The Summer Garden

by Sherryl Woods

  “Heavens, that’s the last thing I want to do,” Megan said. “Run along quickly before you decide never to touch a camera again.”

  Moira smiled. “I won’t do anything that drastic,” she promised. “But I will run along. Luke’s probably wondering where I’ve gone, if he’s even looked up from his paperwork to notice that I’m not where he left me in his office.”

  “He must be thrilled by how well this weekend went,” Megan said. “Mick and I popped in for just a minute again on Saturday night and it was so mobbed we couldn’t find anyplace to sit.”

  Moira was chagrined. “You should have looked for Luke or me. We’d have found chairs for you. There will always be room for family, even if we have to boot another customer to squeeze you in.”

  Megan laughed. “Now that’s a sure way to destroy your business, showing preference for certain customers. Don’t worry. You know we’ll be back again. I’ll come by if only to make sure you’re taking all the photos you should be. I can be a bit tyrannical when it comes to business. Fair warning.”

  “Oddly enough, that doesn’t scare me,” Moira said. “Though it probably should.”

  “I’ll see you soon, then.”

  Moira took her time walking back to the pub, absorbing every word of Megan’s praise, replaying their entire conversation. She was so lost in thought, she stumbled when she nearly ran down Luke as he stepped outside the pub and directly into her path.

  “There you are!” he said as he reached out to steady her. “Where did you run off to?”

  “Megan’s,” she said.

  He searched her face, then smiled. “It went well, didn’t it? She loved the pictures you showed her?”

  Moira nodded. “She really, really loved them. Or at least she said she did.” Barely able to contain her excitement, she said, “Luke, it was truly the most remarkable thing that’s ever happened to me. And to think it might never have happened if I hadn’t come here. I mean there was work to be had in Ireland, but this… It’s beyond my wildest dreams.”

  Luke swooped her up in his arms and spun her in a circle.

  “Put me down, you idiot. You’re making me dizzy.”

  “I thought I always made your head spin,” he teased as he put her back on her feet.

  “Not in the same way.”

  “Let’s have lunch and you can tell me every word she said,” he suggested. “We’ll go to Sally’s and sit at a real table and celebrate by letting her wait on us.”

  “Add in one of those banana split things I’ve seen her serving and I’m in,” Moira said at once.

  “Do you want your own or will you share?” he asked.

  “I imagine I can let you have a bite or two,” she said. “But if you get any greedier, you’ll have to order your own.”

  He smiled. “I love seeing you like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Truly happy and excited.”

  “I’m happy when I’m with you,” she argued.

  “Most of the time,” he agreed. “But it’s not the same. There’s a sense of accomplishment that comes from a career success that can’t be matched. I’ve just gotten a taste of that with the pub’s opening, and now it’s your turn. I want you to have it all, Moira, to be everything you can possibly be.”

  Though he’d obviously meant the words to be positive, she felt oddly deflated, as if he valued the professional over the personal. And, if that was the case, she despaired of them ever reaching common ground.

  Luke had no idea what he’d said or done, but a light had died in Moira’s eyes while they were on the way to Sally’s. She went through the motions of eating her lunch but left most of her sandwich on her plate and, when the time came for dessert, she turned down the banana split she’d claimed to want.

  Though he thought he was used to her mood swings, this one felt different. While he waited for Sally to bring their check, he tried to get Moira to meet his gaze.

  “Mind telling me where you’ve gone off to in that head of yours?” he asked. “One minute we were celebrating and then you turned quiet. You’ve hardly said two words during lunch.”

  She responded with a smile that was obviously forced. “Sorry. I suppose the pressure of everything that happened sank in.”

  “What sort of pressure? Has Megan put you on a timetable? You can always tell her to back off if it’s too much.”

  “No, it’s just all these expectations. I thought it was awful when nobody thought I was ever going to accomplish anything. Now that someone thinks I have this previously undiscovered talent, I feel as if I have to start taking myself seriously.”

  “I’m confused,” Luke admitted. “Don’t you want to succeed?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” she said, though there was an oddly bitter note in her voice.

  “Apparently not you, if your tone is anything to judge by,” he said, completely at a loss about her change in attitude from just a half hour ago. “You sound as if it’s this huge burden that’s been placed on you, when you should be dancing with sheer joy. You were, just a short time ago.”

  “And then reality set in, I suppose. I know it makes no sense to you. The pub is your dream.”

  “It wasn’t always,” Luke said. “I had no sense of direction not that long ago.”

  “And neither did I,” she said. “But you seem to have latched onto the dream and are intent on riding it full throttle. I think maybe I’m just used to a slower pace. The speed of this has me reeling.”

  “I’m sure it does,” he said, because that was a feeling he could understand. He’d watched members of his family get swept up in things, so he’d been prepared for the wave of exhilaration that had come with the pub’s opening weekend success. Moira was clearly more used to failures, had even come to accept that failing was all she deserved.

