Chapter 12
“What was she like, your daughter?”
Kiera’s softly spoken question cut through the silence of the night. If it had been up to Bryan, he would have sat quietly on his deck, letting the mesmerizing sound of the waves and the occasional chirp of some nocturnal bird be the only interruptions to the peace that had stolen over him since Kiera had forced him to think about all the years he’d lost with his child. He’d taken some comfort from her words and from her tight, reassuring grip on his hand.
Now it seemed, though, that she wanted to stir this particular pot some more. No surprise there, he thought, resigned to ripping a little more of the scab from the old wound and exposing it to light.
“I don’t remember much. She was practically a baby when they left and too many years have passed,” he said with the futile hope that it would be enough to stave off her curiosity. The truth, of course, was that he recalled every detail vividly, and Kiera clearly saw that.
“But there’s an image that’s stayed in your head—a picture or a memory—that’s kept you from giving up the search,” she insisted. “Tell me about that.”
So he did, slowly at first, reluctantly. He recalled the way Deanna had smelled of strawberries after splashing in the bubble baths she loved, the enchanting giggles that had made him laugh, even when there was no rhyme or reason for it, the weight of her in his arms, the feel of her breath on his cheek as she slept against his chest, trusting in him to keep her safe. That was the thing, there was so much trust between a young child and their parent, and he’d failed her.
Bryan sighed heavily at the end of his recitation. As sweet as those memories were, they made his heart ache all over again.
Kiera must have sensed this, because she never once released her grip on his hand, only squeezed it from time to time.
“She was my little angel, the most amazing gift I’d ever been given,” he said, surprised to find that his voice cracked on the words. “And then she was taken away, through no one’s fault but my own.”
“If we were all punished for our careless failure to realize how important some things are in our life until too late, we’d all be alone and miserable,” Kiera said in an attempt to console him. “It’s why we’re given second chances. And, remember this, Bryan. It was your wife’s decision to go, not yours.”
Others had said the same, but he’d argued with them as he did now with her. “She wouldn’t have left if I’d truly listened to her complaints. I thought I did. I thought I saw how unhappy she was and I was trying to make changes, but I ran out of time. She was clearly far unhappier than I’d ever imagined, her patience worn too thin.”
“Sometimes we can only know what another person is thinking if they say the words in plain English.”
Bryan gave her a rueful smile. “I believe she did. More than once, in fact. I was just arrogant enough not to recognize the depth of the pain and desperation behind the pleas or the finality when she truly had reached her limit. Each time we fought and she stayed, I thought I had a little longer. And then, one day, without my recognizing the difference, she’d reached her limit. I never saw it until she was gone.”
“Still, to take a child from her father, especially a loving father, is unforgivable,” Kiera said, apparently choosing to take his side, even though he didn’t deserve it.
He leveled a considering look at her. “And yet you kept Moira from Sean Malone, didn’t you? Were you as much at fault for that as my wife was for leaving me?”
To his surprise, she didn’t bristle. Instead, she held his gaze solemnly, making her words more powerful.
“Not in the same way,” she declared evenly. “Sean always knew exactly where we were and that the door was open, if he chose to walk through it. He never did. His sons eventually went in search of him and embraced the man they found, despite his neglect. Moira never showed any interest in that. If she had, I would have done my best to broker some sort of relationship between them, though not of the sort my sons have found.”
The last was said with a level of bitterness and dismay that took Bryan aback.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“They’ve joined their father carousing in bars at the end of their workdays. They’ve lost jobs and the women in their lives because of it. They’ve spent more than a night or two jailed because of their brawls. I finally stopped answering the calls that came in the middle of the night. I thought I was being a terrible mother, but Peter called it tough love.”
Bryan read the questions in her eyes, and this time he was the one to offer her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Peter was right, I suspect. Men eventually have to learn to live with the consequences of their actions. That’s what I’m trying to do, what I’ve been working on for so many years now.”
“Perhaps all parents have regrets of one sort or another. In the case of my sons, I can’t help wondering if things would have been different if only I’d raised them better,” Kiera lamented. “Taught them right from wrong.”
“They were raised in the same household as Moira,” Bryan contradicted. “She learned those lessons well enough. You can’t deny that. Her moral compass is steady and sure.”
“But boys and their fathers,” she countered. “It’s a special bond, and if the father’s not around, they can hate him for abandoning them or in their imaginations they turn him into some sort of hero. And, as my boys did, they set out to emulate him, even when it’s the last thing he deserves.” She shook her head. “Enough about that. We were talking about your daughter. She’d be how old now?”
“Not quite twenty.”
Kiera smiled. “A young woman, then. And beautiful, if she got your coloring and your eyes.”
