by Unknown
“Did you now?” Liz said, looking amused. “Something tells me I’ll be seeing you there.”
“She left a ticket for you, too?”
“Four, as a matter of fact. You can play buffer then, assuming any of us is still alive by tomorrow night.”
He laughed. “I have great faith in your restraint.”
“Really? I can’t imagine why. This is the first time you’ve seen me with my family. They can drive me over the brink faster than any O’Brien you’ve ever met.”
“Then I’ll look forward to tomorrow night,” he said truthfully. He had a feeling it would give him yet more insight into Liz’s past and whatever secrets she’d been so determined to keep. He’d already picked up more just this afternoon than she’d obviously intended.
*
Liz dallied over closing the store for as long as she thought she possibly could without causing a major uproar when she finally did get home. As it was, there were bound to be weighted remarks about how hard she was working. They wouldn’t be worded as compliments.
When she walked into the house, the dogs were nowhere in sight. She could hear them barking frantically from the laundry room by the kitchen. She found her mother and sisters gathered in the kitchen. Pots of vegetables were simmering on the stove, and a casserole was apparently in the oven.
Ignoring the chatter, she opened the door to the laundry room. Both dogs and the cat bounded out and raced past her, clearly intent on getting far away from their captors.
“Why did you put them in there?” she asked, trying to keep her anger in check.
“We didn’t think you’d want them running all through the house,” her mother said. “Who knows what damage they might do.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that I was the one who’d left them out in the first place?” Liz asked. “Please don’t shut them up like that again.”
Her mother blinked at her hard tone. “Sure, honey, if that’s what you want. Let’s not get the evening off to a bad start over something so silly.”
Liz was about to argue that any mistreatment of her pets was hardly inconsequential, but managed to stop herself. “You’re right. I’ve been looking forward to playing cards or Scrabble and having some fun the way we used to.”
“So are we,” her mother said. “Now, why don’t you change your clothes and take a shower. That’ll relax you. Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes.”
Since changing and a shower meant she could escape from the kitchen, Liz seized on the suggestion. “Thanks, Mom. I won’t be long.” She forced a smile. “Dinner smells delicious.”
“Wait till you see dessert,” Danielle said. “She made a red velvet cake and a lemon meringue pie. I intend to eat some of each. I haven’t allowed myself even a taste of dessert for what seems like forever. If I don’t lose the last of this baby weight from having Kit six months ago, I think Nate’ll probably pack up and leave.”
Liz opened her mouth, but one glance at her mother had her clamping her lips together and leaving the room. Don’t start a fight, she cautioned herself for the second time in a couple of minutes. Not on the very first night.
When she came back fifteen minutes later in shorts and a tank top, her feet bare, she drew a critical glance from her mother, but she ignored it. This was, after all, her home. She could surely dress as she wanted on a summer night. LeeAnn and Danielle, both wearing proper starched sundresses, eyed her enviously.
Dinner actually went surprisingly well, Liz thought, as the conversation covered the recipes for her mother’s corn pudding, her baked chicken and noodle casserole, and the fresh green beans and sliced summer tomatoes that she’d brought from her own garden. As they had for years, all three sisters teased their mom that she was leaving out ingredients when she passed along her recipes, just so theirs would never live up to hers.
“I would never do such a thing,” Doris Benson claimed, but there was a twinkle in her eyes when she said it. “After I’m gone you can go through my recipe box to your heart’s content and you’ll find it all written down exactly the way I’ve told you.”
“Sure,” LeeAnn said, grinning. “I imagine you covered your tracks pretty thoroughly. It’s Grandma’s recipe box I want to see.”
Liz laughed. “I never thought of that. Now, exactly where did you hide that, Mom?”
“If it even exists, and I’m not saying it does, you’ll find it long after I’m gone,” her mother retorted. “That is if you don’t just throw all the contents of the house into a Dumpster the way I hear Ginny Walker did with her parents’ things.” She shook her head. “I’ve never before heard of such disrespectful behavior.”
“Mom, Ginny lives clear across the country. I’m sure she saved things that held real memories for her and dealt with the rest the best way she knew how in the little time she had to clean out the house and get it on the market,” Danielle said. “You can’t fault her for that.”
“Well, I do,” Doris said stubbornly. “You treat my things that way and I’ll haunt the whole lot of you.”
“Now there’s a fun thought,” LeeAnn said, giving Liz a conspiratorial wink. “I can hardly wait. How about you?”
Since having her mother alive and kicking under her roof was problematic enough, Liz couldn’t imagine that having her haunting presence around would be much worse. “Think of the reality show we could do,” she said lightly, drawing a scowl from her mother, but chuckles from her sisters.
For just a minute, it seemed a little like old times, back before they’d all gone their separate ways, then gotten married and moved on with their lives. Liz took a moment to indulge in the nostalgic thought, but her mother interrupted, snapping her back to the present.
“Let’s talk about this Aidan Mitchell person,” she said. “I’m surprised at you, dating so soon after losing your husband.”
“Who said anything about dating?” Liz asked, her shoulders tightening with immediate tension. “We’re friends.”
