“I think I would have liked your aunt.”
“You would have, and she would have liked you, too.” He curled his hand around her breast. “You smell like Lilian’s rose garden.”
She made a mental note never to change her perfume.
“When I’m with you, Elaine, I want to be your superhero.”
She didn’t know what to say. This was all becoming so much more intense than she ever expected. He needed assurance. He deserved assurance, and she wasn’t sure she could give it to him. Instead, she placed her hand on his.
“It’s late, lady. Now go back to sleep.”
Tortured by her guilt over two men, she lay awake the rest of the night.
* * * *
I’m a lunatic, a complete and utter lunatic.
Marcelle kept her thoughts to herself as the Greyhound bus pulled into the Lake Gemini station late at night. She was the only one getting off at this stop and couldn’t wait to be free of the stale air inside the vehicle. Moving in an unenthusiastic manner, the driver sighed and came down from his perch so he could open the luggage hold. Offering her no assistance, he checked his watch while Marcelle retrieved her suitcase. The case was barely out of the hold before he shut the door. He lit up a smoke, treating her to his cigarette fumes as well as the bus exhaust.
Welcome home.
There was only one person inside the station, the older human man who’d arranged the original ticket that would see her from Lake Gemini to the Toronto airport.
“Flying to Europe, eh?” he’d said a couple of weeks ago. “Once you get used to all that fancy French cooking, you’ll probably never want to come back.”
And yet here she was, standing on a platform in the dark, trying to make sense of her decision. She’d awoken in a panic the previous morning in Paris, her heart racing and her doe frantic.
Go home, it said.Just go home.
She’d thrown her clothes into her bag, hailed a cab for the airport, and had begged and pleaded with the ticket agent to find her the next available flight to Toronto. It didn’t matter that she had a ticket for the symphony and plans to take the Chunnel to London in a few days.
She just needed to go home.
Her flight had been interminable, stopping in two cities along the way, making her feel as if she’d walked God’s green earth. The bus ride had taken hours, and she’d spent much of it sitting next to an old lady named Tilda. She’d been sweet and had been eager to show Marcelle the new phone her grandkids got her. She’d just gotten used to taking pictures on the phone and wanted to show them off. Unfortunately, all two hundred or so were of her cat, Baxter. Baxter on the couch. Baxter wearing a variety of hats. Baxter licking his balls.
Marcelle was now fit to be tied, and all she really wanted was to see Josh.
She’d left Europe, forfeiting all her reservations, incurring what would no doubt be a shitload of extra charges, for Josh.
A man she barely knew.
“I am a lunatic.”
He would think she was a stalker. A maniac.
And now what? She had nowhere to go. She’d gotten rid of her apartment and hadn’t bothered to even book a motel for the night. She supposed she could show up at Josh’s clinic tomorrow morning when it opened and try to explain she hadn’t lost her mind. Of course, she had to get through the night first.
Perhaps she should just stay at the bus station.
A couple of men wandered in. They were slurring their words and arguing over who would get to the vending machine first. One of them made a crack about some woman’s “fine ass.”
Perhaps staying at the station wasn’t the best of ideas.
She really had no choice but to head to Gemini Island and ask Ryland if he could put her up for a day or two. He wouldn’t mind. She just hated making him go to any trouble.
“I’m surprised to see you, Marcelle,” Ryland would say. “What brings you back to town so soon?”
“Oh, you know,” she would reply. “I think Josh Douglas is my mate and now I just need to convince him of it.”
