Summer of Love Marie Ferrarella (easy books to read in english TXT) 📖

“You like them so much, here, you take them,” Lila said, trying to hand the vase over to the other woman.

But Lucie raised her hands up high, putting them out of reach and thus keeping the transfer from being carried out.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked Lila.

“That the price of roses is being driven up even higher?” Lila asked sarcastically.

Lucie shook her head. She looked very pleased with this turn of events.

“No. It means that you might think you’re done with this guy from your past, but he clearly is not done with you.”

Lila had another take on the situation. “Maybe he’s just not used to taking no for an answer,” she countered, frowning, then insisted, “All these flowers don’t mean anything.”

“You know, you still haven’t answered my question,” Lucie said, watching as Lila placed the flowers on the windowsill beside the other vase.

Lila didn’t bother fussing with the newest arrangement. Instead, she sat down at her desk again, still trying to focus on the budget that was due. “What question is that?”

Slowly, enunciating each word for emphasis, Lucie repeated, “What are you afraid of?”

“I thought I answered that,” Lila told her. “I believe I said I was afraid of not getting my budget done in time.”

Lucie’s eyes met hers. “You know I’m just going to keep after you until you tell me what’s up with you and this guy.”

And she knew very well that Lucie would, Lila thought. This had to stop. It was bad enough she was trying to get Everett to back off and leave her alone. She did not need her friend championing Everett’s cause as well.

“Lucie, I love you like a sister—but butt out,” she told Lucie in no uncertain terms.

“Sorry,” Lucie replied, looking at her innocently. “That doesn’t compute.”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Make it compute,” she told Lucie and with that, she ushered the woman out and closed the door to her office because, all distractions and two dozen roses aside, she really did have a budget to hand in before the end of the week. Which meant that she had no time to think about Everett Fortunado and his attempts to get her to give him another chance to shatter her heart.

The roses on the windowsill were beginning to drop their petals. They fell sporadically, drifting like soft pink tears onto the industrial beige floor covering in her office.

There was something sad about watching the flowers wilt.

Or maybe she felt that way because, despite the two separate deliveries of long-stem roses, she had not heard from Everett since she’d left him in the restaurant on their one and only lunch date—if it could actually have been called that.

Lila told herself that she was relieved. If Everett didn’t call, then she didn’t have to come up with an excuse not to see him.

But amid all that so-called relief, she had to admit that there was just the slightest tinge of disappointment as well. She really hadn’t thought that Everett would give up so easily, or so quickly.

But he obviously had.

He’d moved on and he was off her conscience—not that she’d ever done anything to feel guilty about when it came to Everett, she silently insisted. Everett, on the other hand, had a lot to atone for—

What was wrong with her? she suddenly upbraided herself. Why was she wasting time thinking about Everett or trying to figure out why he’d behaved the way he had? She didn’t have time for all that, she admonished herself. Less time than usual.

She was in the middle of a very real health crisis.

Everyone at the Fortune Foundation was. They had been stricken by an unseasonable, full-fledged flu epidemic that was laying everyone low. As a result, they were understaffed, with almost a third of both the volunteers and employees alike calling in sick.

Being short-staffed when it came to the workers was one thing. But now two of the doctors who regularly volunteered their services, making the rounds and tending to the people in her district, had fallen sick and were out of commission as well.

What that meant in the short run was that there weren’t enough doctors to administer the flu vaccines or to treat the people who were down with it.

This directly affected Lila, who oversaw the department that made certain poor families in her area had access to flu shots and to medical care.

She needed replacement for the sick doctors. STAT.

Lila had spent half the morning on the phones, calling every backup physician she could think of in the area. All the calls yielded the same results. The doctors were either up to their ears in patients—or they were sick themselves.

The cupboard, Lila thought, exasperated, was appallingly bare. There weren’t any doctors in or around Austin left to call.

Frustrated, she closed her physicians’ file on the computer. The people whose trust she had painstakingly worked to gain and whom she had gathered into the fold now needed help, and they were counting on her to come through. They weren’t going to believe her when she said that she couldn’t find any doctors to make house calls.

But it was true. She was totally out of doctors to call. Totally out of options...

Except for one, she suddenly realized as the thought zigzagged through her brain.

She hated to do this. Hated to have to call him and sound as if she was begging.

But this wasn’t about her, Lila reminded herself. This was about the sick people who were counting on her. People who were in desperate need of medical care. Otherwise, some of them, the very young and the very old, might not make it.

Telling herself not to think about what she was doing, Lila took out the card Everett had handed her during the less than successful lunch. The card with his phone number on it.

Not his cell phone. She didn’t want this to sound personal, although that, she had a feeling, might get the fastest results.

Lila squared her shoulders and