The Summer Garden (15 page)

She turned to warn him off. “I’m not getting into that car with you and if you try to drag me in, I’ll scream my head off.”

He shook his head. “I’m sure you will, so I’ll just walk along with you, and we’ll both risk pneumonia. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I can’t allow you to walk home at this hour alone.”

“It’s perfectly safe. Besides, I’m almost there.”

“And if you walk in looking like a drowned rat and you’re all by yourself, I’ll never hear the end of it,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and falling into an easy stride next to her.

She could tell there was absolutely no way she was going to shake him. Still, she tried again. “Luke, no one will be up. I won’t tell a soul that I walked home by myself in the pouring rain. Your honor will be perfectly intact come morning.”

“Not taking the chance,” he said, matching her stubbornness.

She uttered a sigh of resignation. “Whatever made me think we were a good match?”

He actually had the audacity to chuckle at that. “I could show you, if you’d like to pause for a moment.”

“We’re out here in the pouring rain, and you’re thinking of sex?” she asked incredulously.

“You always make me think of sex,” he responded.

She rounded on him then, not sure whether to be appalled or pleased by the remark. “Seriously?”

“Always,” he reiterated.

“Even now, when I’m mad at you and being difficult and arbitrary and stubborn?”

“A few of your more alluring traits,” he insisted.

“Now you’re just hoping to get lucky, after all,” she said.

They walked in silence a little farther before he slanted a look in her direction. “Did it work? Am I going to get lucky?”

“Not in your grandmother’s house, that’s for sure,” she retorted.

“That wasn’t exactly a no,” he said hopefully. “Was it?”

“Alas, no,” she said, regretting how easily he managed to ease past her defenses and defuse her temper. “I suppose we should make a U-turn and head back to your car.”

She thought she glimpsed a smile on his lips just then. “Are you smiling?” she asked. “Please tell me that is not a smug smile I just saw on your face.”

“No smile,” he said at once.

She elbowed him lightly in the side. “Yes, it was. It’s absolutely pitiful how easy I am.”

“Easy?” he echoed, sounding incredulous.

She laughed. “You know what I mean. It’s impossible to stay mad at you even half as long as you deserve.”

“I’m glad,” he told her.

“Yes, you would be, wouldn’t you? It works out quite nicely for you.”

Just before he opened the car door for her, he looked into her eyes. “I’ll do my best to make sure it works out nicely for you as well.”

And she knew he would. That, perhaps, was the reason it was going to be all but impossible for her to ever walk away and make it stick.

Sunday dinner at Mick and Megan’s was yet another of those O’Brien family gatherings that made Moira yearn to be a part of this family. Even more so than little Henry’s birthday party, it was the kind of occasion that showcased the family ties at their best. There were debates among the brothers—Mick, Thomas and Jeff, as well as laughter among the women preparing the meal in the kitchen. Children were underfoot everywhere Moira turned, admonished only rarely for making too much noise or running too fast in the house.

“God, I love this,” she murmured to herself, unaware that Luke’s mother was close enough to overhear.

“It’s the O’Briens at their best,” Jo said, startling her. “It can also be a little intimidating. It took me a long time to feel a real part of it. I’m not as quick to jump into an argument as most of them are.”

“But I’ll bet you’ve learned to stand your ground,” Moira said.

Jo nodded. “I’ve had to. Fortunately, though, Jeff isn’t the kind of man who needs to battle over everything. We can actually hold a perfectly rational conversation and reach a mutually satisfying agreement. We’re amazingly civilized compared to the rest of the family.”

“That must drive his brothers mad,” Moira guessed. “Mick and Thomas seem to enjoy the sheer challenge of the debate.”

“They do,” Jo confirmed. She regarded Moira intently. “Are you enjoying your visit to Chesapeake Shores?”

“I am. It’s been wonderful. And I can’t wait for the opening of Luke’s pub.”

“Neither can I,” Jo said. “I’m actually jealous that he’s let you get a glimpse inside, while the rest of us have been banished until opening night.”

“He wants the
wow
factor of that first impression,” Moira said. “Of course, a few people have been sneaking in the past few days for a variety of reasons. I think once the furnishings have been delivered, though, he’ll have it on total lockdown.”

“You’ve been a huge help to him,” Jo said.

Moira was surprised by her assessment. “I haven’t done much. This was all his idea. I was just along for the research.”

“But you’ve been exactly what he needed, a knowledgeable sounding board. You’ve been around pubs your whole life. You’ve worked in several. I’m sure you know the pitfalls and can point out what makes one successful.”

“I’m not sure there’s a magic formula,” Moira said. “But the best ones create a sense of community. I think Luke will have no problem doing that here. He has the personality for it, don’t you think?”

