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Being in a job like his, one filled with surprises and challenges, and having grown up in and around the hotel kitchen, he wasn’t dealing with his first fire. Conor had the presence of mind to locate, rip from the wall and use the extinguisher over the flaming steak and burners, putting out the fire in record time...at the expense of a prime cut of meat and a few other meats grilling nearby. At least he’d avoided the blare of a fire alarm. He kept the most unexpected and unwelcomed meeting with the new hotel chef between him and her, and, oh, the startled restaurant crew...who all stood around with mouths agape and eyes wide.
* * *
Shelby couldn’t believe what’d just happened, or the fact Conor Delaney had put out the fire she’d started. Because of him!
She knew she’d have to face him at some point when she’d applied for and accepted the job offer from Mark Delaney. Her choices were nil back east and she needed to regroup before moving on. Now here she was facing down the guy she’d left behind. The guy she’d betrayed. The guy she used to love like no other.
And setting a fire.
Why did he have to come for dinner on her very first night at The Drumcliffe?
Seeing Conor, the sweetest person she’d ever known, all grown up and devastatingly good-looking in that deputy sheriff’s uniform, she’d lost control of her hands. It didn’t help that she was overcome with a huge surge of guilt. Good thing he’d had the sense to grab the fire extinguisher.
Conor set the empty extinguisher on the stainless-steel counter, leveled her with a haunting stare, reminding her how careless she’d been with their promise, then left without a word.
Maureen showed up. “You okay? Everyone okay?”
Shaken, Shelby gave a nod. Her sous-chef began tossing the fried meat and ruined food into the trash. The kitchen cleanup crew—one mature woman from housekeeping looking for extra shifts—took over from there.
Maureen draped her arm over Shelby’s shoulders. “No burns? You sure you’re okay?”
“I just need a minute. I’ll make up for this.” She couldn’t lose her job, not on her first night. She had dinners to cook, people to feed. A reputation to save.
“I know you can,” Maureen said with a sympathetic gaze.
Rather than stand there shaking, Shelby jumped back to work, and while she did, her mind worked overtime.
Slapped-down by life, and now a devout realist, she knew the only way to make her dreams of becoming a great chef come true was to start small, to prove herself, work her way up from there, then one day run her own first-rate NYC kitchen. Not to depend on anyone but herself. Maybe, if she worked hard enough, she could put The Drumcliffe Restaurant on the map in Central Coast California. But not if she burned the place down first!
Grabbing a fresh pan, she chose another prize cut of beef, seasoned and buttered it before placing it on the cleaned grill. “Abby?” She called over the waitress who’d ordered the steak. “Please give a complimentary appetizer to your table for the wait, but let them know their meal will be right out, okay?”
The waitress gave a smiling agreement, grabbed a large prong shrimp appetizer from the iced waiting bin and left.
Sure Shelby knew her new job almost certainly guaranteed she’d see Conor. Mark had warned her Conor still lived at the hotel when he’d hired her, and realizing it would be inevitable, she’d been prepared. But man-oh-man, she was anything but when Conor had walked into her kitchen.
Instead of quitting on the spot, she was determined to prove that after all those years in New York, she hadn’t wasted her training in culinary school. She belonged in this kitchen. But seeing Conor immediately reminded her how much she used to care for him, and the fact he was a living, breathing heartthrob hadn’t helped a bit. He seemed to have just kept on growing, looking larger than life. And handsome, oh, momma, was he handsome.
Here she was at twenty-nine, still trying to hit her stride, find her place in the world, and he was obviously a grown-up, dependable, responsible man in uniform. The polar opposite of all the other men in her life since leaving Sandpiper Beach.
She flipped the steak, doused it in seasoned butter and in another pan started searing a tuna order.
This was it, her time to finally realize her potential. To prove herself. Nothing would stop her. It wasn’t solely for her sake anymore, but for the sake of her son, too. She couldn’t fail. She was a single mom with a baby boy to take care of.
“Order up!”
* * *
The rest of the evening, Shelby managed to keep up with the incoming orders, though still totally thrown by seeing Conor. While she cooked, her mind went over how she’d wound up here, back home in Sandpiper Beach, living with her mother, working at The Drumcliffe Hotel’s restaurant.