“Any benefits?” LeeAnn asked hopefully.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Doris Benson said, seemingly unfamiliar with the term, but grasping that she wouldn’t approve.
Liz frowned at her youngest sister. “Really, LeeAnn, do you have to stir the pot?”
“It is fun,” LeeAnn said unrepentantly. As the youngest, she’d always delighted in getting her big sisters to lose their cool. Tattling about their boyfriends had been one of her favorite forms of entertainment until both Liz and Danielle had threatened severe retaliation.
“My point is,” their mother said, “that you should still be mourning the loss of your husband, not cavorting around with another man.”
“Nobody’s cavorting, Mom,” Liz said tightly. “And I think over a year is plenty of time to be in mourning.” She was not going to say that maybe Josh hadn’t deserved even that much, at least not from her, but once again she bit her tongue. At this rate she’d need stitches in it before they left town.
Why ruin their illusions at this late date? she told herself sternly. It was bad enough that her own had been shattered. Maybe, though, if she’d confided in them from the beginning, the burden of Josh’s infidelity would have been easier to bear and she’d have had the emotional support she’d denied herself. In her twisted thinking at the time, though, she’d thought she’d failed at marriage and hadn’t wanted anyone to know just how badly.
“He was the love of your life,” her mother persisted. “You’re not even around to go to the cemetery and keep flowers on his grave.”
“I’m sure his parents do that,” Liz said, refusing to allow her mother to heap more guilt on her shoulders. “Even if I were there, I wouldn’t be spending my time at his grave. Nobody does that.”
“I still visit your grandparents’ graves,” her mother said.
“Every Christmas and Easter,” Danielle reminded her. “You take a wreath at Christmas and a lily at Easter. It’s not as if you’re praying over them every day, the way you seem to want Liz to d
o.”
Liz regarded her gratefully, appreciating the unexpected support.
Danielle acknowledged her with a wink. “I’m just saying.”
Doris frowned at both of them. “I go more than that,” she insisted. “I stop by Josh’s grave, too. The headstone’s real pretty.” Once again, she regarded Liz with disapproval. “I still don’t understand why you left the choice to his parents.”
“Because I knew it meant more to them,” Liz said, as she had about a hundred times after Josh had died. Nothing had seemed worth arguing over back then. “Now could we please change the subject?”
As soon as she saw the glint in her mother’s eyes, she quickly amended, “And not to Aidan.”
“Well, is there anything you do want to talk about?” her mother asked with a huff.
“How about your first impressions of Chesapeake Shores?”
The three women exchanged looks.
“There’s not much to it,” Danielle ventured.
“Of course, what there is seems to be charming,” LeeAnn said, sending a defiant look in their mother’s direction. “And the bay really is beautiful. It’s so peaceful.”
“When you’ve been to the Outer Banks as much as we have, the bay doesn’t seem like much,” her mother contradicted. “I could understand if you wanted to live by the ocean.”
Liz sighed. “This is perfect for me. Maybe once you’ve had a chance to walk around tomorrow and visit some of the shops and have lunch by the water, you’ll start to see it. Tomorrow night we have tickets for the local playhouse.”
“Oh, sweetie, do you really want to spend some of our limited time together at some little community production?” her mother asked, her disparagement plain.
“The woman who wrote this play and runs this little community playhouse,” Liz replied tartly, “has had plays produced on Broadway and in Chicago. Her works have been well reviewed by some of the most respected critics in the country. And several people in the cast perform in New York on a regular basis.”
Her mother looked taken aback by that. “You don’t have to take that tone with me. I didn’t know,” she said defensively.
“Could you just promise to be more open-minded?” Liz pleaded. “I love it here. The town is charming and the people have been very good to me. I hate that you don’t even want to give it half a chance.”
LeeAnn reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll try harder,” she promised.
Even Danielle nodded. “Of course we will. And if more of your friends are like Aidan Mitchell, we can’t wait to meet them, too.”
Liz noted that her mother made no such promise, but two out of three made the prospect of facing yet another day with her family almost bearable.
*
When Aidan arrived at the playhouse, he found his seat next to four empty spots, just as Liz had predicted. He glanced around and realized that they were surrounded by O’Briens. Mick and Megan were three rows in front, along with Nell and her husband, as well as Bree’s husband, Jake, and her older sister Abby with her family. Kevin and Shanna were in the next row with their kids, along with Thomas, Connie and Sean. Just in front of Aidan were Jess and Will, Mack and Susie, along with Connor and Heather. Though a few other people were interspersed with them, Aidan assumed they, too, were O’Briens.
Susie promptly turned around and gave him a broad grin. “Expecting anyone special?” she asked, nodding toward the vacant seats.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he told her, refusing to confirm her apparent theory. “Bree only mentioned that she was leaving a ticket for me.”
Susie didn’t look as if she believed him. Suddenly her eyes lit up. “Thought so,” she said triumphantly.
Aidan didn’t have to turn around to know Liz was coming down the aisle with her mother and sisters.
