by BETH KERY
Her heart lurched with excitement. Had Nick decided not to go to Detroit? The knock came again. It wasn’t Nick’s bold knock, Deidre realized, but a crisp, feminine one.
“Mom,” she mouthed soundlessly when she saw Brigit Kavanaugh standing on the porch.
Chapter Seven
Brigit smiled. “I thought I better come and see you in person. Apparently, you’re not much of a phone person,” her mother said, arching her eyebrows.
Deidre stepped back and waved her mother inside. She studied her unobtrusively as she took her coat and hung it. Brigit looked healthy and vibrant dressed in a dark blue sweater and a scarf with gray dress pants. Her mother had always been chic and effortlessly lovely, but her health had recently been a source of concern for her sons and daughters. When Marc had told her about Brigit’s mild heart attack last year, Deidre had had a wild urge to jump on a plane and return to Michigan. To this day, Deidre didn’t know if she hadn’t because she was still angry or because she was afraid she wouldn’t know what to say to her mother after all these years.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Deidre asked awkwardly.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Please, sit down,” Deidre said, nodding toward the breakfast nook.
“Odd that it should come to this,” Brigit said with a small smile. “Mother and daughter, talking to one another like acquaintances.”
Deidre paused in the action of filling the teakettle. “Odd? Maybe. Understandable though.”
“You were a girl when you left Harbor Town,” Brigit said, twisting in her chair to face Deidre. “You’re a woman, now. Surely time has given some perspective to your hurt about what you discovered on the night of Derry’s death. Or maybe I can’t help but be hopeful that it has.”
Deidre set the teapot on the lit stove and approached Brigit slowly. “Are you suggesting that my anger at learning that I wasn’t Derry’s daughter was the melodramatics of a teenager, Mom? Dad died later that night because he’d discovered the same thing. Dad was a grown man, tough as nails. He was destroyed by that news.”
“No...no, of course I’m not suggesting that,” Brigit hurried to say. Her elegant throat convulsed as she swallowed. She waved toward a chair. “Sit down, Deidre. We haven’t spoken to one another in private for a long, long time.”
“Not since the night before I left Harbor Town, the night you refused to tell me my biological father’s name,” Deidre agreed, a hint of a challenge in her tone. Nevertheless, she sat down at the table next to her mother, her backbone rigid. Brigit met her stare and gave her a trembling smile.
“You have no idea now happy I was to see you at Liam and Natalie’s dress rehearsal,” she said feelingly.
“You shouldn’t assume anything by it beyond the obvious. I came for Liam’s wedding.”
Brigit shook her head slowly. “No, Deidre.”
“What do you mean, no?”
Brigit placed her hand on top of hers. It felt soft and warm next to her skin...a kind touch, a mother’s touch. “We may be acting like strangers, but that’s a lie. You’re my daughter. I know you as well as I know my own name. Don’t you think I remember how fierce you can be, and yet how generous?”
A band seemed to tighten around Deidre’s throat. She didn’t know if she was generous or forgiving. She didn’t know what she was.
“Remember Leslie Warden?” Brigit asked.
Deidre blinked, surprised by the question and the name from the far past.
“She and her friends bullied you nonstop one summer between your third and fourth grade year. You stood up for yourself, though. You never backed down. And when Leslie pushed too hard one day, you gave her a bloody nose,” Brigit recalled, caressing her hand.
“You and Dad grounded me for three weeks when you found out,” Deidre remembered in a tight voice.
“We found out because you confessed it to us. You were beyond regretful. You were distraught. Between your sobs, Derry and I finally figured out that you were horrified you’d caused all that blood...all that pain. After that, you made it your mission to make things right with Leslie Warden. Your father and I never said a word to you about it. We didn’t have to. You were fixed and determined about making up with that girl. And you did. The two of you were friends after that for years, even though she was a Harbor Town year-rounder and you only came during the summers. You may be fierce in your anger, Deidre, but you also possess one of the most forgiving spirits I’ve ever known. You wouldn’t have returned to Harbor Town if you wanted this rift between us to continue.”
“A lot can change about a person in half a lifetime,” Deidre said, holding her mother’s stare. “Circumstances can stretch a person’s ability for forgiveness beyond tolerance.”
“Like Lincoln’s death, for instance?”
“Like Lincoln’s death after I’d only had the chance to know him for three months,” Deidre corrected. The teakettle began to whine. Her mother leaned toward her, her blue eyes moist.
“I can’t change it, Deidre. I’ve wished I’d done things differently a thousand times over since you left Harbor Town. I’ve made myself sick with regrets. I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but I thought I was doing what was best for you and Derry. Think of the heartache I’d have caused by confessing about the affair.”
“That may have been true until I was a teenager, Mom, but what about after Dad died? I can’t believe you were never planning to tell me the identity of my biological father. You knew Lincoln would have wanted to know me,” she burst out heatedly.
“I considered telling you, but you’ve refused to speak to me all these years. You wouldn’t come home. When I understood from your brothers and sister that you’d never revealed to them what you’d overheard on the night Derry and I argued, I assumed I was doing what you would have wanted by not speaking of it. I thought that my secret had become yours.”
