She stood up. “Maybe I will.”
But when she left the house, the thought of trying to track Will down to see why he hadn’t come to dinner struck her as pathetic. It shouldn’t matter that he hadn’t been there. He’d missed other dinners and she hadn’t been rattled by it. Why now? Why was she taking his absence today personally?
Of course, it was precisely as her father had said—when men and women started dating, everything changed, took on new meaning. Maturity and self-confidence flew out the window. It was ridiculous.
Instead of going looking for Will, she called Laila.
“What are you doing?” she asked her friend.
“Trying to come up with an excuse to leave my family before they start badgering me about why I’m dating a different man every few days instead of settling down,” Laila said.
“Meet me,” Jess suggested. “You can explain it to me, instead. I’m calling Connie, too. She was suspiciously absent from Sunday dinner today. She and my Uncle Thomas. Either they’re avoiding each other or they’re off somewhere together. I want to know which it is.”
Laila laughed. “Oh, goody. Potential gossip. Where shall we meet? It’s too early to go to the bar at Brady’s.”
“How about the inn? We can go for a walk on the beach and then order pizza later.”
“Perfect. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. It’ll take me that long to extricate myself from the inquisition that’s brewing over here.”
Jess disconnected that call, then hit speed dial for Connie’s cell phone. “You weren’t at dinner today,” she said when her friend answered. “Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Alone?”
“Why would you ask that?” Connie asked, instantly on the defensive.
“Because Uncle Thomas was missing in action today, too. Is he with you?”
Connie laughed, though it sounded a little forced. “No, he had a foundation board luncheon in Annapolis.”
“How nice that you’re keeping track of his schedule,” Jess commented. “What’s he doing for dinner?”
A guilty silence that spoke volumes greeted the question.
“Oh, my gosh, he’s coming to your place, isn’t he?” Jess said, gloating. “That’s why you stayed home, to get ready for his visit. Is tonight the night?”
“The night for what?” Connie inquired testily.
“You know, when the two of you will get down and dirty.”
“What a lovely description!” Connie said. “He’s coming here for dinner. That’s the plan.”
“And beyond that?” Jess pressed.
Connie gave a nervous laugh. “I wish I knew. I’m actually scared to death about what might come next.”
She sounded so genuinely terrified, Jess took pity on her. “Nothing else has to happen if you don’t want it to.”
“I know that. It’s not as if he’s pressuring me. We haven’t even been on that many dates. I just know that sooner or later, sleeping together is going to be the next step. What if I’ve forgotten how?”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t forget how to do sex,” Jess consoled her. “You’re just out of practice. And word is that my uncle has some pretty smooth moves.”
“Do you actually discuss stuff like that in your family?” She sighed. “Of course you do. Nothing is off-limits for the O’Briens, which is yet another reason why your uncle dating me is probably a bad idea.”
“Not to worry. We’d never openly discuss something that intimate,” Jess insisted. “But Uncle Thomas does have quite the dating history. There has to be some reason women flock around him.”
“Oh, God,” Connie murmured in despair. “I did not need to be reminded that I’m competing with half the single women in Annapolis, who’re probably far more sophisticated than I am.”
“Stop that!” Jess ordered. “It’s going to be fine. He likes you. You like him. After that, it all comes naturally, or so they tell me.”
“I hope you’re right,” Connie said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
“Look, Laila’s coming over to the inn and we’re going to hang out. I was going to invite you, but you’re obviously tied up. Call if you need either one of us. We’ll talk you down or race over there to run interference. Whatever you need, okay?”
“Thanks. I wish I were going to be there with you.”
“No, you don’t,” Jess said. “Or if you do, you’re crazy. Relax and have fun. Despite my teasing, my uncle’s a good guy and he would be very, very lucky to have you in his life.”
She was smiling when she hung up. It seemed love was in the air, at least for one of them. As for her, well, that remained to be seen.
Thomas arrived at Connie’s with flowers, candy and a new book about the bay that he’d been telling her about. He was more nervous than he had been when he’d had to speak before the board earlier. Though he was used to public speaking and it came naturally enough, he was always on edge when he had to explain to the foundation’s biggest donors why more progress hadn’t been made on restoring the bay’s waters. The last thing the foundation could afford was having their donors decide they were wasting their money.
Right now, though, that seemed like a piece of cake compared to facing Connie over a dinner table in her home. There was something about the privacy and the expectations that seemed to go with it that made him feel like a kid again…and not in a good way. He was not one of those men who was interested in reliving his youth. Those days had been damn awkward, if he recalled correctly.
When he rang the doorbell, pleased with himself for being right on time, Connie opened it with her cheeks flushed, her hair mussed and her expression clearly flustered.
“I have to grab the chicken before it burns up,” she announced and took off without so much as a welcome.
Thomas shook his head and followed her into the kitchen, where he found her already bent over an open oven door.
“Anything I can do to help?” he asked, just as she backed up and straight into him, the slightly-past-golden-brown chicken wobbling dangerously in its roasting pan.
He was about to
