Chapter 5
“Would you mind handling the bar for me during lunch?” Luke asked Kiera when she came into his office right after Moira left with Kate. “I’ve barely made a dent in the paperwork that was to be done this morning.”
Kiera gave him a knowing look. “Seems to me you had a bit of a distraction.”
“The best kind,” Luke agreed. “But it has put me behind, so would you mind helping me out?”
“It’s what I’m here for,” she told him. “I’m capable of drawing a few pints of ale and making friendly conversation.”
“Just be careful you don’t do it so well that everyone asks for you and I’m rendered irrelevant.”
“As if I could do that,” she scoffed. “You’ve a knack for listening when it’s called for or saying something to earn a laugh, when that’s needed. Owning a pub like this is the perfect fit for you, Luke. You couldn’t do better if you’d been born and bred in Ireland.”
He gave her a startled look. “You couldn’t have found a compliment that could please me more, Kiera. I wasn’t at all sure I had a niche in life when we first met in Ireland,” he admitted.
His candor revealed a rare insecurity, especially for an O’Brien. Kiera was touched that he felt comfortable sharing his feelings with her. “How can that be? I thought everyone in your family was born with confidence to spare.”
Luke laughed. “It certainly seems that way, but I was the youngest and had none of the passion for a career that everyone else seemed to have. I discovered what I was meant to do while I was in Dublin. The more pubs that Moira and I visited around the countryside, the surer I felt that this could be my calling. Even then, I had no idea how my family would react. They tend to be overachievers. I feared having my own pub here in Chesapeake Shores wouldn’t measure up as much of an accomplishment.”
“Did they find fault with your choice?” she asked curiously. She knew Mick and Luke’s own brother had international reputations as architects and urban planners. His uncle Thomas O’Brien ran a foundation dedicated to saving the Chesapeake Bay from environmental toxins. His aunt Megan, of course, had major connections in the art world, which she’d used to Moira’s benefit. His cousin Bree was known for her plays that had been produced locally, by a regional theater in Chicago and even on Broadway. There wasn’t a one of them who couldn’t claim success in their field. Had they judged Luke’s ambition to be less than theirs?
“My father questioned it at first. He thought it was too big a risk, but Uncle Mick got it right away, as did my grandmother. To my father’s dismay, they were quite vocal with their support.”
“I should think so,” Kiera said. “Neighborhood pubs are a fine Irish tradition. Aren’t there bars in the States that are similar?”
“I wanted this place to be more than just another bar. I wanted it to be a community gathering spot,” Luke said.
He gestured at the arrangement of tables, subtly done to make conversation easier between tables. The antique bar he’d imported from Ireland had space for a dozen people, and a mirror behind it that allowed customers to speak to others seated several stools away and still see their reactions mirrored on the wall. And while the colors he’d chosen reflected the waterfront setting more than an Irish pub might, they were warm, inviting shades of the sea. There was even a bit of a dance floor carved out in front of the area where Irish bands played on weekends.
“Well, if your regulars are to be believed, you’ve achieved that,” Kiera told him. “I myself can see that you’ve created a place that’s comfortable, friendly and the first place to go for the local gossip.” She hesitated deliberately, then taunted, “That is if you haven’t already picked it up at Sally’s in the morning.”
Luke laughed. “I like to think we come by a few tidbits of news first right here, if only because Uncle Mick seems to know everything and finds my bar the perfect place to be sharing it. O’Brien’s may be my pub, but Uncle Mick reigns over it.”
“Now, that has the ring of truth, to be sure.” With the time for the pub’s midday opening almost upon them, Kiera reminded them both that they needed to get back to work. “You’d best get busy on that paperwork now. Leave the bar to me.”
“I’m right here if you need me,” Luke told her. “Or ask Bryan. He’s filled in a time or two when we’ve been short-staffed.”
“I’ll do my best to handle it without bothering either one of you,” Kiera said, and headed off to check on supplies. She stopped short when she found Bryan seated at the end of the bar with a cup of coffee.
“And shouldn’t you be in the kitchen?” she inquired lightly, trying to calm the unexpected flutter of nerves she got at the sight of him. What was it about him that affected her so? He was annoying, to be sure, but it was more than that. Maybe that impossible nature of his reminded her just the tiniest bit of Sean Malone, which was far from a recommendation.
As if to prove her point about his difficult nature, he immediately bristled at the hint of accusation in her voice. “Kiera, I’ve been running the kitchen quite efficiently for some time now. I don’t need you to tell me how to do it. I believe I’ve mentioned that before.”