  “Are you feeling as if you don’t deserve this?” he asked, still trying to understand. “Because obviously, based on Megan’s reaction to your talent, you do.”

  She sighed. “I honestly don’t know what I’m feeling right now. Would you mind terribly if I left and went for a walk? That usually clears my head.”

  Though he wanted her to stay so he could get to the bottom of this, he gestured toward the door. “Go, if that’s what you need.”

  “There’s nothing you need me for at the pub?”

  “Nothing that won’t wait,” he assured her. “Will you come back after your walk?”

  She hesitated. “Maybe we should take a break, just for tonight.”

  Luke frowned at the suggestion. “Okay, though I’m suddenly getting the feeling here that your mood has as much to do with me as it does with your future in photography.”

  She sighed. “It probably does,” she admitted.

  “If that’s the case, then you need to stay right here and spell it out for me, Moira. Let’s deal with it head-on.”

  She gave him what might have been the saddest smile he’d ever seen. “I don’t think this is something that can be fixed, Luke. I really don’t. Certainly not with a chat or a snap of the fingers.”

  “Just tell me and let me decide if it can or can’t be,” he said in frustration.

  “Okay,” she said. “You’ve once again made the assumption that a career is the only thing that matters, is the only thing that measures the worth of a person. I don’t think like that at all.”

  “I never said it was the only thing that matters,” Luke protested. “It’s important. There’s no denying that, maybe more so for a man than a woman.”

  She frowned. “I imagine there are a few in your own family who’d take exception to that statement.”

  “Probably so,” he agreed readily. “More important, though, is whether you’re one of them. How do you feel about this? Do y
ou not understand why I want to succeed with the pub?”

  “Of course I understand. You feel you owe Nell for her faith in you, for one thing. For another, you’re holding yourself up to the O’Brien gold standard of accomplishment. Success is what matters, no matter what the personal cost.”

  Luke regarded her with shock. “I’ve never said such a thing. Nor do I think that way. Don’t you suppose I can recall what thinking like that cost Uncle Mick? He lost Megan and made things difficult for all my cousins by being so committed to his career above all else. He thought he was working so hard for his family, but it was really all about feeding his own ego, I think. I’m not doing that.”

  “Perhaps not, but what you have said is that until you’ve attained whatever constitutes success by your standards, everything else remains on hold.”

  “By everything, you mean a wife and family,” he guessed, finally making sense of where this whole afternoon had gone off course.

  She nodded. “And that’s the very difference between us, Luke, because for me the only thing that really matters is family.”

  She regarded him thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s different for you because you’ve always had this storybook family, while I grew up with one that barely spoke. We didn’t have the big holiday celebrations or even the conversations over dinner. Family is a reality for you—one you take for granted—but for me it’s a fantasy. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted. For me this chance at a career is just the icing on a cake. It’s not the cake.”

  “And you think I’m withholding the cake,” he said quietly.

  She nodded. “And it scares me, not because you say you’re not ready for anything more now—I could handle that—but because I’m terrified that you never will be.”

  Luke wanted to reassure her that wasn’t the case, but how could he? Work was his priority for now. He didn’t have an end date for that. He had no measure for when his feelings might change. Would it happen when the pub had been successful for six months? Or a year? How could he predict something like that? He simply knew he’d recognize the moment when it came, just as Matthew had known Laila was the woman for him and Susie had fallen in love with Mack and spent years waiting for him to return her feelings. Was that what he expected from Moira, that she’d wait quietly until he was ready? He knew better, or should.

  Or, and this was the real rub, was his hesitation because he didn’t trust his feelings for Moira, at least not enough to act on them? Gram had told him often enough to listen to his heart. He’d thought he was. But if he kept pushing Moira away, refusing to make promises, maybe that wasn’t the case. All he knew for sure was that his indecision was hurting her, and that wasn’t fair.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I wish I could tell you what you want to hear. I can only say that there’s no one else I’d rather have in my life right now. You matter to me, Moira, in so many ways, but if that’s not enough for you, I’ll understand.”

  She looked shocked that he’d put it so bluntly, offered her the chance to walk away. He held his breath, waiting to hear her verdict, because it was her decision to make. He prayed she’d have the same patience as Susie, but he also knew they were two different women. There was nothing patient about Moira.

  A tear spilled down her cheek. “It’s not enough,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s not nearly enough, when we could have so much more.”

  And before he could blink or apologize or beg her to stay and reconsider, she was gone.

  Luke sat in stunned silence, realizing immediately that without a doubt, he’d just made the worst mistake of his life. The only problem with seeing that was that he also had absolutely no idea what he could have done differently.

  19

  Moira couldn’t believe what she’d just done! She’d taken Luke at his word and walked away. How had her fears overtaken her last shred of sense? That was the only thing that could explain what had just happened. She’d panicked, seen the future unfolding and herself being in this exact same position months, maybe even years, from now, waiting for Luke to be ready for a family.

