Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(2)
Because she’d made such a show of rebellion in marrying Sean in the first place, Kiera hadn’t allowed herself to go running home to her parents back then. Instead, she’d struggled to make do, surviving on her own, if barely. It was only when her mum lay dying that she’d reconciled with her parents and eventually allowed them back into her life and the lives of her children. Her sons and daughter hadn’t even been aware that they had grandparents who might dote on them if given the chance.
Now with all three of her children grown and finding their own paths—albeit in the case of her sons, a path she wouldn’t have chosen, the same one their dad had taken—Kiera had been at loose ends when she made the move back to Dublin. She’d perhaps been more vulnerable than she’d allowed herself to be in years.
She couldn’t claim that Peter had taken unfair advantage of that. He’d been too fine a man to do so, but the fact was, she’d finally been ready to reach for a little happiness. Peter had offered the promise of that and more. And exactly as Moira had predicted, his sons were happy enough to have her in their father’s life and working by his side at the pub. The future looked bright with the sort of promise of love and stability she’d once dreamed of, but never imagined truly finding.
And, then, on the very day she’d said yes, when she’d opened her heart and allowed Peter to put a ring on her finger, a ring he’d claimed he’d been holding on to for years for just such a glorious day, he’d betrayed her as surely as Sean Malone ever had. He’d suffered a fatal heart attack just hours later, and once again, Kiera was alone and adrift. Abandoned.
Wasn’t that just the way of the bloody world? she thought, her protective bitterness returning in spades and her fragile heart once more shattered into pieces.
Chapter 1
Moira O’Brien sat in the kitchen of her grandfather’s cozy home by the Chesapeake Bay, a home he shared with Nell O’Brien O’Malley, with whom he’d been reunited only a few short years ago after a lifetime of being separated. The air was rich with the scent of cranberry-orange scones baking in the oven and Irish Breakfast Tea steeping in a treasured antique flowered teapot on the table. Nell had brought it home from Ireland after visiting her grandparents decades ago. She said it had been her Irish grandmother’s favorite.
“What should we be doing about our Kiera?” Nell asked them. Though Kiera hadn’t even come to Chesapeake Shores for her own father’s wedding to Nell or for Moira’s wedding to Luke O’Brien on the same day, Nell had always considered her family, embracing her and fretting over her as surely as she did her own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was the most nurturing person Moira had ever known.
Moira bounced her baby girl on her knee as she considered the problem they’d all been worrying about ever since they’d heard the news about Peter’s untimely death right on the heels of the far happier news about his engagement to Kiera.
“Kiera will make her own choices,” Dillon said, his tone a mix of resignation and worry. “I know my daughter all too well. Pushing her to bend in the way we’d like will never work. She’ll simply dig in her heels out of pure stubbornness, exactly as she did when she married Sean Malone against my wishes all those years ago. Right now she’s probably regretting the very fact that she let us convince her to move to Dublin in the first place. She’ll be listening to very little of the advice we offer.”
“Well, it’s sure that my brothers won’t be around to support her,” Moira said disdainfully. “She hasn’t once mentioned them since Peter died. I doubt they come around at all these days except to ask for a handout.”
Nell gave her a disapproving look, but Moira knew she was right. Her brothers were following a little too closely in their father’s drunken footsteps. “She belongs here with us,” she said emphatically, keeping her gaze steady on her grandfather. “You know I’m right. She needs the kind of family we’ve found here. A steady dose of the O’Briens will restore her spirits. She wasted years on bitterness and regrets after my dad left. I know she’d say she was working too hard to waste time on love, but the truth is she was too terrified to take a chance that she’d be making another poor choice. We can’t allow her to do the same again.”
To Moira’s surprise, it was Nell who promptly backed her.
“I agree that coming here is exactly what she needs,” she said, then reached over to stroke the baby’s cheek. “And I think our darling little Kate right here and her need for a grandmother’s attention is the very reason Kiera won’t fight us on this.”
Moira saw the light of near-certain victory spark in her grandfather’s eyes and knew Nell had hit on the perfect solution. “You’re suggesting I throw myself on her mercy, tell her that I’m in desperate need of help with the baby, even though our Kate is perfectly content in Carrie’s day care center,” Moira concluded.
“Which has been dreadfully overcrowded since the day it opened,” Nell claimed with exaggerated innocence.
“Dreadfully,” Dillon confirmed, nodding, his expression astonishingly serious for a man who knew they were bending the truth, if not flat-out breaking it. Nell’s great-granddaughter’s child care business was flourishing, that much was true, but she had more than enough competent staff to manage it.