She winced. “More than once,” she said stiffly. And here they went again, off on the wrong foot, just when she’d been trying to convince both Luke and herself that they could manage to get along. “I wasn’t suggesting you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Really? Haven’t you made it your role to be Luke’s eyes and ears, when he’s not around?” His gaze narrowed as he watched her busy herself behind the bar. “And now what? Are you taking over bartending, too? Were you not satisfied with meddling in how I run the kitchen? For the past week, you’ve been tossing out suggestions every time you pass through the kitchen door.”
She stopped in her count of glasses and stared at him in shock. “Are you suggesting that I’m pushing my way into things that are none of my concern? I don’t know what you expect, Bryan. Luke told me it bothered you if I kept silent. Now I’m speaking up too often. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m confused by how to make this work with you.”
Something that might have been guilt flitted across his face, but she didn’t know him well enough to be sure.
“I’m only doing what my son-in-law has asked of me,” she reminded him. “If that bothers you, take it up with him.”
“Oh, believe me, I have.”
Kiera was taken aback by the flat answer. “You’ve tried to undermine my position here? Why would you do such a thing? Is it your goal to get me fired from my job before I’ve even begun?”
This time the flush of guilt that spread across his face was undeniable. “No, of course not. Your position is not in question. Luke and Moira want you here. That’s all I need to know.”
“Then what?”
“I’ve just tried to clarify what authority you have over what I do.”
“So it’s a matter of authority, is it? Is it me personally you object to listening to or would it be any woman?” She paused to let her words sink in, then answered her own question. “Wait now. It can’t possibly be that since you’ve no objection to taking Nell’s words to heart or Moira’s. That leaves only one answer. It must be me. Do I grate on your nerves because I hit a little too closely to the truth from time to time and underline some insecurity of yours about your cooking?”
Bryan looked genuinely distraught by her conclusion, but she was in no mood to be consoled by that. If his patience had worn thin, hers was at an end.
“Kiera, no. Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a bad morning, and it has nothing at all to do with you. I’d been hoping for something, and it didn’t work out. There’s no reason for me to be taking my foul mood out on you. You just happened to appear as I finished taking the call.”
Something in his voice alerted her that whatever that call had been about, it truly had thrown him off his game. His words were as close to a sincere apology as she’d ever heard from him. And there was no mistaking the hint of despair in his eyes, if she paused long enough to see that and not focus on the temper in his tone.
She stopped what she was doing, took his coffee cup and refilled it, then looked him in the eye. “Do you want to talk about whatever’s really bothering you? I’m not Luke, but I’m a good listener and I don’t spread tales.”
A smile flitted across his face at that. “Spoken like a true Irish bartender,” he said.
“Spoken sincerely,” she countered. “We certainly can’t claim to have reached the status of friends. In fact, we’re coworkers and barely that, but I’d like to help if I can.”
He seemed taken aback by the offer. “I appreciate that, but there’s nothing you can do. It’s something I’m unlikely to resolve. One of these days I have to accept that.”
The resignation in his voice reminded her of times in her own past when she’d wanted to give up. Sometimes it had been her own inner strength or a bit of support offered when needed that had gotten her through. She wanted to offer that to him.
“If it’s important enough, you can’t stop trying, no matter how many dead ends you encounter,” she told him. She thought of how her father had reached out again and again, despite her determined efforts to push him away. No matter how far apart she told herself they were, she’d known if she truly needed him, he would be there. He’d proved it by all he’d done with Moira to get her to Chesapeake Shores when she’d desperately needed to make a change.
She held Bryan’s gaze and added earnestly, “It’s the trying that will come to matter someday.”
He sighed. “I want to believe that. I truly do.” He picked up his coffee and headed toward the kitchen. “Thanks for this,” he said, gesturing with the cup. “And for the advice.”
Kiera watched his retreat and felt something inside her shift. Bryan Laramie was a far more complicated man than she’d ever imagined. And despite every warning bell going off in her head, she couldn’t help being just a tiny bit intrigued.
* * *
There was always a natural lull between lunch and dinner at the pub. The waitstaff often changed during that time, with some of their part-time college students heading off to class and others showing up for the evening shift.
Normally Kiera wanted nothing more during those hours than to put her feet up for a bit, have a strong cup of tea and say not a single word to another soul. Today, though, with her conversation with Bryan still on her mind, she decided to take a chance and see if she could get to the bottom of his mood. Even as she told herself that pressing him was a bad idea, she stepped into the kitchen, only to find it as spotless as if there had never been a lunch rush, and deserted. Since the back door was sitting open, she peered outside and down the alley behind the building. No sign of him there, either. Going off and leaving the kitchen unsecured wasn’t like him, which only worried her more.
Wherever he’d gone and whatever his reason for it, he shouldn’t have been so careless, she thought with annoyance. She closed the door and turned the lock, then went back into the dining room and settled at a table just inside the door with her tea and a book that wasn’t holding her interest. Her gaze kept straying to the street, but wherever Bryan had gone, he didn’t appear to be in any hurry to get back.