They’d made a promise their last weekend together, and she’d planned to honor it, too...until her life had imploded.
By Conor’s reaction earlier, it was clear he hadn’t forgiven her for standing him up. Could she blame him?
“Order up!”
She’d had a chance to study in France three years ago. Hadn’t he always told her to go after her dreams? Stuck in another lateral-movement sous-chef job, she’d felt Paris was an opportunity to break out, to finally focus on becoming a renowned chef. While there, she’d met the most talented chef she’d ever worked for. He was très européen and sweet and sexy and... How many more adjectives could she use for him? He’d deserved them all.
Of course, she was young and still dumb and she’d let herself get swept away by his amazing charm, his culinary greatness, his everything. Most important, he’d made her feel special, like she’d felt no other time in her life.
Wait, check that, there was that July in Sandpiper Beach when she’d felt the same. Loved, cherished, adored. By Conor.
But things soon changed with Laurent. The shine to their romance wore off. The veil slowly lifted from her eyes, and after several months of having her as his chef groupie, he’d gotten bored. She sensed it before he’d told her so. Though brokenhearted at first, she’d tried one last time to make things right between them. Laurent welcomed her back, too. That last night hadn’t changed a thing between them. Yet it had changed every-single-thing else.
It had taken moving back to New York, and several weeks, to finally figure out she’d never loved him, that she’d only been infatuated. By the time she’d come to her senses, she remembered the one person she’d loved since high school, Conor Delaney, and how they’d made a promise to meet again. She’d checked the calendar and bought her ticket, deciding not to let anything keep her from the one true love she’d ever known. She’d go home tomorrow, stay with her mother and surprise him on the day. Just like they’d planned, she’d meet him on Sandpiper Beach at the second lifeguard tower. Their lifeguard tower. At sunset.
She’d been packed and ready to go, but something troubled her: her period, or lack thereof, and she couldn’t ignore it another day. So she’d taken the test. Then fallen on her bed and cried until her eyes burned and face hurt.
There was no way she could fly to California to face Conor as they’d planned. She was pregnant.
* * *
By the end of the first evening as head chef of The Drumcliffe, Shelby had cooked and plated nearly a hundred meals. Not bad for a newbie who’d started a stove fire only a couple hours earlier.
There was something else she’d realized. Earlier, when she’d looked into Conor Delaney’s eyes, she’d known without a doubt she’d hurt him to the core. That drove home the point how unworthy she was for a good guy like him, when she’d so easily been seduced by a player’s charm.
But she still owed Conor an apology, and the truth. Hell, she’d owed him that for over two years, when she should have used her ticket and flown home anyway. It would’ve been the right thing to do. But she’d been too messed up to face him then, had felt too guilty. Couldn’t bear the thought of owning up to one more mistake while feeling so raw and vulnerable. Now he’d find out soon enough anyway. Who knew? Maybe Mark had already told him.
After cleanup and shutting down the kitchen and restaurant for the night, Maureen came in.
“I just wanted to congratulate you,” Maureen said. “I’ve heard so many raves about your food. I’m positive word will get out.”
“That’s great.” Normally, she’d be thrilled to hear it, but Shelby’s mind was elsewhere, and she couldn’t lay her head down on the pillow that night without confronting Conor.
Shelby and Maureen walked together out of the kitchen. “Can you tell me where Conor lives? I need to talk to him,” Shelby asked, just before they turned out the lights.
Maureen looked puzzled. Surely, she knew how Shelby had hurt her son.
“He still lives here in one of the family suites at the back. I just saw him at the hotel pub. But now might not be a good time to talk to him. I’m a little embarrassed to say he’s been drinking.”
* * *
Conor finished his second beer and ordered a chaser. “Whiskey, please.” His second cousin, Brian Delaney, grandson of Grandda’s baby brother, Néall, and the new bartender straight from Ireland, raised a dark brow above intense blue eyes.
A bony ancient hand, cold like ice cubes, came out of nowhere and patted his forearm resting on the bar. From the feel of it, Conor wondered if his eighty-five-year-old grandfather was still alive.
“Are ya sure, lad?”
