Then she’d taken a holiday in Ireland before settling in to her new path in life . . . and she’d immediately found someone there who made her laugh, made life seem fun and exciting again. Had she fallen for that sense of excitement as much as she’d fallen for the man himself? Had she just been looking for a new place to land?
She looked up at Hudson, knowing her life was once again at a crossroads. And are you doing the same thing all over again, right now?
Chapter Four
“I appreciate that, mate,” Hudson said into the phone. “More than you know. Thanks so much. And tell your friends I appreciate their help, too. Next time you’re in the Falls, your meals are all on me.” Hudson shifted the phone to his other ear as he made more notes on the pad of paper lying on his prep table. “But it’ll be a three-beer limit this time, mate,” he added with a chuckle, and the man on the other end laughed as well. Hudson said his good-byes and hung up the phone, then turned to look at Moira. “You’re a genius.”
Moira shrugged, as if it were all in a day’s work, but she was beaming as well. “So they’re willing to send you all their footage from that night?”
Hudson nodded, then finished plating two of his specialty burgers and carried them to the café table he’d set up in his kitchen at the pub. Two days had passed since their conversation in Sawyer’s office. Moira had stepped back from their intimate conversation, which had not ended in the kiss Hudson had hoped for. He respected that, respected her. That didn’t mean he wasn’t disappointed, though. Or that he’d given up hope.
“A room full of journalists and photographers—of course someone was filming the whole melee,” Hudson said as he took the seat across from her. His hearing had been delayed yet again, and he suspected Moira might be right about Taggert playing games with the court system, hoping to bait him into spending more consultation time and money with his attorney. As yet, he hadn’t even retained one. And with this latest development, he might never have to.
“And they said they got both me and Taggert on video?”
Hudson nodded. “They had two other mates who could likewise provide some footage, too.”
“And they didn’t angle for some kind of access to Seth or Pippa?”
Hudson shook his head. “No, that’s last week’s news now, apparently. Two of these guys were print journalists, not paparazzi. There’s no money in it for them now. They’re four assignments down the road at this point. Not sure if any of the conversation on their clips will be distinguishable though, given the level of noise in there that night.”
Moira shook her head. “That won’t matter. All we need is proof that Taggert took the first swing and you were defending yourself and me.”
“So, what happens next?”
“We look at everything they forward to you, and if it shows what we need it to show, you can hire a lawyer who will take it to the judge. Then in all likelihood, the case will be dismissed.”
Hudson nodded and urged her to try the burger. It was dry-aged, with Guinness butter, caramelized onions, and garlic aioli. He was thinking about adding it to the winter menu. He didn’t bother arguing over the need to hire local counsel. He knew she couldn’t represent him because she wasn’t licensed in the state. She’d refused any compensation for her legal advice as well. So he was paying her in lunches and dinners instead. Well, one lunch, at any rate. Thus far.
“This is amazing,” she said as she finished her first bite.
He picked up his napkin, and smiling, reached across the table to dab away the trickle of aioli that ran down her chin. “It’s a big burger.”
She nodded and laughed even as she tucked in to another bite. “There’s no way I’ll be able to finish this, but trust me, it’s not a reflection on the chef.” She put the burger down. “Even the bun is delicious.”
Hudson nodded. “I think the bun is one of the most highly overlooked ingredients in a good burger. That’s a potato bread bun, lightly buttered, with a few sesame seeds on top.”
“All I know is it’s hamburger bun perfection.” Moira picked up a fry and popped it in her mouth. “Sweet potato fries,” she said on a groan as soon as she swallowed. “My favorite.”
“Try dipping them in this,” he said, and slid a small silver pot of his own personal dressing across the table.
She did, and simply closed her eyes and nodded as she finished the fry, then another one, then another.
Hudson laughed. He also had to shift a little on his stool. Watching Moira Brogan eat might be as close to a sexual experience as he’d ever have with her, and his body was reacting like it was foreplay. He cooked to make people happy, and he’d been very successful in that endeavor, all over the world. So why was watching this woman enjoy his food so different? Because this is your woman, his little voice replied.
Yes, well, if wishes were horses, this beggar would ride, he thought.
She dabbed at her lips with her napkin and laid it by her plate, then picked up one more fry and grinned as she bit into it. “Seriously, these are addicting.” She finished, then debated on another, before finally pushing her plate away. “If I let you keep feeding me, you’re going to have to roll me all the way to the airport in a few days.”
Hudson shifted his gaze to his plate, not wanting her to see his disappointment regarding that bit of reality. “What’s in store for you back home?” he asked. “Have you given up California dreamin’ altogether then?”
They’d had their legal consultation in Sawyer’s office two days ago; then he’d cooked lunch for Moira and Katie, while Katie regaled them with her mill purchases and the impromptu class on loom weaving she’d taken. And he handled his disappointment in Moira’s opting not to explore the undeniable attraction between them and the relationship they’d already begun with each other. He needed to put her in what the Yanks called the “friend zone,” but it wasn’t working so well.
