“I don’t give two figs what Mick thinks,” Thomas claimed, then sighed. “That won’t stop me from having to listen to his opinion, though.”
“No, it most certainly won’t,” she agreed. She placed a hand on his cheek. “It’s going to be okay, Thomas. We’ll work through it. So will you and Aidan. And with his mom gone, I think it’s possible that he needs a father in his life more than he realizes.”
“He says otherwise,” Thomas told her, aware that it had been anger over all the years lost talking.
“I’m sure he does. He is an O’Brien, after all. They never admit to wanting something if they’re afraid they might not get it. He’s keeping his feelings for Liz close to the vest for the same reason.”
He drew her out of her chair and onto his lap. “Have I told you lately how very much I love you and how lucky I was the day you came into my life?”
“You have,” she said, her head on his shoulder. “But it’s something I never tire of hearing.”
“I love you, Connie.”
“Right back at you.”
Thomas sighed, and for the first time in days thought maybe everything really would turn out to be all right.
18
Aidan was waiting on the porch when Liz got home from the store. It was after seven, so he’d begun to wonder if she’d changed her mind and decided to ditch him and all the soul-baring. Archie barked enthusiastically at her arrival, as did the dogs inside the house. Her animals had been in a frenzy for the past few minutes ever since they’d heard Archie outside. He’d heard them scratching at the door, too, and envisioned owing Liz a paint job.
“Sorry about the commotion and the extra guest,” Aidan apologized. “Archie wanted to visit his friends.”
“Did he really?” she said, weariness written all over her face. “He told you that?”
“You’d be surprised by how well he communicates.” He studied her as she opened the door. “You okay?”
“Exhausted, to be honest. And annoyed. I was all set to leave by six-fifteen. I’d closed out the register and even filled out a deposit slip. Just as I was about to turn off the lights, a tourist came by and knocked on the door. Since I try not to turn away prospective business, I let her in.”
“Why, if you were already closed? Couldn’t you have explained that to her?”
“Prospective business, remember? She’d been in earlier and expressed an interest in one of Matthew’s custom doghouses. Crazy me, I assumed she’d decided to order one. Instead, she started debating with herself all over again about whether she wanted to spend the money or not. I’m pretty sure she thought if she wore me down, I’d drop the price, but I finally told her flatly she’d have to negotiate that with Matthew. I gave her his card and practically pushed her out the door.” She looked guilty. “I doubt I’ll be seeing her again.”
Aidan chuckled. “Sounds to me as if you displayed amazing patience, and dumping her off on Matthew was ingenious. He does get the biggest slice of the doghouse profits, after all. Why shouldn’t he handle some of the aggravation?”
She smiled at last. “I doubt he’ll see it that way, but I’m sure he’s dealt with more than his share of difficult, demanding customers, to say nothing of having his uncle Mick as his boss. Just like his uncle, though, he has all that O’Brien charm to fall back on, something I’m lacking.”
Aidan could see the exhaustion around her eyes. “Would you rather postpone dinner? We can do this another night.”
She shook her head. “No, come on in. It won’t take me long to change. A quick shower should revive me.”
He caught her gaze. “We could share it. That would put some color back in your cheeks.”
She laughed. “I’m sure it would, but we have a whole lot to work out before you get to see me naked.”
Aidan doubted that the one-sided conversation he anticipated happening tonight was going to get them to that point. “You sure about that? Sometimes it’s better to just jump into these things than it is to talk them to death.”
“I’m not surprised you’d think so,” she said, clearly amused by his self-serving suggestion. “But I need the talk, Aidan. I need to work through about a million issues that are in my head. Most of them have nothing to do with you personally, but they’re there, and they’re real for me. Dealing with them is the only way we’ll ever be able to move forward.”
“A million, huh? I guess we’d better get started, then. You take your shower and I’ll have the sandwiches ready when you get to the kitchen. I assume you’re hungry.”
“Starving, actually,” she admitted, giving him no argument at all about commandeering her kitchen. “Thanks.”
With all three dogs and one suspicious cat watching his every move, Aidan made three BLTs with a couple of the perfect tomatoes that Liz’s mom had left. Admittedly, while standing over the sink, he ate a half of one tomato with only a little salt sprinkled on it. If it was possible to capture summer in a single food, this was it for him. There had been enough fresh tomatoes from his mom’s rooftop garden to last through the summer and into fall, even after sharing them with all the neighbors.
With the sandwiches made, he looked around and found an unexpected treat to cap off the meal, a container of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Of course, he sneaked a sample of those, too, then put the rest on the table, along with two glasses of iced tea. He’d discovered the pitcher of sweet tea for Liz already made and chilling in the refrigerator. Since he wasn’t a convert to that yet, he zapped a tea bag in a cup of water in the microwave to make his own unsweetened tea.
When Liz got to the kitchen, wearing another pair of those impossibly short
