Aidan felt his own eyes fill with tears. After all these years, the truth was out there. He knew now exactly who he was—Anna Mitchell’s son, to be sure, but an O’Brien, too.
He studied Thomas’s pale complexion. “Are you okay with this?” He gave a scratchy laugh. “Not that you could change it, but I mean really okay?”
“It’s taken some getting used to,” Thomas admitted, then smiled. “But, yes, I’m okay with it. We have a lot of time to make up for, you and me, a lot of catching up to do. I find myself longing to see baby pictures, report cards, anything you have from the years I missed.”
Aidan gave him a hard look that he had a difficult time sustaining. “It’s too late for you to be setting curfews and disciplining me,” he warned.
At last Thomas—his father—laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of trying. Connie wanted me to invite you over for dinner, so we can tell Sean.”
Aidan stared at him, surprised. “She really was confident of what that report would say, wasn’t she? I mean, she told me she knew the outcome, but I thought she just wanted to make me feel better.”
“My mother is the wisest woman I know, but Connie is a close second,” Thomas said. “I’m thinking she can help us decide the right way to tell the rest of the family.”
Aidan nodded. “I only have one request. I need to be the one to tell Liz, and I need to do it before anyone outside of you, Connie and Sean find out the truth.”
“Then let’s have this dinner,” Thomas suggested. “Then you’d better track down Liz, because I can almost guarantee no matter how we try to keep my boy quiet, he’ll have the news all over town before morning.”
It wasn’t at all difficult for Aidan to imagine trying to contain news that big once a little boy was in on the secret that he had a big brother. And that sort of premature disclosure, Aidan thought, was exactly what he hoped to avoid.
* * *
None of the women got especially rowdy on book club night at Susie’s, so Liz was unprepared for the level of raucousness they achieved at Luke’s pub. Even with two of the pregnant women not drinking alcohol and she herself carefully sticking to diet soda for her own self-protection, the noise level around the tables they’d pushed together at the back of the room was pretty high.
While several of the other women had been targets of good-natured teasing over dinner and drinks, attention had come back time and again to Liz and her relationship with Aidan. It was mostly amusing to see the variety of tactics they chose to try to dig into her personal life. Bree had been wrong. So far, they’d tried nothing that she hadn’t been prepared for.
She turned just in time to see Bree and Susie exchange a frustrated look.
“She’s tougher than I expected,” Susie admitted.
Bree nodded. “I definitely thought she’d crack before now. I think it’s the lack of alcohol in her system. Do you think we could convince Luke to lace her drinks with vodka or something?”
“Not a chance,” Susie said with real regret. “My brother values his liquor license and his reputation. He also tries to remain impartial in family disputes.”
Bree’s gaze went to the door of the pub and her eyes lit up.
“Ah, reinforcements!” she announced happily. “This should be fun.”
Liz turned in time to see Mick walking in with Megan and with Jeff and his wife. To her shock, though, they barely spared a glance for the table of women and, instead, sat down at the bar. Heads together, they were whispering about something. Judging from their intense expressions, whatever it was appeared to be big—and not necessarily good news.
Bree’s gaze narrowed. “What do you suppose that’s about?” she asked, clearly puzzled.
“One way to find out,” Susie said, standing up, wobbling for a minute, then steadying herself. She grinned. “That last ale might have been one too many.”
She crossed the pub and inserted herself between her parents. For an instant Jeff, Jo, Mick and Megan fell silent.
Then Mick’s booming voice said, “Oh, go ahead and tell her. The whole family’s going to know soon enough.”
Megan jabbed him with her elbow. “Hush. Thomas swore us to secrecy, remember?”
At the mention of Thomas, Liz strained a little harder to try to hear the now-muted conversation. Unfortunately Megan’s reminder had succeeded in quieting all of them, Mick included.
Susie returned to the table, her expression filled with frustration.
“Well?” Bree demanded.
“Aunt Megan shut them down,” she grumbled. “All I heard was something about Uncle Thomas.” She frowned, then added, “And something about Aidan, but that doesn’t make sense. What could possibly be going on between Uncle Thomas and Aidan?” She turned to Liz. “Any idea?”
“None,” Liz said, but her heart was suddenly pounding. Whatever it was, she had little doubt that it was the big secret Aidan had been keeping from her. And if it was so huge it could reduce even Mick O’Brien to silence, then it was clearly something a man should have shared with a woman he claimed to care about and want in his life.
With a sudden terrible sense of déjà vu, she got to her feet. “I need to get out of here,” she said, pulling some cash from her purse and leaving it on the table. “That should be enough for my dinner.”
Bree regarded her with alarm. “Liz, what is it? Do you know what this is about?”
“Not a clue,” she said emphatically. “And that’s exactly the point.”
She was halfway down the block when Bree caught up with her. “You’re upset,” she said. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m not fit for company right now,” Liz countered.
“Which is why you’ve got me. I’m not company. I’m a friend. You can vent to me or you can stay perfectly quiet and stew over whatever’s going on in that head of yours, but you will not be alone.”