Deidre just stared, taken aback by her mother’s pressured admission.
Brigit leaned back in her chair and gave a sigh thick with regret. “I caused worse heartache by having things come out the way they did,” Brigit continued in a quieter tone. “I know that. I have to live with that—knowing I hurt you and Derry and Lincoln. I live with that every day, every hour. I’m not asking you to alleviate that pain, because no one can. That’s my burden to bear.”
“Lincoln forgave you,” Deidre blurted out, surprising herself.
Brigit nodded slowly.
“You knew?” Deidre whispered.
“He contacted me after you went to his house in South Lake and told him what Liam had discovered.”
“What did Lincoln say?”
“Just what you said. That he forgave me for what I’d done. And that...”
“What?” Deidre prompted when Brigit’s voice faded.
“That he wanted to see me again,” said Brigit, now staring out the breakfast nook windows toward the vast lake.
“Did you? See him again?” Deidre asked, dazed. Surely she would have known if her mother had come to The Pines while she was there.
Brigit blinked and met her stare. “I never spoke with Lincoln. Not once since I left him years ago in Lake Tahoe. I never broke that vow to myself. He left a message on my answering machine at the house a few months back. That’s how I knew he’d forgiven me.”
“You wanted to see him, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did,” Brigit replied with a sad smile.
“Why didn’t you go then?”
Brigit sighed, seeming to search for the words. It struck Deidre her mother was having difficulty expressing herself because she’d never spoken her feelings aloud.
How lonely she must be.
“Lincoln was my dear friend. He loved me unconditionally. I didn’t deserve that. Not after I refused to see him again and reconcil
ed with Derry. Not after I’d deprived him of you.”
Deidre stared. Her mother was saying she believed it was her punishment to be deprived of the unconditional love of a man who had always adored her. Part of Deidre agreed with Brigit’s self-imposed penance. Another part ached for her mother so much it nearly stole her breath.
Brigit touched her hand again. “Something Lincoln said in the message he left a few months back made me think he’d accepted you as his child.”
“He did,” Deidre whispered. “He’s made me his heir, to his fortune and to his company, along with Nick Malone.”
Brigit gasped.
“You truly loved Lincoln, didn’t you?” Deidre asked, reading the truth in her mother’s startled expression and haunted eyes.
Brigit gripped at her hand, and Deidre found herself clutching back this time. “I loved both Derry and Lincoln, but not in the same way. Derry was my soul mate, my only true love. But Lincoln was unwaveringly loyal, the dearest friend of my heart. He understood me, maybe better than Derry ever could. It would have been a comfort to bask in Lincoln’s love and forgiveness. But it just wasn’t meant to be.
“What’s between us is different, Deidre,” Brigit said after a tense silence.
“How so?”
“I could punish myself further by forsaking the incomparable treasure of a daughter. Maybe I would, if it weren’t for one thing. You need me. I can’t imagine how distraught you must be feeling following Lincoln’s death, and then to find out this huge thing—that he’s made you his heir. You must be overwhelmed,” Brigit said feelingly. “A mother is the thing that grounds us, reminds us of who we are. I know I haven’t been that for you for a long, long time, but I want to be that for you again, Deidre. I’ve never known a young woman who needed a loving mother more. And I do love you,” she said hoarsely, her gaze entreating. “Please know that. I feel like a part of myself was cut away when you left my life all those years ago.”
Emotion swelled in Deidre, clogging her throat. She stood abruptly, but Brigit tightened her hold on her hand, halting her.
“You returned to Harbor Town. Isn’t everything we had before all the tragedy enough for us to at least begin talking again? I know I’m far from perfect. I’ve made terrible mistakes. But you’re my daughter. I’m your mother. Can’t we try to start anew?”
The teakettle continued to wail. Deidre started and swiped her hand over a damp cheek. She broke contact with her mother and moved toward the stove.
“At least agree to come for Christmas,” Brigit said. “Please?”
Deidre turned off the gas burner and reached for two cups, hardly aware of what she was doing.
“I’ve upset you. I’ll pass on the tea for now,” Brigit said quietly after a moment. Deidre paused in her senseless task of making tea and glanced at her mother over her shoulder. Brigit had stood and retrieved her coat. “Will you at least think about coming to Sycamore Avenue for Christmas?”
Deidre looked away, moved by the naked longing she’d seen on her mother’s face.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. She stilled beneath Brigit’s soft touch on her shoulder. A moment later, she heard the front door close quietly.
After her mother’s visit, she felt drained. Colleen noted her preoccupation later when they met at her house for lunch, mistaking it for exhaustion.
“You seem tired. I thought you said you were feeling much better when we spoke on the phone earlier,” Colleen said as she led Deidre to her bedroom.
“I am. It’s just...Mom stopped by the cottage earlier.”
Colleen paused in the entry to her bedroom, her expression tense. “She did? How did it go? Not very well, from the looks of things.”
Deidre waved her hand. “You can’t really expect a meeting like that to go well, can you? Maybe it’s enough that it went at all.”
Colleen gave her an understanding glance. “All right. I get it. You don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“Suffice it to say that Mom asked me to spend Christmas on Sycamore Avenue, and I didn’t say no.”
