Chapter 17
Bryan couldn’t seem to shake off his impulsive offer to Kiera to speak to Connor O’Brien about his situation, even though he’d decided the conversation could be postponed. Whether things between him and Kiera moved forward or not, he recognized that something had changed inside him. He was finally ready to put that part of his past behind him. He would never give up looking for his daughter, but the marriage was long dead and he needed to let go of whatever legal ties might still bind him to Melody. He still had a future to live, if only he were free to seize it. If he’d learned nothing else from this time with Kiera, he had learned that. Life didn’t end after a tragedy. It was right there, waiting for you to grab it.
A couple nights later when he spotted Connor at the bar in the pub with Mick, Bryan came out of the kitchen and joined them. “Connor, I was wondering if I might have a word with you when you have the time. I’d come by your office, but I’m pretty much chained to this place until Luke gets back to town.”
“How about your office, then?” Connor suggested, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Would that work, or is it too busy in there for you to talk?”
“It’s mostly quiet tonight,” Bryan said. “I can keep up with the orders while we talk, if you don’t mind a few interruptions.”
“Heather drops the kids off in my office every now and then just to challenge my ability to concentrate,” Connor told him. “It’ll be fine.”
Back in the kitchen, Bryan made quick work of a couple of orders, then turned to Connor. “This is strictly confidential, right?”
“Of course, though if you want to give me a dollar to retain my services, that will make it official that lawyer-client confidentiality is firmly in place.” He shook his head. “I’ve never entirely understood why that dollar makes people feel more comfortable, but it seems to be reassuring.”
Bryan handed over the dollar. “I think I get it. It’s symbolic, if nothing else.”
“So’s a handshake, according to my father,” Connor said. “I’ve seen him make multimillion-dollar development deals on that alone.”
“And fifty-cent deals with his grandchildren,” Bryan added, laughing. “Okay, here’s the situation. I’ll give you the short version, and you can ask all the relevant questions about whatever I’ve skipped over.”
“That works for me.”
Bryan drew in a deep breath, then summarized the history of his marriage, the birth of his daughter, his wife’s abrupt departure and his subsequent futile efforts to find them.
Connor had taken a notebook from his pocket as Bryan talked, searched until he found a pen and then jotted copious notes. “The detectives never found a trace?”
“The trail went cold in Baltimore,” Bryan acknowledged. “I moved there from New York, hoping that meant they might still be in the area, but it was a dead end. That was years ago.”
“Yet you continued to look?”
“I couldn’t give up. I can give you all the canceled checks and the reports from the various detectives,” Bryan said. “The last one was dated a month ago. This last one was very thorough. He explored every old lead and even followed up on a couple of new ones he thought he’d found online. He’ll tell you himself that it was as if they vanished. I had no idea how easily someone could do that.”
“Sounds like your wife must have changed her name,” Connor said.
“That’s what the detectives concluded, too.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?” Connor asked. “Are you looking for another investigator to take on the case?”
Bryan shook his head. “No. What I need to know is the legal status of my marriage. I have no idea how to find that out.”
“Given how long ago she left and everything you’ve told me about the way she vanished, I think we could go to court and make a case that she abandoned you and have the marriage declared invalid.”
“Would that be complicated?”
“I don’t think so under these circumstances, but I’ll find out.” Connor’s eyes sparkled. “I can’t help wondering about something.”
“If there’s anything you need to know, just ask.”
“You’ve gone for years, apparently content to just let things be. I assume this is suddenly so important to you for a reason.”
“It’s just time,” Bryan said, skirting any deeper reasons.
Connor gave him a knowing look. “In my capacity as your lawyer, I can accept that, if you say that’s all it is, but as your friend I have to wonder if Kiera is playing some role in this. Everyone in town is speculating about the two of you.”
“Thanks mostly to your grandmother,” Bryan said ruefully, avoiding a direct answer. “Nell has everybody fascinated with just about everything we do these days. I swear there are bets being placed at the bar. I think Mick’s keeping track of them. Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure if people are betting on Kiera beating me in the cooking competition or on whether we’re going to end up together.”