Liz turned to her, ready to argue, but the stubborn set of Bree’s jaw suggested she’d be wasting her breath. “Okay, fine. Whatever.”
They were crossing the town green at a good clip when Aidan appeared out of nowhere.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he told Liz. “We need to talk.”
“Too late,” she muttered. “Come on, Bree.”
Bree exchanged a long look with Aidan, then gave Liz’s arm a squeeze. “Listen to whatever the man has to say. Then you can carve his heart out if you want to.”
Liz gave her a wry look. “Yours, too, for abandoning me?”
Bree chuckled. “I hope you won’t, but yes. I think this is the right call.”
Never once glancing in Aidan’s direction, Liz kept right on walking. Though she doubted her strategy of silence would work, she was hoping he’d get the message and give up.
At the house, she turned on every light downstairs, greeted the dogs and cat, gave them each a treat, let them outside for a quick run in the yard, then poured herself a glass of tap water. Aidan waited patiently through all of it.
“Finished avoiding me yet?” he asked eventually as she stood at the sink, water in hand.
“I suppose,” she said, resigned. “You haven’t gone away yet.”
“I’m not going to,” he told her.
“So what’s the big news, Aidan?” she asked him pointedly, looking directly into his eyes. “And how many people heard it before me?”
“I don’t—”
She shook her head. “If you’re going to try to tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re wasting your breath. Mick and Jeff and their wives just came into the pub looking thunderstruck. We all heard that it has something to do with you and Thomas, so what is it? Are you going to work for his foundation? Maybe giving him some huge grant that’ll curry favor with all the O’Briens? What? Or are you going to keep denying there’s something weird going
on?”
Aidan looked directly into her eyes, then spoke so quietly it was difficult to hear him.
“Not weird, Liz, just a shock. At least to the O’Briens,” he said. “Thomas O’Brien is my father.”
22
Aidan’s announcement hung in the air, leaving Liz with her jaw dropping.
“Your father?” she whispered when she could finally speak. “How?”
Aidan’s lips curved slightly. “The usual way, I imagine. Those aren’t details I particularly want to know.”
She frowned at his attempt to lighten a monumental revelation. “You know what I meant. Thomas and your mother were together? Did you know that when you came to Chesapeake Shores? Is that why you came?” Her eyes widened. “It all makes perfect sense now, the way you reacted to him at first.”
Rather than focusing on his momentous news and the emotions he must be feeling, she selfishly seized on the deal breaker for her. “You deceived all of us, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t deceive anyone,” he said. “At least that wasn’t my intention.”
“You didn’t share the truth with anyone, did you? It’s a pretty big secret to keep all to yourself, especially when it affects so many lives here in town.” She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about him right this second. The news itself was almost secondary to the fact that this man for whom she had feelings had kept her in the dark about something so huge, something that went to the core of who he was. And how must the O’Briens be feeling, knowing he’d played them?
“Could we go for a walk, maybe, and talk about this?” Aidan pleaded. “Or at least sit down on the porch? I want to explain. It matters to me that you understand exactly what happened.”
“I know exactly what happened,” she said stubbornly. “From the moment we met you were keeping something from me.”
“Which I never denied,” he reminded her.
“No,” she said, relenting enough to admit the truth. “You didn’t. But this is huge, Aidan.”
He gave her a wry look. “Don’t you think I’m aware of that? Liz, be reasonable. Put yourself in my place. Would you tell someone you’ve just met something this personal, especially when the person most directly involved—Thomas—didn’t know? He had no idea I was his son, that I had any connection to him at all.”
“And after we stopped being strangers,” she asked quietly, “after you claimed to have feelings for me, what about then, Aidan? What’s your excuse for keeping silent then?”
She fought the tears clouding her vision. When she finally dared to meet Aidan’s gaze, he actually looked angry.
“I know what you’re doing, Liz. You’re lumping my silence in with the affair your husband kept from you. That’s hardly fair. I’ve admitted all along that there was something I wanted to share with you, but wasn’t at liberty to discuss. It was an extremely private matter between me and Thomas. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to tell him and turn his world upside down. What would be the point at this late date? I hardly need a daddy.”
She was momentarily stunned into silence by the bitterness she heard in his voice. He seized the chance to continue.
“Liz, when I came here, I dragged something that happened twenty-eight years ago right into the middle of the present. I didn’t want to do that out of anger or resentment, but only if I thought it was the right thing to do. Why would I put you into the middle of that dilemma?”
On some level she knew he was right, recognized that he’d been grappling with an emotional minefield, but she wasn’t ready to be reasonable. She needed time to think this through, to remember that this was Aidan, not Josh, and that just as Aidan had said, the circumstances were entirely different. “Please go.”
“You want me to leave without giving me a chance to explain?” he asked, his expression at first incredulous, then angry once more. “How is judging me without knowing all the facts fair?” He gave her a disappointed look. “Maybe I’m not the one at fault here.”
