Driftwood Cottage by Sherryl Woods Page A

a contented mother, am I right?”
    “Yes,” they agreed at once.
    “Ah, unity. It’s a blessed thing,” Heather said, then nudged Jake toward the door when he showed no inclination to leave. “Your sister and I will take very good care of her for the next couple of hours. Go, paint, have a beer and relax.”
    Reluctantly, Jake backed away. “You need me, you call, okay?” he said to Bree just as his sister climbed the steps with the two big pizza boxes. He sniffed the air. “Or I could stick around.”
    Connie stared him down. “Do you really want to tell your friends that you spent Saturday night at a chicks’ gabfest? I brought my DVD of Love Story. Think about your image, little brother.”
    He groaned at the mention of the guaranteed tearjerker movie. “I’m out of here.” He still couldn’t seem to tear himself away. He stepped back inside and kissed Bree. “Call when you’re ready to come home.”
    “I’ll drop her off,” Connie said.
    Jake looked uncertain.
    “I promise she’ll be in one piece,” Connie said impatiently. “Now get out of here, or I will start to tell embarrassing stories about you that even your wife doesn’t know!”
    That finally got him out of the apartment.
    Bree sank onto the sofa. “I do love that man, but I need breathing room.”
    “Just wait till you need him to help with the middle of the night feedings and the dirty diapers,” Connie predicted. “You’ll have trouble figuring out where he’s hiding.”
    Heather thought back to the early days at home with little Mick. Connor had handled his share of feedings.“Actually Connor was amazing about that kind of thing,” she said as she bit into the still-steaming pizza. After chewing thoughtfully, she added, “Maybe it helped that he was usually burning the midnight oil going over case files, but I can’t tell you how many times I found him half-asleep in a chair with a file in one hand and the baby sleeping on his chest.”
    “And the diapers?” Bree asked skeptically.
    “He changed his share.”
    Connie regarded her incredulously. “And yet you still left him?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she looked chagrined. “Sorry. None of my business.”
    “It’s okay,” Heather told her. “Sometimes I wonder if I was out of my mind, too.”
    “Well, Connor is my brother and I love him to pieces,” Bree said as she plucked another slice of pizza from the box, “but I get why you did what you did. Marriage matters. It means something when two people stand in front of a priest or a judge and say, ‘I do.’”
    “It certainly should,” Connie agreed, sipping her soda. “Of course, when I got married, all it meant to my husband was that he was buying into a permanent cooking and cleaning service. Jenny required too much of my time and attention.” She shook her head. “He was a selfish pig. How I’d missed that is beyond me.”
    “As great a believer as I am in love,” Bree said, “I think we all delude ourselves sometimes and see what we want to see in a man. Look at the mistake I made with my so-called mentor at the regional theater in Chicago. I convinced myself he was madly in love with me, when he was really in love with the sound of his own voice. Iwas just his adoring audience.” She looked chagrined. “To think I could have lost Jake forever for a man like that.”
    Heather listened to the two of them and found solace in what they were saying. “So you’ve both been down some bumpy roads and survived,” she commented.
    “Better than survived,” Bree said. “I’ve thrived. I’m happier now than I ever imagined being. I love the flower shop, and having my own theater is challenging and amazingly rewarding. I’ve actually written my first new play in ages and hope to produce it next season.”
    “And I may not have met an exciting new man in, oh, the past five years or more,” Connie added, “but I have a great daughter, a wonderful brother and a really good life. I