* * *
HE’D NEARLY KISSED her—the second worst mistake he could’ve made. One dumb move after another...
He followed her out into the corridor, berating himself for doing everything wrong. Suddenly he focused on another possibility. Was there another man in her life? Had she not wanted to go out with him because she was seeing someone?
An even greater concern was the fact that she hadn’t shown any interest in their past, not even when he’d given her an opening. It had to be on her mind as much as it was on his.
As they proceeded to see the patients in the clinic, her lack of communication, except when it involved a patient, made it very difficult for him to concentrate on his work. Feeling dissatisfied and completely out of his element, he finished his clinic and took the elevator to Morgan’s room.
Whatever Lilly had to say would be thought-out and logical, because that was how Lilly dealt with problems. Thinking of her opened the door on his insecurities about his failed marriage.
Why hadn’t he been able to be the husband Lilly needed? His parents had made marriage look so easy, so natural. He’d assumed his would be like that, as well. He’d given what he had to the relationship, only to discover that they made better friends than lovers, better business partners than life partners.
Entering the room and seeing Morgan enjoying her mother’s company, he pushed aside all other concerns. “How’s it going, sweetie?” he asked, hugging his daughter tight. Morgan hugged him back; the scent of her strawberry shampoo filled his nostrils.
“Good. Mommy says she’s going to bring in a pizza for dinner tonight. Can you stay and have pizza with us?” she asked, her eyes intent on his face as she squirmed out of his arms.
Lilly’s arrival had obviously lifted Morgan’s spirits, for which he was grateful. “Absolutely.”
“Mommy says she’s staying for a few days, that you and her have things to talk about,” Morgan said, hope brimming in her eyes.
Neill gave Lilly a questioning look.
Neill knew that Morgan wanted her parents back together, and he couldn’t blame her. From Morgan’s perspective, there hadn’t been a problem. Her parents hadn’t fought about anything; there were no big differences of opinion expressed in her presence, no passionate arguments. Just two people who should never have married one another.
But explaining the complicated dynamics of a relationship to a child who missed her mother and who needed them both was out of the question. “We do have things to talk about, sweetie. But it’s much more important that you and Mommy have a great visit together.”
“Maybe tomorrow when you’re discharged, you can come and stay at the inn with me. It’s a lovely spot, and we can rent a sailboat and go out on the bay,” Lilly said, her smile encouraging as she tucked her daughter’s hand in hers.
“Can you come, Daddy?”
“Your dad’s pretty busy these days. He has so much to do now that you’ve moved to Eden Harbor,” Lilly said, smoothing Morgan’s auburn curls off her face, a face now clouded with sadness and disappointment.
“I want Daddy to come with us. We could have a fun day together. I’ll help make the lunch. Mom, you and I can go shopping for a dessert to take with us.” Morgan swung her pleading eyes from one parent to the other. “Gram says there are eagles off Cranberry Point, and I have to see them,” she said.
Neill wanted to say yes with every part of his being, if only to make up for refusing her the chance for a sleepover. But the last time he and Lilly had gone on an outing with Morgan back in Boston, she’d been very upset and tearful when her mother didn’t stay the night.
As much as he wanted to indulge his daughter, he couldn’t risk getting her hopes up over something that would never be. With a leaden heart, he met Morgan’s eager face. “I can’t go tomorrow, sweetie. It wouldn’t be right.”
“What do you mean?” Morgan asked, her eyes wide, her lips beginning their all too familiar quiver.
Lilly edged closer to Morgan, her arm slipping around her daughter’s shoulders. “Morgan, your daddy and I are divorced, which means that we have separate lives.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t go on a picnic, does it?” Her glance flew to her father’s face. “Daddy, why can’t you come just this once?”
Seeing the plea in her eyes, he wavered. What would it hurt to spend a few hours as a family to make life a little better for Morgan? But he had a day full of appointments tomorrow. “Tell you what I’ll do. You and Mommy go out on the sailboat tomorrow, enjoy your day together, and I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow evening.”
“At our house?” Morgan bargained.
“At our house,” he answered, hoping he hadn’t simply added to the problem.
Lilly kissed her daughter’s cheek and hugged her close. “I’m going to walk out with your dad and arrange for the pizza and then I’ll be back, okay?”
“Yeah, Mom.” Morgan turned to her father, her smile of joy twisting Neill’s heart. “See you later, alligator.”
“In a while, crocodile,” he answered, playing the old word game he’d taught her as soon as she could talk. At times like this he wondered if he and Lilly should have tried harder to fix their marriage—for Morgan’s sake.
Outside the room, Lilly said, “Neill, you shouldn’t be so unyielding with Morgan. She only wants to spend time with the two of us together. After all, she’s had a lot to deal with, considering the move and the changes in her life. She’s given up her friends and all her activities to come here to Eden Harbor. I understand your need for change in your life, but have you thought about the impact on her?”
