CHAPTER
Eighteen

Duncan scooted his chair closer to Nora’s. “I’ve loved spending time with you these last few days.”

“Likewise.”

“We’ve always had a great rapport online. You’re stellar in cyberspace.” The word stellar sounded charmingly crisp and hard-edged spoken in his British accent.

“You’re stellar in cyberspace, too. Only it doesn’t come out as cute when I say it. Stellar,” she said, employing her best imitation British accent.

Instead of making him breakfast this morning, she’d collected Duncan at Bradfordwood and driven him to The Griddle, her favorite breakfast restaurant in Merryweather. Lots of old brick, a fireplace, and plenty of dark wood surrounded them. She’d very much like to enjoy the cozy ambience and the plate of food their waitress had just set before her. Huge biscuits sat beside an over-easy egg, hash browns, and bacon. Eating breakfast out was somewhat akin to eating chocolate at the beach . . . a luxury. Steam twirled upward from the food, begging her to dig in.

Except Duncan was staring at her with an intensity that required her full attention. Mirth still lingered at his lips. “Here’s the thing . . .” His voice took on a husky, conspirational timbre.

Uh-oh. Dread zinged through Nora.

“Even though you’re stellar in cyberspace,” he said, “I had no way of knowing how endearing you’d be in person. Until this trip.”

“Thank you!”

“You’re endearing, and you’re a beauty,” he stated.

Nora took a sip of coffee. Whenever she ordered coffee instead of tea, it was very much a desperate times/desperate measures type of situation. She’d lain in bed, an expression of dreamy amazement on her face, her thoughts twisting like a corkscrew, for hours last night after John’s visit. Thus, she was functioning on four hours of sleep. She knew she’d need caffeine and lots of it in order to survive this breakfast and the unceasing talking that awaited her between here and the airport, where they were headed next.

Duncan placed a hand on the table and turned it palm up, then slanted his handsome head and gave her the smile he employed for photographs.

Reluctance pricked her. Was it too late for her to text Duncan, claim an illness, and cancel this breakfast?

This is what adult women do, Nora. They deal with uncomfortable situations in mature ways. She placed her hand in his, while simultaneously wondering if holding his hand was the mature thing to do. Holding Duncan’s hand wasn’t terribly disloyal to John, was it? It felt like it might be, yet she hadn’t gone out (yet) on a single date with John. Plus, Duncan might be wanting to hold her hand because he harbored the same kind of affection toward her that he harbored toward his grandmother.

“Do you remember messaging me not so long ago to say that if Adolphus noticed Lucy’s existence, she would be his?” he asked.

“Mmm?”

“Heart and soul.”

“I said that?”

“Always and forever.”

She feigned surprised pleasure. “Are Adolphus and Lucy finally getting together on the show?” Her deliberate misunderstanding was an extremely wimpy way to buy time.

“You know I can’t divulge upcoming plot twists. My lips are sealed about Adolphus and Lucy.”

How about you allow me to unseal mine so I can dig into these biscuits? The floury, fresh-out-of-the-oven smell of them was making her stomach weep. Slightly desperate for a coffee refill, she tried to catch the waitress’s eye.

“The point I’m trying to make is that I’ve noticed your existence, Miss Lawrence.”

Nora forced her attention to him. There’d been a time when she’d danced around her house each and every time he’d called her Miss Lawrence. Now it annoyed the tar out of her. Miss Lawrence was an intelligent woman who was wasting her life pining for a fantasy.

Duncan gave her an expression akin to that of a parent leading their kids into the living room on Christmas morning to see Santa’s haul. Self-satisfied. Benevolent. Expectant.

Then he leaned his face toward hers. Not quickly. Slowly. Did . . . did he mean to kiss her? Before he could, she reared back.

He stopped his progress. Confusion tweaked his forehead.

“I’m sorry.” Her hand was still ensconced within his. She slipped it free, then tucked her hair behind her ears. “I may not have handled that well.”

“Aw” he said as if she were a child who’d done something adorable. “Of course you’re nervous.”

He thought she was rattled by the supreme magnitude of his interest in her. She understood his deduction. It was quite preposterous to think that she, Nora Bradford, would reject famous actor Duncan Bartholomew.

