LITMIR.BIZ

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find such a beautiful, pristine spot again.”

       “That’s pretty much what Dad said.”

       “You should probably listen to him.”

       “A family’s a long way down the road,” Luke protested. “I can’t even think that far ahead. I have to focus all my attention on the pub for now. I think it’s going to be the key to my future.”

       “Still, it doesn’t do to make a decision you’ll likely live to regret,” she said. “You may only be twenty-four, but there will come a day when the right person will come along and you’ll want to settle down.” She gave him a knowing look. “I thought perhaps you’d already found her.”

       Luke gave her a startled look. “Kristen? Heavens, no!”

       “I was thinking of Moira, but the fact that you didn’t mention her first is telling. Weren’t the two of you quite close while you were in Ireland?” She gave him a penetrating look. “Or was Moira just another one of your flings?”

       Luke knew he needed to tread carefully. Moira was the granddaughter of a man who was important to his grandmother. He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea. Moira hadn’t been a fling, not like so many others. She’d mattered, perhaps a little too much.

       “Moira’s special,” he admitted. “Had the timing been different…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she could have been the one.”

       Nell regarded him with undisguised amusement. “Falling in love doesn’t necessarily adhere to the timetable we’d choose,” she suggested. “Are you in touch with her?”

       “We’re exchanging emails,” he said. And she was in his head all the time, he acknowledged to himself, distracting him when he needed to stay focused. He didn’t think his grandmother needed to hear that. She’d make too much of it. “Once I have this business up and running successfully, maybe then I’ll pursue something with Moira.”

       “And you expect her to be sitting there waiting patiently?” Nell asked incredulously. “Do you seriously think that’s her way? Given her temperament, you’ll be lucky if she even takes your call.”

       Luke couldn’t deny the truth of that. “I’ll have to take the chance,” he said stubbornly, convinced that it was his only choice.

       “That’s the second foolish thing I’ve heard from you today,” she chastised him.

       Luke winced. “Moira’s not really the issue for now,” he protested, desperate to get off the uncomfortable topic and back on track. “It’s the pub. Do you approve?”

       “A hundred percent,” she said at once. “Which is why you’ll take the money for it from me, rather than selling that land.”

       Luke couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d offered to sprinkle him with Irish fairy dust. “Absolutely not,” he said at once. “I didn’t come to you for money.”

       “I know you didn’t,” she soothed. “But hear me out. I’ve told none of the others this, but your grandfather left me in charge of trusts for all of you. The money’s been growing since each of you was born. Mick’s children had their own trusts set up by him, so they won’t receive these until I’m gone. Neither will Susie or Matthew. But I think you should have yours now. It’s not huge, mind you, but it should provide just the capital you need to get started.”

       “Gram, no,” he protested again. “I won’t risk your money.”

       “It’s not mine,” she corrected. “It’s yours. You’ll just be getting it while I’m still here to see you put it to good use. Use it well, and it will give me great joy.”

       Luke didn’t know what to say. A part of him thought he should turn it down. Another part was relieved to have the financial issue settled in a way that would keep his father off his back about selling that land.

       He studied Nell closely. “Are you sure?”

       She smiled at his obvious concern. “Is this your dream?”

       He nodded. “It is.”

       “And you believe in it?”

       “I really do.”

       “Then we’ll go to see Lawrence Riley in the morning,” she told him without hesitation. “It should be easy enough to make the arrangements to transfer the money into your name.”

       Luke lifted her out of her chair and spun her around, aware that she was like a feather in his arms.

       “Stop that,” she said, laughing. “You’ll make me dizzy, and I’ve enough of that just standing up, thanks to this blood pressure medicine the doctor insists I take.”

       Luke set her gently on her feet, then regarded her with concern. “Blood pressure medicine? Since when? I’ve never known you to take more than the occasional aspirin, Gram.”

       “It’s nothing to worry about,” she insisted. “And you’re not to go blabbing to everyone, or our deal is off. Is that understood?”

       Luke nodded reluctantly. “You’d tell me if it was anything serious, wouldn’t you?”

       He held her gaze as he asked, and she looked him straight in the eye as she said, “Of course,” but Luke didn’t believe her. It was the first time he could ever recall that his grandmother had lied to him. It scared him to death.

       It was her day off and Moira had taken a dust cloth, vacuum and pail of water from the kitchen and gone to work in her grandfather’s house in Dublin. Just that morning she’d turned over to Peter all the pictures she’d taken at the pub and was awaiting his word about whether they were good enough to be hung. In the meantime, she’d needed a distraction.

       She’d already scrubbed the house from top to bottom. She was in the kitchen polishing the silver when her grandfather came home for dinner. He regarded her with curiosity.

       “I thought you came to stay with me because you wanted to try life in Dublin on for size, not to be my housemaid,” Dillon O’Malley said to her.

       “I was bored,” she retorted, not ready to admit she was a nervous wreck because of the photos she’d given to Peter. If she was a failure at that after getting her hopes up, she didn’t want anyone knowing about it. “Don’t make too big a deal of this. It’s not likely to happen again.”

       Her grandfather, never one to get to the point too quickly when there was a roundabout way to get there, poured himself a glass of Irish whiskey, looked to her and asked, “Would you like one, too?”

       “No, thank you,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You can rot your insides, if you’ve a mind to, but I’ll take more care of mine.”

       “I didn’t get to be this age by mistreating my insides,” Dillon retorted, amusement in his eyes. “Now, have a seat and let’s chat a bit.”

       Normally, Moira would have taken the request as the perfect excuse to claim other plans and hightail it away, but tonight she had no desire to meet her friends for an evening of the same old conversation about the lousy men in their lives. The man in her life wasn’t lousy, for one thing, she thought, then sighed. If he was even in her life. She’d been a little muddy on that point since Luke had left.

       So, at loose ends and restless, she sat as her grandfather had asked. He studied her with a knowing expression.

       “This boredom you’re experiencing wouldn’t have anything to do with a young man who’s gone back to America now, would it?”

       She regarded him with astonishment, startled that this man she barely knew could read her so easily when her own mum seemed completely oblivious to what was going on in her head.

       “You think this is about Luke?” she asked.

       He smiled. “Is there another young man who was taking

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