If I Trust You (If You Come Back To Me #4) (13 page)

“I’m already regretting this.”

“What?” Deidre asked, alarm spiking through the sensual lassitude wrought by his kiss.

He tilted his chin toward the driveway. “The plans I made. I’d much rather just take you back to bed.”

“Why don’t you then?” she asked, grinning. The idea of them losing themselves in each other and keeping the rest of the world at bay for as long as they could sounded very, very appealing.

His eyes were fixed on her mouth like he was considering taking another bite out of her, but then he was backing out of her arms. “I wish I could, but...well, come on. You’ll see. I hope you don’t kill me for it,” he added under his breath.

“Nick, what are you talking about?” she asked, mystified by his behavior.

“It’s a beautiful day—perfect for a tour of the area. Let’s go up.”

“Up?”

“Yeah. In my plane.”

“Oh.”

He smiled, obviously noticing her dubiousness. The flash of his white teeth took her off guard. As usual. He was usually so serious. When he smiled, she couldn’t look away from him.

“I’m a good pilot. You can trust me.”

“I do,” she said softly. “Let me get my coat.” She reached for her coat tree, but he reached it before her. She turned, and he slid it over her shoulders. A shiver went through her when he placed a kiss on her ear.

“You look beautiful.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled as she faced him, warmed by the heat of his stare.

She took his proffered hand, locking and slamming the door behind her. When they reached the corner of the cottage, he tugged slightly on her hand as if to get her attention. She paused.

“I meant well, Deidre,” Nick said quietly.

“What?” Deidre asked, perplexed.

“I had the best intentions,” he murmured. He nodded toward the driveway and spoke near Deidre’s ear. “It was just a chance happening. I ran into her on Main Street. I’d rather have you to myself, but I can’t take back the invitation now.”

Deidre glanced toward Nick’s car and froze. Her mother sat in the passenger seat of his sedan.

“I asked your mom to come up in the plane with us,” Nick said.

* * *

Nick watched Deidre’s face closely, seeing when the flicker of anxiety faded and was replaced by a beautiful mask. In the past, he’d been reminded of Joan of Arc when she leveled that fierce, cold, determined expression at him. Now, he was more struck by how quickly she donned the facade. How did she repress her anxiety so effortlessly?

He urged her toward his car
.
He opened the passenger door and Brigit stepped out and warmly kissed her daughter on the cheek. Deidre grasped Brigit’s elbows as she stiffly returned the greeting.

“No, Mom, I’ll get in the back,” Deidre insisted when Brigit started to get in the backseat.

Deidre pointedly avoided his gaze when he opened the door for her. He suppressed his regret as he walked around to the driver’s side. Deidre may be irritated at his heavy-handedness in the short term, but he still thought trying to bridge the rift between mother and daughter was the right thing to do in the long run.

“Well, this is certainly a surprise,” Deidre said as Nick backed out of the driveway. He briefly met Deidre’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Her frosty glance assured him this wasn’t the type of surprise she’d anticipated this morning when he’d mentioned it.

“For me, too.” Brigit laughed. “I ran into Nick this morning as I was leaving Celino’s Bakery, and he asked me to join the two of you. I’ve never been up in a two-engine plane before. I suppose you have, Deidre?”

“I’ve been in my share of fixed-wing military transports, but nothing as luxurious as a private plane.”

“I’m a little nervous about the whole thing, but excited too,” Brigit said, twisting in her seat to see her daughter. In the rearview mirror, Nick noticed Deidre’s expression soften slightly as she met her mother’s glance. He took heart.

It would have been so much nicer to be sharing this moment alone with Deidre, but he didn’t want to be selfish.

The image of Linc’s letter—of his looping, at times unintelligible scrawl—leapt into his mind’s eye. The letter had been heartbreaking in its simple, innocent plea. The letter had also worried Nick, as disorganized and childlike as the script had been. There was little doubt that Lincoln had loved Brigit Kavanaugh. He’d considered her the one and only true love of his life. He’d begged Nick to get to know Deidre better, to teach her about her legacy.

It had been Linc’s insinuation that Deidre and he had an opportunity for a future together, one that had been denied to him and Brigit, that had truly alarmed him. Even if Linc had noticed his attraction to Deidre before he died, wasn’t that an odd thing for him to suggest—that two strangers could share the future that the woman he loved and he couldn’t?

