over and held her gaze for just an instant. “If you ask me, there should be something personal going on. You’re both great people.”
And that was the last thing he would say on the subject. Anything else was up to the two of them.
* * *
With her son spending the weekend with Connor, Heather was at loose ends Saturday night and all day Sunday. She found she wasn’t very good at it. By Sunday evening, she was going a little stir-crazy. She decided to have dinner at Sally’s just to get out of her small apartment. She considered calling Laila or Connie for company, but instead opted for walking around to the café on her own. It was ironic in a way how few times in her life she’d actually eaten alone in public. She probably ought to get used to it.
She took a book along to read while she ate, but once seated at a table she couldn’t seem to focus on it. She kept staring out the window, watching the people walking by. It seemed they were almost all in pairs. She sighed as she acknowledged that was the way she’d always imagined her life, as part of a couple.
She’d been seated for fifteen minutes or less and had just started on her hamburger when Connor walked in with little Mick.
“Mama!” little Mick called out, then released his father’s hand and toddled unsteadily straight toward her.
Heather stared at him with a mix of wonder and tears. “You’re walking,” she whispered, then gathered him close. “Good for you, my big boy!”
She turned to Connor. “When?” she asked, unable to stop the jealousy that streaked through her as she acknowledged that she’d missed this big milestone. Oh, little Mick had come close before, but mostly he’d clung to surfaces as he teetered around their apartment. These had been real steps, taken all on his own.
“This morning,” Connor said, clearly reading the disappointment in her expression. “I’m sorry you missed it. He spotted something he wanted across the kitchen and just went after it.”
“I wish I’d been there,” she admitted.
“You’ve been there for all of his other firsts,” Connor reminded her. “I’ve missed more than my share.”
“I know. It’s silly of me, but this was such a big one.”
“It could have happened with a babysitter or Mom and Dad instead of either one of us,” he consoled her, then reached in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “I took pictures, though.”
She scanned through the pictures, smiling at the one in which little Mick seemed to realize he was standing on his own in the middle of the room and, in the next, plunked down on the floor, the toy he’d gone after clutched in his hand.
“I’ll have prints made for you,” Connor promised. “Do you mind if we join you?”
It was a moot point, since Mick had already scrambled into the booth beside her. “Of course not.”
Connor slid in opposite her, then fell silent.
Eventually, when she couldn’t bear the quiet for another second, she met his gaze and asked the question that had been troubling her all weekend. “Is it true what I heard? Are you seriously thinking of moving back here?”
He nodded. “How would you feel about that?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said candidly. “I think it would be wonderful for you to have a fresh start practicing a different kind of law, and it would be fantastic for little Mick.”
“But not so much for you,” he guessed, showing surprising perceptiveness.
“I just don’t know how I feel about it,” she admitted. “I’m barely getting used to being on my own. In fact, right before you got here, I was thinking about how few times I’ve ever eaten alone in public. It felt a little awkward when I first sat down, but then I realized no one was paying a bit of attention to me. Do you know, until now
