Willow Brook Road(93)

She regarded him with surprise. “Not you?”

Sam winked at her. “I have a much more grown-up dessert in mind.”

Carrie laughed. “Then you’re in for a big disappointment. Not with Bobby in the house.”

He realized she was dead serious and sighed. “You’re right. We don’t want him to catch us in the act and start getting ideas.”

“Exactly,” she said. “You’re starting to think like a parent.”

“But I still want some of the perks of being a bachelor,” he told her, leaning in to steal one more quick kiss meant to hold him.

“Patience,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She’d told Sam that before, but he certainly didn’t mind the reassurance. Because despite her enthusiasm for her day-care project and her avowed love for Chesapeake Shores, he couldn’t help wondering if someday down the road the allure of Paris or Italy would suddenly become too strong to resist. And with Marc Reynolds seemingly trying to get back into the picture, it was a concern he couldn’t seem to shake. Was Carrie as immune to the man as she seemed to be? Or did he have the power to hurt her yet again?



Carrie had been surprised by how much red tape was involved with getting herself licensed to open a day-care facility. She probably shouldn’t have been, given all the instructions Julie had given her. Maybe it was the fact that in so many ways being an O’Brien made life easy. Her grandfather was usually able to make hurdles disappear. Not this time. She was dealing with a new, by-the-books bureaucracy, and she relished the challenge.

Between the paperwork, doing the renovations she felt were necessary to create a bright comfortable space for the kids, interviewing for help and doing background checks on her top candidates, keeping up with her online classes and still volunteering at Julie’s, she had precious little time for babysitting her nephew or the other O’Brien children who’d been coming around for the past few months. The few stolen moments she’d shared with Sam on the waterfront this morning had been a rare break from sending off forms, answering endless questions, establishing an account at the bank and going through catalogs for supplies. Everything seemed to take a lot longer than she’d anticipated.

She was in the small office she’d carved out for herself in what had once been a walk-in coat closet and had just hung up the telephone after dealing with yet another request for information she thought she’d already supplied—in triplicate, in fact—when Connor wandered in to check on the progress. Since his law office was just up the street, his visits were pretty much daily. So were those of almost everyone else in the family, especially since her grandfather had assigned one of his crews to do the renovations she wanted.

Today, though, she suddenly realized something was different. Connor had an envelope in his hand and a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary spark in his eyes.

“Is that it?” she asked excitedly. “Am I legal?”

“Mostly,” he told her, handing over the paperwork. “There will be a final inspection once all the work in here is finished, but you’ve passed all the screenings. The state of Maryland has deemed you fit to be trusted with children.”

She grinned at him. “You sound surprised. I told you I was never in any legal trouble. I might have gotten into a lot of mischief over the years, but I never crossed a line. And unlike some people we could probably name, Grandpa Mick never had to step in and clean up any of my messes.”

Connor scowled at her. “Hey, I had one speeding ticket when I was just a teenager. That’s it.”

Her grin spread. “But it was in Grandpa Mick’s prized classic Mustang, which you did not have permission to drive, as I recall.”

Her uncle’s scowl deepened. “My mother obviously has a big mouth. She was supposed to take that secret to her grave.”

Carrie laughed. “Afraid not. We all heard the story. Grandma Megan seems to enjoy sharing it, especially when she knows it will get Grandpa Mick all riled up.”

“Let’s stay focused on business, not my misdeeds, okay?” Connor grumbled in a way that reminded her of just how much he’d matured from those rebellious teen years.

“Fine with me,” Carrie said, fighting for a more serious expression.

“When were you hoping to open?”

“Grandpa Mick says his crews will be out of here by the end of September. All the furniture and supplies are scheduled for the following week. I’d say we should be ready for that final inspection by mid-October, or November 1 at the latest. I’ve already had inquiries from a few people about whether I’ll be open in time to accept kids for the fall school holiday periods that parents can’t always get off from work. And I have a half dozen names of families looking for a permanent place for their toddlers that’s closer to home.”