Jo nodded. “In a family of gregarious people, he’s always been a notch above. He can be a peacemaker, too, if need be. That’s the role he played for his sister when he feared her marriage might be in danger. He saw it, I think, before any of the rest of us did, and just stepped in.”

“You’re referring to Kristen, the woman who had some sort of past history with Susie’s husband,” Moira guessed.

“She’s the one,” Jo said in a way that made it absolutely clear how she felt about the woman. “And though I didn’t approve of Luke’s means, I’m eternally grateful that he stepped in before the situation deteriorated any further.”

“He says that’s all there was to it,” Moira said, curious to know Jo’s perception of the situation.

“I think it was,” Jo said. “At least on Luke’s part. With a woman like Kristen, it’s hard to say. She doesn’t seem like the kind to let go easily, which is what started the problem in the first place. She wanted Mack back and didn’t care if Susie was hurt in the process. That would have been offensive enough under any circumstances, but Susie was battling cancer at the time. It struck me as heartless. I’ll never forgive Kristen for being so callous. Thank goodness she’s no longer in Luke’s life, either. She’d never have been welcomed in this family.”

She waved a hand in the air. “Enough of that. Luke’s moved on, and from what I can see, he’s happier than he’s ever been. That’s due in great measure to you, so thank you for that.”

Moira regarded her with surprise. No one had ever suggested that her presence in someone’s life might actually be a blessing. Her own father had thought she was the last straw and hadn’t even wanted to know her. Her mother tolerated her. Her grandfather was the one person in her family who had shown her true kindness. It was only since Luke that she’d begun to view herself as more than a nuisance.

“I’m the one who’s grateful,” she told Jo candidly. “Luke’s looked at me as no one else ever has, as if I’m more than an impossible problem to be dealt with.”

Jo frowned at her words. “Surely not. I know that’s not how Dillon views you at all.”

“But Grandfather’s only recently come into my life. It’s because of him and Luke that I’m starting to see myself in a different way.”

Jo regarded her with sympathy. “Self-esteem can be a fragile thing,” she said. “I teach physical education and spend a lot of time with young women. They all struggle with self-esteem and body image, often confusing the two. It makes me wonder what sort of homes they’ve come from, what sort of parents let them harbor even the tiniest doubts about their worth.”

“Careless ones, I think,” Moira said, thinking of her own mother. “My mum wasn’t cruel or even thoughtless. She was just too busy trying to keep us afloat financially to see what my brothers and I really needed, which was a stronger sense of family and belonging.”

“Well, you’ve found that here with us,” Jo said, giving her an impulsive hug. “Now I see my son on his way over here, probably in a panic that I’m telling you tales about his misdeeds as a boy.”

“And have you?” Luke asked her as he joined them.

“Not a one,” Jo told him. “We’ve both been singing your praises.”

He gave Moira a curious look. “Even you?”

She laughed at his skeptical expression. “Even me. You’ve done nothing yet today to annoy me.”

“Then I’ll do my best to make sure it stays that way,” he promised.

When Jo had left them, he looked into her eyes. “Did she scare you off?”

“Far from it,” Moira admitted. “I’m more convinced than ever that you’re quite a knight in shining armor.”

The bigger question, still unanswered, though, was whether he was hers.

13

E
ven though she’d put her cards on the table with Luke a couple of nights ago, by Monday Moira was back to wondering how she fit into Luke’s life. It was the drawback of a life spent questioning her own judgment and decisions.

It was true that spending nights in his bed was amazing, but in reality that told her nothing about the future. And she knew from prior conversations that nothing was likely to change for some time to come. It left her feeling disgruntled and alone. Add in Luke’s increasing distraction and she was having one of those days when she wondered if it was even wise to stick around for the scheduled month.

Today there’d been a steady parade of potential employees through the pub. Luke hadn’t suggested that she sit in on the interviews, and she hadn’t offered. She knew that made sense, since it wasn’t her business, but, as hard as she’d tried not to, she’d felt left out.

She’d spent most of the day closeted in his office, going through the pictures she’d taken on Saturday and making prints for Kevin and Shanna and the rest of the family, then putting certain ones into the file for her portfolio to show to Megan. While seeing so many laughing images made her smile, ironically they left her feeling more like an outsider than ever. This wasn’t her family, no matter how she might wish it were. And at the rate things were progressing, it might never be. The date of her departure loomed ahead, unmistakable in its possible finality for the relationship.

By midday she was restless and out of sorts. Since the sun was shining, she slipped past Luke and his applicants and headed for the beach. Perhaps a walk by the water would clear her head. It sometimes worked in ways nothing else did.

But at the end of an hour, she was still trying to analyze her mood. She could hardly complain about the sex, because that was as magical as it had ever been. There was plenty of laughter and teasing and quiet conversation as well. So what was missing? Eventually she realized that, for the first time ever, she wanted something more from a relationship, something she didn’t dare ask for. She wanted forever. And Luke, she knew all too well, did not. At least not now.

