Sherryl Woods - Willow Brook Road

“We’ll sit at the bar,” Mick told him. “Then you can fill us in on why Carrie was in such a state when she left here.”

“Mick!” Megan protested. “Don’t involve Luke in this.”

Luke regarded them with an innocent expression that Mick wasn’t buying for a second.

“Was she in some kind of a state?” Luke inquired, as if he hadn’t noticed a thing out of the ordinary about her mood.

Mick frowned at him. “Did all you kids make a pact to keep me in the dark about things?”

His nephew laughed. “No pact,” he insisted. “But I did take an oath to protect my customers’ privacy.”

“Carrie’s not a customer. She’s family.”

“Then march right on over to her house and ask her yourself,” Luke suggested, setting a pint of ale in front of Mick and a glass of red wine in front of Megan, who was trying hard to bite back a smile.

“Ungrateful wretch,” Mick mumbled.

“Watch it or I’ll tell Gram you were calling me names,” Luke retorted.

“Ma doesn’t scare me,” Mick said.

“Well, she ought to,” Megan said. “Now hush. Let’s have a nice dinner and then go home.”

Mick sighed as Luke beat a hasty retreat, leaving him to stew over the lack of information. “You’re both acting as if I’m in the wrong for being concerned about my own granddaughter,” he told Megan.

“Not wrong,” she soothed. “Just misguided. Carrie’s a grown woman. She’ll figure things out for herself. And to be honest, Mick, the more you push, the harder you’ll make that for her. Stubbornness is a family trait. You, of all people, ought to know that.”

He scowled at his wife. “You saying I’m stubborn?”

She gave him an incredulous look. “You are the king of stubborn!” she declared. “But you’re also caring and thoughtful and I wouldn’t have you any other way. Just, please, this once, stop your meddling. It was partly because of your good intentions that our Caitlyn barely made it down the aisle before her baby was born. Learn from past mistakes.”

“Caitlyn’s married now, isn’t she? And every one of our kids and my brother Jeff’s are settled and happy, in some measure due to my so-called good intentions.”

“In spite of,” Megan corrected. She called out to Luke, who was hovering just out of view in the kitchen doorway. “Luke, bring us some of that stew, and hurry, please. Maybe if Mick’s stomach is full of some good old-fashioned Irish food, he’ll take a break from fretting about Carrie.”

Mick frowned at the suggestion. “I’m perfectly capable of doing two things at once,” he told her.

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I know,” she said quietly. “More’s the pity. If you need something else to chew on, how about this?”

The suggestion she whispered in his ear for how they might spend the rest of the evening pretty much wiped all thoughts of his granddaughter and her problems right out of his head. He grinned at his wife.

“Clever woman,” he murmured approvingly.

“You haven’t loved me all these years for no reason,” she said smugly.

Mick sighed. That was true enough. Even during all the years they’d been apart, he’d loved her to pieces. It had just taken getting past his hurt pride to give him the courage to fight to win her back. Now that he had, maybe he shouldn’t be wasting quite so much time on fixing everybody else’s lives.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he offered.

“What’s that?”

“For the rest of tonight you have my full attention.”

“And then?” she asked.

“You run your art gallery during the day, and I’ll do the things I need to do.”

“Of course you will,” she said with a sigh. “But if that’s the best I can hope for, at least Carrie will have the night off from your interference.”

Mick gave a nod of satisfaction. He doubted Carrie’s problem would resolve itself overnight. He’d make it his priority first thing in the morning.

* * *

Carrie wandered around the cottage, half expecting her grandfather to appear any minute with more of his questions and disappointed looks when she had no answers for him. When he never appeared, she knew she probably had Grandma Megan and maybe even Luke to thank.

Oddly enough, she would have welcomed the distraction of one of Grandpa Mick’s cross-examinations. Images of Sam Winslow were a little too enticing for her comfort, especially when counterpointed against the disdain she’d felt radiating from him during their conversation. Add in his boneheaded move of leaving his nephew alone in the car, no matter how he’d justified it, and he definitely wasn’t someone she should be giving the time of day. Luke had probably been right about that. She wasn’t crazy about acknowledging that, either.

When her phone rang, she seized it, grateful for the excuse to escape her conflicted reaction to the man.

“Who was the guy?” her twin asked the second Carrie answered.

“Excuse me?”

“The guy at the pub,” Caitlyn said. “The one who got you all tied up in knots.”

“There was no guy,” Carrie said, then amended, “Well, there was a man who came in. We had words. I actually yelled at him.”

“You yelled at him,” Cait repeated, sounding shocked. “Why would you do that?”

“He left a child alone in his parked car. I discovered the boy sound asleep in the backseat when I was leaving the pub.”

“So this guy left a sleeping child in a car, then came into the pub to drink?”

“Not to drink,” Carrie said hurriedly. “To order takeout. And to be fair, he was keeping an eye on the boy the whole time, but I freaked out just the same.”

“I don’t blame you. But the second you realized the guy was an irresponsible jerk, why’d you hang out with him?”

“I didn’t hang out with him,” Carrie replied impatiently. “How’d you hear about this, anyway?”

“Noah stopped by the pub after work with Jackson. He and Luke got to talking. Luke was worried. He thought he detected some sparks flying between the two of you.”

“Luke never even saw us in the same room,” Carrie argued. “He doesn’t know anything.”

“Okay, he has his suspicions,” Caitlyn said with exaggerated patience. “He shared them with Noah.”

“Please tell me Grandpa Mick was nowhere around when they had this conversation.”

“Noah didn’t mention our grandfather. Why would you think he was there?”

“Because he and Grandma Megan were going in just after I left. He called out to me, but I pretended not to hear him and kept on walking.”

“Oh, boy!” Cait said. “I’m sure that went over well. Don’t you know by now that just makes Grandpa Mick more determined to find out what’s going on?”

“I know,” Carrie said with a sigh. “I’ve been expecting him to turn up here ever since I got home.”

“So you apparently got a reprieve till morning,” Cait concluded. “Now tell me more about this guy who’s a jerk. What’s his name?”

“Sam Winslow. He’s the new web designer and tech expert for Mack at the paper. You know how much Mack depends on whoever’s in that position. He says the paper’s web presence is what’s saving it from failure. The guy can’t be a total flake if Mack trusts him.”

“And the boy? Is Sam a single dad?”

Carrie told her what she knew of how the boy had come to be with Sam. The story was met with an uncomfortable silence.

“Come on,” she said, resigned to the inevitable. “Say something. I know you want to.”

“Oh, sweetie, you already know what I’m going to tell you,” Caitlyn said, sounding worried. “Stay far, far away from this situation. You’ll get sucked in. I know you will, and there’s a very good chance you’ll get your heart broken.”