Her temper kicked in. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You told me yourself you were oblivious to your husband’s cheating. I’m starting to wonder if you just shut him down when he tried to solve whatever problems you had. Did you, Liz? Did you set up barriers that forced him to turn to someone else?”
The accusation, which hit far too close to the truth, stung. She lashed out instinctively. “How dare you say something like that? You weren’t there. You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know what you told me,” he countered. “And I see exactly what you’re doing to me. You claim you care for me. You know I have very strong feelings for you that I believe can lead to something great between us. But you’d rather seize on what you think I’ve done wrong and send me away than give me even a minute to explain.” He shook his head wearily. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it, I’m out of here. I have more than enough on my plate right now without adding this.”
Trembling with a mix of outrage and pain, Liz watched him go. It was just like that night with Josh. She’d sent Aidan away. At least it wasn’t pouring rain tonight and Aidan was walking, not driving, but it felt the same, as if disaster loomed right around the bend, as if her life would never be quite the same again. In a split second past and present had gotten all twisted together.
She could tell herself from now till eternity that the fault was Aidan’s, that he’d kept the secret even knowing how she felt about being left in the dark, but when she was all alone in her bed tonight, was that self-righteous indignation going to be any comfort at all? One thing for certain, she was going to have a whole lot of time to hear his harsh accusations ringing in her ears. He might have lashed out in anger, but he’d hit on some truths about her marriage that she’d hoped never to have to acknowledge.
* * *
Aidan didn’t know what made him angrier—Liz’s refusal to give him a chance to explain or the fact that the news, or part of it anyway, had somehow leaked out despite Thomas’s assurances that he wouldn’t say a word to anybody before morning. It was obvious Liz hadn’t known the whole story, of course. She’d known just enough to lump him in with the man who’d betrayed her.
He was crossing the town green when he spotted Bree. She stood up and headed his way, then fell into step beside him. To his surprise, though, she didn’t say a word.
He glanced over at her. “In case you were wondering, it didn’t go well.”
“I figured, since you weren’t gone that long.”
“What were you doing sitting out there at this hour? I know it’s a safe town, but it’s late, Bree. Shouldn’t you be home with your husband?”
“Jake knows where I am. I thought you might want to talk, and in my family we try to be there for our own.”
Aidan regarded her with surprise. “You know?”
She nodded. “Once Liz charged out of Luke’s pub, my dad and Uncle Jeff saw no reason to keep quiet, despite their promise to Thomas. By the time I got back there, everyone knew.”
“So, what’s the general consensus? That I’m a deceitful, untrustworthy human being?”
Bree regarded him with shock. “Is that what Liz said?”
“Pretty much.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “And I get where she’s coming from. I really do. I’ve known all along how she feels about lies, but what could I do? I couldn’t share something with her until Thomas was satisfied I wasn’t lying and we could decide how we wanted to go forward. He has a wife, a son to consider.” He looked to Bree for support. “I’m not the one in the wrong here, am I?”
“Not in a perfectly rational world, but that’s not what you’re dealing with, is it? Liz has some history that none of us, except you, know about. You obviously stirred up all those old feelings.”
“That’s exactly what happened, but I honestly don’t see what I could have done diff
erently. I came to town knowing the truth, but even I didn’t know if I would ever share it with Thomas, much less anyone else. I just wanted to see my dad, maybe have a chance to find out why he and my mom weren’t together.”
“And now that you know him, know that you have this huge, crazy family, how are you feeling?”
“Overwhelmed, to be honest with you. Add in everything that’s going on with Liz and it’s been quite a day.”
“I’ll talk to Liz tomorrow when she’s had a chance to calm down,” Bree offered. “She loves you, Aidan. I can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. She may not want to—she may be terrified of all those big, messy feelings she has—but she does love you. Otherwise this wouldn’t matter to her so much.”
“Is that the Irish second sight I’ve heard so much about?” he asked, his smile wry.
“Nope, just the insight of a woman who’s attuned to the way the people around me fight being in love. We’ve been known to go down kicking and screaming, looking for excuses to keep our hearts whole and safely locked away from any potential for pain.”
“I don’t need you to plead my case,” Aidan told her.
She smiled at him. “Yes, you do, but even if you didn’t, you’re an O’Brien now. You get the full-court meddling all the rest of us have been treated to over the years. And you should know right now that Dad’s already planning a big welcome-to-the-family dinner for Sunday. Gram will be making every Irish specialty in her repertoire, so you’ll get a complete introduction into your heritage, at least on the culinary side.”
That sense of being overwhelmed washed over him again. “Do I have to?” he asked, already knowing he was wasting his breath. Of course he had to go.
“Yes,” Bree said emphatically. “Unless you want to risk offending your grandmother. Trust me—you do not want to do that. Nell doesn’t make a habit of heaping guilt on us, but she can do it with one disappointed look.”
Aidan sighed. He knew declining to come on Sunday would only be postponing the inevitable. Besides, a part of him wanted this, wanted to discover the other half of his heritage, to have family ties again.
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