Not that she intended to question him or even to lecture him on his carelessness. One testy encounter was enough for today. She was just hoping to see what he had to say for himself when he returned to find he couldn’t slip in the same way he’d walked out.
She’d been staring down the street for a half hour or more when Luke joined her.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Fine. The lunch hour went smoothly. Will you be wanting me behind the bar again tonight?”
“No, I can take over. Paul called in, so I’ll need you to help with serving.”
Her gaze narrowed. “It’s the third time this week he’s called in.”
“Finals are coming up soon. I think he’s under a lot of pressure to get his grades up. His parents have high expectations for him. He’s the first in the family to go to college. He doesn’t want to let them down.”
The excuse sounded like one her own sons might use to explain away irresponsibility. “But he has a responsibility to you,” Kiera objected. “That matters, too.”
“I’ve told him his grades are the most important thing for the moment. And I have you here to take up any slack.”
She nodded, accepting his decision for the generosity it showed. It wasn’t up to her to tell him that his employee might be getting off too easily. If Paul was taking advantage of Luke’s good nature, he’d learn it soon enough. “Of course,” she said.
Luke studied her intently. “Is something else on your mind?”
“Not a thing,” she said, though she couldn’t seem to stop her gaze from straying once more to the empty street outside.
Luke’s expression turned knowing. “If you’re wondering where Bryan is, I’ve sent him on an errand, as I do every day or two around this time.”
“Bryan’s whereabouts are no concern of mine,” she said a little too quickly.
“Perhaps not, but that wouldn’t stop you from wondering, I suspect. There are fishermen coming in now. He’s gone to check on the catch and buy fresh fish for tonight’s menu if he likes what he finds.”
“Ah,” she said, a weight that wasn’t hers to be bearing lifting.
Just then there was a pounding on the back door that startled them both, followed by a very vocal stream of what sounded like colorful obscenities. Luke chuckled. “You locked the kitchen door, didn’t you?”
“I thought it needed to be secured with no one back there,” she said defensively. “I’ll let him in.”
“Stay right there. I think it’s best if I do it.” He grinned at her. “You might want to stay out of his path for a bit.”
“With pleasure,” she said. There had already been far too many unsettling encounters. Who knew where another one might lead? Certainly not to the peace and harmony Luke wanted among his staff.
* * *
Bryan’s day had gone from bad to worse, starting with a call from his private investigator informing him of yet another dead end. He should be used to those by now. If they’d been commonplace nineteen years ago, now there were even fewer leads to investigate, so fewer disappointments to be gotten through. Still, each one cut another slice out of his soul.
Then there had been the odd encounter with Kiera right before the lunch hour. Her offer of a sympathetic ear had thrown him, especially after he’d jumped all over her with his foul temper. He hadn’t leaned on anyone in so long, he had no idea how to deal with it.
And, then, just when his equilibrium was balancing out after the rough morning, Kiera—and there was no question that she was responsible, since everyone else knew the routine—had locked him out of the pub’s kitchen. He’d been left standing in the alley with heavy buckets of freshly filleted fish on ice. His sour mood had returned and, once more, she was smack at the center of it.
All of that had thrown him completely off his game. Distracted, he’d added far too much salt to the Irish stew and left an entire batch of fish and chips in the hot oil until smoke filled the kitchen. Fortunately, before it could set off the alarms he’d opened the back door and allowed the cool spring breeze to replace the scent of food that was fried beyond hope.
“Were you trying to burn the whole place to the ground?” Kiera inquired as she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, hands on her lush, well-rounded hips, regarding him with that superior attitude that had been getting on Bryan’s nerves since the day Luke had informed him that she was there as their latest “consultant,” direct from Ireland. Pain in the posterior was more like it, he thought, trying to intimidate her with a glare that always failed to have the desired effect. All of his carefully laid out plans to make peace with her were forgotten in the moment.
“Get out of my kitchen,” he ordered brusquely, hoping to stake his claim on the territory once and for all. Of course, she didn’t budge. If anything, his ire kicked up the heat in her temper.
“So it’s your kitchen, is it?” she asked. Gone in a flash was the more accommodating tone of this morning. “I was under the impression that it, like the rest of the pub, belonged to my son-in-law.”
“Technically, perhaps, but it’s my domain in here. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I don’t need you hovering over me every minute. I know what I’m doing.”
“Yes,” she said, her tone sarcastic. “I can see that from the smoke in the air.”
“Have you never made a mistake, Kiera?”
“A lifetime of them,” she replied tartly. “But never one that might chase off the patrons of the very place that provides my livelihood.”
