“I meant what I said at the hotel, Hope,” he said, his tone turning colder and sharper. “I’m not going to touch you.”
“So this meant nothing?” I gestured to the manuscript again.
“Nothing,” he insisted. “It was a friendly gesture. Unless friendly gestures are forbidden too.”
“No. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t?—”
“Being unprofessional?” He retreated behind his desk,a faint, bitter chuckle escaping him. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
I was slightly stunned.
Gosh, I am so pathetic.Why was I telling him off over something that obviously wasn’t supposed to be romanticized? I was the problem, wasn’t I?
“I’m sorry I assumed otherwise.” I cleared my throat.
“Are we done here? I need to prepare for patients,” he asked, fiddling with some papers on his desk, not meeting my eyes.
“Yeah, we’re done,” I said, embarrassment creeping up my neck and making me feel hot. My jaw clenched.
I slipped out the door, wishing I’d never brought it up.
CHAPTER 47
Iwas mad at myself for confronting him.
I hated that I’d read into him giving me his mother’s manuscript.
The rest of the week was spent avoiding him at all costs. I kept my distance and didn’t talk to him at work unless absolutely necessary. I felt bad about the incident and figured keeping my head down was best until the whole thing blew over.
But when I embarrassed myself, I remembered it. And it didn’t go away easily.
So when Saturday rolled around, I was still unsettled.
I was supposed to be writing, and I couldn’t. I’d written a few hundred words, but they felt flat. My heart just wasn’t in it.
I was even more in my head after days of laboring over everything. I was thinking back on the CE trip. The stuff with Dr. Pike that happened and the way Jay had stood up for me.
I’d been the one to say we needed to keep thingsprofessional. I’d been the one to shut things down because I was worried about what would happen if I ever allowed myself to have feelings for him.
He’d backed off as I’d asked. He said he didn’t want to ruin things for me here if that’s what I wanted.
But was that really whathewanted?
I was out on my balcony around ten o’clock. I’d been sitting there since six a.m. I had Lindy’s unfinished manuscript spread out on the table. I’d read through it three times now.
Shafts of morning sunlight filtered through the trees and speckled the words in front of me with pinpricks of light.
It was set in Harborlight, Maine and centered around a woman named Claire. A bunch of things happen where Claire ends up living near a lighthouse and gets a job at a local cannery on the harbor. Then there’s a man named Elliot and he’s a marine surveyor.
The manuscript was incomplete, but the story was filled with themes Lindy loved. Claire, the main character, discovers a family away from home, and second-guesses herself constantly. Then she begins to discover she’s stronger than she thinks she is. And then there is Elliot, a stubborn man with no intention of budging on his ideals and beliefs, who then slowly softens to a new worldview.
It was beautifully written, and because it was unfinished, I kept thinking about how it would end. Would the two of them end up together? Or was this a story where Lindy didn’t allow the characters to be together? Maybe it wasn’t romantic at all.
One line kept replaying in my mind over and over.
None of the reasons for staying away felt brave anymore.
And even though I knew the book wasn’t about me, Irelated to the words she’d written, and they wouldn’t go away.