“I’ve only had a couple of Guinnesses,” Conor answered defensively.
“And you have a whiskey, you’ll be skuttered. What might be botherin’ you?”
Conor resented his grandfather stepping in and telling him to slow it down. If he did that to all his customers, Padraig’s Pub would go broke. But he also knew the old man cared about him. Truth was, he had to work tomorrow, and having a hangover wasn’t something he needed. Or wanted. “Brian, make that a glass of water.” He remembered he’d also had a beer with dinner, so he’d already gone over his personal limit.
Why did he have to remind himself about dinner—the best meal he’d ever had—and seeing her?
“Have something on your mind?”
“Nah, Grandda. Just had a surprise earlier, that’s all.” A surprise that nearly knocked him on his ass—seeing the girl he’d known since fourth grade and loved since the tenth.
Padraig Delaney wedged himself between the guy sitting on the stool next to Conor and his grandson. Far too close for Conor’s comfort. “A little birdie told me about the new chef.”
Conor had never told a single person how Shelby had stood him up the night he’d intended to ask her to marry him. The man lived in blissful ignorance where his grandsons were concerned, and seemed to like it that way. Grandda couldn’t possibly be heading in that direction. “What about it?”
“That Mark hired Shelby Brookes to help our restaurant compete in town.”
“Well, from the meal I had tonight, I’d say he made a good choice.” He’d do his best not to give himself away. Even though he intended to personally ring Mark’s neck for hiring the one person he never wanted to see again. If Grandda had a clue how messed up seeing Shelby had made him feel, he’d start spouting Irish jibber-jabber about the fates and fairies and how life always worked itself out, often in mysterious ways. The Irish version of fortune cookie sayings.
“It’s your turn, you know.”
Conor almost spilled the water Brian had just delivered. Grandda wasn’t really going there, was he? Tonight of all nights? He held up his free hand. “Don’t say it. Please.”
“We can’t deny fate.”
There it was. Give me strength. Was it too late to reorder the whiskey? But there was no arguing with the man from Ireland with a head full of fanciful thoughts, as his father called them.
“You boys saved that seal. How much proof do you need that it was a selkie? Both your brothers have found their ladies.”
Last year, worried about Mark moping around for so long after being discharged from the army, Conor and Daniel had rented a boat for some deep-sea fishing in an attempt to cheer him up. They’d wound up coming upon a pod of orca giving a lesson to an orca calf on how to catch a meal.
The pod had singled out a seal and were wearing it down, giving the calf ample opportunity to do the final deed. Nature was cruel, and the sight disturbed the three brothers. They pulled their boat closer and revved the engine, disrupting the pod’s attention. Probably the dumbest thing they could ever do, considering a small fishing boat wouldn’t be able to withstand the wrath of a ten-thousand-pound killer whale. But they’d done it, and amazingly, it had worked. They’d distracted the pod long enough for the seal to make a break. As they’d made a wide circle around the pod in the boat, they’d even cheered on the seal.
The next night, when they’d told the family the story over Sunday night dinner Grandda got weird. He’d sworn they’d saved a selkie and according to Irish folklore she—how his grandfather knew the sex was beyond Conor, but nevertheless—she owed them all a favor. Grandda swore each of the Delaney brothers would find their mate, as though he had a direct line to the little people in magic land.
Because Padraig was old, and they all loved him, the family put up with his occasional fantastical stories, but this one had gone beyond the pale. Until Daniel met a woman and fell in love three months later, a woman who was now pregnant and ready to give birth. Mark had done the same a couple months after that, met someone right across the street, coincidental as it was. Eerily so?
Nothing like flaming a fairy fire!
Speaking of fire, he remembered the reason he was sulking at the bar—seeing Shelby in the hotel kitchen. She’d been as upset at seeing him as he was with her, and her hand had slipped and she’d started the fire.
As she should be, out of guilt for standing him up!
From the corner of his eye, he saw the pub door open and a woman in a chef smock step into the bar. His palms felt on fire and anxious waves licked upward toward his neck. Seeing Shelby once today had been enough. “Well, I’ve got an early day, Grandda. I’ll be going now.” He worked to sound normal, feeling anything but. “Oh, add this to my tab, okay?” He stood and, moving as quickly as possible through a crowded pub without drawing attention to himself, he headed for the back exit.
