Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(85)

She flounced out of the kitchen before he could see right through her bravado and realize that he’d stumbled onto the truth. How would she ever show her face in the pub again if she lost? What sort of consultant would that make her? She truly would have to go back to Ireland then. And with every day that passed, she wanted a little more desperately to stay.

*

After her visit to Chesapeake Shores, Deanna was incredibly grateful for her work at the research lab. She could lose herself in reading the detailed case studies, asking the questions she was constantly jotting down on her tablet that was never far away or looking into a microscope trying to see what the expert scientists saw.

The true blessing was their endless patience and willingness to share their knowledge with the young people who were so eager to learn. She, Milos and others might be assigned no more than grunt work, but they had access to so much more if they took advantage of the groundbreaking work going on all around them.

Though she’d already made plans to go back to see her father on Saturday, once those plans were made, she tried to push all of the resulting emotional turmoil from her mind. Work helped.

As she left for her tiny apartment at the end of the day, she heard her name called by a familiar voice and looked up to find Ash sitting on a bench. She regarded him with dismay, knowing that she’d been deliberately avoiding his calls since meeting her father, uncertain of what to say to him or how to make amends for how harshly she’d been judging him and her mom for keeping so much from her.

She sighed deeply and sat down beside him. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“And didn’t want to talk to me, obviously.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s been a very confusing time.”

“Sweetheart, don’t you think I know that? I want to help you, not make anything more difficult.”

And there was that generosity of spirit that had made her entire life so much easier.

“I owe you an apology,” she said softly.

“For what? Being confused? Never. For being angry? You had every right to feel betrayed.”

“Stop it!” she said, tears gathering. “You’re being too nice.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t know that was a crime.”

She nudged him with her shoulder. “Not a crime. It just makes me feel even worse. You’ve given me a whole lifetime of love and support, and the very first time you disappoint me, I had no right to act like such a spoiled brat.”

This time Ash actually laughed. “Sweetheart, I have seen some spoiled brats in my day, and you don’t even come close. You were hurt. Your mother and I kept some pretty big secrets from you. You felt betrayed. I get it.”

She searched his face for signs of hurt, but all she saw was the same love and acceptance that he’d never once withheld from her, not even when she’d crashed his beloved classic Chevy Camaro trying to avoid a very slow turtle crossing a busy highway.

“Did you have dinner?” he asked. “Because I’m starving. Is there a good Italian restaurant nearby?”

“There’s a great one,” she said. “And I’m starving, too.”

When they stood up, she walked into his open arms and took comfort from the fact that he still gave the best hugs ever. “We’re good?”

“We will always be good.”

She tucked her arm through his and led the way to a neighborhood Italian place that was filled with the smells of oregano, tomatoes and garlic.

“The pizza is to die for, but so is the spaghetti and the vegetarian lasagna,” she told him.

“Your mom would have approved of that.”

She grinned. “That’s what I thought, too, the first time I tasted it.”

“But I’m in the mood for pizza with the works,” he said. “How about you?”

“You read my mind.”

After they’d placed their orders and were sipping on their sodas, Ash put his aside. “Are you ready to tell me how it went when you met your biological father?”

“I know you’re not going to believe this, but he reminded me a lot of you,” she said. “I went in there, guns blazing, taking out all of my pent-up emotional baggage on him.”

“How’d he react?”

“He just let me have my say and then he set out to prove that at least some of the things I’d accused him of were completely untrue.”

“Such as?”

“I told him how horrible it was that he’d never even tried to find me.”

“And he could prove that he had?”

Deanna nodded, still a little shaken by the effect of seeing the proof in black and white. “A great big box full of proof,” she said. “The last check to his private investigator was dated just a month ago, as was the man’s report that the trail was still cold.”

She let Ash absorb that while their pizza was set on the table, the aromas mouthwatering. They each grabbed a slice, blew on it to cool it and took a bite.

“You didn’t lie,” Ash said. “This is incredible.”

“I know. If there could only be one food left in the entire world, I think I’d want it to be this.”

Ash chuckled. “And how would your father the chef feel about that?”

She blanched. “Oh dear. Maybe it’s not something I ought to mention just yet. That might cut him worse than any of those accusations I was hurling at him.”