Startled, Bryan glanced over and laughed. “You’ve taken note of my looks, Kiera Malone?”
The teasing, slightly flirtatious question clearly flustered her and charged the atmosphere around them.
“I’ve always been partial to blue eyes,” she said as if it were of no consequence when it came to him. “They remind me of the sea.” She gave him a steady, challenging look. “And the Irish rogues I’ve known have all had black hair. It’s not necessarily a recommendation, but it is lovely coloring on a woman.”
“I see.”
“Don’t be thinking that I’m flattering you, Bryan.”
“Of course not. Nothing personal meant at all.”
“Exactly.”
But with her cheeks flushed pink and the spark of temper in her eyes, it felt suddenly very personal and they both knew it.
“It’s late. You should go, Kiera. You need your rest.” He stood up. “I’ll walk you home.”
“Nonsense. It’s right next door and the path is lit.”
He walked down the steps from the deck, simply ignoring her argument. She was still muttering under her breath when they reached her back door.
“What was that?” Bryan asked, trying not to laugh.
She tilted her head up and met his gaze, her expression still defiant. “I said you’re stubborn.”
Unable to resist, he bent down and touched his lips to hers. “Right back at you. Good night, Kiera.”
Despite a day filled with unexpected revelations and uncomfortable questions, he felt surprisingly lighthearted. He tried assuring himself that it had nothing to do with that impulsive kiss that could barely be described as such, but he had a feeling he’d only be lying to himself. A quickly stolen kiss between a man and woman their age didn’t amount to much, but he couldn’t help thinking that between them, it was a beginning.
* * *
The audacity of the man, Kiera thought indignantly, even as her fingers touched her lips, which still seemed to burn from that faint, but unmistakable kiss. What had he been thinking? She’d done nothing to invite such a liberty. She hadn’t even wanted him to walk her home, much less kiss her outside her door like a schoolgirl on a first date. Had she sent some signal without meaning to that the kiss would be welcomed?
Maybe American men were different. Maybe a quick peck was no more than a courtesy at the end of an evening. Hadn’t she seen many a casual acquaintance exchange a kiss on the cheek at the pub since she’d arrived? And this was no more than that. Maybe he’d even landed on her lips by accident.
“You’re being a silly old fool,” she chided herself aloud. “It meant nothing, no more than a handshake.”
Then why had her blood seemed to heat and her pulse started to race? “Because you’re a silly old fool,” she said again, hoping the message would sink in.
Tomorrow it would all be forgotten.
Unfortunately, that meant she still had to get through what turned out to be an unexpectedly restless night. After tossing and turning and remembering and precious little actual sleep, she got out of bed early and decided to leave the house quickly before she was likely to cross paths with Bryan. She needed to clear her head, shake off this odd, unfamiliar restlessness.
Even as she slipped away, feeling like some sort of thief stealing through the dawn, she was making up excuses for her behavior. She reasoned that she needed to see her father and Nell, anyway, and one of Nell’s scones and a cup of bracing tea would be welcome. That those were likely to be accompanied by a few probing questions still seemed more alluring than another disconcerting encounter with her neighbor.
* * *
“My goodness, we haven’t seen this much company this early in the morning in quite some time,” Nell said when she opened the door to Kiera. “Come in. The sky looks as if it might open up with an early-morning shower any minute now.”
Kiera hesitated. “You already have company? I had no idea. I didn’t see a car. I can come back later.”
“Nonsense. Dillon and I love starting our day with some good company and lively conversation. And I’ve just taken a fresh batch of my orange-cranberry scones from the oven. You’ll have one while it’s still warm.”
Since Nell was already heading toward the kitchen, Kiera was left with no choice but to follow. Before she’d even reached the doorway, though, she heard two male voices, one with the distinct Irish lilt of her father, the other with what she’d come to recognize as the lingering hint of New York. Bryan! The very man she’d been trying to avoid. Her step faltered.
“Kiera?” her father called out. “Come in and join us. What brings you by?”
Her glance landed on Bryan long enough to note the running clothes that suited him so well and to see the spark of amusement twinkling in his eyes. He knew she’d been avoiding him. Of course he did, because he was arrogant enough to think she spent more time thinking about him than she did.
She scrambled for an excuse that had nothing whatsoever to do with Bryan. “Nell’s been searching for a project for me. I’m here to see what she’s found.”
Nell nodded as if it made perfect sense. “And your timing couldn’t be better. I have a committee meeting coming up tomorrow that I’d very much like you to attend. It’s for the Chesapeake Shores fall festival.”
Kiera was unfamiliar with all of America’s special holidays. “Is this an American holiday, then, like your upcoming Fourth of July celebration?”