“Truthfully, I think there are odds on both,” Connor told him, laughing. “My money’s on you winning the bet and Kiera winning you. I’m pretty sure my wife bet exactly the opposite. Just so you know, the odds are pretty even right now.”
Bryan sighed. “Good to know.” If he found that disconcerting, he could only imagine how Kiera was going to feel about it.
Connor grinned at him. “Surely you’ve been here long enough to know that my family and people in this town place bets on just about anything. If romance is so much as hinted at, the ante goes up. It’s just what we do. No offense is meant.”
“None taken, but it does add to the pressure, which is all the more reason to get this marriage situation resolved quickly. Can you help me to figure this out once and for all?”
“Of course,” Connor said, his expression sobering. “I’ll do a little reading and ask a few colleagues in my old office in Baltimore since I’ve not handled anything exactly like this before. We’ll come up with a solution to clarify your legal status.”
“Thanks, Connor.”
“Not a problem. It beats trying to get people out of traffic tickets. I love a good legal challenge. They’re in short supply in Chesapeake Shores, where most people aren’t inclined to sue each other over crazy little disputes.” He held Bryan’s gaze, his expression even more serious. “I assume the end result you’re after is to be free and clear to pursue something with Kiera, right?”
“That, and I’m hoping it will be one more step in helping me to let go of my past, something I should have done years ago.”
“Take it from me, a piece of paper doesn’t always accomplish that,” Connor said. “But I’ll do my part to get you to that point.”
“All I can ask,” Bryan said. The rest would be up to him.
* * *
Bryan’s text came while Kiera was sitting at the airport waiting for her flight home to Baltimore. After a whirlwind three days in San Francisco, she was surprisingly anxious to get back to Chesapeake Shores despite all the uncertainties awaiting her there.
Relieved that Luke was taking a walk with Kate, she studied the text. Saw Connor tonight. He’s looking into things. See you soon. Anxious to hear about the trip.
Kiera stared at the terse message and felt something shift inside her. If Bryan could, indeed, resolve his marital status once and for all, it would make moot all of those decisions she’d made, then rejected, then made again and again. He would be free and she would have to base her decision on her feelings, not on her perception of right and wrong. Feelings were much trickier than hard truths.
“You look awfully serious,” Luke said, sitting down next to her with a sleeping Kate in his arms. “I thought you’d be eager to get home and tell everybody about the trip.”
Kiera mustered the smile he obviously expected. “It was a wonderful trip, no question about it. Thank you for making it happen. I’ll treasure the memories for years to come, especially the chance to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman’s Wharf, to say nothing of watching my Moira being the center of attention.”
“You deserved it. You’ve been a huge help at the pub and with Kate. I know how much it meant to Moira to have you here for her grand success.”
“And you and Kate, too. I know she didn’t want to see you leave.”
“She understands she has obligations to her career,” Luke said. “So do I. And she’ll be home in another week. I know how much she hates being away, but I’ve come to look forward to her homecomings.”
Kiera smiled at the unmistakable twinkle in his eyes. “I’m sure you have. Perhaps Kate could have a sleepover at my house when Moira arrives next week.”
He laughed. “Now, that would be a true blessing.”
“Consider it done.”
“In that case, I’ll have to see that Megan schedules another show for Moira soon and we’ll take another family trip.”
“There won’t be time for many more,” Kiera said softly. “The fall festival will be taking a lot of time between now and October, and when it’s over—”
Luke cut her off. “We’ll deal with what’s next when the time comes, Kiera. You know you have options. Going back to Ireland isn’t the only choice.”
She wanted to believe there were real options open to her, but she’d learned not to count on things turning out the way she wanted them to. The simple fact that a tiny part of her was already yearning to stay in Chesapeake Shores was tantamount to tempting fate, which hadn’t always been so kind to her.
