Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(27)

“Where you seem to think my skills are lacking,” he reminded her. He sighed. “Would you like a lift?”

“With a dangerous man such as yourself?”

“I promise to try to get us both to the pub in one piece.”

“Then it would be rude of me to refuse.”

She slid gracefully into the passenger seat, her movements exposing just a bit of the creamy skin above her knee. Bryan had a hard time tearing his gaze away until he reminded himself that this was Kiera Malone, his boss’s mother-in-law, and a woman who seemed destined to turn his previously contented existence into chaos. These uncomfortable, wayward thoughts needed to be tamped down.

“Kiera, do you suppose it’s possible for us to call a truce?” he asked, his tone far more plaintive than he would have liked. He’d heard that her work visa had been approved, so he had to find some way to make a lasting peace with her. She clearly wasn’t going anywhere, at least not for months.

“Were we at war?” she inquired tartly as if she’d been unaware of it.

“Not exactly war, but we seem to have differences of opinion about everything. You tried rearranging the spices in the pantry at the pub, for heaven’s sake. And I’ve caught you trying to move my pots and pans around, as well.”

“I thought there were more efficient arrangements,” she told him. “If you’d given them half a chance, you would have seen that.”

“The arrangements I had were perfectly fine,” he retorted, then waved off the argument. In the overall scheme of things, it was inconsequential, even if he’d said otherwise when he’d caught her.

“Kiera, surely we can find common ground. We both like your daughter, for one thing. And I, at least, respect Luke. I doubt he’d have you working at the pub if he didn’t think you’d contribute to the ambience he’s worked hard to create. You obviously have experience at pubs in Ireland that I lack. Your father and Nell, people I admire, are in your corner, as well. Could that be our starting point, the people we have in common?”

She studied him with a narrowed gaze. “Does it matter to you so much that you and I truly get along? We both know my stay here will only be for a few months. Then you’ll be rid of me and able to go back to doing things your own way in the kitchen, even if those ways are mostly wrong.”

Bryan’s temper, held carefully in check for at least five minutes, went from simmer to boil in a heartbeat. “Wrong? Shall I pass on that opinion to Nell, since I’m doing the Irish dishes exactly as she taught me.”

“Is that so?” she asked skeptically. “And the menu as a whole? Did she add the she-crab soup, something I doubt you’d find in an Irish pub?”

“It was a concession to the expectations of those visiting Chesapeake Shores, added with her full approval. As were the steamed crabs and the oysters in season.”

“And those odd cheesy things, were they her suggestion, too?”

“Are you referring to the crab quesadillas?”

She nodded.

Bryan hesitated. While it was true that Nell had agreed to the experiment, she’d railed against the fact that no such thing would be on a pub menu in Dublin. She’d been won over after she’d tasted one, then added a word of caution. “But only as an occasional special,” she’d insisted. “Unless popular demand suggests otherwise.”

Popular demand had pushed them right to the top of the pub’s specialties on the lunch menu, Bryan was proud to report a few weeks after he’d introduced them. He glanced over at Kiera.

“There’s no reason traditional Irish pub food can’t be blended satisfactorily with regional dishes,” he told her. “It makes us unique.”

“I would think the Irish menu, the selection of ales and music would do that quite nicely all on their own,” she retorted. “Is there another such restaurant in the vicinity that I’ve not yet seen? In Ireland there’s a pub around every corner and they see no need to deviate from the traditional. It’s the individual atmosphere and the collection of regulars that provide the draw.”

“From a much larger pool of customers,” Bryan argued. “Believe it or not, Kiera, Luke and I were making a success of this pub with the input from Nell and Moira.”

She paled at that. “So I’m not needed at all, is that it?”

He saw the flicker of pain in her eyes and felt a momentary pang. He knew Luke wanted her to feel welcome, and that Moira, Dillon and Nell were hoping she’d find a permanent home in Chesapeake Shores. Her place at the pub was a critical element of that dream.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said, even though the words didn’t come easily. For a man who’d uttered few apologies in a lifetime, he seemed to be making a habit of it since Kiera had come around. “I just meant that not every single thing needs to be changed. I’m sure you have some innovative ideas to make us even more successful and authentic. Maybe you could put some on paper and we could talk about them before we open one day, not when I’m in the middle of trying to feed a crowd of people and my temper’s already short.”

She seemed genuinely startled. “You’re actually willing to listen to my ideas?”

“Sure. Why not? I’m as eager to try new things as the next person.” At one time he would have been chomping at the bit to make his own innovations. He’d left culinary school eager to make his mark. He’d wanted to impress the food critics and earn raves from his customers. Somehow he’d lost that enthusiasm along the way. He could pinpoint the precise moment, but he’d stopped dwelling on it.