* * *
Shelby swallowed the anxiety that twisted her stomach and threatened to make her turn and run back to the hotel lobby, but resisted and stood in the pub entrance waiting for her vision to adjust. Her heart battered against her chest. Conor hated her. She’d seen it in his eyes. Could she blame him? She’d given him a damn good reason. But he needed to know the whole story.
Still dressed in her chef smock, but without the hat, she stood for a few seconds, back against the pub doors, fighting for balance. It was loud with conversations and laughter, and over the speaker system, classic Irish music played, but by current, popular US groups.
She scanned the pub, checking out the long bar first. Movement at the far end caught her attention. The tall man stood and headed the other way. It was Conor. Had he seen her? Did he hate her so much he’d skip out of the bar to avoid her?
Too bad; she had to talk to him.
Shelby followed, sidestepping couples and groups of people to navigate the crowd and find that back exit. Spying the door, she rushed through it and after Conor, who, thanks to his long legs, was halfway across the hotel parking lot already. She didn’t stand a chance of catching him, being a full foot shorter, but she wouldn’t give up. “Conor! Conor! Wait up!”
She sidestepped a small group smoking by a car.
Conor stopped, but didn’t turn. If she thought her pulse had gone haywire before, that was nothing as it rattled her rib cage now, threatening to break out. Nearly breathless, her lungs irritated by the cigarette smoke, she bolted closer.
“You need to know something,” she said, fighting back a cough.
Now he stopped and turned, the parking lot light distorting his scowl into something scary. If she hadn’t known him most of her life, she might have run the other way, but she kept closing the gap between them. “I had a damn good reason not to meet you that day.” She prayed her knees wouldn’t give out as she barreled closer.
“And you couldn’t tell me then?”
Closer now, it seemed like a wall of frozen brick separated them.
“Not on the phone. No.”
“It was more important to make me feel like a complete fool?” He leveled his voice, aware of the group of smokers.
Still, his cold blast sent chills across her shoulders as she took another step closer so they wouldn’t have to talk so loud. “I was the fool, Conor. I’d gotten pregnant.” She couldn’t help the swell of emotion and the water filling her eyes. “How could I face you?” She hated how her face contorted with the words.
His scowl changed. Had there been a hint of empathy in the expression? Or was it disbelief, and justified betrayal that torqued his brows? On a mission, she blinked away the blurry vision, dug into her smock pocket and pulled out her cell phone. “I swear I’d just found out the day before my scheduled flight home. I was in shock, couldn’t think straight. I was falling apart, my life had suddenly changed completely. There was no way I could come home.” She brought up a picture, took a deep breath and, with her hand shaking, turned the phone his way so he could see the screen. “This is my son, Benjamin. He’s two years old.”
Conor studied the picture of her pudgy blond-headed toddler, then slowly stared at her.
Speechless.
Chapter Two
Two years, seven months and three weeks ago, on the beach at sunset by the second lifeguard station, Conor had waited for Shelby. And waited. He’d honored the special date he and Shelby had promised to meet on, and felt like a fool as the last rays of light dimmed and the threads of hope unraveled.
She’d forgotten.
Twenty minutes later, Shelby called him, her voice quivery. She’d explained she’d had every intention of coming, swore she had, even had the plane ticket to prove it.
“So why aren’t you here?” he asked, mystified by her absence, and furious. So, so furious.
She broke into tears, soon crying hysterically.
His anger quickly turned to concern. “Are you all right? Shelby, what’s wrong?”
She worked to recover, sniffing, gasping air, and finally, on a ragged breath, pushed out the words. “I can’t talk about it. It’s too hard.”
“Just tell me that you’re okay. Are you in danger?”
“I’m not in danger, but I’m not okay.” She started crying again. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t come. I hope you can forgive me.” Then she hung up.
Worried sick, he’d sat staring at the ocean, then the phone, then the engagement ring in his hand he’d been ready to give her. She’d bought a plane ticket. Hurt to the marrow, as deep as the love he had for her, he would hold off on passing judgment until he’d gotten the facts.