“Actually it began years ago as a way to extend the summer tourist season into the fall months,” Nell explained. “It’s sponsored by my church, but the whole community gets involved. It had gotten a little stuffy with the same old activities year after year, but I added some fresh voices to the committee last year, and the new additions they came up with were a rousing success. I think you’d bring in even more exciting ideas.”
Before Kiera could answer, Nell turned to Bryan. “What about you? It’s time you got more involved in the community, as well. This will be the perfect way to meet some new people and share your ideas.”
Bryan looked about as enthused as if Nell had invited him to join the circus. “I work in the pub. I know plenty of people.”
“You hide out in the kitchen the majority of the time,” Nell responded.
“Would you have me cooking on a hot plate behind the bar?”
Dillon choked back a laugh and even Kiera had to fight a smile, but Nell merely leveled a stern look at Bryan. “I’ll expect to see you tomorrow.”
Now Bryan looked a little desperate. “I really don’t have the time.”
“My grandson is a big supporter of this event,” Nell informed him. “Luke will see that you have the time. The first meeting is tomorrow morning at nine, right here.” She turned her gaze to Kiera. “I’ll expect you both.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Kiera said with enthusiasm, casting a defiant look at Bryan. She pointedly looked from him to the increasingly gloomy skies, then stood. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a rain check on the tea and scone, though. I want to get home and ready for work before it storms.”
Her father seemed to take his cue from her. “I’ll drive you, just in case it doesn’t hold off.”
For once Kiera didn’t argue.
“Bryan, would you like a lift, as well?” Dillon offered.
“Thanks, but no. I need to finish my run. I’ll just be jumping in the shower after that, so a little rain won’t matter. I’m going to spend another minute or two wasting my breath trying to convince Nell I’ll be no help on this committee of hers.”
Dillon chuckled. “Good luck with that. Once my wife’s mind is made up, it’s unlikely to change.”
“Like some others I know,” Bryan said.
Kiera walked past him and followed her father outside. When they were on their way, she felt her father’s curious gaze studying her from time to time.
“Did I sense some tension between you and Bryan just now?” Dillon asked.
“We’ve never had an easy time of it. I’ve been getting under his skin since I arrived,” Kiera responded.
“But today, it seemed to be the other way around.”
Leave it to her father to develop a deeper level of perceptiveness at exactly the wrong moment, Kiera thought wryly.
“The truth is that I came over this morning in an effort to avoid him. The last thing I expected was to find him in your kitchen.” Even she could hear the grumbling note in her voice suggesting that he was somehow lending aid and comfort to the enemy.
“Is that a problem?”
She drew in a deep breath. “No, of course not,” she said, trying to infuse her voice with a different tone entirely. “Is this a regular thing, then? These visits of his?”
Dillon still seemed puzzled by her reaction. “He stops by from time to time when he goes for his run,” he explained. “He and Nell talk about menu ideas for the pub. She’s become quite fond of him.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind and time my own visits accordingly.”
Dillon gave her a quick, worried glance. “Has he done something to offend you, Kiera? Moira seemed to think you all were getting along swimmingly these days.”
“Moira’s an optimist,” Kiera said.
At her father’s chuckle, she swallowed her annoyance and laughed with him. “Okay, it’s not a word I’d normally associate with Moira, but in this case it fits. She and Luke want Bryan and me to get along. We’re doing the best we can. Too much contact may test our fragile peace.”
Her father gave a nod of understanding. “And now Nell has put him right in your path yet again with this committee of hers. I can ask her to change her mind. It’s clear he wants no part of it anyway.”
“I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction,” Kiera said.
“Okay, then, whatever you want.”
Kiera evaded his knowing gaze and sighed. As if she had any bloody idea what that was!
* * *
“Well done,” Dillon enthused when he got back to the cottage and joined Nell in the kitchen.
“I thought so,” Nell responded. “It’s clear there’s something going on between those two. Every time their eyes met, sparks flew. They just need a nudge here and there.”
“They’re both going to fight the attraction, no question about that,” Dillon said. “And we need to be subtle or Kiera, at least, will move heaven and earth just to defy us.”
“The committee was just the first step and, frankly, one I hadn’t even envisioned until they both turned up here this morning and gave me the perfect opening to throw them together. Just wait until they hear what I have in mind,” Nell said, her expression filled with anticipation.
“Tell me.”
As she described her plan, Dillon sat back in awe. He’d watched Mick O’Brien meddle in various family romances, but the man had obviously learned from a matchmaking genius.
“Well, what do you think?” Nell asked. “Will it work, or am I going too far?”
“Pure genius, given their competitive natures,” he said. “But a word of caution. If it seems that you or I are involved in some sort of scheme, Kiera will balk. She and I are just starting to bond. I worry that this could cause another rift between us.”
