Sherryl Woods - The Summer Garden

“Got it,” Matthew said, jotting notes on the pad that was ever-present in his pocket. “Uncle Mick, what do you think?”

Mick shook his head and began to pace. Only after he’d been at it a few minutes did Luke realize he was mentally measuring. When he halted in front of Luke, he looked him in the eye. “You have a business plan? Times get tough around here in winter. You have to be able to weather that.”

“I think the music will keep the locals coming in and maybe draw people from around the region. My figures seem sound enough to me, but I was hoping Laila could take a look at them,” he said. “Math was never my strongest suit. I’m hoping she’ll have time to take over that end of things for me, keep the finances on track and yank my chain when I’m tempted to bust the budget for one thing or another, as she does for Jess.”

“Ah, so that’s why she’s waiting for us now at Panini Bistro,” Matthew said. “We should probably get over there. Uncle Mick, care to come along?”

“Try to keep me away,” Mick said at once. “I’ll just walk to the corner, which is where I was headed when I spotted you two, and get Megan. She should be closing up her gallery about now.”

On his way to get his wife, Luke surmised, Mick had apparently crossed paths with Luke’s cousin Connor, who was meeting his wife, Heather, at her quilt shop and invited them along, because Connor and Heather accompanied Connor’s parents to the restaurant.

By the time they were actually seated at Panini Bistro, they needed just about every vacant seat in the tiny restaurant. Naturally, it was Mick who seized the moment to announce Luke’s news, which caused a noisy eruption of input from everyone in the room, until Mick finally slapped a hand on the table to get their attention. Then he turned to Luke.

“What do you plan to call this bar of yours?”

Luke grinned. “O’Brien’s, of course. If I have a good Irish name, why would I call it anything else?”

A grin spread across his uncle’s face. “And we’re the first to know about this idea of yours?”

“You are,” Luke confirmed, then realized what he’d done.

Yet again, Mick O’Brien had managed to trump one of his brothers, getting the hottest family news first. In a family as competitive as theirs, Luke’s father would never hear the end of it.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me be the one to tell Dad?” Luke pleaded. “Out of respect.”

Mick was clearly torn, but when Megan poked him in the ribs with an elbow, he nodded with obvious reluctance. “Only fair, I suppose.”

“Thank you,” Luke said, then glanced around. “So, I have your support for this? Laila, you’ll look over the budget, and, Connor, you’ll check all the legalities?” As those two nodded readily, he glanced around. “And you all think it’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s a fine idea,” Mick said to more enthusiastic choruses of agreement from the others. “And if it’s something you’re passionate about, only a fool would stand in your way.”

Luke had a hunch that if his father didn’t grant him unqualified support, his uncle would be more than happy to repeat the exact same message to him. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. The last thing Luke wanted was to launch another family feud.

Moira glanced at the snapshot she’d taken a few weeks ago of Luke O’Brien. It was one of her better pictures, she thought. It had captured him laughing, the sea in the background, his black hair tousled by the wind, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth. Just looking at it made her heart catch.

When Luke had turned up at her grandfather’s house along with the rest of his boisterous family for a Christmas season celebration, she’d been in one of her increasingly dark moods, ready to snap at anyone who crossed her path. Her grandfather and her mum were used to her mood swings and her rebellions. They openly worried about her and her lack of direction, which only made her more miserable.

Amazingly, she hadn’t scared Luke off with her tart tongue. He’d stuck to her that night like glue, teased her until she’d even managed a smile or two. And when they’d all gathered for his brother’s impromptu wedding to Laila just days later, Luke had even coaxed her onto the dance floor, crooning in her ear as if he were settling a nervous filly until she finally relaxed in his arms. And fell just a little bit in love with him.

Truthfully, she’d fallen for his whole family. They were so different from her own. For all the evidence that they argued and battled wits, the O’Briens were also openly affectionate with one another. There was none of the bitterness that emanated from her own mum, or the nonstop worry she saw in her grandfather’s eyes. Brothers, sisters and cousins, along with their spouses, actually seemed to love one another, while Moira could honestly say there were days when she wished her own self-absorbed, thoughtless brothers would vanish in a puff of smoke.

“Moira, the fellow at the table in the corner has been trying to catch your eye for a while now,” Peter McDonough said. “Seems he’s ready for another Guinness.”

Moira snapped herself back to the moment, then quickly returned the picture of Luke to her pocket. She took the drink and crossed the pub.

“Kevin, is it?” she said to the man, who was apparently a regular, while she was new to this particular pub, if not to waiting tables. “Sorry for the delay.”

He gave her a friendly smile. “You looked distracted. Was it someone special in the picture you were studying so intently?”

Was Luke someone special? she wondered. Well, the answer to that was obvious. Of course he was! He was a charming rogue, the kind of man her dad had been, if her mother’s bitter stories were to be believed. She’d understood for the first time how her mother could have been taken in by such a man. In just a few short weeks she’d started imagining herself with Luke forever.

“A friend,” she said now, knowing that she and Luke were at least that much.

The time they’d spent together had been amazing. They saw eye-to-eye on so many things, were both struggling to figure out their places in the world. Together, they’d shared laughter and a passion that had been entirely new to her. At twenty-two, she’d thought she’d been in love a time or two, but now she knew better. What she’d felt with Luke had been different. She’d looked beyond immediate gratification to a future. She only wished she could be sure he’d done the same.

His emails since he’d returned home to Chesapeake Shores had been thoroughly unsatisfying. They’d told her only that she’d crossed his mind, but little else about what he was doing or, more important, feeling. They’d made her cautious in her own responses, not wanting to reveal too much about how desperately she missed him. It seemed impossible that someone could mean so much to her after so little time. Perhaps those days and nights they’d spent together had been nothing more than a wonderful but temporary fantasy come true.

The one practical result being with Luke had accomplished was to motivate her to finally leave the small village where she’d grown up to come to Dublin. For the moment she was staying with her grandfather, but if this job continued the way it had begun, with more than decent tips at the end of the day, she’d soon have enough to find a small place of her own or with a girlfriend. Finally, she’d be doing something she enjoyed without her mum gazing at her in disappointment because she wasn’t continuing her education or aiming higher.

What Kiera Malone had never understood was that Moira enjoyed talking to people, making them smile, being surrounded by their laughter. The only activity more satisfying to her was photography, but she hadn’t a clue how to turn that into a career. For now, she was happy enough taking pictures just for her own pleasure, giving them to friends when she’d captured them at a moment when their personality was evident in the shot.