Should she decide totally on her own to stay and fight for what she really wanted, or should she accept that Luke might never be ready and cut her losses by going home now? Losing him would hurt whenever it happened, but now might be for the best, when she at least had the prospect of an exciting career to explore when she returned to Dublin. A call from Peter had promised a half-dozen assignments on her return, all of them for more money than she’d ever dreamed of making from her photography.

She wasted most of the afternoon waging an internal war with herself. By the time she returned to the pub, she’d reached no conclusion, which left her feeling more out of sorts than ever. She should have gone straight back to Nell’s till the clouds over her dispersed, but she didn’t. Maybe she was itching for a confrontation, after all.

Seeing that Luke was on the phone in his office when she returned, she sat at a table by the window he’d been using earlier and peeked out at the bay through a sliver of an opening between the sheets of protective brown paper. She thought she’d never tire of that view, especially on a sunny day like this one.

When he finished his call, Luke joined her, dropping a distracted kiss on her cheek, then pausing to take another look.

“Are you unhappy about something, Moira?”

“Just feeling a bit at loose ends,” she admitted, dancing toward the topic, but not yet ready to bring it up.

“You spent the whole morning working on your photographs,” he reminded her, looking puzzled. “Were you unhappy with them?”

“No, some are quite good, in fact. And I have prints to give to Shanna and Kevin and some of the others. I’ve made several for Nell as well. I hope to find frames and give them to her as a thank-you for welcoming me into her home.”

“She’ll love that,” he said. “So what is going on in that complicated mind of yours?”

She met his gaze and risked expressing just a bit of what she’d been thinking on her walk. “I’m not entirely sure I’m cut out to be a career woman.”

“But you’ve barely even begun,” he protested. “How could you possibly know? I thought the idea of being a photographer was exciting to you.”

“It was,” she said. “In a theoretical way. It’s the first time I’ve ever had people tell me I’m not just good at something, but possibly even extraordinary. It took my breath away, to be quite honest. And Peter has jobs waiting, so the pressure’s already on to treat this as something more than a hobby.”

He was obviously floundering, but she had to give him credit. He kept trying to figure out what she was saying.

“You don’t want to be a photographer?” he asked. “You’ve figured that out after only a few days at it? How can that be?”

She sighed. How could she tell him that what she wanted was something much simpler, to be a part of his life, to be a wife and mother and partner? That was so politically incorrect it made her feel as if she must be slightly crazy for wanting it. She couldn’t help recalling how Laila and Jess had looked at her when she’d admitted as much to them.

“Having the whole photography thing dangled in front of me, first by Peter back home and then by Megan, it was exciting. I know I should be ecstatic to have gotten such reactions from the two of them, and I am. But a whole lifetime of it? I don’t know that I have the drive for it, Luke. And that’s what it will take to be a success, isn’t it? It’s not something to be done by half measures.”

Luke shook his head, clearly bemused by her change of heart. “No one is saying you have to pursue it, if it’s not what you want,” he told her. “But shouldn’t you at least give it more of a chance?”

“Oh, I will,” she said. “I’m not foolish enough to turn my back on something I might actually be good at, not after never excelling at anything before. And Peter’s committed me to doing these jobs. I certainly won’t let him down.”

She met his gaze. “You know what’s ironic? For years I had no direction for my life back home. When Grandfather suggested this trip, I thought I’d find what I needed here. Amazingly, all the signs here point in exactly the same direction—toward photography. And yet I still feel unsettled and at loose ends, like it’s all a bad fit.”

Luke frowned at her words. “How were you hoping to fit in here?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she responded evasively, though it wasn’t true. She’d wanted more here. She’d wanted
him,
not in the way she had him, but with a future all tied up in a pretty bow. It had been a girl’s daydream, really.

“Is this about me?” he asked, his expression wary. “Is it about me not being ready to take the next step in our relationship?”

Usually she appreciated his directness, but right this second she found it annoying and egotistical, especially with that look on his face like a cornered animal. “Not everything is about you, Luke.”

“I’m well aware of that,” he said patiently. “But I’m asking if you made this trip hoping for something more to happen between us. You’ve been hinting at that for days now, and I thought I’d explained where things stood.”

She regarded him with a touch of defiance that eventually faltered. “Oh, you have. Don’t worry, I know the way of things, Luke. We had a bit of a fling in Ireland. It’s continuing quite nicely here, but that’s all it is.”

He actually looked shocked by her assessment. It had him unexpectedly backpedaling. “And if I were to say it’s not that casual? Would that make you happier?”

She frowned at the question. “What do you mean?”

“What if it’s more than a fling to me? What if I truly care about you?”