His concern seemed to put a damper on his wife’s enthusiasm, but within moments her expression brightened again. She stood up and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll enlist a little help with the plan. The suggestion won’t come from me at tomorrow’s meeting, so you will be able to deny you knew a thing about it. What is it those lawyers we watch on TV call it, plausible deniability?”
Dillon chuckled. “Who knew those shows would serve a useful purpose? So where are you going now?”
“To Sally’s. I’ll plant a few seeds here and there, and if I know my granddaughters, by tomorrow they’ll have turned this into their own idea and added a few embellishments.”
“Nell O’Brien O’Malley, should I be worried that one day this devious streak of yours will be used against me?”
She laughed. “What makes you think it hasn’t been already?”
* * *
Since in her eagerness to get away from Bryan and those knowing glances of his she hadn’t lingered at Nell’s long enough for a scone, Kiera decided she deserved one of Sally’s croissants to replace it. Perhaps the gathering of O’Brien women she was likely to find there would prove more settling to her nerves than the way her day had started.
Today Connor’s wife, Heather, Kevin’s wife, Shanna, and Bree were lingering over coffee when she arrived. The three had distinctive personalities that were echoed by the clothes they chose, Bree’s flamboyant and colorful, Heather’s soothing, and Shanna’s classic.
“May I join you or are you about to leave?” Kiera asked.
“Please join us,” Bree invited, pulling out the chair next to hers. “We’ve been commiserating over getting drawn into Gram’s fall festival planning again.”
Kiera brightened at once. “You’re on the committee, as well? That’s great news!”
“She’s asked you to come to tomorrow’s meeting, too?” Bree asked.
“Of course she has,” Heather said. “Have you ever known Nell to let an able-bodied person escape her clutches when she’s planning her favorite community event?”
“Forget able-bodied being part of the criteria,” Shanna said. “Poor Jaime Alvarez was still on crutches when she corralled him into helping last year.”
“Well, this year she’s added both Bryan and me into the mix,” Kiera said. “I’m excited about it.”
The other three women exchanged glances.
“Maybe that will let us off the hook,” Heather suggested hopefully.
“Not a chance,” Bree said ruefully. “I don’t think there’s an O’Brien alive who’s ever successfully squirmed off Gram’s hook once she’s set it.”
Kiera heard the grumbling complaints and couldn’t imagine why they weren’t more enthused. “It honestly sounds like so much fun to me. Is it really such a burden? I’ve never had a chance to work on a community event like this.”
“We need to stop trying to scare her off or Nell will never forgive us,” Heather said. “It really is fun.”
“Maybe the first ten years,” Bree groused. “I’ve been doing it since I was old enough to take fliers around town and climb on chairs to post them in shop windows. You’d think, given how many O’Briens have come along since then, that she’d cut the rest of us a break for time served.”
Shanna laughed. “Oh, stop acting like a martyr. You know perfectly well that there’s not a one of us who wouldn’t do anything Nell asked. She has her hand in half a dozen or more community projects. We’re all in awe of her energy and we’re trying to figure out where it comes from. Personally, I think she takes some magic elixir.”
“There’s no elixir. It’s pure O’Brien stubbornness,” Bree said.
“Maybe that explains why you and I don’t have it,” Heather told Shanna with exaggerated resignation. “We weren’t born with O’Brien blood.”
Kiera suddenly realized that the complaining was something that simply came with the territory. She suspected Shanna had been right, that the level of love and respect they all felt for Nell would make them all willing to walk over hot coals for her. Being on this committee might be a chore for them, but it was a more welcome responsibility than they’d ever let on.
Just then Bree turned to her. “You’ve really never been involved in planning any sort of community event?” she asked as if such a thing were unthinkable.
“Never,” Kiera told her. “Back home, I never had the time. I tried to take Moira and her brothers to festivals and the like, but there were so many temptations and there were times when money was too tight for me to give them even those small trinkets or treats.”
“Then we’re going to make sure this is a wonderful experience for you,” Bree vowed. “If there’s one thing that Chesapeake Shores knows how to do right, it’s our special events. You’ll see on the Fourth of July. And the fall festival is even more amazing, especially since Gram decided to shake it up a little. I think even she was stunned at how well the kissing booth and the dancing went over last year. We’re really going to have to use our imaginations to top that.”
The mention of the kissing booth sent Kiera’s imagination soaring off once again to the feel of Bryan’s lips on hers, albeit fleetingly, the previous night. She stood hurriedly before anyone thought to question the sudden flush in her cheeks.
“I’ll see you all in the morning, then,” she said.
She heard a few murmurs about her abrupt departure, but in her haste to go, it barely registered that the woman who’d just come in Sally’s door was Nell.