The Inn at Eagle Point by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online Page A

her
head, but she signed all the paperwork and plunged into this without talking
any of it over with me."

"Because she needed to prove to you that she could do this all on her
own."

"Well, exactly what will she have proved, if the bank forecloses?"

"Michael Devlin O'Brien, don't you dare come back here if all you're going
to do is throw her mistakes in her face. She needs her father, not a judgmental
businessman."

Now it was Mick's turn to sigh heavily. If what his mother was saying was true,
it put him between a rock and a hard place. "Ma, we both know I could fix
whatever's going on with one call to Lawrence Riley, but you know as well as I
do that Jess won't thank me for it."

"True enough," she admitted. "But we have to do something, Mick.
Jess needs to make a success of this."

"Do you really think she could lose the inn? Maybe it's not that
bad."

"Jess called her sister, that's how bad it is. Abby's here now trying to
help, but from the grim expression on her face this morning, it could take more
than some sort of financial wizardry on her part to fix this. Come home, Mick.
Whether she admits it or not, Jess needs your support right now. And of course,
if you flew home tonight, you'd be able to spend some time with Abby and your granddaughters."

"Tonight?" he asked, trying to work out the all-but-impossible
logistics in his head. "I doubt I could get on a flight on short
notice."

"Spend some of that fortune you make on something important for once. Hire
a private jet, if you have to."

He thought of having one daughter and his only grandchildren under his roof
again, of being there when another daughter might actually admit she needed
him, and made a decision. His mother was right. If ever there was a time he
belonged at home with his family, this was it.

"I'll see what I can arrange," he said at last.

"That's good," his mother said. "And let's just pretend, you and
I, that we never had this conversation."

Mick laughed for the first time since the uncomfortable conversation had begun.
"You're still a sly one, aren't you, Ma?"

"I pride myself on it, in fact."
    *
* *
    Abby spent all day Saturday buried in paperwork at the inn.
As her sister had assured her, the projections were positive, but Jess clearly
had little sense of money management. If she'd wanted fancy, top-of-the-line
shower curtains or thick, luxurious towels, she'd bought them, even if it broke
the budget.

Not that she'd ever put a budget on paper in the first place or even the sort
of business plan that Abby would have expected the bank to require. Obviously
she'd been flying by the seat of her pants, and the bank had let her get away
with it because she was an O'Brien in a town where that meant something. Any
national bank would have adhered to much stricter guidelines than the
Chesapeake Shores Community Bank apparently had followed.

Abby sat Jess down at the kitchen table on Saturday night and laid it all out
for her while Gram was upstairs reading the girls their bedtime story.
"You have little to no operating capital. How were you planning on buying
supplies for the restaurant? Or soaps and toiletries for the rooms, for that
matter?"

"Credit?" Jess said weakly, looking as if she were about to cry.
"I haven't maxed out my credit cards yet."

Abby bit back a groan. "You'll dig a hole so deep doing that, you'll never
get out. Like it or not, I'm going to give you an infusion of cash and a strict
budget. Assuming, that is, that we can get the bank to go along with this. I'm
just praying that they haven't officially started foreclosure proceedings. I'm
going to be on the doorstep over there at nine sharp Monday morning and we'll
see where we stand."

"I'll come with you," Jess said. "This is my project."

Abby agreed reluctantly. "Okay, but let me do the talking, unless they ask
for information I don't have."

"Fine," Jess said, not meeting her gaze.

Abby studied her sister. Jess's cheeks were faintly flushed. Maybe it was just
embarrassment