His affection for her complimented her. His talent impressed her. But she didn’t want to kiss him. If Adolphus Brook or John Lawson pulled her into, say, a quiet alcove and set her against a wall and pressed their hands to the plaster on both sides of her head and met her eyes and leaned in, she’d yearn to be kissed by them. She’d tunnel her hands into their hair and pull them to her. She’d combust with desire.

Duncan was a friendly, insecure, and enormously gifted man. Whenever he went into a funk over things that didn’t go his way, he relied on her for encouragement. Whenever he required extra effort from his fandom, he depended on her as his best soldier. She was a woman who loved to be needed. But in the end, she didn’t want to be needed by a boyfriend in those specific ways.

Duncan looked young to her, sitting there in front of his plate of pancakes. His cheeks were smooth. His build youthful. He was two years younger than she was, she remembered. And an only child.

More age would benefit him. More weathering. More of the kind of life experiences that would force him to realize that he might not be the center of everyone’s universe.

She liked Duncan a great deal. But, no. She did not want to kiss him.

“Let’s try that again, shall we?” he murmured and once again began leaning into her personal space.

“No,” she said calmly.

He halted.

“I didn’t scoot back just now because I was nervous, Duncan. I did it because I view you as a friend.”

A beat of quiet. “Only as a friend?”

“Only as a friend.”

For such a good actor, he was having a hard time covering his astonishment. She bit back an inappropriate giggle. “The two of us are better as friends than as anything else. You’re too famous for me. Too good-looking.” She spoke guilelessly, as if unaware of the fact that she was working him over with flattery. If he had any sense, he’d call her on it. But he seemed to be receiving the thick flattery as if it were his due. “You’re also a resident of a country that’s very far away. You know how I prefer to be realistic.”

As she said it, she recognized it to be true.

Realistic.

For the first time in three years, she wanted the real man down the road more than the fictional man on the small screen. Real men were dangerous. They could shred your heart and decimate your trust. But real men, with their weaknesses and their strengths, were also the ones who could eat cinnamon toast with you and take you to hotels in Oregon that overlooked a valley of treasures. Real men were the ones who could smile with you and listen to you and hold you. Real men were the ones brave women entered into relationships with—even if relationships were sometimes messy and without guarantees.

Her book-loving, PBS-drama-loving soul wanted to refute it. The fictional men she’d fallen in love with congregated in her imagination, Adolphus Brook right at the apex of them. But, but, they seemed to sputter, look at us. Remember us. We’re perfect.

Yes, she patiently responded. And John’s imperfect. But, you see, it was his admission of his imperfection that won me so completely. I’m imperfect, too.

“Don’t you agree?” Nora asked him. “I could never fit into your life.”

He considered her.

“You know it’s true,” she prodded. “I could never fit.”

He shrugged. “You may have a point.”

“Of course I do. I’m a very sensible person. I always have a point. Now, dig into those pancakes and tell me more about your summer shooting schedule for the show and what the Devotees can do to promote it.”

He headed down the conversational track she’d provided.

Nora would not share a single photo of herself and Duncan with the Devotees. It was enough that her sisters and John had seen Duncan. They could attest to the fact that for a few days the actor who played her favorite character on her favorite show had entered into her life in Merryweather, Washington. She hadn’t dreamed it. He’d been here.

He’d wanted her.

And she’d turned him, her fantasy man, down.

John could look at himself in the mirror because he was pretty sure he’d done the right thing when he’d told Nora about his eyesight and the future he was facing.

It turned out that doing the right thing was cold comfort.

Almost three days had passed since his visit to her house, and he’d yet to hear from her.

He’d hiked to the top of Mount Lewis and now stood, arms crossed, staring hard at Lake Shore Pine far below. His house and the boats enjoying a Saturday afternoon on the water looked toy-sized.

Every day he spent time committing the sight of things to memory. Sometimes he’d catch himself doing it even when he hadn’t planned to. The thing he’d been staring at the most since his diagnosis was one of the things he loved the most and would miss looking at the most: this place. This lake that his grandfather had introduced him to, where he’d learned to drive a boat, where his connection to the water had begun, where he’d felt completely at home.

He drew in a painful breath of fresh, clean air.

When he and Nora had been searching for Sherry, Nora had helped him forget about his diagnosis. Now she was the one keeping his diagnosis at the front of his thoughts because he didn’t know what Nora was going to do with the information he’d given her.

