Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(107)
*
Attendance at the fall festival had never been higher. Though the crowd milled about the various booths buying crafts and jars of homemade preserves, it was clear that anticipation for the cooking contest was running high. It was all anyone was talking about. And while people were sampling desserts and other specialties from the participating chefs, the lines for the Irish stew were the longest. Kiera watched in amazement. It was clear everyone in Chesapeake Shores now knew about the outrageous bet between Bryan and Kiera. Despite Kiera’s declaration to Bree, the O’Briens were now oddly unified in telling every person they met on the town green that a vote for Bryan was a vote for love.
Dillon pulled Kiera aside as she was about to start the preparations for making another gigantic batch of her stew. “Do you want to win this wager?”
“You know my stew is the best,” she said.
“Not what I asked. Do you love this man or not?”
She shrugged. “I just don’t want to make it easy for him, which it seems everyone in town has conspired to do now. Nell and the others have turned it into some romantic fantasy. It’s not about the stew at all, anymore.”
“Kiera, my darling girl, you don’t make loving you easy on anyone,” her father said, his tone wry. “What will you do if your stew wins? Will that make you happy, to win the prize and lose this man you’ve come to love? And don’t be denying to me that you love him, because it’s been plain as day for a while now.”
“I wasn’t going to deny it. As for what I’ll do at the end of the day if I happen to win, you’ll have to wait and see. Given the way the O’Briens are trying to stack the deck against me, it seems unlikely to come to that.”
At six that evening, as the sun was setting and the final votes were being counted, she and Bryan stood nervously on the stage on the town green waiting for Nell to announce the winner of the Irish stew cooking contest.
Eventually Nell stepped to the microphone, her expression shaken. “Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the first annual fall festival cooking contest by one vote is...Kiera Malone!”
The announcement was greeted by a hesitant mix of cheers and stunned silence.
Kiera wasn’t sure what she expected to find when she looked into Bryan’s eyes, but it certainly wasn’t the gleam of satisfaction she found there.
“You wanted me to win?” she asked, shocked.
“You deserved to win. Even I voted for you. A whole bunch of times, in fact. I wasn’t entirely sure if I’d bought enough tickets, but then Dillon said he’d buy a few more.”
Kiera was thoroughly confused and not entirely sure what to make of this turn of events. “But the stakes...? Didn’t you want the victory?”
“If you’re asking if I didn’t want you enough, the answer’s no. I didn’t want you this way. I want you because my love is enough for you, not because my Irish stew is better than yours.”
She felt a smile spread across her face then. Her own very large gamble had paid off, after all. “In that case, then perhaps you can steal that microphone from Nell’s hand and make an announcement of your own.”
“What announcement would that be?”
“One that’s sure to please this crowd, even the sneaky O’Briens, who believe that love conquers everything. You can tell them that I might have won the trophy, but you won an even better prize. You got the woman and her trophy.”
Bryan laughed, exactly as she’d intended, proving that he understood her as few men did.
“You’re a very complicated woman, Kiera Malone,” he declared.
“But life with me will never be dull.”
“That’s the bonus I’m counting on,” he said, taking the microphone from Nell.
He repeated exactly the words she’d suggested, then went down on one knee in front of her with a ring in hand. Kiera saw the satisfaction on her father’s face, on Nell’s and on Moira’s. Even Deanna was cheering as Kiera let him slip the ring on her finger.
Bryan rose and drew her to him for a long, lingering kiss that stirred the crowd as nothing else had. With her heart filled with joy, she couldn’t help thinking that a little of that Chesapeake Shores magic she’d heard so much about had indeed rubbed off on her.
*
Afterword
Beginning with the first book I ever wrote way back in the early 1980s, readers have always asked if my settings were real or fictional, especially the small-town settings in so many of my series. Though I have written a number of books in real and recognizable big cities—Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, among others—the vast majority of my settings have been small towns and were the products of my imagination.
That doesn’t mean they weren’t inspired by a very real town, and in just a few weeks, I’ll be introducing readers to that town in a nonfiction book—A Small Town Love Story: Colonial Beach, Virginia. This tiny beach community of some 3,500 or so year-round residents on the Potomac River has been the home of my heart throughout my life. I spent summers there as a child and a teen, and I’ve been returning ever since to the house my parents bought when I was only four years old.
There are rich memories and romantic daydreams around every corner. Colonial Beach has a quirky, wonderful past and is full of captivating storytellers. Its quintessential small-town flavor makes this real-life town every bit as charming and fascinating as any town I’ve ever created.