“We are, but my mom is supposed to get little Mick and take him over to the house for dinner with her and Dad.”
“Another of those decisions to which I wasn’t privy?” she muttered testily.
“It’s hard to have a romantic dinner with a toddler present,” he said.
Heather studied him with a narrowed gaze. “You didn’t say anything about a romantic dinner.”
“Didn’t I?” he asked innocently. “My mistake. We’re going to Brady’s. There’ll be candlelight, wine, the whole nine yards.”
“Why?”
“Because you deserve it,” he said simply, looking relieved when Megan finally walked in. “Mom, great! Mick’s all ready. Since he’ll probably be asleep by the time we’ve finished dinner, he can just stay over, right? He has extra clothes in my room.”
“No problem,” Megan said.
Heather looked from one conspiring O’Brien to the other. “Hold on. There is no reason he can’t come home and sleep in his own bed.”
Connor’s gaze caught hers and held. “There might be.”
A tingle of anticipation shot down her spine at the less than subtle innuendo in his voice, but she couldn’t allow him to run roughshod over her. “There won’t be,” she retorted stubbornly.
He smiled. “We’ll play it by ear,” he told his mother. “I’ll give you a call.”
Megan laughed. “Whatever works. I’ll wait to hear from you. Now have a wonderful evening, you two, and don’t worry about a thing. Mick bought a new toy of some kind today, so I imagine that will keep both of them occupied. I swear, I think the reason he wants all these grandkids is so he can play with all the toys.”
Little Mick overheard the mention of his grandfather and ran to Megan. “G’pa Mick?”
Megan scooped him up. “Yes, he’s waiting for us, sweet pea. Let’s go see him.”
Connor turned to Heather. “What about you? Are you ready to go?”
She thought for an instant about saying no, about insisting that he help her back upstairs, then asking him to leave, but temptation won. Romantic dinners had been few and far between in their past. Early on, there hadn’t been the money for them, and later there hadn’t been the time.
She lifted her gaze to Connor’s and smiled. “I’m ready,” she said. At least for dinner.
As for what he was so clearly planning afterward, she’d been ready for that since the day they’d met, which was how they’d wound up with little Mick in the first place. No matter how hard she’d fought to put the attraction behind her, it obviously hadn’t worked.
* * *
Connor wasn’t foolish enough to think that a candlelit dinner and some wine would turn the tide for his relationship with Heather, but he was hoping it would shake up the status quo. What he hadn’t counted on was running into his sister Jess and Will the minute they walked in the door at Brady’s. Jess’s eyes lit up.
“You’re on a date?” she asked.
“Not really,” Heather said a little too quickly. “Why don’t you join us?”
Will cast a look toward Connor, seeking a reaction. Connor sighed and shrugged. “Sure, why not?” he said with resignation. Maybe a buffer was exactly what they needed. It might keep the evening from getting more intense than Heather was ready to handle. She certainly seemed to feel the need for someone to intercede, or she wouldn’t have uttered the impulsive invitation.
“Will, I think maybe we’re intruding,” Jess said, holding him back. “We’ll all have dinner another time.”
“No, really,” Heather said, an unmistakable note of desperation in her voice. “It’ll be fun.”
Jess continued to look uncertain. “If you’re sure…”
“We’re sure,” Connor told her.
Over crab dip and wine, Heather visibly relaxed, and Connor recognized that he’d made the right decision. She was a lot more comfortable having the other couple around. Jess, bless her, told way too many tales about his misadventures as a boy, with Will chiming in to add more. Heather laughed more than she had in a long while.
By the time they left Brady’s, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling.
“That was fun,” she declared when they were driving back to her place. “I’m so glad they joined us. They make a cute couple.”
“Don’t say that to Jess,” he warned. “She claims Will drives her crazy.”
“But he obviously adores her,” Heather said.
Connor shrugged. “That seems to be plain to everyone except my sister.”
She hesitated, met his gaze, then looked away. “Thank you for not making too much out of my insistence that they have dinner with us.”
“Why did you?”
“To be honest, I think I was nervous,” she admitted.
“With me?”
She nodded. “Crazy, isn’t it? We know each other so well. We even have a son together, but it almost felt like a first date.”
Connor smiled. “That’s exactly how I wanted it to feel. It was that fresh start I mentioned to you the other day.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “But you didn’t have first-date plans for afterward, did you?”
He chuckled. “How’d you guess?”
“Getting rid of little Mick for the night was a pretty big clue. You forgot about my mom, though. Bingo’s probably over by now.”
Connor pulled into a parking place in the alley behind her apartment, then turned and met her gaze, his expression suddenly sober. “Which is why she’s spending the night at Gram’s.”
Heather swallowed hard. “She is? She actually agreed to that?”
“It was her idea, as a matter of fact. I get the feeling she’s pretty confident that she’s about to get her wish for the two of us, and she wants to do whatever she can to assure it happens.”
He saw the mix of emotions in Heather’s eyes. Desire and yearning were there, but fear and confusion were, too.
“I don’t have to stay tonight,” he said softly, holding her gaze. “But I want to.”
She hesitated, then whispered, “I want you to, but, Connor, it doesn’t—”
He cut her off. “It doesn’t have to be a guarantee of anything. I just need to show you how very much I love
