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

shrugged. “Candy makes everything better.” He got into the car. “I thought you said they called you.”

“Well, sometimes I call them,” Lila replied. She could feel Everett regarding her quizzically as she pulled back onto the street. “Mr. Garcia is very proud. He doesn’t like accepting help. He’s also out of work. I thought he and his family could do with a little preventative medicine so that if a job does come up, he won’t be too sick to take it. He’s a day laborer when he’s not driving a truck,” she explained. When Everett didn’t say anything, she elaborated on her statement. “The man has five kids. If they all came down with the flu, it would be guaranteed pure chaos. This was a preemptive strike.”

That was one way to look at it, Everett thought. Obviously Lila was focused on doing good deeds. “So when did you get fitted for the wings and halo?” Everett asked her.

“I didn’t,” she answered crisply. “They were left behind by the last department manager.” She kept her eyes on the road, not trusting herself to look at him. Sudden movements made her dizzy. “I just try them on for size occasionally.”

“Oh.” He pretended as if what she’d just said made perfect sense. “So, how many more house calls do we have left?” he asked, getting serious again.

This time Lila didn’t have to consult her list. “We’ve got two more.”

“Just two more?” he questioned. Yes, they’d been at this for a long time, but he’d just expected to keep going until almost nightfall again, the way they had yesterday.

“Just two more,” Lila repeated. “And then you’re free.”

“Free, eh?” he echoed. He studied her profile. “How about you?”

“How about me what?” she asked. Had she missed a question? Her brain felt a little fuzzy and she was having trouble following him.

“Are you free?” Everett asked, enunciating each word clearly.

“Free for what?” she asked. She was still having trouble following him.

“Free for dinner,” he asked, then quickly added, “I thought that maybe, since we’ve developed this decent working relationship, you wouldn’t mind grabbing some dinner together.”

Lila pressed her lips together. All she’d been thinking about the last few hours was going home and crawling into bed. But she was not about to tell Everett that. She didn’t want to have to listen to a lot of questions.

So instead, sounding as cheerful as possible, she said, “I guess I do owe you that.”

“I don’t want you to have dinner with me because you ‘owe’ me,” he told her. “I want you to have dinner with me because you want to.”

Potato, po-tah-to, she thought. He’d come through for her, so she supposed that she could humor him. “I want to,” she answered quietly.

“Great,” he said. “Let’s go see these last two patients.”

The visits took a little longer than he’d come to anticipate, mainly because the second one involved more than just dispensing flu vaccinations to the two older children and their parents. Everett found himself tending to a pint-size patient with a sprained wrist that he didn’t even know he had.

Afraid of being laughed at by his brothers for being clumsy, when it was his turn for the vaccine, little Alan had tried to hide his swollen wrist.

Drawing him over to Everett, Lila had accidentally brushed against the boy’s wrist and saw him wince, then try to pretend he was just playing a game with her. The truth came out rather quickly.

“Never try to hide something like that,” Lila told him as Everett bandaged the boy’s wrist and then fashioned a makeshift sling for him. “They just get worse if you ignore them,” she told him.

Alan solemnly nodded his head.

“He’s been moping all day,” Alan’s mother told them as they were packing up their supplies. “Now I know why. Here,” she said handing Lila a pie, which, by its aroma, had just recently left the oven. “This is my way of saying thank-you.”

Lila declined. “As a Foundation worker, I can’t accept payment,” she told the other woman.

“Then take it as a friend,” Alan’s mother told her. “One friend to another. You will be insulting me if you don’t accept it,” the woman insisted.

The way she felt, Lila was not up to arguing. Pulling her lips back into a thin smile, she expressed her thanks, saying, “Dr. Everett will take it home with him. Maybe your gift will encourage him to return to Austin again soon.”

The woman was obviously pleased to play her part in coaxing the good-looking doctor back.

“Maybe,” she agreed, flashing a bright, hopeful smile at Everett.

“I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Everett told Lila when they were back in her car again. “That was quick thinking,” he complimented her.

Lila was hardly aware of shrugging. “I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but I didn’t want to set a precedent, either. Having you take it seemed like the only logical way out.”

“Still wouldn’t have thought of it,” he told her.

“Sure you would have,” she countered. “You’re the smartest man I know.”

No I’m not, he thought. He could cite a time when he’d been downright stupid.

Like thirteen years ago.

Everett studied her quietly as she drove. In his opinion, Lila had blossomed in the intervening years. She was no longer that stricken young girl who’d told him she never wanted to see him again. She’d become a self-assured woman who obviously had a mission in life. A mission she was passionate about, and that passion made her particularly compelling and exciting.

He found himself being attracted to Lila all over again and even more strongly this time than he had the first time around.

“Can you clock out once we get back to the Foundation?” he asked suddenly, breaking the heavy silence in the car.

“This actually is the official end of my day, so yes, I can clock out.”

“And we’re still on for dinner?” he asked, not wanting to come across as if he was taking anything for granted. He knew that winning Lila back was going