She was staring out over the water when a voice broke into her thoughts.
* * *
AFTER HIS CONVERSATION with Lilly, Neill had gone home to his new house, now so empty without Morgan. All the while, guilt dug into him, guilt about bringing Morgan here, guilt about letting her down when his marriage failed and now, suddenly, guilt and a sense of foreboding about the future.
During his successful career in Boston, he’d practiced medicine and taught on a part-time basis at the medical school. It had worked reasonably well until his uncle Nicolas, intending to retire, had asked him to come home. His uncle had been very persuasive, and Neill had been ready for a change in his life. Despite his success in Boston, he’d discovered that he’d missed the close connection with people that a smaller community offered. The truth was he’d returned to Eden Harbor to make a difference, to be the kind of doctor people here needed. Yet today he had to admit that he’d also returned to fill a need...to find what was missing from his life.
Tonight he was feeling a strange sense of unease as he roamed around the house, checking Morgan’s room, unpacking a couple of boxes of books in his office, all in an attempt to fight a sense of restlessness and longing. Despite having had pizza with Lilly and Morgan, he was still hungry for something to help fill the strange emptiness. He opened the fridge, scanning each shelf for anything he didn’t have to prepare, or maybe something sweet. There was nothing but milk and a loaf of bread.
How had that happened? No wonder Morgan wanted to spend her time at his mother’s house. He needed to pay more attention to the everyday things. He had promised Morgan that she would have a good life here. He knew how nice it had been to grow up in this community. All he had to do was provide Morgan with a pleasant home environment. With that, along with his mother’s loving support, Morgan would have a great life.
Maybe what he needed was to go downtown and walk around a bit. Friday night had always been the night to go into town and have a beer at one of the local bars. Grabbing his jacket from where he’d tossed it on the sofa, he left the house and strode down the road. Falling into an easy stride and invigorated by the ocean-cooled air, he began to feel more upbeat and positive.
If he was honest about it, a lot of what he was feeling had to do with seeing Sherri again. He hadn’t expected to feel the way he did—gripped by an urgent need to reconnect with her. Did his feelings have more to do with his physical response to her than anything else? Or was he hoping to redeem the past somehow?
Sherri had been his best friend in high school until they’d started dating in twelfth grade. And then everything had changed. He’d changed. Because of Sherri, he’d become more focused, so much more in charge of his life and what he wanted from it. She’d inspired him to see a life filled with possibilities.
After she’d broken the news of her pregnancy, and he’d behaved so badly, they never spoke to each other again. Simple as that. He’d been hurt at first, and then worried, and then he’d found reason to move on—too damned self-absorbed to see that she needed him to be there for her.
But why was he thinking about Sherri? He had a daughter who needed his help in adjusting to her new life, a daughter who was ill. And if these seizures continued, he’d have to take her to Boston for reevaluation. If her condition had changed, he’d move back to Boston so she could have access to the best neuroscientists, putting an end to any concerns or interests he might have in Eden Harbor. There was no other choice.
So why did he want to have dinner with Sherri when his own future held such uncertainty? Had he invited Sherri out to dinner in an attempt to rekindle their relationship? His body flooded with warmth at the thought. But Sherri would never forgive him if he left her again, and he might have to—if Morgan had any more problems.
Beneath it all, he had to confess to a deeper problem, one that had slammed into him during those first minutes of Morgan’s seizure. Despite years of medical experience, he feared being needed the way his daughter needed him. As much as he wanted to be there for her, he was afraid he wasn’t good at it, that somehow in the end he would fail her, the one person in the world he loved without condition.
With his anxious thoughts ricocheting around his mind, he hadn’t realized how fast he’d been walking. Suddenly he was down by the harbor, standing in front of a pub he hadn’t been inside for years. As he stared up at the pirate ship facade, he saw Sherri standing on the steps, her chin raised, her gaze fixed on some point out in the harbor. She looked so completely lost he wanted to go to her.
With the moon high overhead, and Sherri there alone, he couldn’t resist the opportunity. He moved toward the entrance to the pub but hesitated on the bottom step. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
She glanced down at him, a look of surprise on her face. “There’s a birthday party going on inside.” She nodded to the door behind her.
“And you’re invited, but you needed a breath of air.” He thought she’d never looked more beautiful than she did tonight, with the light playing off her hair, creating an aura around her face. As if drawn by some invisible force, he moved up the steps toward her.
She gripped the railing, her smile tentative. “Yes.”
“I suppose the place is packed as usual.”
She shrugged. “Yes.” Her discomfort was evident in the way she refused to meet his gaze. “What are you doing here?”
He couldn’t admit to having come to town to walk off his troubles. As he stood there looking up at her, he suddenly wanted to go into Rigby’s and have something to eat, to spend time around people without any responsibility for them.
He wanted to have fun. “I suppose there are people in there I’d know.”
“Yeah. Lots of them,” she replied before she started down the steps toward him. Just as she reached him, she moved to the other railing and continued past him. “Good night.”
