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

with me. Eat your soup and lie back, watch some mindless TV and rest. Doctor’s orders,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “Understood?”

Looking somewhat subdued, which both surprised and worried him, Lila repeated, “Understood.”

Chapter Twelve

She remembered.

Although Lila tried very hard not to, over the course of the next few days she began to remember why she had fallen in love with Everett to begin with. Not because he was so devastatingly handsome—which he still was, perhaps even more so—but because he was so kind.

Kind and thoughtful and caring.

She’d witnessed those traits in action while accompanying Everett on the house calls they’d paid together before she’d gotten ill, and now she was witnessing it up close and personal while he was taking care of her and nursing her back to health.

In essence, Everett was very quietly waiting on her hand and foot. He made sure she drank plenty of fluids. He prepared a soft, bland diet for her, then slowly substituted food with more substance when he felt she could handle it. The progression took close to a week because he told her he didn’t want to rush things and risk her having a setback.

By the end of the fourth day of her convalescence, Lila had gotten comfortable enough with him to allow herself to share a few old stories about people they had known back in high school.

Since she had left Houston thirteen years ago, he was in a far better position to tell her what some of the people they had grown up with were doing these days.

“Remember Jack Logan?” Everett asked, bringing up another name as they were sharing a lunch of soup and sandwiches in her room.

It took Lila a moment to put a face to the name. “Oh, you mean the guy who expected every woman to faint at his feet just because he looked their way?” She remembered that Jack was always telling everyone he had big plans for himself. “Whatever happened to him?”

Everett smiled, remembering how brash and abrasive Logan had been. “He still lives in Houston and works at the airport as a baggage checker.”

As she recalled, that didn’t exactly match up to Logan’s lofty goals. “Is he still a lady-killer?”

He looked at Lila and answered her with a straight face. “Only if he fell on top of one. I saw him recently. He must have gained over a hundred pounds since graduation.”

Lila tried to stifle a laugh, but she couldn’t help herself. Somehow, that seemed like poetic justice. Logan had always been cruelly critical of anyone he felt wasn’t as good-looking as he was. His remarks were always particularly hurtful about women he viewed to be overweight, even if they were carrying only a few extra pounds.

“He was always such an egotist,” she said when she stopped laughing.

“That part hasn’t changed,” Everett told her. Finishing his meal, he wiped his mouth and put down his napkin. “I think he just sees his expanding weight as there being more of him to be impressed with.” He looked at Lila’s plate. “Are you finished?” he asked, nodding at her tray.

“Yes.” As Everett removed the tray, she told him, “You know, you really don’t have to wait on me hand and foot like this.”

For the time being, Everett placed the tray aside on the bureau. He could take both trays to the kitchen the next time he left the room.

“Well, I’m here and there’s not that much else to do,” he reasoned. “So, to my way of thinking, I might as well make myself useful.”

“That’s another thing,” she said, picking up on the fact that he was still in Austin. “I’m keeping you from your practice.”

His eyes met hers for a long moment. And then he said, “Maybe I like being kept.”

Lila felt herself growing warm and she didn’t think that she was having any sort of a relapse. At least not the kind that involved the flu.

She did her best to steer the conversation in the initial direction she’d intended.

“What I’m saying is that you don’t need to take care of me anymore. I’m getting better all the time.”

“That’s because of all the excellent care you’ve been getting.”

Lila smiled, shaking her head. Everett had always had a way with words. “I won’t argue with that.”

“Good,” Everett said with finality. He had brought her that day’s TV schedule earlier for her to look through. He picked it up now and thumbed through it. “Now what would you like to watch this afternoon?” he asked. Watching TV after lunch had become a ritual for them the last few days, something he felt that they both looked forward to. “There’re some pretty good old movies on the Classic Channel and I found a station that’s streaming a lot of those old sitcoms you used to like watching.” He named a couple of specific programs.

Hearing them cited, Lila looked at him in surprise. “You remember that?” she marveled.

“I remember a lot of things,” he told her. He had committed a great many things to memory about her, Everett thought.

Lila could feel her heart racing even though she fiercely ordered it not to. She’d been this route before and she knew exactly where it ended. Nowhere, leaving her with an ache in her heart. She did not want to go there, not again.

But somehow, she just couldn’t seem to convince herself to turn away, to choose a different path. She tried to assuage her conscience by telling herself that this was only for a little while.

Lila shrugged in response to his question. “I don’t know, you pick something,” she told him. The next moment, she threw back her covers and swung her legs down. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need to use the bathroom,” she informed him with as much dignity as she could muster.

All the other times she’d felt the need to go, Everett had taken her arm and walked her to the bathroom as if they were out for an evening