He regarded her blankly. “What?”
Clearly, it was something he took for granted, she thought, marveling at that as well. “The balance between speaking their minds, arguing and managing not to inflict hurt feelings.”
“Oh, believe me, people get their feelings hurt from time to time,” Luke said. “Sometimes words cut a little too close and leave wounds.”
“Wounds, maybe, but not rifts,” she said. “In my family we wind up not speaking for weeks. Sometimes longer.”
“It’s Gram,” he said. “She doesn’t allow the wounds to fester. For a little thing, she has a mighty power to force any one of us to shape up, and she doesn’t hesitate to intervene.” His expression suddenly turned sad. “I don’t know what will happen once she’s gone.”
Moira regarded him with dismay. “There was something in your voice when you said that, Luke. She’s not ill, is she? Grandfather hasn’t mentioned it.”
He hesitated a little too long before responding. “She’s in her eighties. Things are bound to start going wrong,” he said in a way that was revealing for its evasiveness. “I’ve been trying to keep a close eye on her. So has my mother. But Gram gets annoyed if she thinks any of us are hovering.”
“Then don’t hover,” Moira said. “If Nell needs your help, she seems to me like someone who’ll ask for it. Until then, treat her with the respect she’s earned.”
“There’s no lack of respect in worrying,” Luke argued.
“There is if it makes her start thinking of herself differently, as if she’s an object of pity or suddenly turned frail, rather than the same vital woman she’s always been.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I see what you mean. And I recall how put out she was when people thought she should stop taking charge of Sunday dinners. Since she’s seemed better since you and your grandfather arrived, I’ll try to heed your advice and quit hovering. Mum’s much more subtle about it than I am, anyway. She’ll alert the troops if she thinks there’s a need.”
Moira wound her arms around his neck. “You can hover over me instead,” she suggested. “The clock says it wouldn’t be amiss to go home now.”
A grin spread across his face at the suggestion. “My home?”
“It’s the closest and the least crowded,” she told him. “I’m thinking a bit of privacy could be in order.”
“And I’m thinking you’re a genius,” he said. “Grab your jacket and let’s go.”
“I’ll only need a jacket if you’re not up for the job of keeping me warm,” she challenged.
He laughed. “I’ll do my best, and you can rate me on it later.”
“I’m thinking there could be an A-plus in your future,” she teased.
In fact, she was counting on it.
After walking around the Inner Harbor in Baltimore most of the day, Nell was more than ready for a quiet evening at home with Dillon. The message from Moira that she’d be spending the night at Luke’s couldn’t have been more welcome.
“This is nice,” Dillon said as they finished eating. “Just you and me at home for a meal. We missed out on a lot of years like this, Nell. I don’t regret the life I had, but I do regret that.”
“We can’t go back and change anything,” she scolded. “We need to be grateful that we’ve been given a second chance to have quiet nights together like this. We should count our blessings, not our regrets. Isn’t that the mark of a life well lived—to have more of the one than the other?”
“You’ve always seen the glass as half-full, haven’t you?” Dillon said. “Your ability to be optimistic is one of the things I admire about you.”
She smiled at him. “If I needed to bask in your approval, I’d insist on your listing a few of the others,” she teased. “But I’m content with just the one for now. Would you like a glass of wine or a cup of tea? I think it’s warm enough that we could sit on the porch and enjoy the sunset.”
“Nothing to drink,” he told her. “Just you and that lovely view you have of the water. Rather than the porch, let’s sit in those chairs you have on the lawn. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to look up in the sky and see so many stars as they make their debut at night.”
“Thank goodness we don’t have as many bright lights as the city,” she told him as they walked outside. “Sometimes I’m awake before daybreak, and I come out here and look up. It seems as if the sky’s a field of diamonds. Being able to pick out a constellation here and there takes me back to the nights we used to lie on a blanket in that field near my grandfather’s house in the country.”
Dillon chuckled. “That’s not what I remember most about those nights. I remember only that you occasionally let me steal a kiss. They were all the sweeter because we risked getting caught.”
Nell smiled at the memory and reached for his hand. “There’s no one around to catch us tonight, if you wanted to do the same thing,” she said.
“Now, how could I pass up an invitation like that?” he asked, and pulled her into his arms.
The touch of his lips against hers had the pull of nostalgia, the tenderness of who they were now. Nell was just starting to enjoy it when a voice cut through the still night air.
“What’s this?” Mick demanded, sounding irritated.
Nell would have moved away, but Dillon refused to let her go. He turned a level gaze on Mick.
“What does it look like?” Dillon inquired mildly. “A sensitive man wouldn’t need to ask. Nor would he want to embarrass his mother.”
Nell had to contain a laugh at Mick’s chagrined expression. He looked as guilty as