Was she simply going to walk past him as if he didn’t exist? He hadn’t expected to see her tonight, but now that he had, he didn’t intend to let her walk away. He crossed the stone steps, placing his hands on the railing in front of her. “Wait.”
* * *
NEILL WAS SO close she could touch him, but all the touching in the world would change nothing. “What is it?” she asked, focusing all her attention on the harbor spreading out to the horizon in the moonlight, the gentle bob of boats tugging at their moorings, anything to avoid looking at him.
“I was hoping you might go back inside with me.”
“And give everyone with a pulse reason to believe that you and I are back together?”
The moonlight heightened the expression of surprise on his face. “I hadn’t considered the possibility.”
In other words, nothing’s changed.
He moved to the step below her, his face level with hers, the full force of his appeal threatening her self-control. “Sherri, I don’t expect you to understand why I did what I did back then. But you have to admit that today has been a difficult day for both of us. Could we put aside our differences and have a drink and a bite to eat?”
She glanced up at the door to Rigby’s and back at him. “I can’t go back inside there with you.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Because we don’t have anything in common other than our work, and I won’t be the subject of idle gossip. You’re the lucky one, you realize.”
“How’s that?”
“You didn’t have to face being alone while you worked out what to do about a baby the father wasn’t interested in.”
“That’s not fair!” He scrubbed his face, ducked his head, started to say something and then stopped.
The look of sheer agony on his face had her gripping the railing to keep from reaching for him. “I’m sorry. That was cruel of me. I...I don’t want to talk about this, about us. You see, until you arrived here I had my l
ife under control. I was at peace with my past and ready to move on. With you here it’s all come back. And I don’t like how it makes me feel.”
“Can we go somewhere and talk about this? We can’t work together with so much unspoken between us. I’ve hurt you. I’m back, and clearly I’m not welcome in your life. I understand that.”
He didn’t really understand anything, but she’d already said more than she’d intended.
“Would you be willing to go up the hill to Marco’s? You used to love having their meatloaf and Caesar salad with garlic toast.”
“Now what made you remember that of all things?” she asked, unable to keep a smile from forming on her face. She loved Marco’s Restaurant and always had. It was one of her favorite places, as much for the exuberance of Marco Speranza as for the food.
“How about it? A quick meal, no strings attached.”
What could she say that wouldn’t sound hurtful and mean-spirited? Neill was a good man and a great doctor, but it ended there. She supposed she could agree to go to the restaurant with him. But why should she? She wasn’t hungry. She didn’t need anything more to drink. “I can’t.”
“You won’t reconsider?” he asked, stepping back away from her.
Didn’t he get it? He hadn’t had to give up anything or change anything in his life twelve years ago. He’d simply taken her phone call and gone back to his world of being a medical student, while her life floundered against the certain knowledge that she had a child on the way.
“I don’t know what we’d have to say to each other that wouldn’t leave us sitting through an awkward silence. It’s been a busy week, and I need to get home. You have to appreciate just how difficult this is for me.”
“I do.”
He spoke so softly it felt more like a breath on her cheek than a spoken word. She would have been better off walking away than letting the feelings flushing through her hold sway. But with the moon on his hair and his eyes on her, she was beyond being able to stop any of it. “Oh, Neill, how did we get to this place? What happened to us?”
Confused, angry, hurt and now mortified that she’d asked the very question that had haunted her all those lonely nights, she gasped for air. Tears began their bitter sting against her lashes. She couldn’t stand there any longer, knowing that if she did, she would succumb to his request to go to the restaurant with him.
Afraid her knees might not work, and clutching her purse to her side, she summoned her courage and began to move. She went around him down the steps and started walking back to Gayle’s place.
“Sherri!” Neill called, his voice filled with urgency. “Wait!”
“Don’t!” she said, tossing a warning glance over her shoulder.
She raced up the hill away from the pub, searching the night air for any sound of his feet treading the cobblestones behind her. Resisting the urge to look back, she increased her speed. When she finally reached Gayle’s driveway, out of breath, her face soaked in tears, she got in her car and drove home.
* * *
ON SUNDAY MORNING, all Neill could think about was Sherri and the self-loathing that had kept him company as he’d walked back to his house on Friday night, his appetite gone and his thoughts weighed down by the idea that he had only made things worse between them.
Sherri had made it clear just how hurt and angry she still was. His only defense was that twelve years ago he was a different person—uncertain, yet driven by those uncertainties to succeed regardless of the cost. And now more than at any other time in his career, he knew the real cost of his behavior toward Sherri and their baby.
Deep down, he knew the real reason he hadn’t gone to her in Bangor, and it had nothing to do with her not answering the phone. He hadn’t known what to do. He couldn’t have told his parents, and he hadn’t known where to turn for advice. Even worse, he was ashamed at the relief he’d felt when she hadn’t returned his calls.
Earlier this morning, he’d driven Morgan over to her grandmother’s on his way to the hospital to check on two of his patients. He planned to return to his mother’s house for lunch, and he wanted Morgan to spend time with Lilly before the meal. He’d agreed to the meeting at her place rather than at his new home because having Lilly at his house the other night had been a mistake. Just as he’d feared, at the end of the evening, Morgan had wanted her mother to stay rather than go back to the Wayfarer’s Inn.