Nick had been blown away when he’d read that part of Linc’s letter. It underlined his worry that Linc hadn’t been in his right mind when he changed the will. The man Nick had known since he was a boy would
never
have done something so impulsive, nor would he have made such naive assumptions about Deidre and him.

Nick had described to Deidre the carefree aspect of Linc’s personality that surfaced at Christmastime, but Linc was typically not a whimsical man. Nick couldn’t help but be worried that the change in Lincoln’s will was more the result of a dying man’s wish for a family than a rational, intelligent decision made with DuBois Enterprises and its thousands of employees in mind.

He couldn’t tell Deidre that, though—couldn’t show her Linc’s letter. She’d jump to the conclusion it was
her
he doubted. He no longer even remotely suspected her of anything underhanded in her dealings with Lincoln. Deidre had truly been ignorant all this time of the identity of her suspected natural father. She’d only had Lincoln’s best interests at heart once she’d met him.

He was certain of Deidre. But he was far from confident that Deidre wouldn’t equate his concern about the soundness of Linc’s decision-making at the end of his life with doubts about her character. Worse, she might think that his concerns about Lincoln’s state of mind in regard to the will dimmed Lincoln’s faith that she was his daughter.

His ruminations were put on hold when they arrived at the small airport. He showed Deidre and her mother onto his Cessna and began his preflight check, glad to hear Deidre and Brigit exchanging polite conversation about the changes to the Harbor Town area. Deidre even laughed a time or two as Brigit reminded her of several childhood moments.

The weather conditions were perfect. Nick took the plane southward along the shoreline and then banked west, following the tip of a finger-shaped, sparkling Lake Michigan. The tower had denied him permission to fly in too close to Chicago, but even several miles away they could see the clean, sharp lines of the skyline as the Cessna glided over the brilliant blue lake.

“It looks like a fairy city,” Deidre murmured from the seat beside him.

He glanced at her. She gave him that little smile that always struck him like a fist to the gut. He exhaled with relief.

Apparently, he’d been forgiven for inviting Brigit without consulting her.

He knew what Deidre meant about Chicago. The tops of the high rises were partially occluded by wispy clouds. The city did look a little surreal, situated there on the distant shore.

“Do you ever miss it, Deidre?” Brigit asked from the seat behind him. For a moment, Nick didn’t understand what she meant. Then he recalled that Deidre’s permanent home had been Chicago for all of her childhood. After the crash, Brigit had been forced to liquidate most of her and Derry’s assets to pay legal damages to the Itani and Reyes families. She’d moved onto Sycamore Avenue, making the Harbor Town vacation house her permanent home.

“I miss it. I love Chicago. It’s such a great city,” Deidre replied.

“I understand you’ve visited Marc and Liam there several times over the past few years,” Brigit said with what struck Nick as forced neutrality.

“Yes. I have,” Deidre said.

An awkward silence ensued, and Nick thought he understood why. Deidre had never driven the short distance to Harbor Town to visit her mother when she was in the vicinity.

“Deidre, what was it like when you met Lincoln?” he heard Brigit ask after a moment. Her uncertain, timid voice struck him as highly uncharacteristic of the vibrant, intelligent older woman.

He waited, acutely aware of Deidre where she sat beside him even though he didn’t watch her.

“Well...” Deidre began hesitantly, “the first time I saw him, Lincoln called me by your name, Mom.”

“He did?” Brigit asked.

“Yes. My hair was long a few months back. I had just cut it off recently. It must have looked similar to when you were young and knew Lincoln,” she explained in a rush. She cleared her throat. “You can see why he might have become confused momentarily, between me and your younger self. Oftentimes he was very sharp mentally, but other times...he’d drift.”

Nick sensed her glance at him and briefly met her stare.

“When I explained to him I was Deidre, not Brigit Kavanaugh, he whispered, ‘Deidre Jean’ and he had this look on his face...almost as if he knew
precisely
who I was all of a sudden. That was one thing about Lincoln at the end of his life, don’t you think, Nick?” she asked, looking to him for corroboration. “Sometimes, you’d think he was totally out of it and confused, and then suddenly he’d say something spot-on, and you got the impression he understood things even better than you did.”

