Sherryl Woods - An O'brien Family Christmas

For a moment Luke looked taken aback. “Okay, sure,” he said eventually. “But everybody’s moving on now.” His voice didn’t hold much certainty.

Matthew just shook his head.

Laila gave Luke’s hand a squeeze. “Be careful, okay? Sometimes it’s very difficult to get over an old flame, even when you know it’s the only thing to do.”

“Which explains why you and my brother are sitting here having a cozy breakfast together, instead of sitting all alone in your separate rooms?” Luke taunted.

“Watch it,” Matthew warned.

Laila, however, laughed. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she murmured. “Yes, Luke, walking away from Matthew has been much harder than I expected.” She gave Matthew a defiant look. “But I will pull it off eventually.”

There was no mistaking the sudden twinkle in Matthew’s eyes. “I look forward to seeing you try,” he said mildly.

“You might not want to turn this into a challenge,” she warned him. “I can match you stubborn streak for stubborn streak.”

Matthew winced. “Good point.”

Fortunately their breakfast arrived just then, which gave them both time to retreat from positions that might have proved indefensible. While Matthew sulked and she fretted, Luke dug into his food as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Laila scowled at him.

“He is annoying,” she commented, as if Matthew had just recently mentioned it.

Matthew glanced at his brother. “Very annoying.”

Luke merely chuckled. “See, though, I’ve brought the two of you into agreement over one thing. It’s a fine start for the first day of the trip.”

Nell stood across from Trinity College in downtown Dublin and stared at the window of the tobacco shop that had once belonged to her grandfather. She knew that once she walked through that door, it would be like going back in time. That was one reason she’d never chanced it on previous trips. Some things were better left in the past. Charles would never have understood about those long-ago summers before they’d married.

She’d spent so many afternoons in the shop during the summers her parents had sent her here to stay with her grandparents. Surrounded by the rich scents, she’d sip tea and pretend to read books as she listened to her grandfather talk to his regular customers. They said women were gossips, but she learned more about what was going on in the city right there in that room than she ever had by reading a newspaper or a history book.

Of course, her fear of crossing the shop’s threshold was about more than that.

“Gram, don’t you want to go inside?” Susie asked, slipping an arm around her waist.

“I’m not sure I want to know if there have been too many changes,” she admitted. “Dillon O’Malley, who bought it from my grandfather, is surely retired by now. I don’t know how it will feel to find a complete stranger behind the counter.” Nor did she know how she would feel if she happened to be wrong about that and, instead, came face-to-face with Dillon for the first time in all these years.

“I could at least go in and ask who owns it now,” Susie offered. “Then you could decide.”

Nell seized on the suggestion. “Would you mind?”

“Of course not,” Susie said, giving her grandmother’s hand a reassuring squeeze before heading inside.

Nell all but held her breath as she waited for Susie’s return. “Well?” she asked, searching her granddaughter’s face for answers when she came back.

“The man I spoke to says he’s Dillon O’Malley.”

Just as Susie spoke, the man himself appeared in the doorway, his eyes filled with curiosity. Tall, with only the barest stoop to his broad shoulders and just a hint of silver in his black hair, it was unmistakably Dillon. When his gaze settled on Nell, he seemed to go perfectly still.

“Nell?” That one word was part confusion and disbelief, part hope.

Nell reached out to Susie to steady herself as she looked into the clear blue eyes of the man she’d once been so certain she was meant to marry.

“Hello, Dillon,” she said softly.

He shook his head. “After all these years I’d have known you anywhere,” he said. “You’re as beautiful as ever with your red hair and those grand eyes.”

She laughed. “And you’re as full of blarney. My hair hasn’t been red in years. I can barely find a few strands amid the gray to remind me of the shade it once was.”

“In my eyes, you’re the lass you were the last time I saw you,” he insisted.

For just an instant, Nell allowed herself to feel like that girl again, young and carefree and wildly in love for the first time in her life. She’d been Nell Flanagan then.

“Come in, Nell,” Dillon pleaded. “Talk to me. Tell me about your life.” He glanced again at Susie. “This has to be your granddaughter.”

“She is. Just one of them. This is Susie O’Brien Franklin.”

Dillon clasped Susie’s hand, though his gaze remained locked on Nell. “And she brought you to Ireland for the holidays? What a lovely thing to do.”

“Actually this is her honeymoon trip,” Nell said wryly. “Can you imagine? She insisted that the whole family accompany her.”

Dillon laughed. “Then she is, indeed, truly a Flanagan with a huge heart. I look forward to getting to know you, Susie.”

“So, you and my grandmother go way back?” Susie asked, her face alight with curiosity. “Way back,” Dillon confirmed.

“Did she always have a wild and reckless streak?” Susie asked.

He laughed. “You have no idea.”

“Stop it, you two,” Nell ordered. “I’ve never been wild or reckless.”

“You went back to America and broke my heart, did you not?” Dillon asked.

Nell frowned at him. “I’m quite sure there were plenty of women around to mend it. Christina Ahearn comes to mind. Didn’t you marry her not long after I’d gone home that last time?”

“Only after I was convinced you were never coming back,” he insisted. “Now, come inside. I’ll brew some tea. I have the Earl Grey you love so much.”

Nell stared at him in amazement. “You remember that?”

He held her gaze. “I remember everything,” he said solemnly.

Susie regarded them hesitantly. “Should I leave you two to catch up?” she asked.

Nell hesitated, torn. She wanted to know everything about Dillon’s life, wanted to fill in all the blanks that her grandparents had been so careful to leave unanswered once she’d gone.

Yet so many years had passed. What was the point at this late date?

Still, when she looked into Dillon’s hopeful eyes, she couldn’t say no. “I’d love tea,” she said at last, then squeezed Susie’s hand. “I’ll be fine here for an hour. Why don’t you come back then?”

“Or I could see that she gets back to her hotel,” Dillon offered.

“I’ll come back,” Susie said, apparently sensing that Nell needed backup. She smiled at them. “Enjoy your visit.”

Dillon escorted Nell inside, waited as she looked around.

“You’ve kept it mostly the same,” Nell commented.

“How could I change a thing, when everywhere I looked I saw you?”

She shook her head. “You shouldn’t say things like that.” “Why not, if they’re true?”

“You’re married to someone else,” she reminded him. “Christina died ten years ago,” he said, then held her gaze. “And your husband?”

“Gone, too,” she said softly.

“Then there’s no reason for us to feel guilty for indulging in a bit of nostalgia, is there?” he suggested. “Come in the back and I’ll make that tea. There’s a lot of ground to cover and you’ve only given us an hour to do it.” He studied her. “Or will you be in Ireland for a while?”