“Not what I’ve heard,” Bryan muttered, turning away from the woman who was rapidly becoming the bane of his existence. For a while now Kiera had made him seriously question why he’d ever left that deli in Baltimore where he’d been a master of matzo ball soup and pastrami on rye. Even with waitresses yelling their demands and the lunchtime flurry of impatient customers in a rush, it had been a lot less nerve-racking than O’Brien’s since Kiera had arrived.
“Should I be telling my customers that fish and chips are off the menu tonight?” she inquired sweetly.
“No, you should not,” Bryan retorted tightly. “You should tell them they’re being cooked to perfection by the chef. Now go away and let me do just that.”
“If you can,” she said tartly, then added far more sweetly, “Would you perhaps like me to take over with your Irish stew, since I’ve been told it tastes a bit saltier than usual tonight? It’s been one of my family specialties for years now.”
“Go away, Kiera.”
Bryan gritted his teeth as she left, changed the oil in the deep fryer and started over. He winced when he realized that Luke had replaced Kiera in the doorway.
“Bad night?” Luke inquired, a barely contained smile on his lips.
“A bad few weeks,” Bryan replied, not feeling any need to censor himself. Luke knew as well as he did that Kiera had created chaos since her arrival. She’d taken her role as consultant a little too seriously, questioning everything that went on in O’Brien’s. He’d heard her cross-examining the waitstaff and seen for himself the changes she’d made with the location of table setups. In his opinion, the old arrangements of supplies had worked just fine. When he’d caught her in his pantry about to rearrange things, he’d tossed her out. Luke might be willing to overlook her criticism for the sake of family harmony, but Bryan didn’t have to do the same.
“Bryan, we’ve talked about this. She’s trying to find her place here,” Luke reminded him. “She’s a proud woman who wants to earn what little she’s being paid. It’s not easy being in a new country with few people she knows. And she didn’t leave Ireland under the best circumstances. She’d just lost the man she loved.”
Bryan heaved a sigh. “Moira has repeated that more times than I can count, and while I appreciate the position both of you are in, I’m just not sure how much more I can take.” He leveled a look at his boss. “And before you ask, I have no idea why the woman bugs me. I should let her comments roll off my back. I always intend to do just that. Just this morning I would have sworn we’d reached a truce of some kind, but then she says or does something and before I know it, the battle lines are drawn once more.”
“I know it can’t be that you simply don’t like being told what to do,” Luke said. “You took my grandmother’s cooking lessons well enough when she was teaching you all of her old Irish recipes. How many times did she ask you to make the same thing over and over before she was satisfied? When she did the same to me, I came close to saying words that no grandmother should ever hear a grandson utter, but I never once heard you complain or say a sharp word. Give that same patience a try for Kiera’s sake.”
“Nell may have been a tough taskmaster, but she’s practically a saint by comparison to Kiera Malone,” Bryan said. “And before you say it, the same could be said of Moira.”
Luke’s eyes widened in surprise. “You think Kiera is more maddening than Moira?”
“At least a thousand percent,” Bryan confirmed.
“Really?” Luke asked skeptically. “Then, again, you didn’t know Moira back when we first met. Let’s just say I found her to be a challenge.” He regarded Bryan intently. “Much the same way you look upon Kiera.” He grinned suddenly, looking oddly satisfied, as if something he’d been theorizing about had just been confirmed. “This should be interesting to watch.”
Bryan regarded him suspiciously. “You’re not going to tell her to back off?”
Luke laughed. “I’ve told her the kitchen is your domain. What more can I do?” he inquired a little too innocently.
“Remind her that this is your pub and that she is most definitely not in charge, at least when it comes to me.”
“I’ll mention it,” Luke agreed. “But she’s a strong-willed woman.”
Bryan regarded him with confusion, but then understanding dawned. “You’re actually enjoying this test of wills that’s developing between us, aren’t you?”
“A tiny bit,” Luke conceded. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with the pub running smoothly, I intend to enjoy this in much the way my family enjoyed watching Moira tie me up in knots.”
“Not the same,” Bryan said fiercely. “They thought you needed someone to shake up your life. I’m not looking for a challenge in mine.”
“Neither was I,” Luke replied. “Lo and behold, though, there was Moira. As my grandmother took great pleasure in reminding me, we don’t necessarily get to choose when love comes along.”
Bryan gave him a horrified look. “Love? If you think that has anything at all to do with what’s going on between Kiera Malone and me, then you need a bit of counseling about relationships.”
Luke laughed. “My wife would probably say the same, but I think I’m right about this. All that chemistry will explode one of these days.”
“Just pray it doesn’t take your pub down with it,” Bryan retorted.
As his boss walked away, Bryan got the distinct impression he might be doomed. That deli in Baltimore was looking better and better.