Flowers on Main Read Free

of himself, no one would have to know about it. Now here was his mother, with that second sight of hers, guessing exactly what he was planning.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said defensively, hoping Nell had simply taken a lucky guess.
    “You’re in New York to see Megan, aren’t you?” she declared with conviction.
    “What gave you that idea?” Even as he spoke, he could imagine her rolling her eyes at his response. She’d never liked wasting time stating the obvious.
    “Your office said you flew to New York this morning after you finished up your meetings in Minnesota. Since you haven’t set foot in that city since the day Megan moved up there, and since you’ve been mooning around here ever since she left after the opening at the inn, I put two and two together.”
    “Well, your math skills are lousy,” he claimed. “I haven’t seen her.”
    She laughed at that. “That can only mean you’ve chickened out now that you’re there. You’re probably sitting in some bar trying to work up the courage to see her.”
    “I’m not in a damn bar,” he muttered. Saints protect him from a mother who’d always been able to read him like a book. “And I have not chickened out. Did you track me down just to hassle me, or was there something else on your mind?”
    “I had something else on my mind, but now I’m thinking we should be talking about whether you have any idea what you’re doing. You and Megan have been divorced for years.She left because you neglected her and this family and didn’t change your ways when she called you on it. You know I love you, but I don’t see how any of that has changed. You still spend more time away than you do with your family.”
    “In case you haven’t noticed, my family has pretty much scattered.”
    “And in case you haven’t noticed, one by one they seem to be turning up again,” she retorted. “Yet you’re still running from one job to the next.”
    “Maybe I’m ready to slow down,” he said, testing the idea on himself as much as her.
    “Retire? You?” she asked, her tone incredulous. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”
    “I didn’t mention retirement,” he retorted irritably. “I said I might be ready to slow down.”
    “Maybe? Might? Seems to me you ought to be sure about a thing like that before you go getting that woman’s hopes up, then turn right around and dash them again.”
    Much to his dismay, he conceded to himself that she had a point. Not that he intended to admit it aloud. “Look, I have things to do. Just tell me why you called.”
    Apparently she realized that his patience had worn thin, because she actually answered the question, rather than launching a full-scale lecture or asking more questions of her own.
    “I called because I’m worried about Bree,” she told him.
    “Bree?” he asked, startled. “What’s wrong with her?”
    “Men!” Nell muttered, her tone disparaging. “Mick, she’s your daughter. Didn’t you notice how quiet she’s been ever since she got here? For that matter, haven’t you wondered what she’s still doing here?”
    “Bree’s always been quiet,” he said, genuinely puzzled by his mother’s observation. She’d always been happiest lockedaway in her room with a pad of paper or a book. Of all of his children, she was the one he’d understood the least. She’d never had the outgoing nature of her siblings. Nor had she suffered from the usual teenage highs and lows—or if she had, she’d channeled that into the writing she hid from everyone in the family.
    “This is different,” his mother insisted. “And she hasn’t said a single word about going back to Chicago. Something’s happened, Mick, I just know it. I tried to talk to her earlier, but she told me she was fine.”
    “Then maybe she is.”
    “She is not fine. You need to stop worrying about the past and get back home to deal with your daughter. She needs you.”
    “No,” he said at once. “If Bree