Worry clouded Luke’s expression. “Are you okay?”
“Just overthinking things as I usually do,” she said.
He glanced at the phone she was still holding tightly. “Was it bad news that had you looking so troubled when I came back just now? Is that what you’re overthinking?”
“To the contrary, I’m not exactly sure what sort of news it was,” she confessed.
Luke looked predictably bewildered. “Am I supposed to understand that? It sounds like the sort of thing Moira would expect me to grasp, but also the sort that leaves me clueless.”
Kiera chuckled. “I’m not sure how you could possibly understand, when I’m not entirely sure myself what I mean.”
“A riddle, then?”
She laughed. “Something like that.”
Understanding dawned. “Is Bryan somehow involved?”
“He’s at the heart of it, yes,” she said, then gave Luke a stern look. “But you are not to be nagging at him about it, is that understood?”
“You’re awfully protective of him,” Luke observed. “That’s a change from a few weeks back.”
“I’m protective of our privacy,” she corrected.
“But he’s done nothing to upset you, nothing I need to address?”
“Nothing,” she assured him.
Her son-in-law studied her, then nodded. “Okay, then. Just know I’m on your side.”
“There are no sides to be taken,” she said firmly. And if there were, she thought, perhaps Bryan could use the support every bit as much as she might need it.
* * *
Though it had been clear in Bryan’s text that he was anxious to see her, Kiera overslept in the morning, then had to rush to get to a festival committee meeting at Nell’s. Bryan was outside waiting for her, pacing in the yard.
“I knocked on your door,” he said. “I was worried when you didn’t answer.”
“Jet lag,” she said simply. “I slept like the dead and woke up with barely minutes to spare before coming here.”
“We need to talk.”
“We need to get inside before Nell comes looking for us,” she corrected.
“Then we’ll talk on the ride over to the pub after the meeting,” Bryan said.
“Is it something that can be discussed in a ten-minute drive?”
He sighed. “I suppose not.” He gave her a perplexed look. “I thought you’d be eager to know about what Connor’s found.”
Despite her impatience to get inside, Kiera paused long enough to caress his cheek. “I want to hear every word,” she assured him. “But when I’ve had a moment to catch my breath so it can sink in.”
Looking relieved, he nodded. “Later, then.”
“Definitely later.”
But, as it turned out, fate once again had other ideas.
* * *
The tall, willowy brunette stood hesitantly in the doorway of O’Brien’s. It could have been that her eyes were adjusting to the dim light, but Kiera thought otherwise. It looked more like she hadn’t quite made up her mind whether to come inside or to flee. Something in that hesitation made Kiera’s pulse skip erratically. Surely this couldn’t be... She cut off the ridiculous thought before it could fully form. There was absolutely no reason for her mind to go there, except that Bryan’s past had been too much on her mind today.
“May I help you?” she asked, approaching cautiously. “Were you meeting someone here?” Recognition dawned on her. “You were here on the Fourth of July. I told you that you looked familiar, but you said it wasn’t possible. It’s nice to see you again. We’re always happy to see returning customers.”
The blue-eyed gaze that met hers was clearly a nervous one. “I’m not here as a customer. Not exactly. I’m looking for someone.”
“The friend who was with you that day?”
“No, someone who works here, at least I think he does. It’s not an appointment or anything like that. It’s someone I’ve been searching for, and I read an article in a magazine about him. Bryan Laramie. Do you know him? Does he still work here?”
Kiera felt her heart race yet again. Some bit of caution told her to tread carefully, revealing nothing until she was certain about why this young woman was seeking Bryan. Again, that sense of recognition washed over her. It was the eyes, the coloring. The truth was right there in front of her.
“And you are?” she asked, needing confirmation of her suspicion.
“Deanna,” the young woman responded. “Deanna Lane.”
For just an instant relief flooded through Kiera, but before she could even draw a deep breath, the woman added, “It was Laramie once. Bryan Laramie is my biological father.”
