Daniel's Desire - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,59

here.”

“What do you think? Should we come up?”

“When did you have in mind?”

“This has dragged on entirely too long already. We need to get this over and done with,” Ryan said flatly. “How’s tomorrow for you?”

Daniel muttered that same rarely used profanity for the second time in less than an hour.

“Not good?” Ryan asked at once.

“It’s just that I have a situation that needs to be resolved by this time tomorrow. It can’t be put off.” But neither could this, he told himself. “Look, I’ll work something out. I’ll make some hotel reservations for all of you. I’ll do everything I can to get this other situation straightened out early in the day and set things up for a meeting between you and the folks for tomorrow night. If not, we’ll do it first thing on Sunday. Will that work? Can you be a little flexible?”

“We’ll make it work,” Ryan said.

“You mentioned Sean and the kids,” Daniel said. “Will Michael come, as well?” He recalled how bitter the youngest of the three had been.

“We’ll all be there,” Ryan said. “Even if I have to butt heads with a few people to make it happen. Our wives, too.”

At Ryan’s words, Daniel’s heart began to beat a little harder. It was the reunion he’d dreamed of from the moment he’d found out about his brothers. For so many years now, even after he’d had his own all-too-brief reunion with them, he’d thought the odds were too long for all of the Devaneys ever getting together peacefully in the same room. To his astonishment, it was actually close to happening now. He intended to make sure that nothing went awry.

“When you get here, meet me at Molly’s. You know the place, right? On the waterfront?”

“I know it,” Ryan said.

“I’ll be there all day, and I’ll be able to tell you what I’ve set up. We’ll probably get together with everyone there, too. I think it might be better if we do this on neutral turf.”

“Makes sense to me. Barging in at the house last time was damned awkward,” Ryan said. “And, Daniel, I really am looking forward to getting to know you, no matter how things turn out with the folks.”

Daniel couldn’t hide his surprise. He’d expected the same sort of blame from Ryan that Patrick had always assigned to Daniel in his loyalty to their folks. “Really?”

“You sound as if you didn’t expect me to feel that way,” Ryan said.

“It’s just that the past few years Patrick has seen me as the roadblock, the chief defender of our folks. He’s been so furious with me that we’ve barely spoken,” Daniel explained. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I regret that. I never wanted to be in that position. I just couldn’t turn my back on them. Whatever they did to you, whatever the reason for it, they were good parents to me and Patrick.”

Ryan sighed heavily. “I don’t want to take that away from you. I really don’t. No two people are ever going to see this mess exactly the same. Sean and I don’t. Neither do Michael and I. We all had different experiences, some due to our ages, some due to what happened after the folks abandoned us.”

“Patrick and I had the same one,” Daniel said. “But he has no problem blaming our parents for everything without knowing the whole story. All he sees is the fact that they lied to us for so many years and let us think we were their only children. In my heart I know they wouldn’t have done that if they’d seen any other way to handle it. I think they were scared of us losing all respect for them, which is exactly what happened with Patrick.”

“You know something, Daniel, I have a good friend here who’s a priest. He says it’s a funny thing about faith. He says some people are born with it. They trust in God, trust in their fellow man, and nothing bad ever happens to shake that faith. Then there are the skeptics. They want proof. I think the ones who are born with unshakable faith are the lucky ones. Seems to me like you’re one of those. The rest of us need our proof, our explanations. Doesn’t make any of us wrong.”

Daniel felt an amazing sense of peace steal over him as he listened to his brother. “How did you get to be so wise?”

Ryan laughed. “I’d like to say it came naturally, but a lot