“I don’t need anyone’s shoulder to cry on about Jess,” Will claimed, though his expression turned despondent. “That ship sailed a long time ago.”
“Really?” Connor said innocently. “I was pretty sure it was still at the dock. Maybe you need to check.”
Will shook his head. “I’ve already surpassed my threshold for pain in that department. I’ve moved on.”
Connor was about to argue, but then he saw the genuine hurt in Will’s eyes. That alone was enough to silence him. He’d always thought of Will as a roll-with-the-punches kind of guy. That Jess had truly hurt him was a little shocking.
After watching everyone in his family do their share of meddling, Connor had vowed never to do the same, but these circumstances were different. It was Will and Jess, for heaven’s sake, one of his best friends and his baby sister.
One of these days, when he thought the timing was right, he was going to have a whole lot to say to his sister about being blind to one of the best men he’d ever known.
CHAPTER 20
They’d had their morning coffee together and Megan was about to head to work, when Mick decided to join her. He had some things in town that needed doing, and he saw no reason to put them off.
“Mind if I tag along?” he asked, following along as Megan headed for her car.
She stopped and stared. “You want to go to the gallery with me? Since when?”
“To be honest, I was thinking I might drop in next door,” he admitted.
Megan’s expression immediately turned to dismay. “Mick, you’re not going over to Heather’s to interfere, are you? Connor will have a fit if you do.”
He gave her a defiant look. “Well, somebody has to get those two to work out their differences. This has dragged on long enough. I want a wedding. I want more grand-babies before I’m too old to play with them.”
“We have Carrie and Caitlyn, Kevin’s two boys and now Bree and Jake’s little girl,” Megan reminded him. “And, of course, there’s your namesake. Let’s not forget that little Mick’s a part of our lives, mostly because we haven’t chased Heather off by pressuring her.”
“I’m not going to pressure her,” Mick insisted indignantly. “I’m just going to check out the lay of the land, so to speak. Besides, I have the perfect excuse. Connor wants me to renovate that house for her. I need to get her ideas down on paper, don’t I?”
“An interesting approach,” she conceded. “But the last I heard, Heather was still furious that Connor bought the house she wanted for herself. You may be rubbing salt in a very fresh wound.”
“Or giving her some much-needed perspective,” Mick countered, convinced that he was doing what needed to be done. His wife might have very fine instincts about people, but she had more patience than he did. “Heather probably just needs someone older and wiser to help her see that Connor was only thinking of her.”
“If I were Heather, I’d probably think he was trying to blackmail her into marrying him, just the way he did when he told her he’d get her out of the hospital if she agreed to marry him.”
For an instant, Mick was shocked. “He did that?”
“According to Bridget, he did. Oh, he didn’t mean it to come out that way, but Heather’s obviously touchy about this sudden attitude shift of his. She doesn’t trust it.”
“Maybe I can make her see that it’s real,” Mick said optimistically.
Megan didn’t look entirely convinced, but she waited until he’d settled in the passenger seat before starting the engine and heading for town. If she’d been truly annoyed, she’d have had time to drive off without him. He took heart from the fact that she hadn’t.
After she’d pulled into a parking spot behind the gallery, Mick said, “I think I’ll walk around to Sally’s and pick up a couple of croissants and some coffee.”
His wife regarded him with amusement. “Are you thinking that if you come bearing baked goods, Heather won’t toss you back onto the street?”
“It can’t hurt,” he admitted. Despite his earlier display of confidence, he wasn’t all that sure of his welcome. Megan was the one who’d established a real rapport with Heather. Perhaps she was the one who ought to be interceding. He gave her a hopeful look. “Maybe you should come along with me. The two of you seemed to bond after she left little Mick with us.”
Megan backed up a step. “Don’t involve me in your scheming. I need to keep those lines of communication open. Right now I may be one of the few people in our family Heather trusts.”
Mick shrugged. “Suit yourself. Can I bring you anything from Sally’s?”
“I’ll take a coffee, but you can skip the croissant. I feel as if I’ve been eating nonstop with Nell fixing all these family meals every couple of days.”
Mick nodded. He strolled down the block and around the corner, stopping to greet and chat with a half-dozen friends on the way. It was after eleven by the time he actually made his way back to Heather’s, so he stopped and picked up sandwiches at Panini Bistro while he was at it. He might as well arrive well-fortified with bribes.
He dropped Megan’s coffee off at the gallery, managed to avoid another of her lectures, then climbed the stairs to Heather’s apartment. When he knocked on the door, he heard her shout for him to come in. When he entered, though, she looked startled.
“Oh, I thought you were Connie. She called a short while ago to say she was going to stop by and bring lunch.”
“I may not be Connie, but I did bring food,” Mick told her. “You have your choice of a ham-and-cheese panini or a chocolate croissant. Or both, for that matter.”
Her eyes brightened. “It sounds wonderful, Mick, but I probably shouldn’t, since Connie’s going to all that trouble to bring something over.”
“Then save this for dinner,” Mick said easily. He put
