Chapter Twenty-Nine

Walker

“That table in the corner,” Bailey says, pointing to the northwest corner of the pub’s dining room. “I think you’ll have the most privacy there. Plus, the afternoon sun is really great.”

I don’t reply as I unload the clean glassware, setting it up on the shelves in and around the bar.

“I can’t believe Lydia Larkin is coming here! To O’Halloran’s!” she gushes excitedly.

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us. Try not to fangirl all over her, okay? This is going to be weird enough as it is.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. It won’t be weird at all. She’s just another mom who wants to meet her son’s girlfriend. That’s all. And she’s going to love you, Walker,” Bailey says as she walks around to the inside of the bar so she can plant a kiss on my cheek.

“I don’t know, Bailey,” I confess softly. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

She adds a sideways hug to the kiss, for good measure. “You’re just nervous. Perfectly normal. I’m always nervous when I meet a guy’s parents for the first time.”

“You are? I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe it!” she says with a knowing smile. “You’re going to be fine after the first five minutes. Trust me.” She looks up at the clock on the wall. “Okay, well, I promised Miss Lucy that I’d go give her my opinion on the new spring sweater she’s having made for Queen Elizabeth.”

I snort at the idea of the cat in fluffy pink cashmere.

“Just watch out for that Meghan Markle, I understand she’s quite a handful.”

Bailey waves a dismissive hand as she slips into her own puffy pink vest.

“Nah, Meghan’s always on her best behavior with Queen Elizabeth. It’s just Winston Churchill she seems to have a problem with. Okay, I’ll be back before Lydia comes. See you later!”

I send her off with a nod and a smile, getting back to my work. I have an hour to finish up here, and then I’ll slip into the back so I can change into something slightly nicer than my jeans and O’Halloran’s sweatshirt.

The place is empty when I go into the back office to grab some paperwork, but the tinkling bell over the door tells me it’s not empty anymore.

“You’re early!” I call out even as I’m walking down the hallway. Mason said he’d be here at eleven, when we opened up, but I unlocked the door for him, just in case. “Did you come to give me one last briefing on your mother?” I’m saying as I round the corner and come out front.

But it’s not Mason standing there. It’s a tall, slender woman—probably in her mid-forties. She’s got golden blond hair that hangs to her shoulders and the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen…if you consider the fact that they’re identical to her son’s. With her smart wool trousers, matching tailored vest, and cream-colored turtleneck, she looks like she stepped off the pages of a very trendy catalog for businesswomen.

“Mrs. Stevens?” I venture.

She nods and offers a friendly smile as she moves closer to the bar. To me.

“You must be Walker,” she says.

I must be. With no makeup and my sloppy outfit, I can only imagine what she’s thinking.

“Yes…I am. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t expecting you quite so early…”

“Oh no. I came early to see you. Before Mason arrives. May I?” She gestures to one of the barstools.

“Of course. Can I get you something to drink? I have a fresh pot of coffee on…”

“Maybe in a bit. Why don’t you come sit with me for a minute, Walker?”

I wipe my hands on the apron tied around my waist then unknot it and toss it on the counter behind the bar before taking the seat next to her.

“Umm, well, it’s nice to meet you finally, Mrs. Larkin.”

“Please, Larkin is my stage name. And Mrs. Stevens is my mother-in-law. Please just call me Lydia.”

“Okay…” I reply to her back.

“And it’s nice to meet you, as well! My son is quite smitten with you.”

I feel my cheeks grow warm with the blush that must be rising there.

“The feeling’s mutual.”

“I’m glad!” she says, and I believe her. This makes me relax just a hair.

“So, Walker,” Mason’s mom begins, leaning forward to touch my knee, “tell me a little about yourself. Mason hasn’t said much, I’m afraid. He’s a very private man.”

“Uhh, well, not much to tell, really. I live here in Mayhem with my sisters and their families. Well, not with them, exactly. Though I do live with my youngest sister, Bailey. She went to see Queen Elizabeth’s new cashmere sweater. Not the real Queen Elizabeth, of course. The cat. But my other sisters, Jameson and Hennessy, they have their own homes…” Good God! I can’t seem to stop myself from babbling. “We own this pub—we inherited it from my pops after he died a while back. I work most nights as manager and bartender. And that’s it, really…”

She nods as she listens intently.

“And Mason tells us you’re at the community college?”

“Oh, well, yes… I’ve been working on a business degree.”

“Any plans to continue on once you get your Associate’s?”

“Oh, well, I’m planning to apply to the sociology program at the U. I was asked to work with a post-doc fellow there. But that’s…well, that’s kind of on hold for the moment.”

“Because of the bad publicity.”

I feel my mouth fall open when she guesses the reason on the first try. Unless, of course, it isn’t a guess…

I rehinge my jaw, square my shoulders, and quirk an eyebrow in what I hope is a confident gesture.

“That’s correct. May I ask how you knew that?”