Conor had planned to ask Shelby to be his wife. He tried to brush off the pain, but her not showing up stung like a demon wasp. His stomach tightened to the point of backfiring. He doubled over, heaved and threw up onto the sand, grateful that it was dark and no one could see him. After what seemed like forever, brokenhearted and thoroughly confused, he’d stood and walked home. Vowing to never let anyone make him feel that way again.
But concern wouldn’t let up and, ready to interrogate Shelby, he’d called her the next day. She was at work and said she couldn’t talk to him. He’d heard the racket in the background, the voices shouting out food orders. She wasn’t lying—nevertheless, her avoiding him cut deeper still.
The next day, when he dialed before he figured she’d be at work, the call went straight to voice mail. I can’t take your call right now.
He finally got the point. She’d dumped him and didn’t want anything more to do with him. But why? And why buy a plane ticket if she hadn’t planned to come?
What had changed?
After all the years they’d known each other, he’d thought he’d meant something to her. He’d given her the Claddagh ring, a promise ring, in high school. She’d worn it when she’d left for New York the first time. They may have slipped out of touch in the interim but the promise had always been in the back of his mind. Then six years ago, they’d had the most amazing July together in Sandpiper Beach, falling in love. For real.
Sure they hadn’t kept in touch as much as they should have since that summer, but life was busy and complicated for both of them. And he’d never made it back east for a visit. But they’d made a promise to meet again. Didn’t a guy deserve to know why he’d been forgotten?
Since that day, he’d thrown himself into his job, dated lots of women to help him forget her, and moved on. Or so he kept telling himself.
Now here he was in a dark parking lot, looking at a digital picture of a toddler, while Shelby expectantly waited for him to say something. As if this situation was normal. In any way, shape or form.
“Cute kid.”
That was the best he could offer under the circumstances. An avalanche of pain, confusion and forgotten love crashed over him. And burned. Anguish and aching had been so deep he’d lost himself for a time back then. It’d taken months to feel semi-normal again.
Back in that hotel kitchen, she’d successfully reopened his wounds simply by showing up. Over two years late.
Finally, as painful as it was, he looked at her. The girl he’d known since fourth grade, with the same brown eyes—the eyes he used to get lost in—and light brown hair—though it was shorter and big city stylish now—the same girl, yet so different. She was a career woman now. A mother.
Tonight, face-to-face in a parking lot, thousands of miles still stretched between them. He was a deputy sheriff, he knew how to add things up. She’d said she’d bought her plane ticket, then didn’t meet him, and by the picture of her son, the timing seemed about right.
“Thanks.” Her reply was nearly inaudible.
His wasn’t the response she’d expected from the reaction on her face, a mix between fading hope, agony and facing cold hard facts—there was no fixing what’d gone down between them. Surely she understood that.
Looking resigned, she took back the phone, her fingers cold and trembling. No doubt it’d been hard for her to run after him and show him the reason she’d stood him up. She’d been with someone else and had forgotten to clue him in.
Yet she’d bought a plane ticket. And she wasn’t a liar. He had no reason to doubt that at some point she’d intended to meet him.
“I’m sorry, I really am.” The mouth he used to dream of kissing again quivered as she spoke.
He could only imagine what’d been going on in her world for the last two years. What had happened couldn’t be changed, a little pudgy boy proved it. She’d moved on, hadn’t honored their promise like he had. That was the risk of encouraging someone you loved to follow their dreams. Those aspirations had led her away for good. Maybe his father was wiser than he’d thought when it’d come to interfering with his mother’s dreams.
He couldn’t make his throat work. Didn’t try to speak. So he nodded a silent truce, and she nodded back, then he headed for his room, leaving the new chef like a statue in the parking lot watching him go.
Great new menu or not, he’d be eating elsewhere from here on out.
* * *
A week later, Shelby was still getting familiar with her routine as the new chef at The Drumcliffe Hotel. Though she’d never get used to that haunted and angry flare in Conor’s eyes when he’d appeared in the kitchen her first night. And later in the parking lot, when he’d given her that icy cold stare. She hadn’t seen a hint of him since then. He’d been her friend since fourth grade, she’d never get used to the fact that he hated her.