Lilac Lane

by Sherryl Woods

  “Oh dear,” she murmured, recognizing the trap at last.

  Her daughter gave a nod of satisfaction. “You’re getting it now?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “And you’ll be on your guard?”

  Kiera nodded. She’d be on her guard, alright. Unfortunately at the moment she was having a little difficulty deciding exactly whom the enemy might be.

  *

  Preparations for the town’s Fourth of July celebration were in full swing all over Chesapeake Shores. Storefronts had been draped with red, white and blue bunting. Small flags had been added to all the planters along Main Street and Shore Drive, and the flowers had been changed out to a selection of red, white and blue blooms, all contributed by Bree from her Flowers on Main shop and her husband Jake’s nursery.

  In keeping with the color scheme, Sally’s was offering raspberry and blueberry croissants. Ethel’s Emporium had been stocked with flags of every size and holiday-themed T-shirts. Even her selection of penny candy had an abundance of red cherry, blueberry and coconut coloring. Snow cones were similarly swirled with the appropriate colors and flavors.

  Every store was offering holiday discounts in anticipation of the crowds that would be coming for the parade, the arts and crafts festival on the green and the fireworks.

  “It’s like something out of a picture book,” Kiera said as she walked across the green with her father on the day before the holiday. She glanced at him. “What’s your favorite part?”

  “The parade,” Dillon said at once. “Everyone’s included. The town’s veterans lead it off, wearing their uniforms. Businesses create floats, each one trying to outdo the next, and none of them the least bit professional. I think that’s the charm of it—that they’re made out of love of the tradition. The high school band plays. Half the kids in town join in and walk the parade route just to be a part of it.”

  Kiera studied her father’s expression. “You’ve really come to love it here, haven’t you?”

  He nodded. “And that’s no disrespect to the life I had in Ireland or to my roots there. It’s a matter of adapting to where I am now and the people I’ve come to love as my own family.”

  “I wonder if I’ll ever know that sort of peace and acceptance,” Kiera said wistfully. “I keep saying that my home is in Ireland, but when I think back to my life there, it was never easy, not as an adult. I wonder what it is that’s drawing me back there.”

  “It’s not always the place,” Dillon told her. “It’s the idea of the place, the memories it holds, even the bad ones, because there’s a sense of security in that. This new place holds a lot of uncertainty for you now. It’s not familiar.” He held her gaze. “Just remember one thing while you’re considering what’s right for your future. Home isn’t just a place. It’s family, and you have that here, Kiera.”

  Impulsively, she hugged him. “I’m so glad you and I have found our way back to each other,” she told him quietly. “I know it’s my fault that it took so long. You can’t imagine how deeply I regret that, especially that I had so little time with my mother before we lost her.”

  “It’s in the past. The shame would be not to hold tight to what we’ve found again.”

  She met his gaze. “You’re saying I should stay,” she said, wishing he would make it so much easier by making it a demand, not a suggestion. But as they both knew, the decision was hers to make, not his. If he tried imposing his will, no matter how welcome it might be on the one hand, on the other it would only stir her rebellious temper.

  “I’m saying that you’ll do what’s right for you when the time comes that the decision has to be made. Just don’t be swayed by expectations, mine or yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “You’ve a knack for thinking that you don’t deserve more from life, Kiera. You expect the worst to come your way. Remember that, and that you have a choice. You can still reach for your dreams. It’s never too late for that.”

  It was a lovely sentiment, but she’d stopped dreaming years ago. All the ones she’d ever had had proved elusive.

  Dillon smiled. “I can see you building up to an argument,” he told her. “Here’s the thing to remember about dreams. They don’t come true just by wishing for them. Life gives back what you put into it. Work hard and you can achieve even the most impossible of dreams.” He held her gaze, his steady and reassuring. “You know quite a lot about working hard, my darling girl. Put that to good use and the rest will follow.”

  Kiera wished it were as easy as he made it sound. Even through her usual skepticism and doubts, though, she felt just the tiniest glimmer of hope.

  *

  With the sun already burning down soon after dawn, Bryan was glad he’d gotten out even earlier than usual for his morning run. As he turned onto Lilac Lane, he found himself hoping to spot a bit of color in his garden, specifically sunlight glinting off auburn hair setting off fiery sparks.

  As much as he hated to admit it, he missed the early mornings he’d spent with Kiera in the peacefulness of his garden. They’d exchanged few words, just worked companionably side by side to defeat a common enemy: the weeds that seemed to grow even more robustly than the vegetables.

  He sighed. It was this crazy cooking competition they’d been drawn into; Kiera eagerly from what he’d been able to tell. She seemed oddly happy about the battle lines drawn between them and the end to their truce. It shouldn’t bother him the way it did. In fact, he should be thrilled not to be bumping into her in his own backyard. He liked his solitude. He’d been content with his own company for years. Why did it bother him so much now to have no one around to listen, to offer a supportive comment or even a feisty retort?

  When he’d reached his back deck, he glanced over at the small cottage next door.

  “Blast it,” he muttered to himself and went back down the steps and across the small patch of grass separating the houses. He banged on the back door impatiently.