“I’ve thought of nothing else.” Morgan had been a happy little girl in Boston; her only complaint was she wanted more attention from her dad. He’d assumed she’d do well with the move. He’d planned for them to lead an idyllic life in the community that had provided him with such a happy childhood. She’d have new friends and the love and attention of his mother. They’d have more time together, since he wouldn’t be teaching medical students.
“Well, we certainly don’t want a repeat of this,” Lilly admonished.
“Morgan cannot be allowed to believe we’re getting back together. That would be cruel. We have to remain firm on this or she’ll continue to work on each of us,” he responded, frustrated by Lilly’s inability to understand that offering false hope to their daughter would only delay her acceptance of their divorce.
He glanced back at the door to make sure Morgan hadn’t followed them out into the corridor. “She’s constantly searching for ways to get us together. She brings you into our conversations whenever she can. She’s always remarking on how you do something versus how I do it. What you tell her on the phone becomes her motto for the day.”
“She obviously misses me.”
“And she misses the life she had when we were married. And it’s left to me to explain why that can’t be.”
She touched his arm. “I realize how hard this must be on you—to be the one who constantly has to remind her of the truth.”
“I hate it.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
“Okay. Let me see what I can do. I’ll talk to her again when we’re out on the boat tomorrow.”
“It would help if you’d see her more often. Whenever you cancel a visit, she goes into a funk.”
“I’ll do better. I promise.”
“Lilly, I’ve heard this all before. Why can’t you see what you’re doing to our daughter? Why don’t you at least try not to promise her something, then break that promise?” he asked, his voice rising.
She gave him a faintly disapproving stare.
Why did he bother trying to reason with her? Lilly would never change. Her parents had spoiled their only child to the point where she had no understanding of anyone else’s needs.
&
nbsp; But was he any different?
CHAPTER THREE
“ANOTHER WEEK OVER,” Sherri said to Gayle on their way out the staff door to the back parking lot of the hospital.
“Yeah. TGIF. Tomorrow I’ll go back to worrying about paying my bills. Tonight’s my time-out,” Gayle offered ruefully, hitching her huge black-and-silver purse over her shoulder.
They were going to a birthday party at the pub for Peggy Anderson, the phlebotomist at the clinic, and Sherri fully intended to put this particular week well behind her. She would not give Neill Brandon one thought. Not for a minute would she allow the past two days to ruin her evening. “I’ll go home, get changed and pick up my gift. I’ll meet you at your place in about an hour. We can walk to Rigby’s from there.”
“You got it.”
She drove home, fed her cat, got ready and drove back along Higgins Road, pleased to see that the repairs had been completed. When she and Gayle walked into Rigby’s, they were surrounded by blaring karaoke music and the smell of barbecued spareribs. Immediately drawn into the crowd of people who’d shown up for Peggy’s party, Sherri felt better than she had all day.
Gayle led them through the crowd to the bar. “Where’s Henry?” she asked the new guy behind the bar after ordering an apple martini for each of them.
“He’s sick, got the flu or something. I mean, like he’s really sick. There’ve been a couple of people in the past couple of days who’ve come down with this flu.” The bartender shook his head.
“Sorry to hear that,” Gayle called over the din of voices and music.
Leaning toward Sherri as they stood against the bar waiting for their drinks, she returned to the conversation they’d begun on the walk over to the pub. “This may come under the heading of ‘unsolicited advice,’ but since you’re not asking I’ll tell you anyway. You should go out with Neill just to settle it once and for all,” she said.
“Easy for you to say. How would you feel if you were me?”
“I’d want to get past it, move on, enjoy life, get to that new job in Portsmouth. But what I’d really want would be to show him just how good my life is now, how little his behavior influenced me. Would that be true?”
Would it? No. He could still turn her knees to Jell-O. All the more reason to escape to Portsmouth. “The truth really doesn’t matter and neither does the past,” she said emphatically, more to convince herself than Gayle.
Sherri accepted the drink offered by the smiling young man behind the bar and took a huge gulp designed to blur the image of Neill. “Didn’t we agree to have a good time tonight and forget about what may or may not happen in the future?”
“We did.” Gayle smiled at someone across the room. “I’m going to make the rounds, see who’s here.” She pointed to a group of people standing near the fireplace along the back wall. “I’ll start over there. I see that new guy from Respiratory Technology. He’s hot.” She held up her gift. “Meet you at Peggy’s table.”
“Go for it,” Sherri said, spotting Ned Tompkins, a high school classmate on the stage at the back of the room singing karaoke. His voice wasn’t half-bad. She leaned against the bar and listened.
As she watched, her cousin Nate Garrison slid his arm around her. “What’s a beautiful woman like you doing in a place like this?” He winked.
“Old line, but I love you anyway.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
“Love me enough to tell me how you’re doing these past few days?” He eased his cane against the bar stool and hugged her.
“You mean with work?”
“That, too.”
