Free Flowers on Main by Sherryl Woods Page A

at him with shock.
    “You and Susie O’Brien? Since when?” Will demanded.
    “It wasn’t a big deal,” Mack said, though the faint reddening of his ears said otherwise. “I ran into her. We had a couple of drinks.”
    “Well, well, well,” Jake began, amused. “And you two thought I was holding out. Last time I checked, Susie O’Brien had told you hell would freeze over before she ever accepted a date with the likes of you.”
    “Which is why this wasn’t a date,” Mack explained patiently. “It was a couple of drinks. Not a date.”
    “Who paid?” Will asked.
    “I did,” Mack said. “What kind of man do you think I am?”
    Jake lifted a brow at that, but Will was grinning.
    “Sounds like a date to me,” Will said. He glanced at Jake. “You?”
    “I’d call it a date,” Jake concurred, so happy to have the attention shifted to another of the O’Brien women he wouldhave called it anything anyone wanted him to just to prolong the conversation.
    Mack glared at both of them. “Do you want to hear what I found out about Bree or not?”
    “Not,” Jake said at once.
    “Don’t listen to him,” Will commanded. “Talk. He needs to know what’s going on, whether he’ll admit that or not.”
    “Bree rented the empty space two doors down from here. For two years.”
    Jake swallowed hard and tried not to let his immediate sense of panic show. Two years? A lease? This couldn’t be good. He’d reconciled himself to running into her for a few more weeks, maybe even a couple of months, but he’d convinced himself she’d go running back to Chicago and her boyfriend there sooner or later. He’d banked on sooner. Later was bad. Very, very bad. Two years was an eternity of keeping his defenses up.
    He bolted from the booth. “I need to get back to work,” he declared, throwing a handful of bills on the table. “I’ll catch you guys later.”
    “Well, he took that news well,” Will said loudly as Jake was fleeing.
    Mack’s voice carried even more clearly. “No big deal, wasn’t that what he said?” He laughed. “I told you the man was delusional.”
    Jake sighed. He wasn’t delusional. He was in more trouble than he’d been in for six long years, and the only way he could think to get out of it was to get a red-headed vixen out of town before she drove him out of what was left of his ever-loving mind.
     

5
     
    M egan found herself worrying about Bree for several days after Mick left. It was par for the course that after not getting his way about luring her back to Chesapeake Shores, he’d forgotten all about the fact that he’d used their daughter’s problems as bait. She supposed he’d call again or turn up in New York whenever it suited him, oblivious to his lack of consideration in not checking in to reassure her about Bree. Or maybe he’d assumed she would call, if she cared. It would be just like him to wait her out as some kind of perverse test.
    Annoyed no matter which tactic he was employing, she picked up the phone and dialed the once-familiar number at the house in Maryland. Nell answered on the first ring. Megan could envision her in the kitchen, her morning cup of tea and a freshly baked scone in front of her.
    Oh, how she’d missed those scones and their morning chats when she’d fled to New York. Before that, when Nell had been living in her own small cottage designed by Mick, she’d walked over nearly every day with freshly baked scones for the two of them to share while they talked about anything and everything.
    Nell had been far more than a mother-in-law. She’d been a friend, though the one topic that had been off-limits wasMegan’s frustration with Mick’s increasingly long absences. Nell would have understood, but Megan hadn’t felt it fair to drag her into the middle of their problems.
    Instead, she’d wound up leaving Nell to care for her children. It had never been her intention, but she couldn’t help noting the irony in it.
    “Megan!” Nell said,