The Summer Garden. Sherryl Woods

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СКАЧАТЬ “What’s this about?” he asked Moira when she called. “Usually it takes all my persuasive skills to get your mum to set foot inside that place.”

       “There’s the lure of seeing some of my photos on the walls,” Moira told him. “I’d like you to see them, too. I know you’ve been too busy to stop in since Peter hung them up.”

       He heard the hint of nervousness in her voice and knew these pictures meant more to her than she wanted him to know. “Peter’s told me about them, you know. He thinks you’ve a real gift.”

       “He’s told you that?” she asked, sounding pleased.

       “And he wouldn’t lie to an old friend,” Dillon reassured her. “Nor would he say anything to you if he didn’t have faith in your work. I’ll be looking forward to seeing them for myself. I only wish you’d expressed an interest in this a long time ago. I would have encouraged you.”

       “Things happen when they’re meant to,” she replied. “Isn’t that what you’ve told me about you and Nell reuniting after all these years?”

       “True enough.”

       She fell uncharacteristically silent, which encouraged him to ask, “Was there something else on your mind?”

       “Is it true that you’ve been matchmaking between my mum and Peter?”

       Dillon chuckled. “Ah, she told you that, did she? It’s true. I always thought they were well suited. Of course, that was the kiss of death back when they were young. If I said there was a pot of gold to the north, your mum would head south just to spite me.”

       Moira laughed. “And you think she’s changed?”

       “No, which is why I’ll be keeping my mouth firmly shut tonight,” he said. “If there’s any matchmaking to be done, I’ll leave it to you.”

       “I can see it, too,” she confessed. “That they’d be good together. Wouldn’t it be lovely if something came of it after all this time?”

       “It would,” Dillon agreed. “Your mother deserves to find some happiness. She wasn’t always bitter and sad the way she’s been since your dad took off.”

       “I know. I see glimpses of it from time to time. Do you suppose she and I can make peace?” she asked, her tone plaintive.

       “She and I have,” he said. “So there’s always hope. We’ll see if tonight can give us a start on that.”

       In fact, he vowed to do his part to give things a push in that direction. He had a feeling that if Moira was to find her own happiness—with Luke or someone else—she needed to believe she was worthy of love. Circumstances and Kiera’s own bitterness had done their part to rob her of that self-confidence. It was past time to fix that, too. For a man his age, it seemed he still had a lot to accomplish.

       Peter refused to let Moira wait on a single table while her mother and grandfather were in the pub.

       “Enjoy your family,” he said. “Bask in their admiration.”

       She would have, but she was too nervous. As Dillon and Kiera circled the room, pausing in front of the photos, Moira waited behind the bar, polishing mugs despite Peter’s best efforts to get her to stop hiding out. She couldn’t help noticing that Peter seemed almost as anxious about their reactions as she was.

       “Well?” he prodded, when they finally headed back toward the bar. “Is she as amazing as I think?”

       “I’m stunned,” Kiera said, a smile on her face. “Moira, they’re truly remarkable.”

       Moira flushed at the praise. “Do you mean that?”

       “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,” her mother insisted, then glanced briefly at Peter. “Thank you for encouraging her.” She looked away almost the instant the words were out of her mouth.

       “It’s been my pleasure,” Peter said, his gaze on Kiera steady, despite her doing her best to avoid it. “I would have done the same for anyone, but it’s meant more that it was your daughter I was helping.”

       The color in her mother’s cheeks heightened at his words. So, Moira thought, her mum wasn’t immune to him, after all.

       She slipped out from behind the bar and tucked her arm through her grandfather’s, then steered him away from the others to stand in front of one of the photos. “You haven’t said much.”

       “You’ve left me speechless,” he admitted. “I feel as if I know those people, not as I always have, but as if I’ve had a glimpse inside them. This is more than a hobby, Moira. You’ve a talent you should be nurturing.”

       Tears stung her eyes. “You have no idea what it means to me to have you say that. I’m almost starting to believe I could make a go of this.”

       “Then it’s something you truly want?”

       She nodded. “I’ve never allowed myself to believe it could happen. I was always the screwup, the rebellious one, not suited for anything I was learning in school. I talked a bit to Jess O’Brien about that feeling when she was here. She said she’d felt much the same way till she opened her inn.” She met his gaze. “I think, in some ways, it’s the same with Luke and his pub.”

       “I think it is,” her grandfather agreed. “If you can understand that and give him the room to mature and grow, I think he’ll do the same for you. You’ll build your future together, one with room for both your gifts.”

       Moira looked around the pub at the photos on the walls, noted the way people were admiring them and felt a warm glow of satisfaction, but something else as well. This faint possibility of a career—this hope she was feeling—it was here, in Dublin, while Luke was across the ocean.

       As if he’d read her mind, her grandfather smiled at her. “There are people to photograph in America, too,” he said quietly. “If this is what you were meant to do and Luke is the man you’re meant to be with, you’ll find a way. Believe in that.”

       Moira nodded, wanted to believe, but over the years there’d been very little reason to have faith in herself. Suddenly the trip that she’d agreed to with one goal was about so much more.

       Luke was standing amid wood shavings, drawing in the scent of paint and wondering if he’d been out of his mind to think he could create an Irish pub in barely more than a month. He’d trusted it to his brother and his uncle, but right at the moment all he could detect was chaos. Only the handsome sign that was meant to go above the door out front—O’Brien’s written in the almost traditional raised gold letters against a dark green background—was ready.

       The massive bar, the one he’d salvaged from a town in the countryside miles from Dublin, would be delivered tomorrow, assuming he dared to put it into place in this construction zone. It might be better off being left in the alley behind the building. Matthew was still grumbling about the tight fit it was going to be. There’d be barely inches to spare once it was in place across the back of the room. If Luke gained even a few ounces, he’d be squeezing past to make his way to the office in back. Thank goodness the doorway to the kitchen was off to the side. Otherwise, a waiter with a tray would be tempting fate each time he came and went.

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