She nodded with obvious reluctance. “When are they going? Did they say?”
“Tomorrow. They’re catching a morning train.”
She looked relieved by the news. “Then we still have tonight,” she said eagerly.
He nodded. “And we’ll make the most of it. I promise.”
Moira took her accumulation of things from Luke’s back to Nell’s cottage very early in the morning, hoping to spend a little time with her grandfather before he and Nell left on their trip. He greeted her at the door with a smile.
“It’s about time you put in an appearance over here, young lady,” he chided. “I’d begun to feel abandoned.”
Moira laughed. “I doubt that. I hear you’re about to go gallivanting off to New York with Nell this morning.” She regarded him worriedly. “Are you sure you’re up to it? I understand it’s a hard city to manage in if you don’t know your way around.”
“Nell has it all planned out.”
“Is there some reason you decided to go now?”
“Let’s have a cup of tea and I’ll explain,” he said.
When they were settled at the kitchen table, he said, “I doubt this will come as any surprise to you, but Nell and I have decided to marry. This trip is a little celebration. When we get back, we’ll tell the rest of her family, but I wanted you to know now. You and Mick are the only ones we’ve told.”
Moira regarded him with astonishment. “You’re getting married?”
He searched her face. “Are you shocked that two people our age want to get married?”
She took a second to think about it, then shook her head, a smile breaking across her face. “Quite the opposite. I’m thrilled for you, and it’s given me hope that things always work out the way they’re supposed to, even if it takes more time than you’d anticipated.”
“I believe that with all my heart,” Dillon said. “Will you be okay here in the house alone with Nell and me gone? Or will you be alone?”
“I will be,” she said. She explained what she and Luke had decided. “It’s not a breakup or anything like that. I’m just sorting through all these conflicting emotions about what I want.” She shrugged. “It’s probably foolish.”
“Why would giving careful thought to such important matters ever be foolish?”
“Because the choice might not be mine in the end,” she said.
“Decisions that affect your life can’t be taken out of your hands,” Dillon said.
Moira shook her head. “That’s not entirely true now, is it? As soon as another person’s involved, they get to make their own choices.”
“Then, as it often is, it’s Luke we’re discussing,” Dillon said wryly. “And you still don’t feel confident that he feels the same way you do.”
“In my heart, I believe he does, but I can’t help wondering if he’ll ever be ready to put his heart on the line. I’m afraid it will be one excuse and then another.”
“If that’s what happens, then you’ll make your own decision about how long to wait,” he told her. “See what I mean? In the end, you make your own choices, even if they’re not the ones you’d envisioned needing to make.”
Moira sighed heavily. “You’re right, as always.”
Her grandfather chuckled. “I’d like a recording of that to send your mum, if you wouldn’t mind.”
She laughed with him. “She’d never believe it, would she?”
“And never utter the same thing, that’s for sure.”
Moira couldn’t help wondering how she and her mother could see this same wonderful, wise man so very, very differently.
Luke was wiping down the bar when Connor came in. He glanced at the clock on the wall, noted the lateness of the hour, then regarded his cousin with surprise.
“It’s awfully late for a married man and father to be arriving in a bar,” he teased Connor. When there was no answering smile, he felt a momentary stirring of worry. “Is something wrong?”
Connor nodded. “There have been some problems with Moira’s paperwork for her work visa,” he said, his expression grim.
Luke threw down his rag and walked around the bar to take a seat. “Tell me about it.”
“It seems that someone informed an investigator that she is no longer working here and suggested that her application should be voided.”
Luke stared at him in shock and then with dawning anger. “Kristen!”
“That would be my guess,” Connor admitted. “But I have no proof of it. And the point is that since it’s widely known that she isn’t consulting for you at the moment, we have to start from scratch, and they’re going to be looking to see that every i is dotted and every t is properly crossed.”
“Won’t it be even better for her with Megan vouching for her and the show they’re about to have at the gallery scheduled?” Luke asked hopefully.
“But that gives the investigator a time line,” Connor pointed out. “When the show ends, so in all likelihood does the visa. Where is Moira now?”
“She’s taken refuge at Gram’s for a few days to catch her breath. Your mum’s been putting a lot of pressure on her, and it’s rattled her. With Gram and Dillon away, it seemed like the perfect hideaway.”
Connor blinked. “Gram and Dillon have gone off somewhere together? And Dad hasn’t had a coronary?”
Luke laughed. “I know. It’s stunned me, too. He’s been in here most nights, calm as can be, as if nothing’s amiss.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know about the trip.”
“Oh, he knows. In fact, he’s the one who told me even before Dillon and Gram came by to share the news. Gram wanted to spend extra time with Bryan to make sure he has the menu under control. I think she takes our culinary success here very personally.”
Connor smiled. “That’s Gram,
