Lilac Lane (Chesapeake Shores #14)(86)

“If he takes his work seriously, it very well might.”

“I’m going back to Chesapeake Shores on Saturday,” she said, her gaze searching Ash’s face for any sign of disapproval.

“Then things must have ended on a positive note,” he concluded.

“We have a long way to go,” Deanna told him. “But I want to try while I’m living this close. It’ll be harder once I’m back in Charlottesville.”

“You only have another year left there,” Ash said carefully. “I wasn’t going to mention this if things had gone badly, but since it seems your visit was a good one, would you want to consider doing your premed work at Johns Hopkins? I imagine with your excellent grades and the work you’ve done here this summer, it would be no problem to make the transfer.”

She stared at Ash in shock. “I never even considered transferring.”

“And you certainly don’t have to, if it’s not what you want. But with the school’s excellent reputation and convenient location, I just thought it might be worth exploring.”

“And you wouldn’t mind?”

“Not as long as you’ll still let me come over here for more of this pizza,” he said readily.

“Ashton Lane, have I ever mentioned that you are the most incredible stepfather ever?”

“A time or two,” he said, looking thoroughly pleased by hearing it once more. “So it’s still true, even if it was never actually legal?”

She reached for his hand and held it tight. “Legal or not, you were the best father, stepfather, mentor or whatever that any girl could ever ask for. And I think my mom would remind you that you weren’t too shabby as a husband either, even if there was no paper declaring you that. I’ve gotten the idea recently that families can be cobbled together in all sorts of ways. It’s the love that counts.”

“You’re a very wise young lady,” Ash told her.

“Not yet,” she corrected. “But I’m working on it.” She held his gaze. “And when the time is right, I want you to come to Chesapeake Shores to meet Bryan. I really think you two would like each other.”

“We certainly have one great thing in common already,” Ash told her. “We both adore you. That’s a pretty good bond.”

While so many things about her past still troubled her, Deanna felt a sudden surge of optimism that with time, all of those unanswered questions would be put to rest and she’d have her very own cobbled-together family, much like the O’Briens she’d heard a little about from Kiera.





Chapter 20



Bryan glanced across the kitchen island at O’Brien’s and allowed himself a faint smile at the sight of his daughter with her head bent over as she concentrated very hard on dicing potatoes to precisely the same size. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and had her hair pulled back. The tip of her tongue was caught in the corner of her mouth. She glanced up and caught him staring.

“Stop watching me. I’ll lose focus and slice off a finger,” Deanna grumbled.

“Not if you do it exactly the way I taught you to not ten minutes ago,” Bryan said. “Tuck those fingers into a fist away from the blade of the knife.”

“And what’s to keep the potato from scooting straight onto the floor, then?”

“Your knuckles pressing down to hold it in place,” he said, and demonstrated again at a speed that made her jaw drop.

She gave him a hopeless look. “Maybe I’m not meant to learn to cook.”

“Have you ever seriously tried before?”

“No.” Her expression brightened. “I can scramble an egg. I stopped burning them after a while. Ash says they’re edible now.”

“Well, then, when you’ve been dicing potatoes for a few months, if you’re no better, we can talk about the cost of eating all your meals out for the rest of your life.”

She frowned at him. “Sometimes you sound so much like Ash, it’s uncanny.”

The first few times she’d casually thrown Ashton Lane’s name in his face, it had hurt, no question about it. Now he was getting used to the easy references and more comfortable with the comparisons. They were no longer tossed out in a way that demeaned him, but only to suggest that he was proving himself just about equal to a man she considered practically a saint.

Bryan finally dared to ask a question that had been on his mind ever since she’d told him she was coming for another visit. “How does he feel about your spending time with me in Chesapeake Shores?”

“To be honest, I think the idea scared him at first, but he’s reconciled to it. In fact, he’s eager to meet you.” She regarded him with a hopeful expression. “Will you agree to it?”

Amused by the impact of that look, he laughed. “Has anybody ever denied you anything you want?”

“All the time,” she said with a shrug. “I just keep pestering, though. I’m very stubborn.”

“Your mother’s influence,” he said readily.

“I think she thought it was yours. She never acknowledged being even a tiny bit stubborn.”

“Oh, but she was,” Bryan said.

Deanna hesitated, then said softly, “Tell me about her, about the two of you. How did you meet? Was it love at first sight?”