Her cousin’s inquisitiveness reminded her that he had been a very competent police officer until being shot in Boston some years before. That hadn’t dulled his protective instinct when it came to her and her sister, Linda, as well as his own sister, Anna, and her two boys. One of the things she loved most about Nate was that he’d been there for her family when Ed went to prison. But as much as she loved him, she wanted to be free of any discussion involving Neill Brandon.
In his overprotective way, Nate had warned her that he intended to take a very personal interest in what happened when Neill arrived in town. “Can we skip past Neill and move on to something more interesting?”
“I ran into him the other day at the grocery store. And I decided to have a chat with him.”
“Nate! Tell me I wasn’t the topic of your chat.”
“It gets better. I let him know that I wouldn’t stand by and see you hurt again.”
“You did not! Tell me you didn’t!”
He nodded sheepishly.
She was so relieved she’d never told Nate about Neill being the father of her child. If he reacted this way to an old boyfriend being back in town, how would he have reacted had he known the truth? “Having you don your white knight armor is not what I need right now, Nate. You’ve got to stay out of it.”
“Oh, so there is something between the two of you?”
“No! I just want people to forget about Neill and me. There’s nothing going on, and there won’t ever be. I have my life and he has his.”
“And you’re okay?”
The concern in his eyes told her where he stood. Nate had been her defender since they were kids. “Listen, I’ve got everything under control. I’m happy, see?” She flashed him a huge smile. “You’ve got to mind your business on this one.”
“You are my business.” He tweaked her nose and smiled down at her. “But I’ll leave it alone for now. Are you ready to party?”
“Absolutely.”
“So am I.”
They sipped their drinks and listened to the music until two women showed up at Nate’s elbow. Although he’d never married, Nate collected women with an ease that astounded her, and his cane seemed to add to his appeal where women were concerned. Too bad that kind of talent didn’t run in the Garrison genes. She’d love to have a man or two dangling off her arm, if only to erase Neill from her mind.
Snap out of it. This is a party, not a wake.
Leaving Nate to his female admirers, she chatted with several people who worked at the hospital, finally wedging herself into the crowd around Peggy. “Happy birthday.” She handed Peggy her brightly wrapped gift.
“Thanks, Sherri.” They shared a jostled hug. “This is such a great party. Makes me feel so good. It’s so nice to have such wonderful friends.”
“Enjoy every minute of it.”
“How did it go with Neill today?”
Was there no other topic for tonight? “Fine, just fine.”
“Wonderful.” Like Gayle, Peggy had expressed a keen interest in Neill’s return to Eden Harbor.
Maybe in a community as small as this, it was only natural that he was the subject on everyone’s lips—but it was driving her nuts.
After making her way back to the bar, she found herself standing with a group of people, and their topic of conversation was the fact that Neill had bought the old Gibbon property on the edge of town. Tightening her grip on her martini glass, she moved on.
Alone at the bar again, she was feeling downright depressed about her predicament when Ned Tompkins appeared at her elbow and asked her to dance. She wasn’t crazy about either Ned or dancing, but she accepted, mostly to fend off any more interest in Neill and her. As they moved around the dance floor, Ned began talking about a possible class reunion now that Neill was back. She was about as interested in a reunion as she was in the invitation hinted at by the movement of Ned’s hands sliding down her back.
Even after they’d stopped dancing and she’d made her excuses, Ned continued to stare at her from his perch at the other end of the bar. Ned had tried to date her when she’d first moved back from Bangor, but she wasn’t interested and had let him down as gently as possible. Not because she didn’t li
ke him, she simply wasn’t interested in a relationship. Feeling isolated, she glanced around to see that Gayle was happily chatting with some of their coworkers. She decided to go outside for a few minutes.
She caught Gayle’s eye and pointed toward the door. Gayle broke away from her group and came over. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I need a little fresh air.”
“This isn’t about Neill, is it?”
“No, of course not.”
“Want me to come with you?”
“No. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She went down the front steps and out into the cool night air. The full moon reminded her of another full moon years before when she and Neill were the only two inhabitants in the world they’d created. Their months together had been so sweet, so exciting; she’d believed they’d go on forever.
A lump formed in her throat. Tears hugged her lids. No. She couldn’t start crying. It had to be the alcohol making her teary. She swallowed and jammed her fingers into her palms.
Drawing the night air into her lungs, she began to feel her old resolve return.
Concentrate on your life and what you want out of it. You have plans—focus on that.
Lifting the hair off her neck to cool her overheated skin, she took a few steps toward the street.
Rigby’s Pub had been part of downtown Eden Harbor for over a century and it boasted a beautiful view of the harbor. Tonight the view was undeniably spectacular. Moonlight danced off the water at the foot of the street, creating a black velvet sheen over the surface. Stars bathed the heavens in ethereal light.
Eden Harbor was one of the most beautiful places on earth and would always remain a part of her life, regardless of where her plans might lead her. Out here, under the night sky, she felt more in control. She was about to enter a whole new phase of her life, making tonight’s scene in the bar a distant memory. Once again, she began to feel excited about her future in Portsmouth.
The Doctor Returns Page 4