She spoke the words as if they were foreign to her, as if she wasn’t even a tiny bit comfortable with them and needed the practice of saying them. They hit Kiera with a force that nearly took her breath away. She noted the careful distinction that had been made, too. Not her father, but her biological father.
All these years of searching, all the unanswered questions and pain, Kiera could only imagine how Bryan was going to react. At the moment, though, her focus was on this terrified young woman who’d obviously used up the last of her courage to admit the truth.
Instinctively Kiera reached out and gave the girl’s shaking hand a quick squeeze. “Come with me. You can sit for a moment and gather your composure. I’ll get you something to drink.”
“I’m only twenty.”
Kiera smiled at the honesty. “And I’m only thinking a glass of cold water with a bit of lemon. It might settle your nerves while I break the news to your father. It’s going to come as quite a shock. This moment is something he’s been longing for for a very long time.”
The girl looked startled. “You know about me?”
“Just that not a day has gone by in the past nineteen years or so when your father hasn’t wondered where you were and how you were doing.”
Deanna frowned at that, disbelief in her eyes. “Then why has he never come looking?”
“I believe you’ll find that’s not true, but it’s something for the two of you to discuss. I’ve already said more than enough.” She led the way to a table in a darkened corner where the two could have some privacy, brought the tall glass of water and once more patted the girl’s hand. It was cold as ice. “Try to take a deep breath and relax. I’ll be right back.”
In the doorway to the kitchen, she drew a deep breath of her own and gestured for Bryan to disconnect the call he was on. “In a minute,” he said impatiently.
“Now!” she said just as firmly. “There’s someone here to see you, Bryan. And it can’t wait.”
He seemed about to argue that there was no time for visiting, but she held up a hand. “Tell whoever you’re speaking to that you’ll call back, most likely not until tomorrow. You’ll need to take the time for this.” She leveled a look into his eyes. “Trust me on this.”
He searched her face and must have found something there that told him the seriousness of the situation. He murmured an excuse to the person on the phone, then crossed the kitchen to look deep into her eyes.
“Why the fuss? Is it a problem? Where’s Luke?”
“The person is here to see you, not Luke.” She touched his cheek. “It’s a moment you’ve been dreaming of.”
His eyes widened at that, and the color drained from his face. “Kiera, what are you telling me?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“She’s here, Bryan. Your daughter is here.”
“Deanna?” He looked as if he hardly dared to believe it might be true after all these years of fruitless searching. “Truly? You’re sure?”
“So she says. And she looks enough like you that I believe her. Now, go. Don’t keep the poor girl waiting. She’s a bundle of nerves.”
Kiera stood aside, wishing she had the right to give his hand a squeeze as she had his daughter’s, but he brushed past her, then came to a sudden halt. He glanced back.
“What do I say?”
“Start with hello,” she said softly. “You’ll go on from there.”
But hearing the hurt and pain, the accusatory note, in Deanna’s voice earlier suggested it wouldn’t go so smoothly after that.
* * *
As he approached the table where his daughter sat, Bryan felt as if his whole life came down to this single instant. After years of searching, years of hoping and dreaming about this moment, he wanted desperately to get it exactly right. He stood in the shadows, drinking in the sight of this young woman who bore no resemblance to the baby he’d last held in his arms so many years ago.
Instead, she had her mother’s wavy hair, though it was the color of his. She had a slender grace, a chin that had a belligerent tilt to it, also reminiscent of her mother. He had no doubt that if he could see her eyes clearly, they’d have her mother’s fiery temper flashing in them, as well.
He drew in a calming breath and took the few remaining steps that brought him into her line of sight. “Dee?”
“Mr. Laramie?”
He winced at the formality, the icy tone. “I’m your father, yes. I’d recognize you anywhere. You look exactly as your mother did at your age.”