If there had ever been any doubt about whether or not he should have ended his marriage, it had been erased over the past couple of days that Lilly had been in Eden Harbor. When she’d arrived at the hospital, she’d been solicitous and supportive of Morgan and appreciative of his efforts to be a good parent, but he was coming to realize that Lilly was at her best when words were all that was required. It was a different story when actions were needed to back up the words.
When Lilly had come over for dinner, she had chatted to Morgan in between taking long calls from her office in Houston. After the third call and the tiny frown line that had formed between Morgan’s eyes, he had asked Lilly to turn off her cell phone until they’d finished dinner. As she had often done in the past, she ignored his request. Lilly was driven by the needs of her business. But it also showed him how Lilly’s priorities had shifted since their divorce. There was a time when she wouldn’t have let anything interrupt her opportunity to spend quality time with their daughter.
What worried him most about Lilly’s behavior was that she didn’t seem to be aware of her impact on Morgan, despite sharing her concern over their daughter’s seizure. When Morgan had pressed her about when she’d see her mother again, Lilly had been enthusiastic about having Morgan fly to Houston. She’d given no specific date, which had left an anxious expression on Morgan’s face. And of course, after Lilly had left to go back to the inn, Morgan had been tearful and resentful that she didn’t have a family like her newest best friend at school, Tara Williams. He’d done what he could to reassure Morgan that he and Lilly loved her, but he was beginning to worry about how well his daughter was coping. Maybe it would all be better once Lilly was back in Houston.
His shoulders tense, his eyes dry from another sleepless night, he opened the window of the car and breathed in the sea air as he turned up the street leading to his mother’s house. He hoped that the rest of Lilly’s visit went better for Morgan.
When he got out of the car, Morgan met him, squealing in delight. “Hi, Dad!” She giggled.
“What are you up to?” he asked. He lifted his daughter up in a quick bear hug before taking her hand in his and starting up the walk.
“Gram let me invite Tara over for lunch with us so that she could meet my mom.”
“That’s wonderful,” he said, his spirits lifting at the sight of his daughter looking so happy. “What are we having for lunch?”
“Gram says she’s making chicken fingers and French fries for Tara and me, and you guys are getting quiche. Yuck!”
“Where’s Tara?”
“She’s inside, talking to Mommy. They’re in the living room looking at old pictures of me at Camp Wasi. Mom says I was the best swimmer that summer,” Morgan said proudly.
“We’d better get in there before Tara discovers the photos of you and me clinging to the Ferris wheel for dear life.”
“We weren’t clinging! You maybe, but not me,” Morgan said.
He opened the door leading into his mother’s kitchen, and the familiar feeling he’d experienced the first day he’d moved back home assailed him. It was as if he’d never left—the same white curtains, the same green floor tiles, the same everything, including the scent of citrus and cilantro that his mother had favored for as long as he could remember.
“Hi, Mom.”
She put the hot dish on the top of the stove before turning to him. “I hear you all had dinner last night. Morgan told me all about it this morning in
between games of Scrabble with Lilly.”
His mother’s worried frown told him she wanted to talk about Lilly, but now was not the time. “Anything I can do to help out?”
“Tara and I set the table and filled the water glasses,” Morgan volunteered, an impish expression on her face. She seemed so normal, as if there wasn’t any problem, and Neill caught himself wishing it were true. Yet he couldn’t seem to stop watching her, wondering—as he had years before—if she was about to have another seizure, and he hated himself for seeing his daughter that way.
“We’re about ready to eat,” his mother said, taking a cookie sheet of chicken pieces and fries from the oven.
Just then Lilly appeared in the kitchen with her arm around Tara’s shoulders. They were laughing at something, eliciting a quick glance of resentment from Morgan.
Neill hugged Morgan to his side. “Okay, kiddo, let’s eat. By the way, you did a great job setting the table,” he said. She hugged him back with such ferocity Neill realized he’d been right in his assessment. Morgan wanted all her mother’s attention, and he could hardly blame her. Lilly had announced last evening that she would be returning to Houston later today.
Putting aside his worried thoughts as they all took their places at the table, he settled next to Morgan, focusing all his attention on her. “So, rumor has it that you not only set a great table—you’re also becoming quite a cook.”
“Yep.” Morgan’s eyes did a quick check of her mother. “I make mac and cheese from the box.” She ducked her head and giggled.
“Then we’re lucky to have two cooks in the house. Did you help do the cooking today?”
Morgan nodded vigorously. “I put the chicken fingers on the cookie sheet, I’ll have you know,” she said, her voice brimming with enthusiasm.
“So, we have you and your gram to thank for such a nice lunch.”
“That you do,” Donna said, her round face beaming with pleasure.
“It’s so nice to be here all together,” Lilly responded, her eyes meeting Morgan’s.
The Doctor Returns Page 5