  “What on earth?” Kiera demanded when she opened the door. “Is the world coming to an end?”

  Bryan winced. If he’d come over to make peace, he’d gotten off to a shaky start.

  “It’s hot out,” he said.

  She stared at him unblinkingly, as if he’d announced the sky was blue. “So it is,” she said. “I’m told that’s not uncommon for July.”

  “What I meant to say was that it’s too hot for you to be walking to work today,” he said. “I’ll be leaving in a half hour, if you’d like a lift.”

  She hesitated for a split second, then nodded. “I’d be grateful. Thank you.”

  Suddenly he didn’t know which was worse, the shouting that had become routine once again, or this infernal politeness. Did he want to set off an explosion by mentioning it, though? He opted instead, for a nod. “Okay, then. I’ll see you in a half hour.”

  And in the meantime he was going to have a very long talk with himself about acting like an idiot. This morning had been a good reminder that women turned men into bumbling fools. It was probably far wiser to avoid going down that path again.

  *

  For a man who’d issued an invitation for her to ride to work with him, Bryan seemed to have used up all his words for the day. He hadn’t spoken since Kiera had climbed into his environmentally sensible Prius, grateful to have the air-conditioning blasting.

  “I haven’t seen much of you recently,” she said to break the silence. At his disbelieving glance in her direction, she added, “I meant away from work.”

  “I thought that was how you wanted it,” he said. “I’ve followed my usual routine, but you seem to have come up with a completely different schedule. You’re gone by the time I get back from my run.”

  “I like to walk into town while it’s still cool. I enjoy getting together with some of the O’Brien women at Sally’s.”

  “And the garden? I thought you enjoyed weeding.”

  “I wasn’t sure you wanted me around,” she said. “I’ve done a little when I’ve gotten ho
me. Luke’s let me off earlier in the evening recently, and it’s still light out.”

  Bryan stopped at an intersection and gave her a long look. “Did he change your schedule to minimize the amount of time we’d have to start a ruckus at the pub?”

  She gave him a rueful grin. “He never said such a thing, but I suspect so. I thought perhaps you’d asked him to set it up that way.”

  “I’m not going to tell Luke how to run his business,” Bryan said. “The scheduling is up to him.”

  “You know,” Kiera began, not entirely sure she ought to be opening up this particular can of worms. “When I agreed to do the cooking thing for the festival, I didn’t expect things between us to go back to the way they were at the beginning.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “That we’d have a friendly rivalry that would benefit Nell’s church and the town.”

  “And?”

  “There is no and,” she insisted, but she couldn’t quite meet his gaze.

  Bryan turned his attention back to the road. Silence fell between them again. She sensed that somehow she’d disappointed him. Had he known she wasn’t being entirely honest?

  “Okay, there was more to it,” she said eventually.

  “Something that couldn’t have been resolved just by talking to me?”

  “How, when you were the problem?”

  She could tell her candor had startled him by the clenching of his jaw. He didn’t reply, his concentration focused on parallel parking in a tight space in the alley behind the pub.

  When he’d turned off the engine, he faced her. “How was I the problem? I thought we’d made peace, that we were getting along, getting to know and respect each other.”

  “We were.”

  “And that was a bad thing?”

  She nodded. “I realize it can’t possibly make much sense to you, but that scared me. I was growing comfortable talking to you, especially on those quiet nights on your deck. It reminded me of another time, another man.”

  “Your ex-husband?”

  She laughed bitterly at that. “Hardly. Sean wasn’t much for quiet conversation. No, it was Peter.”

  “The man who died.”

  “After Sean, I’d allowed no one to get close to me. I made it my mission to protect my heart from any more pain. It was easy enough to ignore the occasional drunken pass some man might make or to say no to the few who might have put my heart at risk.”

  She allowed herself a smile. “Then there was Peter. He made no demands. He listened. He gave me reasons to laugh. It was insidious, if you know what I mean. The little exchanges that meant nothing in themselves, but added together to become trust and caring and, over time, love.”

  There was sympathy in Bryan’s eyes. “And then he died.”

  “And then he died,” she agreed simply. “He broke the trust, and my heart.”

  “And you panicked because you felt it happening again,” Bryan said. “You were starting to trust me?”

  “I know the signs now, you see. And I couldn’t allow it.”

  “So you and I are going into this crazy cooking competition just to put some sort of an artificial barrier between us?”

  She shrugged at how ridiculous it sounded. “So it seems.”

  To her surprise, Bryan laughed. After a startled moment, she found herself laughing with him.

  “It might have been easier just to slap me when I kissed you,” he told her. “That would have gotten your message across loud and clear.”

  “If I’d been thinking at the time, that would have been a good solution,” she agreed. “But you caught me off guard.”

  His gaze searched hers. “And you didn’t find it all that unpleasant, did you?”

  “Do we really need to talk about that kiss?” she asked, flustered by his candor.

  “I think we should,” he persisted.

  “Why?”

  “Because right this minute I am seriously considering doing it again.”

  Chapter 15

  Kiera stared at Bryan in alarm, his crazy pronouncement hanging in the suddenly charged air between them.

