Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(67)

Deanna glanced over her shoulder and spotted the waitress from the pub. There was a man beside her. Deanna didn’t need to look at the article in her purse to recognize Bryan Laramie. She’d memorized that image. Her heart seemed to stop for a full minute, before it thumped unsteadily in her chest.

Her father, so close she could almost reach out and touch him. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she had to look away. The tears tracked down her cheeks.

Milos turned his attention from the fireworks to her, worry immediately clouding his expression. “You’re crying.”

“I always get emotional at these sorts of things,” she told him, hoping it sounded believable. “The music, the fireworks. It’s all so patriotic and moving.”

“It is,” he agreed, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced that it was the reason for her tears.

Deanna forced herself to keep her gaze on the sky as the show went on, not allowing herself a single peek over her shoulder. She didn’t hear Kiera’s voice again or that of the man with her. If only he’d spoken loudly enough for her to hear him, she thought. Would she have remembered the sound of that voice? Would a memory have come to her of him whispering loving words as he placed her in her crib? Did grown-ups ever have such memories, even those who had so many more memories to crowd out those early ones? She had no way of knowing.

But very soon she had to find out for herself. She’d delayed confronting the past for long enough.

*

At home that night, Deanna turned the air-conditioning down until her apartment was almost freezing, then wrapped herself in a comforter. It gave her a sense of security to be in her own personal cocoon.

When her cell phone rang, she almost didn’t answer, then saw that it was Ash. He’d be worried if she didn’t pick up. She’d told him she was going on an excursion with a friend for the holiday.

“Hey,” she said when she picked up. “How was your Fourth?”

“The same as always, a barbecue at the Franklins’. They all asked about you. They were surprised to hear you were at Johns Hopkins for the summer.”

“I imagine that was awkward,” she said. “Everyone expected me to be working with you.”

“I just told them you’d discovered a passion for medicine and were exploring your options in that field. I actually think Janet was envious. Their son is in grad school and still shows no signs of taking an interest in anything in particular.”

Deanna laughed. “Greg is going to drift through life as long as they let him and they pay for it.”

“I’m afraid you’re exactly right,” Ash said. “What about your day? What did you do?”

She hesitated, then admitted, “I spent the day with a friend in Chesapeake Shores.”

“Oh,” he said softly. “And how was that?”

“It was everything a small-town Fourth should be,” she said.

“You know that’s not what I’m asking, Dee... Did you see your father?”

“I didn’t meet him. It wasn’t the right time, but I did get a glimpse of him and we ate at his pub.”

“That was quite a first step.”

“But just a first step. I have to figure out how to take the next one. What if he’s forgotten all about me?”

“No father ever forgets his child,” Ash said with certainty. “I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten you. I imagine, given the way your mother took off, he’s wondered about you for years.”

“Maybe not. I mean he could have been glad we were gone. Otherwise wouldn’t he have tried harder to find us?”

“You don’t know that he didn’t try. It wasn’t that long after you’d left when your mom and I met and your names were changed. The trail could easily have gone cold.”

“I suppose.”

“I know it must seem scary to think of meeting him for the first time after all these years and not having any idea what to expect. Did you get any sense of him today? What kind of man he might be?”

“Not really, though he’s certainly working in a very successful restaurant. It was jammed, despite all the competition from a zillion different food vendors on the town green. The food was delicious, very authentic, according to my friend who lived in Dublin for a while.” She hesitated, then said, “One odd thing happened, though.”

“What was that?”

“Our waitress at the pub thought she recognized me. She finally dismissed it as one of those look-alike things, but I couldn’t help wondering. Do you think I might look like my dad, at least a little? I couldn’t really tell from just the one quick glimpse I had.”

“It’s certainly possible. I thought you took after your mom, but I’d never seen a picture of your dad until I found that article.”

“I wish Mom had kept some pictures,” she said wistfully. “I asked once and she told me she’d left them behind.”

“Not all of them,” Ash admitted slowly. “I found one of you and your dad in a box she’d hidden in the back of her closet. Before you accuse me of keeping it from you, I just discovered it last week. I finally decided to tackle cleaning out some of your mom’s things. I hadn’t been able to face it before. It seemed too final.”

“Oh, Ash,” she said softly, knowing how difficult that must have been for him and regretting that she hadn’t been there to lend him moral support. “You should have waited until I was there to help.”