Colleen’s brows arched appraisingly. “Now that is something.” She opened her mouth to say something else, but seemed to reconsider. She swept across the room to her closet. “But so is this date tonight with Nick Malone. We better focus on that.”
“Thank you for helping me. I’m a fashion disaster. I haven’t bought any new clothes since I first moved to Germany. I hate shopping,” Deidre explained as Colleen started pulling dresses off the rack.
Colleen laughed from the interior of her walk-in closet.
“What’s so funny?”
“Sorry.” Colleen grinned. “It just struck me as funny. An heiress who hates to shop.”
“I’ll be kicked out of the billionaire’s club for sure,” Deidre mumbled, rolling her eyes.
“Here. I have the perfect dress. It always ran small on me, but it’ll be just right for you.”
She admired the sophisticated black knit Colleen showed her.
“I’ll even throw in a pair of heels and earrings if you tell me one thing,” Colleen offered.
“Yes?”
“Are you falling for Nick Malone?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. She hadn’t been prepared for the blunt question, but she should have been, given it was Colleen doing the asking.
“I suppose you’d think I was a fool if I was,” Deidre said, holding up the dress and eyeing herself in the vanity mirror, trying to avoid Colleen’s stare.
“I’d think you were a fool if you weren’t,” Colleen corrected crisply. “Not a fool, actually. More like a robot or something. There’s no way a woman wouldn’t be affected by having a man that looks like Nick stare at her the way he stares at you. While we were in Tahoe, you showed a real flair for avoiding Nick. But on the phone this morning, you sounded practically giddy at the idea of a date with him. Something’s going on between you two. Something major.”
Colleen’s knowing glance informed Deidre she might as well forget dissembling. She sighed and tossed the dress on the bed. “All right. I’m...interested in him.” Her cheeks heated even more when she noticed Colleen’s arch expression. “Okay, I’m really interested. Am I crazy? Getting involved with Nick Malone, of all people? He may end up taking me to court. I don’t know up from down anymore. When did my life become so complicated? The most difficult thing used to be doing a week of night-shift duty. I’m not sure if Nick even trusts me completely.”
“He wants you though.”
“As if that matters.”
“Do you trust him?” Colleen challenged.
“Yes.” She met Colleen’s stare. “More than I ever have before. I think he’s been up front with me from the beginning. I may not have liked what he’s been saying, but at least he’s been honest.”
Colleen smiled and walked over to her closet. She turned around with a pair of sexy black heels dangling from her fingers.
“Remember. Fate favors the bold,” she said.
Deidre made a face. She’d told Colleen the same thing when her sister had shown up at The Pines, heartbroken and avoiding Eric Reyes. “Okay, I may be simplifying things a little out of proportion to the complexities of the situation,” Colleen admitted, handing Deidre the heels. “So I’ll just stick with good luck.”
“Thanks, I think I’m going to need it.”
“You used to jump two hundred and fifty feet off ski ramps. You’ve been known to run into a bullet fray to rescue a patient. You can do anything. You’re my big sister,” Colleen added the last fondly, as if it explained everything.
She laughed and hugged Colleen. “Thank you. Maybe I wouldn’t choose the bullets over Nick, but I have to wonder which situation is more dangerous.”
“Nobody ever said love was simple.”
Deidre�
��s mouth fell open. “Love?”
Colleen shrugged and hid her grin by starting to search for the promised pair of earrings.
* * *
Later that evening Deidre recalled her insinuation that Nick Malone was potentially dangerous. She turned to the side and examined herself in the full-length mirror behind the bathroom door.
She was the one who looked dangerous. Forget “little black dress.” The number Colleen had loaned her was downright racy.
Not that it was indecent by any means. It wasn’t low-cut and it covered her knees. In fact, it was quite elegant. It was more the way it hugged every curve she possessed that made her eyes go wide when she appraised herself. The sexy black pumps did a lot for her legs. Even her small breasts looked somehow...significant in the molding knit fabric of the dress, she realized in rising panic.
She twisted around and examined herself from the back. Oh, no. The dress gently cupped her hips and bottom, leaving little to the imagination. At the top, it dipped in an oval, leaving her upper back exposed. The conservative pearls and earrings she wore only seemed to emphasize the sexiness of the dress by contrast.
Nick would think she was... She didn’t know what Nick would think. He was used to seeing her in jeans and T-shirts and boots.
She raced to her bedroom, intent on changing into something else—a frumpy skirt and blouse, if need be. Anything, as long as Nick wouldn’t think she was playing the sex siren.
His bold knock sounded at the front door.
Deidre paused in the action of whipping a blouse off a hanger. She stared at the garment in rising panic. It was totally unsuitable for dinner at The Embers. She tossed the blouse on her bed and placed her hand on her chest, willing her pounding heartbeat to slow.
Get a grip, Kavanaugh.
She was a grown woman. It wasn’t even as if she hadn’t slept with Nick yet. She had no excuse for hysterics.
“Hi,” she said a moment later when she opened the front door. He stood on the front porch, looking incredibly handsome in his black overcoat, a white shirt and silk tie showing through the opening.