He’d watched the two of them leave after lunch, wondering if that was the last time he’d see Moira Brogan. So he’d made sure it wasn’t, by calling and inviting her and Katie to meet up with him and the rest of the town on the big hill the following afternoon for a round of sledding. It hadn’t been a date, per se, or if it had, they’d had about a hundred chaperones, ranging from six years old to sixty. But it had given them a chance to spend more time together, enjoy a little hot cocoa, and a lot more laughter.
It had been Katie who’d spilled the beans yesterday about the other train wreck in Moira’s life. She’d assumed Moira had told Hudson and had mentioned it while they were enjoying their cocoa and cinnamon cookies around the bonfire at the bottom of the sledding hill. Either that or Moira’s friend had intentionally put the information out there. Hudson couldn’t be too sure. Despite the sledding being a group date at best, Katie had made no secret out of the fact that she was trying to play matchmaker between the two. Hudson was happy to let her try, given he’d been an epic failure at it himself thus far, but he didn’t have much hope at this point. In lieu of that, he supposed he’d just torture himself with the chance to spend as much time with her as possible before she boarded the flight back to the West Coast.
But every moment they spent together just cemented in his mind how meant-to-be they were. He wondered if this was how Moira had felt with Finn, confused by why he wouldn’t want to continue what was so obviously a good thing. If so, he wasn’t all that thrilled to know he’d be having to take his own advice on how to handle heartbreak. It all sounds so easy when it’s someone else needin’ the advice.
Then Moira had surprised him by contacting him that morning. She’d done some searching online the night before, wading through all the postings and YouTube clips about Pippa and Seth’s wedding. There hadn’t been any leaks from the ceremony itself, or the reception, but among the loads of speculation on what it might have been like, quoting fictional “sources close to the couple,” had been some tabloid-style coverage of the bar brawl in Turtle Springs that had happened after the wedding. Many of the posts h
ad made it sound like the brawl had happened at the wedding, which had advanced the story far beyond any kind of coverage it would otherwise have gotten. Moira had gotten a few names from the various postings and he’d taken it from there and made direct contact, asking for any footage showing Taggert in the bar that night. He’d hit pay dirt on the third contact on the list. The pub was closed on Sunday, so Hudson had invited Moira to a private lunch as a thank-you.
“Katie mentioned you could try for the bar again in February. Will you do that? If it’s as hard as you say, it can’t be all that unusual to have to take it more than once.”
Moira lifted a shoulder. “I’ve given it a lot of thought while I’ve been here. Well, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since I found out I didn’t pass it the first time,” she added dryly. “I could try again in February, yes, keep working as a paralegal until then. I suppose in retrospect, I shouldn’t have put all my eggs in that basket before taking the exam. I should have stayed in Seattle until after I knew if I’d passed or not. But after coming home from Ireland . . . I just wanted to go ahead and make the change.”
“Understandable,” he said. “But?”
She smiled, as she always did when he seemed to read her mind. “After all of this, I’m not sure if California is what I want. If I don’t pass again, I really don’t want to stay on as a paralegal. I miss being a trial lawyer. I think I’m realizing now that I sort of had a knee jerk reaction to practicing law in Seattle. I grew up there, most of my extended family still lives there, and even though it’s a big city, with plenty of room to be completely on my own and not feel like relatives are watching my every move . . .” She trailed off, lifted a shoulder. “It did feel a little like I’d gone back to being little Moira Brogan, baby of the family. I think that’s why I loved my time at Stanford doing my undergrad. Loved being in California. I’d worked really, really hard to get there, put everything I had into earning my scholarship. When I got my acceptance, it was like the culmination of all my dreams. And being there, well, it was even better than I thought it would be. I realize now that’s because it was the first time I was truly, truly on my own, completely independent. I loved it.”
“Scholarship to Stanford?” Hudson made a pretend bowing motion with his arms. “Impressive.”
Embarrassed, she waved at him to stop. “Oh, I’m such an overachieving, compulsive nerd, you have no idea,” she said with a laugh. “I never missed a day of school, never missed a single class. Didn’t date, didn’t party. I was focused on the end goal from pretty early on.”
“But your license is in Washington State?”
She nodded. “The decision to move back home was partly financial, but also, for all I loved California, by the time I graduated, I really missed my family, my home. And as much as I loved my time away, I thought the smart, responsible thing to do was pass the bar in my home state, get a good job, and start my life as an adult. Which I did. I had my own place, liked the defense firm I was working with. I had good prospects there for growth.”
“But?” he asked, grinning as he did.
She laughed. “But . . . it wasn’t what I wanted, either. I loved the job, but being back home again wasn’t fulfilling me like I thought it would. I love my family, so very much, but they can be a little suffocating.” She laughed. “Okay, a lot suffocating. As it turns out, no matter the size and population of the city, they can find a way to look over my shoulder. And the matchmaking . . . don’t get me started.”
“So, suddenly, California looked like the better choice after all,” he said, smiling with her.
