A Chesapeake Shores Christmas by Sherryl Woods

get through to him?”
    “We need to give it more time,” Megan insisted. “However long it takes.”
    Mick regarded her with a too-familiar unyielding look. “We’re getting married New Year’s Eve, Meggie, and that’s that. I’ll do whatever I can in the meantime to reach Connor, and you can do the same, but we are not postponing our wedding.”
    She frowned at the finality in his tone. This was the side of him that hadn’t changed, one she wasn’t sure she could tolerate even after all the other strides they’d made. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been so certain of everything, so sure their relationship was solid. Now this.
    She met his gaze. “Not even if I say it’s important to me that all of our children are happy about this marriage, that going forward without their blessing is a deal-breaker?”
    Mick hesitated, then shook his head. “Not even then.”
    She sighed. “Oh, Mick, then we’ve got bigger problems than Connor that we need to fix.”

    Though Nell, Abby, Bree and Jess had all come over Wednesday night to help with preparations for the big Thanksgiving feast, Mick couldn’t enjoy having the women of his family all under one roof again. Megan’s words still rang in his ears. He knew he’d pushed her too far, but how could he back down?
    He heard laughter coming from the kitchen, but Megan hadn’t joined in. He would have recognized her laugh at once. The joyful sound had always filled him with such a sense of peace and satisfaction.
    Mick grabbed his jacket and a cigar and went out on the porch, even though the night air was about to hit the freezing mark.
    He’d just settled into a rocker when the door opened and light spilled across the porch. He saw Megan hesitating in the doorway.
    “Mick, it’s too cold for you to be out here. Come back inside.”
    “I’m fine,” he said gruffly.
    “Well, Nell needs you. She wants you to get the turkey ready. It’s too heavy for any of us to lift it into that big old tub of salt water and then carry it to the spare refrigerator in the mudroom so it can soak tonight. That’s always been your job.”
    Even though it was the perfect excuse for joining the rest of the family, he wasn’t anxious to risk a lecture from his outspoken daughters or another glimpse of the sadness in Megan’s eyes.
    “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes,” he told her.
    Apparently his response didn’t satisfy her, because she grabbed her jacket from the peg by the front door and came outside.
    “Is this the way it’s going to be tomorrow?” she asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You sitting off on the sidelines because you and I don’t see eye to eye about Connor or the wedding,” she said bluntly. “Because if it is, if this house is going to be filled with tension, I’ll leave. I won’t be responsible for everyone having a miserable holiday.”
    Alarm shot through him at the serious note in her voice. “No,” he said at once. “You should be here for Thanksgiving. If you go now, we’ll never put things to rights between us.”
    “Well, we’re not doing that with you out here sulking, either.”
    “I wasn’t sulking. I was smoking a cigar. I like a good cigar in the evening,” he claimed.
    “You also like being in the kitchen when it’s crowded with family. This has always been one of your favorite holidays. Now come back inside. Maybe you and I can just agree to disagree until Friday. Then we’ll find some time to sit down on our own and talk things through.”
    “Seems reasonable,” he said, taking heart. By Friday maybe Megan would see reason about not caving in to Connor’s manipulative efforts to keep them apart.
    “I’ll just ask one thing of you in the meantime,” she said. “We don’t talk about the wedding in front of the others.”
    He stared at her incredulously. “Meggie, you know it’s going to come up. Bree will want to discuss the flowers. I hear the twins have big plans for their role in the ceremony.