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

As the silence drew out, he finally broke it by saying, “I should have told you before …” He motioned at the bed.

He hadn’t been willing to change his life for her twenty-odd years ago so why had she thought he would now?

Sitting up and not bothering to cover her nakedness, she glared at him, welcoming the anger—because it kept away the tears. “Yes, you should have. But, then, you wouldn’t have had one last trip down memory lane, would you? Treating patients isn’t the only thing you’re good at, Dr. Marks. You’re also an expert at using people, and then ditching them when you’ve had what you wanted.”

She climbed to her feet and stood there. Refusing to be vulnerable. Refusing to care what he did.

Only she knew deep inside it was a lie. The cracks in the picture frame now mirrored the ones in her heart, splitting wide open and spilling everything inside her into the dust that had become her life.

“Jess, that’s not the way this—”

“No!” If he said one more word she was either going to burst into tears or slap him across the face with all her might. “Just go. Have Chelsea’s new doctor call us when he arrives.”

He grabbed the rest of his clothes and shoved his bare feet into his dress shoes. “I’m sorry, Jess.”

Tossing her head, she bit out a quick reply. “Don’t be. It was a blast from the past. We had our own mini high school reunion right here in my bedroom, but now it’s time to pack up and get back to our own lives, in our own cities.”

She didn’t ask him exactly when he was leaving. She didn’t want to know.

Clint’s throat moved as he looked at her for another minute. Then he said, “Goodbye, Jessi.”

With that, he turned around and walked out of the bedroom, his receding footsteps on the hardwood floor marking his location and searing the message into her brain. There was no slowing of his pace, no hesitation as the front door opened and then closed.

Clint was leaving. And this time he wasn’t coming back.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A WEEK WAS all it took to change his life forever.

He’d filed expedited transfer papers, asking them to put him wherever they needed him, preferably deployed overseas. He wound up at the VA hospital in New Mexico instead.

It might as well have been the other side of the world.

He sat at a desk that looked exactly like his previous one and wondered how he’d gotten here. Aimless. Rootless. And, thus far, patientless. They were letting him get settled in.

Right. Like that’s what he needed. More time to think about what had happened that night in Jessi’s bedroom.

He’d been all set to tell her how he felt, and then he’d picked up that frame and seen the damage he’d caused.

To her marriage. To her life.

At that moment he’d felt as shattered as that glass.

Being with Jessi again had wreaked havoc with his insides, turning him back into that impulsive screwup he’d been in high school.

He couldn’t risk messing up her life a second time. Neither could he ask her to pick up and move away the next time he got his transfer papers. Jessi’s life was in Richmond. With Chelsea and her mom—and those two graves.

Clint’s place was with his patients. The one thing he knew he was good at.

She’d be okay without him. Seeing Chelsea get better would give her hope for a new beginning. He’d soon be relegated to the past again—where he belonged.

His phone rang. He glanced at the readout and his mouth went dry, his blood pressure spiking.

A Richmond area code.

Only it wasn’t Jessi’s number. He didn’t recognize it.

Damn it!

When would the hope finally die? It was over. He’d ended it himself—and she hadn’t been sorry to see him go. She’d not said one word to discourage him. Instead, she’d practically shoved him out the door.

Checking the door to his office to make sure it was closed, he pressed the speakerphone button and stared at the open case file in front of him. So much for trying to get up to speed.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Marks?”

He recognized the voice immediately. “Chelsea? Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know. I mean, everything’s fine with me. It’s Mom.”

His heart plummeted. “Is she all right?”

“No.” There was a pause, and then her voice came through. Stronger. With just a hint of accusation. “I saw you holding hands at the memorial service. How could you just … leave like that?”

“I was transferred. You know how it works.”

A curse word split the air, and Clint picked the phone up and put it to his ear, even though he knew his assistant wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation through the thick walls.

Chelsea’s voice came back through. “You’re right. I do know how it works. And there’s no way you’d be able to get the okay for a transfer that fast unless you asked for it to be expedited. Or unless you’d been sitting on it this whole time.”

“What does it matter? The Richmond hospital was a temporary assignment.”

“Did I say something? Do something?”

“No.” He hurried to set her mind at ease. “This had nothing to do with you, Chelsea. I’m proud of how hard you’ve worked on your recovery. You’ve faced the past head-on and now you’re ready to move into the future.”

A laugh came over the phone, but it was without humor. “That’s what you always told us during group, wasn’t it? That we had to face the past and see it for what it was without running or hiding from the truth. But in the end that’s not what you did, is it?”

Hell, how had a tiny slip of a girl managed to read him so well? He had run. He’d taken one look at that broken glass, and instead of facing his fears, instead of talking to Jessi about everything that had happened, he’d turned tail and run.

Because he was afraid to face the future. Afraid his past