Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(30)

“Absolutely. I’ll make the time.” Richmond was practically around the corner from Charlottesville. She could attend classes tomorrow and be home by dinnertime. Maybe she could kill two birds with one stone, get some of the rest she so desperately needed and get a few things off her chest, as well.

*

Deanna stared at the magazine clipping that her stepfather had handed her as they sat in their favorite restaurant on Friday night. It was a review in a regional publication about an Irish pub in Chesapeake Shores, Maryland, that was earning raves for its atmosphere and authentic cuisine. The chef was Bryan Laramie, a name she knew all too well, even if her other memories were blurry.

Tears gathered in her eyes as she read through the clipping again. Surely it wasn’t possible that her father had been this close by, just over a hundred miles away, for all these years.

“It can’t be the same person,” she said, but when she looked into Ashton Lane’s familiar brown eyes, she saw the truth. “How can this be? I thought he was in New York.”

“That’s where he was when your mother first left. I have no idea how he ended up in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay. I saw the article a couple of days ago, though, and checked it out. This is your biological father, Dee. Since he’s this close, I thought you needed to know. I knew I was taking a chance of upsetting you this close to finals, but I was afraid if I waited, I’d come up with a dozen reasons not to tell you at all. We’ve never really talked about your father, and a part of me wanted to keep it that way.” He searched her face. “Should I have waited?”

She shook her head. “No.” Confused, though, she lifted her gaze to his. “What should I do now?”

All of her life, Ash had been there to guide her decisions. It felt natural to turn to him now, but she could see the discomfort in his eyes.

“That’s not up to me,” he said gently. “What you do with this information is up to you.”

Deanna could barely make sense of any of it. Talk about timing. She’d gone for months at a time, even years, without a single thought of her biological father coming into her head, and now he seemed to be ever-present in her thoughts and in her conversations.

She studied Ash, wondering how he must be feeling about this. His expression gave away nothing. He’d spent his life running a small, but successful family construction business in Richmond, where he’d grown up. He and her mother had met when Deanna was still a toddler. She wasn’t entirely sure of the circumstances, though somehow he’d ended up giving her mother a job and then, a couple of years later, they’d moved in together. He’d adopted Deanna when she started school and wanted to know why they didn’t have the same last name. Her mom and Ash had never had children of their own, and Ash had doted on Deanna as if she were his flesh and blood. In so many ways she’d had an ideal, happy childhood.

“You know you’re the only father who matters to me, don’t you?” she asked him urgently. “Knowing that Bryan Laramie lives close by doesn’t change that.”

“You’ve been the best daughter any man could ask for,” he assured her. “But you must have questions. If you need to have them answered, now you know where to look. I’ll support whatever you want to do. I’ll go with you, if you want to see him and need me there. Whatever you want.”

That was Ash, Deanna thought. He’d been endlessly devoted during her mom’s battle with cancer, by her side in the hospital, providing round-the-clock care toward the end, never once complaining about the sacrifices he made to be with her. “This is where I belong,” he’d told Deanna when she’d asked about the impact his absence must be having on the business. “The company will get by.”

Now he was ready to put his own feelings aside to support her.

“I need to think about all this,” she told him, desperate for some time alone to sort through all the emotions raging through her. How could her father have been so close and never come looking for her? What sort of man did that? Not the kind she could imagine inviting into her life at this late date.

Perhaps, though, she should see Bryan Laramie at least once, get the answers about her medical history that Dr. Robbins had told her she should have, answers that might come into play even years from now in some medical crisis or another or when she was thinking of having children of her own. Perhaps that one contact would be enough. It wasn’t as if there’d been this huge void in her life all these years. Ash had filled that. He’d been there, strong and understanding and always ready with a bit of wisdom or a laugh.

No, this was strictly a practical decision, she told herself. And in the morning, she would explain all of that to her stepfather, along with how she was feeling about the job at his company and the allure of the chance to spend the summer at one of the country’s premier medical centers. Ironically, that job would put her in even closer proximity to Chesapeake Shores and her father. Maybe that was exactly the sign she’d been needing to guide the decision she’d dreaded making about her future.

“God works in mysterious ways,” her mother would often tell her when speaking of the day she’d met Ashton Lane. Now Deanna had her own example as proof of that.

*

Bryan had tossed restlessly all night long. Some of that could be blamed on Kiera and that new look she’d gotten a couple of weeks ago at the spa, a feminine look that had caught him off guard and made his breath hitch in a way he’d been avoiding for a long time now.