Dogwood Hill. Sherryl Woods

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      Color tinted her cheeks. “You know, fit, well toned.”

      He laughed. “I see. Well, I am Aidan Mitchell,” he confirmed. “And I’m interviewing for the job, but I don’t have it yet.”

      “Oh, you’ll get it,” she said confidently. “Everyone’s very excited. You’ll be the second pro player in town. Of course, Mack Franklin grew up here, and he only played professionally for a season before becoming a sports columnist, but the town loves him. He started a local weekly newspaper a couple of years back. It’s a very tough business, if you know anything about newspapers these days, but he’s beaten the odds because it’s the best way to find out what’s going on in town.” She paused for breath, then amended, “Aside from sitting in Sally’s and listening to the gossip, anyway. At least Mack tries to bring some journalistic credibility into play.”

      After growing up in New York, Aidan was astonished by this insight into small-town ways. Or perhaps it was just Liz March, who chattered like a magpie. “Does Mack know that his competition is a local café?”

      “Of course he does. Sally’s his best source. But mostly he’d be the first to find out what’s going on, anyway. He’s married to an O’Brien, which makes him practically royalty in Chesapeake Shores.”

      Aidan instinctively stiffened at the comment, though he hoped she hadn’t noticed. “Why is that?”

      “You don’t know the town’s history?” she asked, looking startled.

      “Is it a criteria for living here?” he asked, mostly in jest. “Do they give a test at the Realtor’s office?”

      “Not really,” she said, apparently taking him seriously. “It’s just a local legend, so people tend to know it. As I understand it, the land originally belonged to an O’Brien who came here straight from Ireland. His family farmed it for years. A couple of decades ago, three of his descendants—Mick, Jeff and Thomas O’Brien—built Chesapeake Shores from scratch on that land.”

      She paused for breath, then added, “Mick’s the famous architect who designed the town. He might not be an elected official, but his word still carries a lot of weight around here. Jeff manages properties and sells real estate.” Eyes twinkling, she gave Aidan a pointed look. “So it wouldn’t really surprise me if he does spread the story himself, though I imagine he’d consider testing potential residents to be ill-mannered.”

      Aidan chuckled. “Touché.”

      “There’s another brother, too. Thomas is a well-respected environmentalist who runs a foundation that fights to protect the bay.”

      Aidan’s brain seemed to shut down at the casual mention of Thomas O’Brien. Maybe coming to Chesapeake Shores had been a huge mistake, after all, if just hearing that name made him flinch. He’d gotten a tip about the coaching job and been drawn here as if fate were stepping in, but now all he felt was the familiar bitterness and anger crawling up the back of his throat. That it might be unwarranted was a concept he struggled with from time to time.

      He suddenly realized that Liz was studying him with a worried expression.

      “Are you okay? Did I say something that upset you?”

      “No, not a thing, I’m fine,” Aidan assured her. “Thanks for the background information.” He deliberately took a quick glance at his watch, then added, “I need to get going.”

      He turned and quickly walked off in the direction of his car.

      “Aidan!” Liz’s concerned voice carried on the breeze. “The school office is the other way.”

      He gave her a wave of acknowledgment and kept right on going, thankful there was no set time for his interview. He’d intentionally scheduled it that way, promising to call once he arrived in town and got settled into the room the school had reserved for him at The Inn at Eagle Point. Maybe after a shower and some food and a little more time to think about what he was doing, he’d be ready to make that call. Or maybe not.

      It was a big decision, deciding whether to stay and take a risk, or go. If his friends could see him now, they’d be stunned by his indecisiveness.

      On the field, he’d been a quick-thinking quarterback, reading a defense and making split-second adjustments that determined whether a play succeeded or failed. He hadn’t struggled for even a minute with his decision to retire when he’d realized that an injury had slowed him down, ruining his effectiveness on the field. He’d always wanted to coach at the high school level. He’d gotten his teaching credentials in college in anticipation that this day would eventually come. At the end of his season last November following a second knee injury that had taken him out for the year, he’d made the call. Sure, it had come a lot sooner than he’d anticipated, but fate was funny that way. He wouldn’t be one of those players who hung on past his expiration date.

      But this decision? This was different. This was a twenty-eight-year-old man trying to decide not only whether a job and town might be a good fit but if the time was right to meet his biological father—Thomas O’Brien—for the very first time.

      * * *

      Liz held a cup of coffee in her hands to warm them as she sat in a booth at Sally’s with Bree O’Brien Collins, who owned Flowers on Main, the store next door to hers. Bree was also a playwright who ran a local theater, but she still loved spending the occasional day making flower arrangements, especially for special occasions. Today she’d been so busy with the decorations for a baby shower that they’d postponed their morning coffee break until afternoon when Liz’s high school helper could cover for her.

      “I’m telling you, it was very strange,” she told Bree. “We were just talking. I should say I was chattering away, filling him in on this and that.” She regarded Bree with a rueful expression. “I really do have to stop doing that, going on and on, I mean.”

      Bree’s grin suggested she was doing it again.

      “Okay. Sorry. I’ll get to the point. I promise. I’d tried to convince him to take Archie, but he wasn’t interested. Then I admitted that I’d guessed who he was. We talked about the job for a couple of minutes, or maybe I did all the talking. Anyway, he took off, and not toward the school, as if he’d realized he was late for a meeting or something. He headed in the opposite direction.”

      “Well, that is weird,” Bree said. “Maybe he doesn’t like dogs. Archie is a sweetheart, but not everybody notices that when he’s trying to herd them.”

      Liz chuckled. “Yes, I’m familiar with the reaction. The poor thing can’t help himself, though. But the Archie issue was resolved. Aidan wasn’t interested, and that was that for me. Pets belong with people who’ll love and appreciate them. Actually I was filling him in on local history, how O’Briens built the town, when he got this kind of glazed look on his face, then took off.”

      “So you think his reaction had something to do with the O’Briens?” Bree asked, frowning.

      “It felt that way, but how could that be it? Everybody loves your family.”

      Bree made a face. “That’s a slight exaggeration. Dad’s made his share of enemies over the years. Heck, for a long time, he didn’t even get along all that well with his own brothers. He, Jeff and Thomas clashed over every detail when they were building the town. It’s only recently, thanks to my grandmother’s СКАЧАТЬ