Nick nodded. “Sometimes it seemed like he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about when it came to business decisions, and the next moment, he’d instruct me to do something completely brilliant that I hadn’t thought of, and he’d have all the details and the names of the players perfectly intact in his memory.”

Only the engines rang in his ears for the next few seconds, each of them seemingly lost in their thoughts.

“He must have recognized you on a very deep level,” Brigit mused.

“He recognized you in me, Mom,” Deidre said, her gaze out the front window.

“Maybe. But maybe he saw more than that.”

The charged topic segued to more mundane matters. Nick found himself dwelling on Brigit’s enigmatic statement, however, as they flew over the tiny, picturesque community of Harbor Town perched on the shore of the great lake.

What had Linc seen when he looked at Deidre? What had he seen when he saw Nick and her together? Nick was way too practical to think the answer was
a future,
which is what Linc had alluded to in his letter. Certainly Lincoln must have seen
something
though—something Deidre and he hadn’t begun to envision, until recently, anyway.

Linc had craved a family for his entire life.

Who was Nick to argue at the possibility that Linc thought he recognized it standing right in front of him during the last days of his life?

* * *

Nick insisted on taking them out to an early dinner after the flight. Deidre found herself relaxing and enjoying herself as they dined at Bistro Campagne and Nick and Brigit told stories about Lincoln’s favorite hobby, his horses. For the first time, Deidre discovered Lincoln had bred racehorses.

“Lincoln was well-known on the racing circuit. So was his father, George,” Brigit assured Deidre when she expressed her amazement. “Lincoln owned Sacramento Sal, the winner of the Belmont Stakes and the Preakness two years running. Sal also placed at the Derby last year. Isn’t that right, Nick?” Brigit asked. Nick nodded. Deidre caught her mother’s eye. It struck her as bizarre that her mother followed horse racing all these years and knew so much about the topic.

“What is it, Deidre?” Brigit asked.

“Nothing,” she murmured. “It’s just that Nick took me out to McGraw Stables the other day. I had no idea you still rode. Addy McGraw told us you’ve been going out there since we bought the vacation home on Sycamore. I was surprised to learn from Lincoln that you were an excellent horsewoman. I’d had no idea until I met Addy you’d been riding all these years. Now I’m finding out you’re an expert on racehorses, as well.”

“Not an expert, by any means. I just read a few articles.” Brigit’s gaze sharpened on her. “Were you upset to find out I had ridden out at McGraw Stables, even when you were a child?”

Deidre’s gaze flickered uncomfortably around the elegant dining room. “No.
Yes.
A little. Why didn’t you ever take us to the stables?” she demanded.

“I expect you already know the reason for that,” Brigit replied softly. “Do you think I wouldn’t have adored doing it, sharing my love of horses with my children?”

Something pinched tight in her chest and throat. She glanced at Nick uncertainly. He watched her with so much warmth in his eyes, she felt as if he was holding her...a silent, solid support.

“I feel like an outsider with the two of you when it comes to the topic of horses, that’s all. I wouldn’t know the front of a saddle from the back,” Deidre said with a smile, not wanting the moment to turn morose.

“I told you—I’ve seen how horses respond to you,” Nick said, stirring his iced tea idly. “Some people are just born with the ability to put animals at ease. I expect you’re like that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said as the waiter cleared their plates. “All I did was pet a few horses while I was at The Pines.”

“Captain was entranced by you,” Nick murmured. His quiet voice sounded so warm, she glanced into his rugged face and was caught by the heat of his stare. “And Captain is no pushover—trust me. He’s my horse.”

She laughed. Nick shrugged and glanced at Brigit, unconcerned by her amusement. “She’s not buying it. Maybe we’ll just have to show her she’s a natural.”

“I expect you’re right. Out of all my children, Deidre was always the animal lover, and they adored her in turn. I lost count of all the stray cats and dogs she brought home over the years, and that doesn’t include the lame bird and wounded lizard she doctored on the back porch,” Brigit said, smiling at Deidre.

After the meal, Nick pulled her aside in the dim, empty entryway of Bistro Campagne while Brigit used the ladies’ room and made a quick phone call.