Lydia shrugs and offers up what Mama used to call a Cheshire Cat smile.

“I have my ways,” she replies cryptically.

“You’re having me investigated.”

It’s a question but it comes out sounding more like a statement.

“No, actually. I do try to respect my son’s privacy, and that extends to you. It was a guess. I’d say a lucky one, but that wouldn’t be the truth exactly. I might have seen that coming considering all the fuss in the papers recently.”

I look down at my hands and wish I’d taken the time to at least file my short, jagged nails.

“Apparently, there were concerns about the viability of the grant if my name were to be attached to it. They said maybe in the spring…”

Her perfectly sculpted blond brows pull down in concern. “Oh no! Walker, that’s awful! You must be terribly disappointed!”

She seems to be legitimately concerned for me. I just shrug and offer her a halfhearted smile.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m fine. Something else will come along…”

“Yes, I’m sure it will,” she agrees kindly.

“You know, I was born in a small town in Central Florida,” she tells me.

“No, I didn’t know. Mason never said.”

“That’s because I never talk about it. It was a horrible little place. My family owned a cattle ranch. The kind where the cattle are sent to slaughter for beef. It wasn’t a pretty life, Walker. My father worked himself to a heart attack at the age of thirty-eight. My mother remarried an awful, abusive man. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Anyway, you don’t need the details. Suffice it to say, I’ve been where you are now.”

I’m having a hard time figuring out what it is she’s trying to say. So I decide to just ask.

“Lydia, may I…can I ask what it is you’re trying to say?”

She offers me a sweet, sympathetic smile.

“Just that the press can be relentless—and cruel. For someone who’s not used to it, this can be very…disconcerting.” She pauses for a second and starts again. “Walker, may I be frank?” I nod, afraid of what might come out of my mouth if I speak. “Excellent. What I’m trying to say is that Mason’s father and I are concerned that this kind of attention might be a little challenging for a young woman such as yourself.”

“And what kind of young woman is that?” I ask before I can stop myself.

But if she’s put off by my tone, she doesn’t react.

“A lovely, sweet, bright young woman who’s only ever lived in one small town. A young woman with a close-knit family who might also find themselves the subjects of unwanted scrutiny. It takes someone with thick skin and supreme self-confidence to weather that kind of attention, Walker. And I’m just not convinced that you’re that type of person.”

“But Cassandra was.”

She smiles at the sound of the other woman’s name.

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Cassandra is very much in control of her media presence. But that’s not what this is about, I assure you.”

I feel my gut tighten with suspicion. This is exactly what I was afraid would happen.

“You think I’m going to damage his career, don’t you?” I surmise coolly.

But, to my surprise, Lydian Larkin looks confused.

“What? No! Walker, Mason’s a big boy. He doesn’t need protecting. He’s been around the press long enough to know what to expect and how to respond appropriately. But you, on the other hand…” She lays a soft, manicured hand atop my work-worn one. “This is all new to you. And it can be a terrible source of stress for someone who hasn’t grown up in the spotlight. I just need to know that you are fully aware of what you might be in for. Because, this little kerfuffle with you and Mason and the baseball bat, well, that was a blip on the radar compared with the kind of cruel, heartless lies the media can—and will—say about you. It will impact you and your reputation. Likely your family’s, too.”

“But why?” I jump in before she can sell me any more of her gloomy predictions. “If Cassandra is marrying the hockey player, why would anyone care about him dating me? He said it himself, no one’s interested in the mineralogist son of Lydia Larkin. They focused on me only because of his relationship with Cassandra.”

“I wish that were totally accurate, Walker, but it’s not,” Lydia says a little sadly. “You’d be amazed at the kinds of lies these unscrupulous ‘journalists’ will report. My guess? They’ll start to speculate on Cassandra’s new relationship. The first time she’s seen in public without him, rumors will fly that there’s trouble between them. Then comes the speculation that he’s cheating on her. And that’s where Mason comes in. Suddenly, ‘someone close to Cassandra’ will claim that she’s going to turn back to him, her ex, out of revenge…”

“How can you predict that? And, like you said, they’d be lies anyway…”

“It doesn’t matter what the truth is. People will believe whatever they read in print. I’m not saying you and Mason can’t make a go of it. I want to make sure you are fully aware of the pitfalls that come with dating him. And how you may, unwittingly, disrupt the lives of the people you care about most. My son won’t tell you all this. Not because he wants to keep anything from you—especially after the way your relationship got started—but because he thinks he’s got it all under control. He truly believes that he can protect you and your family. But I’m not convinced that he can.”

I open my mouth to say—I don’t even know what, when a cold blast of air blows in from the front door. I look up to find Mason standing there in his parka. He looks surprised—but not unhappy to see his mother and I chatting here together at the bar where he and I first met.

If he’d been here sixty seconds earlier, things would be profoundly different.

But he wasn’t.

And there’s no un-ringing the bell that Lydia Larkin just rang.