“You’re not my father, not in any way that counts,” she said, though her voice faltered a bit as if the words and tone had been rehearsed, but didn’t fit comfortably now that she was face-to-face with him. Steadying herself, she added more forcefully, “Ashton Lane is the only father I’ve ever known.”
In an instant, Bryan hated this Ashton Lane, the man who’d taken his place in his daughter’s life. Railing against him, though, trying to claim his rightful place in her life, wouldn’t get them anywhere right now. He prayed for the wisdom to choose his words carefully.
“If that’s so, what brought you here?” Bryan asked, trying to hide the pain her words caused him. None of this was her fault. She’d been little more than a baby when her mother had taken her and left.
She clung to her glass of water with a death grip, her gaze on everything in the room except him. “Ash said I should find you, that I’d never be able to move on with my life until I understood how you could abandon us. My mom and me, I mean.”
Bryan’s temper stirred, but he managed to keep his voice even. “Is that what your mother told you, that I’d abandoned the two of you?”
“It’s what happened,” she said flatly. “I don’t remember you at all. You never sent a single birthday card or Christmas gift. You never paid support.” The heat in her voice climbed. “What kind of man does that? What kind of man simply walks away from his wife and child?”
There were years of pent-up emotion behind the accusations, emotions she probably didn’t even want to acknowledge, but it told Bryan quite a lot. Whether she wanted to admit that she’d thought about him or not, he’d been on her mind, if only as an elusive concept. And, with either erroneous information from her mother or from her own imagination, every scenario she’d imagined had left him as the bad guy.
Bryan recognized that the angry denials he wanted to utter would only escalate the situation. He took a moment to let his temper cool. Now that she’d said her piece, Deanna seemed suddenly deflated. Perhaps she’d been expecting outrage, after all.
“That’s not how it was,” he said quietly, pulling out a chair and sitting down to face her. He waited until she met his gaze. “If that’s what you were told, I’m sorry to say, it was a lie.”
“My mother didn’t lie,” she said, but the anger had gone out of her voice, leaving a faint question mark in its place.
“Not typically, no,” he agreed, because that much was true. The Melody he knew had always been brutally honest. “But in this case, she did,” he said evenly, holding her gaze. “And if you like, if you’ll keep an open mind, I can prove it.”
“How? With a bunch of lies of your own? Why would I ever believe you?”
“I think you want to,” he said, understanding that most of all she needed reassurance. After years of believing she’d been abandoned, how could she be anything except angry and cautious? “I think that’s really why you came, to hear my side of things. Isn’t that true?”
“I guess,” she said, a little of the belligerence fading.
“The reality is that you don’t know me at all. And I totally get that. I don’t expect you to believe something just because I say it’s true,” he assured her. “But I assume you’re not the kind of person who would dispute facts that you can see in black and white. You can look at my proof, then ask your mother if I’m the one who’s lying.”
Tears welled in her eyes then. “My mother is dead.”
The cold, hard truth blurted out like that shook Bryan. It felt as if it was the second time in his life he’d lost the same woman. This time, though, it came with an undeniable finality. Right now he couldn’t even think about what that might mean for his own future. He had to deal with the undeniable pain that truth was causing his daughter.
“I’m sorry, Dee. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Why would you be sorry? You walked out on her a long time ago. You never loved her.”
Proving that he’d searched for his wife and their baby girl wasn’t the same as trying to prove that his feelings had run deep and true. He had police reports, bills from private detectives that stated clearly just how long he’d looked for his family. Feelings couldn’t be so easily confirmed.
“Dee, what is it you really need to hear from me? What did you come here to learn? Or did you only come to hurl accusations, say all the things you’ve wanted to say to me over the years?”
More tears spilled down her cheeks at that. “I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “Everybody kept telling me I needed to do this. They had a whole long list of reasons, some practical like getting a medical history, some emotional like making peace with my past. I’ve been told I have abandonment issues, though I don’t see how that can be since I don’t even remember you. And I have a dad, so it can’t be that I needed another one.”