“Well, it was the only other place I knew, and I had loved it there. I thought about it for a few months, then took the big gamble and told my parents I wanted to move back, pass the bar there. And they were amazing and supportive, because my family really is wonderful like that. Ma and Dad encouraged me to move back in with them to study for the bar, save my money for moving to California. My lease was up, and I didn’t want to sign on for another year, so I took them up on that. It was . . . challenging, living at home again, but cemented my decision to truly strike out on my own.” Her smile became a little wistful. “Then Katie and I cooked up this grand scheme for me to do a house swap with her sister, Pippa. My last big fling before settling down and tackling adult life, and my very adult law school tuition bill. Only in reality I sort of traded Seth’s place, so Pippa came here to Blue Hollow Falls and fell in love with my brother, and I went to Donegal—”
“And fell in love, too,” Hudson said, smiling despite feeling as if he’d been socked in the gut. It was funny; he was both sad for her, angry at the idiot who’d dumped her, jealous of the guy at the same time, and relieved that she hadn’t ended up married to the bloke. All for a woman who wasn’t planning to stay. Love isn’t for the weak of will, mate, his little voice said. No kidding.
Moira nodded. “I came home heartbroken and just wanting a fresh start, a clean slate. So I packed myself up and moved to California right then and there, found the job as a paralegal, studied my brains out for the bar, looking forward not back. Only then I didn’t pass the bar. I threw my whole lot into that gamble, and it didn’t pay off. All of which is so unlike me. I don’t do gambles. I don’t take wild leaps. I’m a planner, a plotter, a goal setter and achiever.”
“So not passing sent you into a tailspin, which isn’t all that hard to understand. And you could take the exam again, so all is not lost.”
“That’s not it, though. I mean, yes, it was a crushing blow to work that hard and not pass. I’ve never flunked anything in my entire life. So, that was mortifying. But not passing the bar on my first try wasn’t really the train wreck I was referring to.”
Confused, he said, “What was?”
“Realizing that beyond feeling humiliated for not passing, and a bit panicked about how that would affect my income, the truth of the matter is . . . I was kind of relieved.”
“Relieved?” She’d surprised him with that.
She nodded. “California was wonderful when I was there in school. I loved my time at Stanford. But the honest truth is . . . I discovered early on I wasn’t all that keen about living there, working there. I convinced myself it was just the job, and as soon as I passed the bar, could go back to being a practicing attorney, it would be so much better. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t true. My relief when I opened that envelope was hard to ignore.” She looked at him. “But how in the world was I going to admit that to anyone? Most specifically myself? I’ve always had my life so carefully planned out, and I’d ticked off each box along the way, really happy to be reaching each milestone, so sure I knew what my future held in store for me. And yet I pass the Washington bar, enter the real world, and somehow inside the next eighteen months, end up in a state I don’t really want to live in, studying for a bar exam I really didn’t need to take, but the alternative is going back to Seattle, where I’ve already learned I don’t really want to be.... This on top of my epic failure at attempting to have a love life.” She lifted her hands and smiled a bit plaintively. “And meet Moira Brogan. Official train wreck.”
“Moira, you know that just because you don’t have your whole life figured out up front doesn’t mean you’re a wreck, much less a failure. You’re smart, very well educated, with the support of an amazing family who only wants you to be happy, at least if what I know of how they’ve supported your brother Seth is any indication. So who cares if Seattle isn’t your landing spot, or California? What if you go off and try a half dozen other things, and you still haven’t found just the right thing? What harm is there in that? Who’s keeping score?”
“I am, I guess,” she said, but her tone was more one of wonder, with no trace of self-pity. “Maybe it’s that I don’t know how to handle this . . . the lack of having a clear path. I’ve never felt untethered and I don’t do footloose and fancy-free. I need clear, direct goals to focus on.”
“Okay, so what if your goal is discovering what fulfills you, what makes yo
u happy? What if you allow yourself all the latitude in the world to figure out what that might be? Is there a deadline?”
She thought about that, then lifted a shoulder. “I never thought about it like that. I guess if I had, I’d have said that I always equated success with happiness, and success to me would be a good job, doing legal work I like, having a home of my own. Becoming a productive member of society, in a place I want to put down roots and grow.” She smiled. “And somewhere in all of that, find the time to date, meet the man of my dreams, and get that white picket fence thing going. You know, otherwise, no pressure.” She groaned and rested her forehead on the palm of her hand. “When did I become such a control freak?” She let out a laugh and looked at him. “Who am I kidding? When have I not been a control freak?”
“Everybody figures out their own path to success or happiness or both their own way. You do it with charts and plans, I do it by listening to my gut and jumping off the nearest cliff and hoping things turn out okay. There is no right or wrong way. The important thing to connect to in all of this is . . . you’re aware of all that. You had a path figured out, but you admit it’s not working for you. You could have just put your head down and gone the predetermined route because that’s what you thought you had to do, only to wake up twenty years from now wondering why you’re so miserable. What if you just give yourself permission to explore life, see where it takes you? You’re only accountable to yourself.”
Moira surprised him with a wry grin. “Did my brother put you up to saying all that, too?”
Hudson lifted his hand, palm forward. “No, your honor. That was all me.” He slid from his stool and held out his hand. She took it and he helped her slide from her stool until she stood just in front of him. “But I bet if you asked him, he’d agree with me one hundred percent.”
A Season to Celebrate Page 23
