Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(81)

“I’ll pack these up so you can take them home with you,” he said.

“I really should hit the road.”

“Of course,” he said, though he wanted to beg her to stay and talk.

“May I come back?”

“Anytime you want to,” he said, relieved that she’d asked.

“That’s what Kiera said, too. She said the guest room was mine whenever I wanted it. I thought I might come back next weekend, if I can work it out.”

“Call me if you decide you can make it. I’ll try to take the day off. I can show you around Chesapeake Shores.”

“I was thinking it might be fun to hang out at the pub and watch you cook. Kiera said she thought it would be okay. I should learn how to make something in the kitchen besides soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. And it would be something we could do together.”

Bryan was more pleased than he wanted to admit that she wanted to be a part of his world. “That works, too. Grilled cheese was your mother’s specialty, too, as I recall.”

“She got better with other things over time,” Deanna told him. “But she obviously didn’t love cooking the way you do.”

He stood up, took the muffins into the kitchen and packed them in a container, then handed them to Deanna, who’d followed him inside and was looking around curiously.

“How long have you lived here?”

“A few years. Why?”

“Because it’s way too sterile. It looks like you just moved in. Even Kiera’s kitchen looks homier, and she’s only been there a couple of months.”

Bryan realized then that he’d never entirely thought of this or any other place as home. He shrugged. “I’m a man. It doesn’t take much for us to be comfortable.”

“Maybe so, but this is pitiful. I’ll work on it,” she told him matter-of-factly.

Bryan hid a smile. If it meant she’d be back, she could decorate the whole house in lace and crocheted doilies for all he cared.

*

Though she was dying to be a fly on the wall while Bryan was with his daughter this morning, Kiera waited patiently until she heard Deanna’s car drive off before walking across the lawn to his house. She found him standing at the end of the driveway, staring after the car that had long since left the lane and turned onto the main road.

“She’ll be back,” she said, slipping her hand into his.

“I know. I’m just standing here marveling at the fact that she was here at all.” He turned anxiously to Kiera. “It went well, didn’t it?”

“All things considered, I’d say it was a success.”

“She wants to decorate my house. She says it’s ‘pitiful.’”

Kiera laughed. “Are you complaining?”

“Not in the slightest,” he said happily. “I’ll hand over a fortune so she can do whatever she wants.”

“Leave her to do it her way. I don’t think she needs your money to make it cozy.”

“There’s coffee,” he told her. “And I saved you a muffin. It seems memory served me well. I baked her favorite and sent her off with most of them.”

“Do you feel like talking, then?”

“I want to go over every minute until I believe it truly happened,” he admitted.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” she said readily.

He turned to her. “First, though, there’s this.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her slowly and thoroughly.

Kiera laughed when he released her. “That was lovely. What brought it on?”

“Knowing that I’m free to do it as often as I’d like and as often as you’ll let me.”

She lifted a hand to his cheek. “I thought perhaps the news that Deanna’s mother had died would affect you differently.”

Bryan climbed the steps to the deck slowly, his expression thoughtful. “It came as a shock,” he admitted. “And I’m truly sad for Deanna and for the man who loved the two of them and kept them safe all these years.” He met Kiera’s gaze. “But I stopped loving Melody a long time ago. My feelings were all twisted up with anger and resentment. When Deanna blurted out the news, all I felt was relief that there was finally an end to the wondering and waiting and praying.” His smile held just a hint of sorrow as he added, “It’s probably wrong of me, but it brought the clarity I needed, that we needed.”

“Bryan, even so, we don’t know what the future holds for us,” she cautioned him.

“No, but at least we’re free to discover where it might lead. I’m anxious to get started with that. Aren’t you?”

Kiera had mixed feelings, if she was being honest. It seemed he was ready to rush forward, while she preferred the snail’s pace they’d been taking. The roadblock of his marriage had been more of a convenience to her than she’d realized or dared to reveal to him now.

She caught him studying her, his expression confused. “You don’t seem nearly as happy about this turn of events as I am.”

“It’s hard to be happy about someone conveniently dying,” she said tartly.

He regarded her with shock. “That’s not it at all, Kiera. Surely you know I’m not that hard-hearted.”