Liz groaned. She’d completely forgotten about the command visit she’d insisted he pay to Cordelia.
“Give me ten minutes,” she said at once.
“Take twenty. I’ll make coffee.”
“If I had decent coffee in the house, do you think I’d drink so much at Sally’s?”
“Okay, then. I’ll make a run to Sally’s. You still get twenty minutes. How about some eggs to go with the coffee? Toast? Anything? Frankly, I’m starving, so I wouldn’t say no to breakfast before we go.”
Liz studied his cheerful expression, then sighed. “We’re back to giving me ten minutes. Then we’ll both go to Sally’s.”
He grinned. “That works for me. What about Archie?”
At last she found a reason to smile. “He can go upstairs and investigate his new home while we eat. He’s much better these days about chewing up the furniture.”
Aidan stared at her. “Am I supposed to take comfort from that?”
She beamed at him. “You probably should. He still has a few other habits you’ll probably want to break him of. I hope you have plenty of room on the top shelf in your closets for your shoes.”
Aidan’s heartfelt sigh followed her into the bathroom.
A few minutes later, they had Archie and his crate in Aidan’s car and were parking behind the shops on Main Street. Upstairs, which truly was a lot smaller than Liz had imagined, the dog went dutifully into his crate, though he gave Aidan a look of betrayal as he did it.
“We’ll be right back,” Liz promised. “You be a good dog. No barking.”
Woof! Archie barked, but without much energy behind it.
Downstairs at Sally’s Liz cursed her lack of foresight when they walked in to find the usual assortment of O’Brien women already assembled.
“There you are,” Bree called out. “We saved you a seat.” She grinned at Aidan. “We had no idea you were coming, but we can fit you in, too.”
Liz noted that Aidan looked as if he’d rather eat dirt, but he dutifully took the space Bree had indicated next to Heather in the booth, while Liz took the chair that had been pulled up to the end of the table. Aidan immediately grabbed a menu and hid behind it, which gave all of the women the chance to give Liz a less than subtle thumbs-up.
This morning just got better and better, Liz thought with a sigh. She was never going to hear the end of it. Her endless denials were already falling on deaf ears. She was starting to not give much credence to them herself. She was just about as smitten as they all thought she was.
* * *
When they’d played basketball, Connor O’Brien had told Aidan to feel free to borrow his boat anytime he felt like going out on the bay to do a little fishing.
So, after that uncomfortable breakfast accompanied by less than subtle grilling and a visit to Cordelia, who seemed thrilled about the new arrangement for her beloved Archie, Aidan made a quick call to Connor to make sure he didn’t have plans to use the boat. Some alone time on the water, where no meddlers could find him, held a lot of appeal.
At Mick’s, Aidan walked out onto the sun-drenched dock and launched the sturdy little rowboat. It had a small engine, but since he’d decided on doing this for the exercise, he stuck to using the oars. He was glad there was no one around to witness his awkward attempt to maneuver even such a tiny craft on the calm water.
He rowed steadily for a half hour or so until the muscles in his shoulders cried out, then rowed back to the dock, aware that it had been a pitiful testament to his inexperience on the water.
As he was tying up the boat, he glanced up and spotted Thomas O’Brien sitting on a bench at the end of the dock, his son Sean nearby with a fishing pole in his hands and his feet dangling in the water. Aidan fumbled with the rope he was using to tie the boat to the dock. Thomas caught it before it fell into the bay and tied it securely.
“How’s the fishing?” he asked Aidan.
“I couldn’t say. I was just testing to make sure I could get out on the water and back. Did you come over to take the boat out?” Aidan asked. “Connor said he wasn’t planning to use it this morning.”
“Sean’s perfectly content right here,” Thomas said. “So am I. Nothing I like better than being around the bay on a day like this. It’s a reminder of why I spend all those hours locked up in my office in Annapolis or making the rounds to visit all the power brokers trying to prod them into making tougher laws.”
As Aidan stood there awkwardly, trying to figure out something to say, he realized Thomas was studying him intently.
Maybe there was nothing more to the look than simple curiosity, but it made Aidan nervous. What if Thomas saw something familiar in his face? None of the other O’Briens seemed to have noted any family resemblance, but Aidan wasn’t 100 percent sure there wasn’t one.
“Since I ran into you, would this be a good time for you to tell me a little more about your foundation?” he asked, mostly to divert Thomas’s attention. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to reassure Thomas of his interest while he was at it.
To be honest, since coming to town and hearing so many extol Thomas’s virtues, he’d become increasingly curious about the mission that had kept the man from wanting to be a dad twenty-eight years ago. He seemed to have settled into the role quite comfortably now with Sean, who looked to be about seven.
“We do what we can to protect this amazing estuary,” Thomas explained readily. “It’s a never-ending task. Seems as if there’s always someone who wants to loosen the laws to allow more farm or industrial runoff. If we’re not strict about the limits on fishing, crabbing and so on,
