Lilac Lane

Chesapeake Shores has always represented home and family for the O’Briens, but in Lilac Lane, the community extends its healing powers to a woman recovering from overwhelming grief

Single mom Kiera Malone struggled for years to raise her three children in a small town on the coast of Ireland. Just when she’s let down her guard and allowed herself to love again, her fiancé suffers a fatal heart attack and leaves her alone yet again. Overwhelmed by her loss, she’s persuaded to visit her father, Dillon O’Malley, and her daughter, Moira O’Brien, in Chesapeake Shores. With the promise of family ties and a job at O’Brien’s, her son-in-law’s Irish pub, she takes what seems like the biggest risk of her life.

As it turns out, though, crossing the ocean is nothing compared to moving into a charming cottage on Lilac Lane, right next door to Bryan Laramie, the moody chef at O’Brien’s, who doesn’t do anything the way Kiera believes it should be done. Their kitchen wars quickly become the stuff of legends in Chesapeake Shores, and the town’s matchmakers conclude where there’s heat, there’s sure to be passion.

As these two deal with their wounded pasts and discover common interests, they might just find the perfect recipe for love.

Lilac Lane

Sherryl Woods

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

This one is for all the readers who’ve embraced my characters and

stories through the years. You’ve been such a blessing in my life and I treasure the friendship you’ve offered.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Afterword

Copyright

Prologue

The death of Peter McDonough would have been a blow at any time, but coming as it had on the very day Kiera Malone had finally accepted his proposal of marriage left her reeling. After her first husband, Sean Malone, had abandoned her with three young children, she had vowed never to let another man into her life, much less into her heart. She’d clung to her independence with a fierce protectiveness. She’d made a practice of scaring men away with her tart tongue and bitter demeanor, even knowing as she did so that she was dooming herself to loneliness. Better that than dooming herself and her children to another loss, another mistake.

After the death of his wife, Peter, bless his sweet soul, had waited patiently on the sidelines for Kiera, running his pub in Dublin, supporting her daughter, Moira, in her efforts to make a career of the photography that Kiera herself had thought of as nothing more than a hobby, and making the occasional overture to Kiera.

To Kiera’s confusion, not even her best efforts to push him aside and make clear her lack of interest, efforts that had chased off every other man who’d approached her, seemed to dissuade Peter. He took her rebuffs in stride. If anything, his not-so-secret crush had deepened.

More troubling, aside from his thick, curly hair and firm jaw, he had a combination of traits that drew her to him—strength balanced by gentleness, bold determination tempered by patience and a booming laugh that could fill her heart with unexpected lightness. He was, in all respects, a man who knew exactly what he wanted, and he wanted Kiera. She had no idea why.

Moreover, he’d had the support not only of her father, Dillon O’Malley, but of her daughter. Up until then, Moira, like Dillon, had approved of very few of Kiera’s choices in life. Yet for once Moira and Kiera’s father had conspired to push Kiera and Peter together at every opportunity. Since their approval had been granted so sparingly over the years, she’d been persuaded to be less resistant than usual. What was the harm, after all, when she knew it would come to nothing? Relationships tended to deteriorate over time, even those begun with passion and hope. They ended. At least that was her experience.

But then Moira and Dillon had somehow convinced Kiera to move back to Dublin, where, they’d said, there were more opportunities. They dangled new opportunities like strands of glittering gold, told her any one of them would be an improvement over her dead-end career in a dingy neighborhood pub in a tiny seaside village on the coast north of Dublin where she’d toiled for long hours and low pay for most of her life. Moira had actually had the audacity to scold her for accepting security for her family over any ambitions she might have once had to run a restaurant of her own.

“Where’s your confidence and self-respect?” Moira had demanded. “You’re a far better waitress and cook than I am. And you’ve management skills, as well. Look at how well you’ve kept our family afloat.”

Kiera knew the truth of that. Moira was competent, but her heart wasn’t in the restaurant business, not even that Irish pub she was hoping to run with her new husband in Chesapeake Shores, Maryland. Luke O’Brien was the attraction there.