“Look who’s here,” Susie said in a voice meant to carry to everyone in the family.
All O’Brien eyes focused on Liz, then Aidan. A satisfied murmur seemed to circulate that had him flushing and Liz looking as if she wanted to bolt.
The only person who didn’t look happy by this turn of events was Doris Benson. She looked as if she’d swallowed a particularly sour bite of lemon.
“You again!”
“Good evening,” Aidan said, stepping aside to let them into the row. “Nice to see you all again. I hope you’re enjoying your visit.”
Liz’s mother ignored him as she marched into the row and took her seat. Danielle and LeeAnn gave him apologetic looks, but were quick to make sure they got into the row ahead of Liz, leaving her to sit beside him.
“This is just great,” she murmured with a moan. “I’ll be up half the night listening to yet another lecture about how I’m disrespecting Josh’s memory.”
He frowned at her heartfelt dismay. “Seriously? After all this time?”
“Saints are meant to be worshipped for eternity. Hadn’t you heard?”
Aidan blinked at her bitter tone. He could see the strain around her eyes and in the set of her lips. On impulse, he took her hand in his and realized hers was freezing even though it was a warm night. When she tried to pull away, he held tight and massaged gently until he could feel some warmth returning.
“That’s better,” he said at last, but he didn’t release her hand.
She gave him a wry look. “That’s what you think. Maybe you should come by the house so you can share in the pleasure of the postevening conversation.”
“Happy to do it, if it would make things easier for you,” he told her.
She looked into his eyes for what seemed like an eternity, then shook her head in apparent disbelief. “You’d really do that, wouldn’t you? Even though you don’t owe me a thing and there’s nothing going on between us.”
His lips curved slightly at that. “Oh, sweetheart, there’s something going on. I think you’re the only one who hasn’t figured that out yet.”
Just then, with perfect timing, the lights went down and silence fell in the theater as the curtain slowly rose.
Aidan had absolutely no idea what the play was about, though he was certain from the frequent laughter and applause that it had to be good. The only thing he knew he was going to remember about the night, though, was that Liz never again tried to remove her hand from his and that nothing he could recall had ever felt quite so right.
16
Liz couldn’t believe she’d spent two hours holding hands with Aidan in public, especially with her mother just three seats away and the O’Briens all around them. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that every single person nearby had been aware of what was happening.
Even so, she hadn’t been able to make herself jerk her hand away. It had felt way too good to have that connection with him, to remember what that current of sizzling electricity between two people could be like. Why it had to happen now and with this enigmatic man was beyond her, but it had. More and more, she was starting to think it would be self-destructive folly to ignore the possibilities. She had to find some way to put the past behind her and open her heart.
When the lights came up at the end of the play, she cast a panicked look in Aidan’s direction. He winked, but he did release her hand.
Susie turned around immediately. “You’ll all be at the inn for the after-party, right? I know Bree is expecting you to come.”
Liz was about to shake her head, but several other O’Briens joined in issuing the invitation.
“You have to come,” Shanna said. “It’s Bree’s big night. All of her friends should be there.”
“It would be rude not to attend,” LeeAnn said.
Even Danielle implored her to say yes, a hopeful note in her voice that was far too telling about the lack of fun in her life these days with three demanding children and an inconsiderate husband.
Liz conceded defeat. How could she possibly say no when it meant so much to them. This was supposed to be their vacation, albeit a brief one. They deserved to have a little fun, even if some of
it was likely to come at her expense. And, who knew, perhaps getting to know her friends would help to convince them of what a great place she’d chosen for her future.
If that possibility weren’t enough to persuade her to attend the party, there was the fact that it was bound to be better than going home to face the music with her mother. She forced a smile for Susie’s and Shanna’s benefit. “Sure, we’ll be there, at least for a little while. I definitely want a chance to congratulate Bree on another great production.”
Clearly satisfied at having accomplished one mission, Shanna turned her attention to Aidan. “And you?”
Never taking his gaze from Liz, he said, “Wouldn’t miss it. Sounds like the perfect way to cap off a surprising evening.”
Liz promptly pulled him into the aisle. “Please don’t...”
“Don’t what? Come to the party?”
“No, of course you should come, but don’t do anything to give people the wrong idea.”
His lips quirked in a worrisome way.
“Wrong idea? As I suggested earlier, I think you may be the only person who sees it that way.”
“Aidan,” she pleaded. “Not with my family here.”
Apparently her genuine distress finally registered, because he gave a slow nod. “But you and I are going to have a long talk once they’re gone. It’s time we get everything out on the table.”
Liz didn’t even try to hide her shock at his words. She wasn’t sure which she found more startling, having him call her on her secrets or his hint that he was finally going to reveal his. Perhaps he saw it as a one-sided conversation.
“Are you really ready to open up with me?” she inquired.
He nodded. “I think it’s time. There have been way too many secrets for way too long. We need to clear the air so we can move forward.”
“Okay, then,” she said, though the promise filled her with trepidation. Could she really open herself up the way he was obviously expecting? Could she explain why she had so many doubts, about herself, about him, about relationships in general?