Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(102)

“Did you need something?” Bryan asked, regarding her with amusement.

“Just some water,” she said.

His lips quirked. “And there’s none of that at the bar?”

“I meant ice for the water.”

“I checked the ice maker myself this morning. Is it not working now?”

She scowled at his ready answers. “Okay, it’s the wedges of lime and lemon I need. Have you put those out there as well and I somehow missed them?”

He laughed then. “They’re ready to go and in the fridge where they usually are. Deanna cut them herself.”

Deanna looked up at that. “It took me three times as long as it would have taken him to get the wedges just right, but I think the entire task was meant to keep me out of his way while he made that batch of stew. He doesn’t trust me near that. He’s convinced I’ll make a mess of it and ruin his chances of beating you.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption,” Bryan said, but he was grinning.

“Indeed,” Deanna said. “There is strong evidence that my medical career should not veer toward surgery. My skills with a knife are in serious doubt.”

“They wouldn’t be if you’d practice,” Bryan said.

“How, when you won’t let me?”

“I left you on your own to do those lime and lemon wedges, didn’t I?”

“And encouraged Nell to coach me,” Deanna retorted.

Nell and Kiera exchanged a look and dared to laugh.

“They’re sounding like a typical father and daughter, aren’t they?” Nell observed.

“Certainly the way Dillon and I always interacted,” Kiera confirmed, reassured by the whole exchange. “And still do on occasion.”

She retrieved the limes and lemons and left the three of them still taunting each other. It was only after she’d returned to the bar that it occurred to her to wonder exactly what Deanna and Nell might have been huddling about in the corner where Bryan was unlikely to overhear them. That was a worry for another time.

*

As well as things had gone ever since Deanna’s unexpected arrival in the morning, Bryan remained alert to every nuance in her voice, every hint that she wasn’t yet entirely at peace with the past as he’d described to her.

Tonight she’d asked once more to see the box of proof he’d shared with her, then if he had any more old photo albums from their days as a family. He’d seen the expectant look on her face and known she was after more than pictures. She wanted evidence that those pictures and those times had mattered enough for him to keep them. The ones in the box she’d seen before evidently weren’t enough to satisfy her.

He’d produced everything he had, all of it carefully preserved, and delivered it to Kiera’s during his break at the pub. When he’d left, Deanna was removing each item—from her hospital bracelet and baby blanket to the silver spoon the chef he’d worked for had given her, from a baby rattle to tiny outfits, from framed photos to stuffed animals—and examining each one intently. He had the sense she was trying to stir memories, no matter how unlikely they were to come.

The look on her face and the tears in her eyes haunted him while he finished up his work at the pub. He couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before she trusted him even half as much as she obviously trusted Kiera. There was some sort of magical connection between the two of them. He was glad of it on the one hand, but on another, he couldn’t help wishing that the bond between him and Deanna was as strong.

Patience, he reminded himself sternly, as he was about to open Kiera’s back door when he arrived home. Hearing voices, though, he paused.

“No one understands the heartbreak of being abandoned more than I do,” Kiera was telling his daughter. “There’s a difference, though, between a deliberate act and one that comes about through no fault of the other person. Your father never chose to abandon you. And whatever flaws he had that drove your mother to leave, it was her choice, not his. And you were not the cause of any of it. If anything, you were an unintended victim.”

Deanna quickly jumped to her mother’s defense, only to have Kiera chuckle. “Did I say I was blaming her? I imagine your father could drive a saint to desperation from time to time. I know there are days I’d like to walk out of that pub and never look back, but I’m older than your mum was when she left and better able, perhaps, to stand my ground. I’m willing to stick around and fight for something I believe has value.”

Her words struck a chord deep inside him. Bryan couldn’t help it. He stepped into view. “You’re saying I might have value?”

Both women regarded him with startled gazes. “You’ve been eavesdropping?” Kiera demanded.

“I just arrived. I didn’t want to interrupt what sounded like an intense conversation,” he said in his own defense. “Rather than talking about my supposed crime, let’s talk about what you said. You suggested I have some value.”

Kiera’s cheeks turned bright red, but she didn’t back down. “I said that these feelings between us might have value. And if you hadn’t been listening in to hear it yourself, I’d be denying I ever said it.”

He winked at Deanna, who was regarding the two of them with sudden amusement. Her serious conversation with Kiera about the past seemed to be forgotten for the moment.