  “Have you listened to nothing I’ve said?” she demanded.

  “I heard every word. In my experience, the best way to face fear is head-on.”

  “And in some twisted way that calls for another kiss, when I’ve already admitted that the first one rattled me and declared it a huge mistake?”

  “I don’t recall the word mistake being used,” he said, clearly enjoying the fact that he’d flustered her so thoroughly.

  “I’m using it now,” she said quite firmly. “It was a mistake, one that there’s no reason to repeat.”

  “Not even as a way to determine if the first time was merely a fluke?” he asked, eyes twinkling. “Perhaps it was just that I caught you off guard, as you said. Now that you’ve fair warning, you can rally all your carefully crafted defenses and another kiss might have no effect at all. You could put all your worries to rest.”

  “You’re crazy,” she declared, though on some level she found his argument persuasive. Downright tempting, in fact. Perhaps she was a little crazy, too, when it came to this.

  “Not crazy at all,” he insisted. “I am proposing a rational way to test the situation and determine if the outcome was unique or a likely pattern. It’s scientific research, if you think about it.”

  Feeling a desperate need to escape before he put his theory to the test, Kiera reached for the handle of the door, but before she could wrench it open, Bryan gently touched her shoulder.

  “Don’t run, Kiera. Let’s settle this here and now.”

  She turned back and saw that there was compassion and understanding in his eyes, no hint of laughter. If he’d been even the tiniest bit amused, she might have fled. Instead she sat back, the internal debate overwhelming her.

  While she wrestled with warring emotions—longing and common sense—he reached over and skimmed the pad of his thumb across her lips, his touch as gentle and fleeting as the whisper of a butterfly’s wings. Her lips parted at the sensation he stirred. Longing was winning.

  To her surprise, he took her hand and placed it on his chest. “Can you feel my heart beating, Kiera? It’s pounding. I’m as terrified by what we might discover as you are.”

  She regarded him with wonder. “You are?”

  “Believe me,” he said seriously. He framed her face with his hands, then closed his eyes and kissed her oh-so-gently, just as he had the first time, but there was nothing sneaky or quick about this kiss. He lingered, explored and left her head spinning when he finally released her.

  He was the first to sigh. “Not a fluke, then.”

  She nodded, breathless. “Not a fluke.”

  She wanted to find that every bit as terrifying as she’d predicted, but somehow she couldn’t. She found it reassuring. She didn’t want to. She wanted to be able to regard him with a cool, distant look and act as if it hadn’t mattered, as if it hadn’t shattered another layer of the protective wall she’d been trying to build once more around her heart.

  “What now?” she asked, her voice shaky.

  To her surprise, Bryan looked every bit as confused as she felt. “I wish I knew,” he said softly, then smiled as he glanced behind her. “What I do know is that we have an audience. Luke and Moira are standing at the kitchen door of the pub, both of them a bit slack-jawed. I suspect we’re going to have a few questions to answer when we go inside.”

  “We could start the car and drive away,” she suggested hopefully, feeling like an embarrassed teenager who was about to be cross-examined by a critical parent.

  Bryan chuckled. “You have met Moira, haven’t you? Does your daughter seem the kind to be put off? Running away now would only delay the inevitable.”

  “Or you could go in and take the heat and I could go off and enjoy my first Fourth of July in America with my granddaughter, rather than leaving her with a sitter for the holiday. It’s a day families should spend together.”


  “Isn’t the sitter taking her to Mick’s for just that reason?” Bryan asked.

  Kiera sighed. “Yes, but I could take her.” She warmed to the idea. “I think that’s the most reasonable plan. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  “How long do you think it would be before Moira catches up with you?”

  “If the pub’s as busy as it’s likely to be today, she won’t be able to get away. It could be hours.”

  “And will your explanation be any easier then? Or will it be harder, since you’ll also be explaining why you abandoned your duties at the pub on one of its busiest days of the summer?”

  He was probably right, but she didn’t have to like it. “I’m the mother. I don’t need to have an explanation,” she said stoutly, knowing that it was an argument that would hold no water with her persistent daughter.

  “Now you’re catching on. Just tell them to butt out. That’s what I intend to do.” He gave her a long look. “Ready?”

  She sighed heavily. “As I’ll ever be,” she said.

  One of these days she’d have to focus on how, at this stage of her life, she’d managed to find herself in such a fix.

  *

  “You and Kiera seem to be getting along much better today,” Luke said, cheerfully greeting Bryan as he walked into the kitchen.

  “You should be grateful,” Bryan retorted, reaching for his apron and going straight into the pantry to collect the ingredients for the day’s special—bangers and mash with onion gravy—for those who wanted an Irish twist to the traditional hot dogs and French fries that would be available at booths on the town green.

  Sadly, Luke didn’t take the hint and disappear while he was in the pantry.

  “You’ve been asking for a return to peace and harmony. I’m working on it,” he told his boss.

  “So that kiss I witnessed was for the benefit of the pub?” Luke asked, clearly amused.

  “That’s what I said,” Bryan confirmed.

  “And you took no personal pleasure in it?”

  Bryan stopped what he was doing and scowled at Luke. “Are you asking as my boss?”