“Do you?” she pressed, fighting to keep her hopes from spinning wildly out of control. It wouldn’t do to leap to conclusions, not about something like this.

He smiled, taking her hands in his, but then his expression turned serious. “Here’s the truth, Moira,” he said. “My feelings for you were strong from the moment we met, but, like you, I’ve had little sense of direction in my life. This place is my chance to prove myself, not just to my family, but also to myself. I want to have something to offer you when the time comes. Until I have that, I’ve been trying not to rush into anything else.”

She found his earnest tone oddly endearing. “One thing at a time, then? How many ways do you have to repeat that to me before I can accept it? I must be making you crazy, coming back to the same thing time after time. You’ll make a wild success of this place and then decide whether I fit in. That’s the bottom line.”

“Not
if
you fit in,” he corrected. “There’s no question of that. It’ll be more a matter of whether you want to. You could move forward with your photography and discover that you’re truly passionate about it. I think right now you’re all nerves, wondering if it’s real. I think you’d rather not try than risk failing.”

“It’s not about being afraid to fail,” she said fiercely. “I’ve failed at plenty in my life. I’m used to it.” What she’d never reached for before was love, and she
was
terrified of failing at that. She looked him in the eye. “Since we’re being honest, do you really want to hear what I want now?”

“Sure.”

“I want to help you make a success of this place,” she said with total candor. “And that’s not entirely so I can work side by side with you and sneak kisses every chance we get.” At least that was a partial truth, if not the whole truth.

He grinned at that. “Then why else would you want to do it?”

“Because it’s something I love,” she said simply. “I left school because nothing there seemed to excite me. I was wasting my time and theirs. The only time I’ve felt at home was working in places just like this, chatting up the customers, making someone lonely smile just a bit. Mum and my granddad would never have approved of such a thing as a career. They would have seen it as wasting my life.” She shrugged. “But even more than photography, it feels right to me.”

Luke regarded her with amazement. “Moira, if you wanted to stay and work here, why didn’t you say so from the beginning? If we can work out all the proper visas or whatever it takes, nothing would please me more. I’m sure Connor could make the arrangements.”

Finally, an invitation to stay! But coming only after she’d all but dragged it out of him, his response irked her. “Was this a job interview, then?”

He frowned at the question. “I suppose it was, in a weird way.”

“Then, no thank you,” she told him, politely but firmly.

He regarded her in stunned silence, then muttered, “No? Didn’t you just give an entire speech about why you wanted to work here?”

“You apparently heard only the part you wanted to hear,” she corrected. “I will not be just some little bit of Irish fluff meant to lend this place authenticity.”

“I never said that,” he protested.

“Didn’t you? That’s what I heard. I want more than that from you, Luke O’Brien.”

“We’ve yet to talk about money,” he said, obviously frustrated and clearly operating on some entirely different wavelength from the one she’d been on.

She stood up at that, and barely resisted the urge to use the nearby rolls of architectural plans to hit him. “Now you’re just being obtuse,” she said, stalking off.

Apparently, even in America, men of Irish extraction were doomed to be dumber than dirt when it came to women!

“I don’t get it,” Luke complained later that evening to his brother and Laila. “I offered her a job so she could stay here. I said we’d work out the legalities. I’m sure Connor could have figured out something.”

“And that’s when she stormed off?” Laila asked, her eyes twinkling. “Imagine that!”

Luke frowned at her sarcasm. “You’re taking her side?”

“I wasn’t aware there were sides,” Laila replied. “But if there are, then, yes, I’m on hers.”

“You’re going to have to explain that to me,” Luke said.

Laila rolled her eyes. “Obviously. Matthew, what about you? Do you get it?”

There was a definite challenge in the question. Luke saw his brother squirm uncomfortably.

“If I had to take a stab at this,” Matthew said, “and apparently I do, Moira was actually angling for a partnership, and not of the business variety.”

Laila patted his cheek. “Is it any wonder I gave in and married you? You’re so evolved. You actually get these things.”

Luke laughed. These two were a never-ending source of amusement for everyone in the family. Laila was more than ten years older than Matthew. She’d been considered by everyone, including herself, to be boring and stuffy and rigid. Matthew had been an irrepressible scoundrel. They shouldn’t have worked as a couple, but they did. Fantastically well, as a matter of fact. Luke was envious, especially now that they seemed to have resolved their differences over her pregnancy.

He met his sister-in-law’s gaze, wondering if she could possibly be right. “Moira wants a commitment? Immediately? I told her I have to focus completely on getting this business going right now. I didn’t close any doors, just explained the reality.”

“How incredibly romantic of you,” Laila said. “I’m sure her heart went pitter-pat at such a lovely declaration. I’m surprised she didn’t put you in traction before she walked out on you.”

Luke winced, then glanced at his brother. “It was really bad, wasn’t it?”