  Even as tears rolled down her cheeks and she walked faster and faster back toward Nell’s until her breath was catching in her throat, she was still stunned that it had ended so easily. This was the man she loved, the man she wanted as a husband, as a father to her children, as the core of that family she claimed so desperately to want. And she’d just folded and walked away as if it were a foregone conclusion that she’d never have it.

  But was it? In her view, Luke’s priorities might be all screwed up, but he wouldn’t have let her leave Sally’s if even some tiny part of him had envisioned a future for the two of them. He obviously couldn’t see it happening, so this was for the best.

  Even though she kept telling herself the same thing for the entire twenty minutes it took her to reach Nell’s cottage, it didn’t feel as if it were for the best. It felt awful. It hurt deep inside, where an emptiness was opening up that she couldn’t imagine ever being able to fill again.

  She debated going down to the beach and walking and walking until the pain went away, but if she tried that, she knew she’d be down there for weeks. No, what Moira really wanted was to crawl into her bed under one of Nell’s Irish quilts and never show her face in Chesapeake Shores again. If she thought she’d be able to slip out of town in the dark of night, she’d have planned to do just that.

  But, she thought with a sigh, there was her ticket, which had already been canceled for the original return date. There was her grandfather, who might feel compelled to leave with her if he thought she was suffering from a broken heart.

  And there was her pride, something she’d always had in spades. She wasn’t going to let Luke drive her away from a place she was starting to love and an opportunity that might give her life a sense of direction and purpose, at least for now. The jobs Peter had lined up in Dublin might suit her, but what Megan was offering held hope of real success. It might not be the goal she’d envisioned, but it promised financial security, something she’d come to value thanks to her mum’s struggles to make ends meet.

  Maybe she’d even find someone else who had his priorities in order, marry and settle down right here just for the sheer joy of driving Luke nuts. She smiled at the thought.

  She was almost to Nell’s when she spotted her grandfather coming up from the beach. She tried to wipe any trace of tears from her face, but he took one look at her and asked, “What happened? Did you and Luke have a fight?”

  “Why does everyone always assume if a woman’s crying, it’s over a man?” she grumbled.

  He smiled at her. “Because it often is, especially at your age. Am I wrong? Is this not about Luke?”

  “Oh, it’s about Luke,” she admitted. “We’ve broken up.”

  Her grandfather looked stunned. “But why?”

  “Because it was in the cards already,” she said. “I just decided to take matters into my own hands and do it on my timetable.”

  “You broke it off?” he asked, his astonishment plain.

  She nodded, not even trying to hide her misery. “It was for the best.”

  “Then you’re not in love with him?”

  “Of course I’m in love with him,” she said impatiently. “I even think he’s in love with me.”

  Dillon took her hand and drew her across the yard to the Adirondack chairs in Nell’s summer garden, where she’d spent so many wonderful moments snuggled in Luke’s arms during this visit.

  “Okay, now, you’ll need to be explaining to me what’s really happened, because you’re not making a lot of sense,” her grandfather urged quietly.

  Though she hadn’t intended to pour out her heart, that’s exactly what she did. Her grandfather, to his credit, listened without comment, nodding occasionally, even smiling a ti
me or two. Her gaze narrowed at that.

  “There’s nothing to smile about in this,” she told him.

  “There is if you’re familiar with the tendency of two mules to butt heads,” he commented.

  “You’re saying I’m stubborn?” she asked indignantly.

  He didn’t even try to hide a smile at the question. “Would you even dare to deny it?”

  That finally drew her own smile. “No, I suppose not.”

  “And Luke certainly comes by it naturally as well,” he said.

  She frowned. “You are not suggesting I was in the wrong to walk away, are you?”

  “Not wrong exactly,” he said. “I’m just thinking that your timing could have been better. It seems to me the decision was a wee bit premature and based on the emotion of the moment. Luke’s head is caught up in his new business venture. He needs time to sort things out.”

  “Time? Should we wait till we’re both old and too feeble to crawl out of these chairs?” she retorted.

  “There’s the sense of drama that got you into this fix,” he chided. “No one is suggesting you wait that long, but Luke barely has the taste of the pub’s success on his lips. He’s had no time at all to bask in it or to feel certain it will continue, and now you’ve gone and issued your ultimatum.”

  “There was no ultimatum,” she said.

  “Really? That’s not how I heard it. Maybe you didn’t give him an either/or choice, but it was definitely implied that you’d lost patience. The proof of that is that he didn’t offer exactly what you wanted, when you wanted it, and you walked away.”

  “I hadn’t lost patience,” she corrected. “It’s hope I lost, and there’s a difference. If there was an ultimatum, it came from him. It was wait and wait, indefinitely as near as I could tell, or call it quits now.”

  “So your pride won out and you called it quits,” he concluded. “That won’t keep you warm tonight.”