Sherryl Woods - Flowers on Main

Ever the gentleman, Mick stood as she approached. His kiss grazed her cheek, but then he pulled back, looking as embarrassed as a schoolboy caught stealing a kiss in the cloakroom.

“Sorry,” he murmured as he slid into the booth opposite her.

She regarded him with amusement. “It’s okay, Mick. There’s nothing inappropriate about giving your ex-wife an innocent peck on the cheek. Now tell me, of all the delis in New York, what brings you to the one in my neighborhood?”

He gestured toward the cell phone in the middle of the table. “I was going to call you. I thought maybe we could grab dinner, if you don’t have plans.”

So he had come to see her, she thought, not sure whether she was pleased by that or more terrified than ever.

When she still hadn’t responded after a couple of minutes of silence, he regarded her with an impatient expression. “Do you have plans?”

She shook her head, determined not to make it easy for him or maybe struggling to decide if spending more time with him was wise.

He obviously had some idea of what she was up to because he frowned. “Then will you have dinner with me?” he inquired with exaggerated patience.

Since she’d planned to eat right here anyway, she finally nodded. “Sure, we can grab a bite here.”

He glanced around the deli with its rush of customers and clattering silverware, with its legion of abrasive waitresses and waiters. “Here? I was thinking someplace, you know, a little classier than this.”

“I eat here a lot,” she said. “The food’s good. Besides, we’re already here.”

The last place she wanted to be with her ex-husband was some cozy, romantic restaurant with expensive wine, an even pricier menu and candlelight. That was the kind of place a man took a woman he was courting. Casual was good, safer. She could pretend this was nothing more than a chance meeting of two longtime acquaintances.

Acquaintances who happened to share five children, she amended wryly.

Mick shrugged eventually. “Whatever you want.” He beckoned for a waiter, an older man who beamed at Megan.

“Your Monday usual, Ms. O’Brien?” he asked with the familiarity she’d come to expect from the staff. “Iced tea, the corned-beef brisket and parsley potatoes?”

“Sounds perfect, Joe. How’s your wife?”

“Back to her old self,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

“And Mary? Did she get her grade on her exam?”

The man’s smile spread. “An A plus,” he told her proudly.

Megan turned to Mick, who was listening to the exchange with obvious surprise. “Joe’s granddaughter is studying to be a doctor at Columbia.”

“Congratulations!” Mick said. “That’s quite an accomplishment.”

“She’s the smartest one in the family,” Joe said. “Now, tell me what I can get for you.”

Mick didn’t bother with the menu. “I’ll have whatever she’s having and more coffee.”

Joe nodded and left.

“That man did not say two words to me when he took my order earlier,” Mick said. “You had him chattering like a magpie.”

She laughed. “I come here a lot. Joe treats me like family.”

“So even in a city the size of New York, you’ve created a small-town atmosphere for yourself,” he said.

“I had to work at it,” she admitted. “At first I was too intimidated to talk to anyone except the people I worked with and then Abby once she moved here. Then I discovered that if you ask a few questions, show an interest in people, they behave exactly the way they would in Chesapeake Shores.”

Joe returned and set another cup of coffee in front of Mick and gave her a tall glass of iced tea, then discreetly vanished with a wink, suggesting he’d have a lot of questions for her tomorrow about the man sitting across from her now. For years now, he’d clucked over her lack of a social life like a protective father.

Because she wanted a few answers for herself and not just to be prepared for Joe’s interrogation, she looked Mick in the eye. “You never did tell me what you’re doing in New York. Do you have business here?”

He shook his head, looking surprisingly uneasy for a man of his accomplishments and confidence. “I had business in Seattle last week, then in Minneapolis. I decided to take a little side trip on the way home.”

“You never liked New York,” she said. It was one of the reasons she’d chosen it after the divorce. She’d wanted to be someplace where they’d shared no memories and where it was unlikely Mick would be popping up too frequently.

“Still don’t,” he admitted. “But you’re here.”

She swallowed hard at the glint in his eye. The simple comment held a world of meaning. “Mick, don’t.”

His gaze held hers. “Don’t what? Don’t be honest with you?”

“Don’t say things like that. You and me, we had our chance. It’s best to leave it like that.”

His expression remained solemn. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Of course you can. We haven’t crossed paths in years, not even when I came home to see the kids when they were younger. There’s no reason for that to change.”

Again, he looked directly into her eyes, the gaze bold, disconcerting. “I think there is. The sparks are still there, Meggie. Just because I was a damn fool doesn’t mean they’ve gone away.”

She reached for a packet of sweetener, not because she wanted it but because she needed something to do with her hands. When she started to tear it open, it flew from her grasp, spreading powdery sweetener everywhere. She would have cleaned it up, but Mick covered her hand.

“Don’t,” he said. “Leave it.” Again, he beckoned for Joe, who was there in an instant with a damp cloth and a questioning look.

She forced a smile for him. “Thanks. I’m all thumbs tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Joe said. He glanced at another waiter heading their way. “Here come your meals. You’ll let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Mick told him. When Joe and the other waiter had left, Mick pushed the plate aside and turned in her direction. “Does it really bother you, me being here?”

She thought about the question, really thought about it. “It’s not that exactly. I mean, you’re on my turf, so it should be easy, but you keep saying things that throw me off kilter. I don’t know what you want.”

“Another chance,” Mick said simply. Before she could even close her gaping mouth, much less respond, he added, “Not right this second, but soon. A little at a time, you know? Maybe dinner here, like this. Then another visit to Chesapeake Shores. Or maybe you’d like to come with me to Seattle. We can play it by ear, do what feels right.”

“I don’t know, Mick,” she said, fighting temptation. “I’ve adapted to living on my own. I have a life here. Yours is …” She hesitated, then shrugged. “Yours is wherever you happen to be working at the moment. That didn’t work for us before. Why take a chance on hurting each other again?”

He held her gaze, his expression earnest. “It’s taken me fifteen long years, Meggie, to figure out everything I did wrong when we were married. Don’t let all that soul-searching go to waste.”

She smiled at the idea of Mick soul-searching. He was the kind of man who seized the moment, who went through life on bluster and gut instinct. “Soul-searching, huh?”

He grinned then. “Swear to God.”

The appeal of that grin reminded her of the way it had been between them when they first met, with Mick persuading her to do a thousand little things that went against her better judgment. Thank heaven most of the risks had been to her heart, because he could probably have talked her into skydiving with that charming way of his and she’d have wound up breaking every bone in her body. Then, again, a broken heart took longer to heal.