Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(64)

“If I’d been thinking at the time, that would have been a good solution,” she agreed. “But you caught me off guard.”

His gaze searched hers. “And you didn’t find it all that unpleasant, did you?”

“Do we really need to talk about that kiss?” she asked, flustered by his candor.

“I think we should,” he persisted.

“Why?”

“Because right this minute I am seriously considering doing it again.”





Chapter 15



Kiera stared at Bryan in alarm, his crazy pronouncement hanging in the suddenly charged air between them.

“Have you listened to nothing I’ve said?” she demanded.

“I heard every word. In my experience, the best way to face fear is head-on.”

“And in some twisted way that calls for another kiss, when I’ve already admitted that the first one rattled me and declared it a huge mistake?”

“I don’t recall the word mistake being used,” he said, clearly enjoying the fact that he’d flustered her so thoroughly.

“I’m using it now,” she said quite firmly. “It was a mistake, one that there’s no reason to repeat.”

“Not even as a way to determine if the first time was merely a fluke?” he asked, eyes twinkling. “Perhaps it was just that I caught you off guard, as you said. Now that you’ve fair warning, you can rally all your carefully crafted defenses and another kiss might have no effect at all. You could put all your worries to rest.”

“You’re crazy,” she declared, though on some level she found his argument persuasive. Downright tempting, in fact. Perhaps she was a little crazy, too, when it came to this.

“Not crazy at all,” he insisted. “I am proposing a rational way to test the situation and determine if the outcome was unique or a likely pattern. It’s scientific research, if you think about it.”

Feeling a desperate need to escape before he put his theory to the test, Kiera reached for the handle of the door, but before she could wrench it open, Bryan gently touched her shoulder.

“Don’t run, Kiera. Let’s settle this here and now.”

She turned back and saw that there was compassion and understanding in his eyes, no hint of laughter. If he’d been even the tiniest bit amused, she might have fled. Instead she sat back, the internal debate overwhelming her.

While she wrestled with warring emotions—longing and common sense—he reached over and skimmed the pad of his thumb across her lips, his touch as gentle and fleeting as the whisper of a butterfly’s wings. Her lips parted at the sensation he stirred. Longing was winning.

To her surprise, he took her hand and placed it on his chest. “Can you feel my heart beating, Kiera? It’s pounding. I’m as terrified by what we might discover as you are.”

She regarded him with wonder. “You are?”

“Believe me,” he said seriously. He framed her face with his hands, then closed his eyes and kissed her oh-so-gently, just as he had the first time, but there was nothing sneaky or quick about this kiss. He lingered, explored and left her head spinning when he finally released her.

He was the first to sigh. “Not a fluke, then.”

She nodded, breathless. “Not a fluke.”

She wanted to find that every bit as terrifying as she’d predicted, but somehow she couldn’t. She found it reassuring. She didn’t want to. She wanted to be able to regard him with a cool, distant look and act as if it hadn’t mattered, as if it hadn’t shattered another layer of the protective wall she’d been trying to build once more around her heart.

“What now?” she asked, her voice shaky.

To her surprise, Bryan looked every bit as confused as she felt. “I wish I knew,” he said softly, then smiled as he glanced behind her. “What I do know is that we have an audience. Luke and Moira are standing at the kitchen door of the pub, both of them a bit slack-jawed. I suspect we’re going to have a few questions to answer when we go inside.”

“We could start the car and drive away,” she suggested hopefully, feeling like an embarrassed teenager who was about to be cross-examined by a critical parent.

Bryan chuckled. “You have met Moira, haven’t you? Does your daughter seem the kind to be put off? Running away now would only delay the inevitable.”

“Or you could go in and take the heat and I could go off and enjoy my first Fourth of July in America with my granddaughter, rather than leaving her with a sitter for the holiday. It’s a day families should spend together.”

“Isn’t the sitter taking her to Mick’s for just that reason?” Bryan asked.

Kiera sighed. “Yes, but I could take her.” She warmed to the idea. “I think that’s the most reasonable plan. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.”

“How long do you think it would be before Moira catches up with you?”

“If the pub’s as busy as it’s likely to be today, she won’t be able to get away. It could be hours.”

“And will your explanation be any easier then? Or will it be harder, since you’ll also be explaining why you abandoned your duties at the pub on one of its busiest days of the summer?”

He was probably right, but she didn’t have to like it. “I’m the mother. I don’t need to have an explanation,” she said stoutly, knowing that it was an argument that would hold no water with her persistent daughter.