Willow Brook Road

“I already told him I was inviting you.”

That gave Carrie pause. “And he didn’t immediately come up with an excuse to avoid the whole thing?”

“Nope. He looked more like a man who was happy someone was stepping in to push the two of you together again.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

Shanna was surprisingly silent for about a minute. “You know, I take it back,” she said.

Carrie was startled by the sudden turnaround. She didn’t like the disappointment that immediately spread over her. “You’re withdrawing the invitation? You’re canceling dinner?”

“Nope,” Shanna said decisively. “I’m moving it up. It’s tomorrow night. I don’t want you to have a whole week to talk yourself out of coming. Sam, either. Seven o’clock. I’ll call him right now to confirm.”

“But I never said yes.”

“Oh, you’ll be here,” Shanna said confidently. “Don’t you have enough issues with the family without adding coward to the list?”

“That’s not fair,” Carrie grumbled, knowing Shanna had set a very neat trap for her.

“Life is rarely fair,” Shanna said brightly. “But O’Briens always cope. See you tomorrow, sweetie.”

She hung up before Carrie could form another protest or think of a single way to wiggle out of the commitment. Maybe, if she were very, very lucky, Sam would do the wiggling. Sadly, with the way her luck was running lately, it wouldn’t happen that way.

And somewhere, deep down inside, a traitorous spark of anticipation was doing a little jig about that.

6 (#ulink_93f5dcdb-1644-51d6-b54c-453ad8f90aab)

Sam had been surprised to hear from Shanna so quickly about dinner. In fact, she’d caught him so completely off guard, he hadn’t been able to come up with a single excuse to refuse, even though he wasn’t crazy about her obvious attempt to throw him together with Carrie. He told himself he’d accepted for Bobby’s sake. That was the only thing that gave him any comfort as he approached Shanna and Kevin’s house on a quiet side street not far from downtown.

Though the house appeared small from the street, he discovered on entering that appearances had been deceiving. There had been additions onto the back, including a big sunroom where a baby in pink was bouncing in a child seat, a toddler was climbing all over a teenager as the boy tried to play a video game and yet another boy was laughing hysterically.

“Way to go,” the laughing youngster told the toddler.

“Get him off of me,” the older boy pleaded, still trying to concentrate.

“No way!” the other boy declared. “He’s my secret weapon.”

“I thought Carrie was your secret weapon. You loved it when she busted my chops yesterday.”

Shanna stood in the doorway, shaking her head. “Welcome to my world,” she told Sam. She raised her voice. “Boys! We have company.”

“Henry, Davey and Johnny,” she said as she pointed to each of them. “The baby’s Kelly. Everyone, this is Sam. He’s working with Mack at the paper. And this is his nephew, Bobby.”

Bobby hung back shyly, but surprisingly it was the teenager who came over and held out a hand. “Hey, Bobby, do you like video games?”

Bobby nodded.

“Then you can be on my side. Davey’s enlisted the little monkey over there to try to distract me when it’s my turn. You can do the same when it’s Davey’s turn.”

“You want me to climb on him?” Bobby asked skeptically.

Henry laughed. “Whatever works,” he said. “You’ll think of something.”

Bobby looked hesitantly up at Sam. “Is it okay?”

Before Sam could answer, Shanna stepped in. “Do whatever you need to do,” she told Bobby. “Just no hitting or biting. Those are the house rules.”

She turned to Sam. “We probably don’t want to watch this. Come with me and I’ll get you a glass of wine. Kevin should be here soon and Carrie’s on her way. She’s stopping to pick up dessert. Nell baked today. Honestly, I don’t know how Nell does it. Once a week there’s Kevin’s favorite apple pie, a coconut cake for Connor and his family, chocolate cake for Abby and Trace, scones for anybody who wants them. She must have been a baker in her previous life. She’d do all the pastry for the inn, if Jess would let her. Now that she’s in her eighties, we all think she should slow down, but she’s having none of it. Have you met her yet?”

Sam shook his head. “But I have had a few of her chocolate-chip cookies,” Sam said. “Carrie gave me some when I stopped by O’Briens the other night.”

Shanna’s eyes lit up. “Did you try the stew? That’s Nell’s recipe, too. In fact, most of the food in the pub is based on traditional recipes she learned when she stayed with her grandparents in Ireland years ago.”

“So Luke inherited her skill in the kitchen?”

Shanna laughed. “Absolutely not. She despaired of teaching him a thing. He brought in a chef and Nell trained him. She still looks over his shoulder regularly to be sure he’s not messing up. Nothing goes on the menu unless it has her stamp of approval. For a guy who learned to cook in a New York deli, he’s adapted quite well to Nell’s Irish favorites. Every now and then he sneaks a Reuben or a pastrami sandwich onto the menu as a special, and Nell pretends not to notice.”

Just then Carrie’s voice carried down the hallway to the big open kitchen. Sam felt an immediate and troubling spark of anticipation. Apparently he could tell himself a thousand times that getting involved with her was a bad idea, but his testosterone wasn’t convinced.

“Anybody here?” she called out.

“In the kitchen,” Shanna replied as she poured two glasses of wine. She handed one to Sam, then held out the other to Carrie as she set the pie on the counter.

“Gram says to heat this up before you serve it,” Carrie instructed Shanna.

“As if she hasn’t told me that every single week since the day I married Kevin,” Shanna said.

Carrie laughed. “She doesn’t like to leave anything to chance and I’m pretty sure she’s convinced that not a one of us inherited a single bit of her culinary skill.”

“Not true,” Shanna said. “Kevin’s actually quite adept in the kitchen. He’s just never home to cook.”

He walked in just in time to overhear the comment. “I’m here now,” he said, giving her a thorough kiss. “And I always take care of the important things, right? Like this?”

Laughing, Shanna shoved him away when he clearly would have stolen another kiss. “Company, Kevin.”

“It’s just Carrie,” he said.

“And Sam Winslow,” Shanna said, giving him a gentle elbow in the ribs. “Sam, my husband, Kevin O’Brien.”

Sam grinned at Kevin’s suddenly chagrined expression. “I didn’t realize we had company company,” he apologized. “I thought it was just Carrie.”

“Thanks,” Carrie grumbled, feigning an insulted look. “Always a pleasure to see you, too.” She glanced at Sam. “A minute ago I would have told you Kevin was my favorite uncle, but now he’s on probation. I’m thinking Uncle Connor has the edge.”

The teasing interaction was a revelation to Sam, whose own family life, if it could even be called that, had always been filled with tension and long, awkward silences.

There was a sudden whoop of glee from the sunroom.

“Video game?” Kevin asked.