Mick gave him directions, then watched him leave before turning his gaze on his mother.
“You’re a lot sneakier than I gave you credit for being. You know if he starts listing all the little menial tasks he wants her to do, Carrie will throw his offer back in his face.”
“I think she’s smart enough to see that he’s looking for one of those gofer people,” Nell agreed. “He’s not interested in the kind of relationship Carrie thought she wanted with him. I also think she’s smart enough to recognize that Sam is twice the man Marc Reynolds is, that she’ll have a real partnership with him. And that her work here—a business she’s building on her own from the ground up—will fulfill her in ways that job with Marc Reynolds never did.”
“It’s a big risk,” Mick said. “Letting him dangle money and a fancy lifestyle in front of her.”
“She had all that once and she still came home,” Nell reminded him.
“Because that jerk broke her heart,” Mick countered.
“No, because she knew it was where she belonged. If she’d only come to lick her wounds for a bit, would she be opening a day-care center? No, she’d have been on a plane back to Europe within a month. There were other designers she could have worked for, if that’s what she truly wanted.”
“I hope you’re right,” Mick said.
“Other than you, do you know of a single person in this family who knows what’s in the hearts of our young ones better than I do?”
Mick smiled. “Now that you mention it, no.”
“Then trust me. Carrie will send him on his way, that is if she shows up for that meeting at all.”
“You going to tell her he’s at the inn waiting to hear from her?”
Nell seemed to give the question a surprising amount of thought, then shrugged. “Could be I’ll just leave it to fate. You do the same. We can consider it a test of that grapevine this town is reputed to have.”
With that she walked down the steps and headed across the lawn toward her own cottage.
Fate? Mick stared after her. Or the Chesapeake Shores grapevine? Ma’s sneakiness quotient just ticked up another notch.
“So, have you made your decision? Are you leaving?” Sam asked Carrie when he saw her in front of her house as he was heading home from work. She was on her knees pulling weeds, a streak of dirt on her face. He wanted to drag her into his arms and beg her to stay. Instead, he waited for her reply.
She regarded him curiously. “Leaving? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not planning a trip.”
“I meant for good. That’s why Marc Reynolds was here today, wasn’t it? To lure you into coming back to him?”
She sat back on her heels and stared, clearly startled. “Sam, I never saw Marc, and even if I had, I certainly wouldn’t be going anywhere with him. That part of my life is over and done with. I’m exactly where I want to be.” Her gaze narrowed. “I thought you understood how important you and Bobby are becoming in my life, how determined I am to make this day-care center a success.”
Relief washed over Sam, but he still had this tiny, niggling doubt tormenting him. “How can you say that with such certainty, if you don’t know what he was offering?” he asked, though it did strike him as odd that the designer apparently hadn’t even spoken to her. Was that Mick’s doing?
“I can say it because it doesn’t matter what he offers. I’m not going anywhere.” She studied him curiously. “Sam, how do you even know that Marc was in town? Did you run into him? Did he say something to make you think I’d be jetting off with him?”
Regretting that he’d opened a whole can of worms that had somehow been left on the shelf by everyone else involved, Sam explained about Marc’s visit to Sally’s and the ensuing excitement.
“That’s when I walked in. I never set eyes on him myself. Sally said she pointed him in your grandfather’s direction.”
Carrie appeared taken aback yet again, but then her lips curved. Next thing he knew, she was laughing. “I’ll bet that meeting went well. No wonder I haven’t seen Marc. I probably need to investigate to make sure he’s still in one piece.”
“You don’t seem overly concerned about whether he is or not,” Sam said. This time he was able to bask in the relief that washed over him.
“There’s almost nothing my grandfather could do, short of murder, that Marc doesn’t deserve,” she said, a surprisingly bloodthirsty note in her voice. Then she sighed. “But I really should check to see what’s going on.”