“I can only imagine how confusing it must be,” he said, hearing the confusion in her voice, the longing to make sense of things. “I’ve wanted to find you for years because a piece of my heart was missing, but now that you’re here I can barely find the right words to say. You said the man you consider to be your father convinced you to come.”
“In a way. When Ash told me he knew where you were and that he thought I should come, I felt like it was inevitable, you know?”
“Where have you been living all these years?”
“In Richmond.”
He thought the terse response was the end of it, but then she added with a hint of pride, “I’m going to school at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, though, and this summer I got an internship in a medical research program at Johns Hopkins.”
“Brains and beauty,” he said lightly. “I’m impressed.”
She smiled then, and it lit up her face. “That’s what Ash says all the time. Ever since I got to Johns Hopkins I’ve been trying to work up the courage to meet you. I even came here twice. The first time I just sat across the street, hoping you’d come outside. The last time was on the Fourth of July. I came in with a friend, but we didn’t stay. I was too nervous to eat. He got our dinner to go. It was delicious, by the way.”
Now it was Bryan’s turn to smile. “Thank you.”
She regarded him nervously. “Was it a mistake, my coming here? Am I turning your life upside down or anything?”
“Not from my point of view,” Bryan assured her. “I’ve been longing for this moment since the day you and your mom left. Will you see this through? Will you stick around and let me show you proof that I spent years looking for you and your mother? Will you listen to what really happened?”
He hated the pleading note in his voice, but he knew he couldn’t let her go without fighting for this one chance to make things right, to correct the record, at least.
“I didn’t really plan ahead,” she said. “I was going to come on the weekend, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Again,” she added ruefully. “But when I got up this morning, I made up my mind that it was time. I took the day off at work, but that was as much planning as I did. I don’t have a place to stay.”
“I have a guest room—”
“No.” She shut down that idea immediately.
Kiera appeared just then. It was apparent she’d been hovering nearby. For once he welcomed her uncanny knack for knowing when she might be needed.
“Deanna, would you be needing a place to stay for a night or two?” she asked gently. “My cottage is very close to your dad’s, but it would give you some space for your thoughts to settle.”
“It’s an excellent solution,” Bryan said, giving her a grateful look. “Will you consider that, Dee? A day or two’s not long. We’ll only have a start toward getting all the answers we both need, but it’s an excellent beginning.”
Deanna’s gaze held Kiera’s. “Are you sure I won’t be an imposition?”
“Not at all,” Kiera said. “I can take you there now and you can have a bit of a rest.”
“And I’ll stop by as soon as I get through the dinner rush here,” Bryan said. “If there were some way for me to leave now, I would.”
He waited for what seemed an eternity as his daughter weighed her options.
“I’ll stay,” she said at last. “But just for tonight. I need to go back to work tomorrow morning. This summer job is a volunteer internship, but it’s important. I don’t want them to think I’m irresponsible. And you should stay and finish here for the same reason. If Kiera doesn’t mind my staying with her, I could use a little time to let this sink in.” She gave him an odd look. “I thought you’d ask me to prove who I am.”
He smiled at that. “Even Kiera saw the resemblance, Dee. There was no need for proof.”
She pulled a picture out of her purse and handed it to him just the same. “Ash found this recently and sent it to me. I’d not seen it before. It’s the only picture my mother kept of the two of us.”
Bryan looked at the faded photograph and remembered precisely when it had been taken, on a rare day they’d spent at the park with a picnic. His eyes welled with tears.
“You remember it?” Dee asked.
Bryan nodded. “I have others I’ll show you. They’re worn on the edges from my looking at them so often. Thank you for agreeing to stay for the night. There’s so much I want to know.”
“Come along, child,” Kiera said.
As the two of them left, Bryan stared after them with a sense of wonder. It wasn’t just seeing his daughter for the first time in all these years. It was seeing this entirely new side of Kiera, a woman with compassion and understanding, who’d given him the gift of time to make things right with Deanna.