Paul laughed grimly. “That makes me feel a whole lot better.”
Adrienne squeezed his hand. “What did you expect would happen? That they’d listen to what you had to say and accept it after a few minutes? After hiring a lawyer and continuing the suit, even when they knew they didn’t have a chance? After hearing what all the other doctors had said? They wanted you to come so you could listen to them. Not the other way around.”
Paul said nothing, but deep down he knew she was right. Why, though, hadn’t he realized it before?
“I know it wasn’t easy to hear,” she went on, “and I know they’re wrong and it isn’t fair to blame what happened on you. But you gave them something important today, and more than that, it was something you didn’t have to do. You can be proud of that.”
“None of what happened surprised you, did it?”
“Not really.”
“Did you know that this morning? When I first told you about them?”
“I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might go like this.”
A brief smile flickered across his face. “You’re something, you know that?”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
He squeezed her hand, thinking that he liked the way it felt in his. It felt natural, almost as if he’d been holding it for years.
“It’s a great thing,” he said.
He turned to face her, smiling gently, and Adrienne suddenly realized that he was thinking of kissing her. Though part of her longed for just that, the rational side suddenly reminded her that it was Friday. They’d met the day before, and he’d be leaving soon. And so would she. Besides, this wasn’t really her, was it? This wasn’t the real Adrienne—the worried mom and daughter, or the wife who’d been left for another woman, or the lady who sorted books at the library. This weekend she was someone different, someone she barely recognized. Her time here had been dreamlike, and though dreams were pleasant, she reminded herself that they were just that and nothing more.
She took a small step backward. When she released his hand, she saw a flash of disappointment in his eyes, but it vanished as he looked off to the side.
She smiled, forcing herself to keep her voice steady.
“Are you still up for helping me with the house? Before the weather sets in, I mean?”
“Sure.” Paul nodded. “Just let me throw on some work clothes.”
“You’ve got time. I’ve got to run up to the store first, anyway. I forgot to get ice and a cooler so I can keep some food handy in case the power goes out.”
“Okay.”
She paused. “You gonna be all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She waited as if to make sure she believed him, then turned away. Yes, she told herself, she’d done the right thing. She was right to have turned away, she was right to have let go of his hand.
Yet as she slipped out the door, she couldn’t escape the feeling that she’d turned away from the chance to find a piece of happiness she’d been missing for far too long.
Paul was upstairs when he heard Adrienne’s car start up. Turning toward the window, he watched the waves crashing in, trying to make sense of what had just happened. A few minutes ago, when he’d looked at her, he’d felt a flash of something special, but just as quickly as it had come, it was gone, and the look on her face told him why.
He could understand Adrienne’s reservations—they all lived in a world defined by limits, after all, and those didn’t always allow for spontaneity, for impulsive attempts to live in the moment. He knew that was what allowed order to prevail in the course of one’s life, yet his actions in recent months had been an attempt to defy those limits, to reject the order that he had embraced for so long.
It wasn’t fair of him to expect the same thing of her. She was in a different place; her life had responsibilities, and as she’d made clear to him yesterday, those responsibilities required stability and predictability. He’d been the same way once, and though he was now in the position to live by different rules, Adrienne, he realized, wasn’t.
Nonetheless, something had changed in the short time he’d been here. He wasn’t sure when it had happened. It might have been yesterday when they were walking on the beach, or when she’d first told him about her father, or even this morning when they had eaten together in the soft light of the kitchen. Or maybe it happened when he found himself holding her hand and standing close, wanting nothing more than to gently press his lips against hers.
It didn’t matter. All he knew for sure was that he was beginning to fall for a woman named Adrienne, who was watching the Inn for a friend in a tiny coastal town in North Carolina.
Eleven
Robert Torrelson sat at the aging rolltop desk in his living room, listening as his son boarded up the windows at the back of the house. In his hand was the note from Paul Flanner, and he was absently folding and unfolding it, still wondering at the fact that he had come.
He hadn’t expected it. Though he’d written the request, he’d been sure that Paul Flanner would ignore it. Flanner was a high-powered doctor in the city, represented by attorneys who wore flashy ties and fancy belts, and none of them had seemed to give a damn about him or his family for over a year now. Rich city folk were like that; as for him, he was glad that he’d never had to live near people who pushed paper for a living and weren’t comfortable if the temperature at work wasn’t exactly seventy-two degrees. Nor did he like dealing with people who thought they were better than others because they had better schooling or more money or a bigger house. Paul Flanner, when he’d met him after the surgery, had struck him as that type of person. He was stiff and distant, and though he’d explained himself, the clipped way he’d spoken the words had left Robert with the feeling that he wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep because of what had happened.