She might choose for him. She might choose against him. She might send him a text message saying she cared about him. She might call him and tell him in a sad tone why they were better off as friends. She might show up at his house and throw her arms around him. She might ask him to meet her at the village, then greet him with a pitying look in her eyes.

For the past three days, his hope and his pessimism had been like two monsters locked in a never-ending fight.

Three days wasn’t a long period of time. Rationally, John knew this. He was the one who’d told her to take her time, so he could expect her to take her time—

Why on earth had he told her to take her time? He’d been trying to be gentlemanly. The truth was, he didn’t want her to take her time. He couldn’t stand for her to. Time was passing the way it had during BUD/S, every hour a marathon.

He lifted his face toward the sky and spent long minutes praying, asking God to get his head and his heart right, asking for God’s will to be done.

It didn’t seem to help.

Frowning, he began walking toward home.

She’d likely already chosen Duncan. He needed to prepare himself for that because not very many women would want to date a man who was going blind. It wasn’t like he and Nora were already in love or married and she didn’t have a way out. They hadn’t even started dating, and he’d already given her a very easy way out.

He might as well have put up a flashing neon sign that read, This way to exit my life.

He’d done the right thing, but he didn’t want the self-respect that came from knowing he’d done the right thing. He wanted Nora.

Nora had concocted a delicious little fantasy about John. In the fantasy, the uncertainty of whether or not she was going to accept or reject him was driving him crazy.

It was quite beguiling, really. The idea of big, strong Navy SEAL John Lawson stalking around his modern-day mansion, racked with frustrated adoration for her. Her! The fact that her fantasy was totally unlikely made it that much more delectable.

It was Sunday. She attended church, then went out to lunch with Grandma and her sisters. When she returned home, she picked up a book but saw nothing on her bookmarked page except John. After rereading the same paragraph three times, she set the book aside and arrived at the conclusion that four days of research, thought, and prayer over John was the most she could cobble together. The common sense part of her couldn’t talk the romantic part of her into waiting any longer to seek John out.

He’d invited her to drop by his house—anytime, he’d said—so that was what she’d do. She’d drive there today. The topic of their dating life had been important enough to him to honor with a visit. She should be bold in the same way. A visit was more personal than a mere phone call or text message. Plus, as a huge added benefit, she’d get to see John. She was dying to see John.

Nora changed into clothes she considered to be her cutest, but that simultaneously didn’t make her look like she was trying too hard. A loose sky-blue tank, a long necklace, and jeans, accessorized by a spritz of perfume.

On her way to Shore Pine, she made one small detour to the Hartnett Chapel and performed her customary inspection of the chapel’s interior.

She’d spent the days since Duncan’s departure working furiously to catch up on everything that had gone undone at the Library on the Green during her time as Duncan’s tour guide. The Summer Antique Fair was now less than eight weeks away, and she had a mountain of things to do in preparation.

When Nora hadn’t been working these past few days, she’d been combing through article after article about Malattia Leventinese. She’d read case studies. Medical journals. And every other source the Internet provided on the subject of blindness.

Knowledge was power. In this case, the knowledge she’d accumulated lent considerable power to the certainty that had begun to take root in her the moment John had told her he felt she had the right to make an informed decision about him.

Well, she could confidently say that she’d informed herself.

She closed the chapel’s door behind her and rested a hand lovingly on the weathered wood of the handrail that invited parishioners up the chapel’s front steps.

John’s diagnosis hadn’t been the only thing she’d mulled over while considering the prospect of dating him. She’d also thought a lot about the fact that his relationship with Allie had ended recently. She’d contemplated both parts of that less-than-ideal situation. John’s relationship had ended. And it had ended recently.

The “it had ended” part forced Nora to acknowledge that she had no assurance that things between herself and John would end any differently than they had for Allie and John. Statistically, each new dating relationship was much more likely to end in a breakup than in a happily ever after. Right? The woman who’d insulated herself from dating for years needed to step out from behind her insulation and accept that potential consequence.

The recent ending of John’s relationship with Allie made Nora think about her dad, who’d rushed into a relationship with her mom after Sylvie had left him with Willow.

Nora couldn’t bring herself to label her dad’s actions as disastrous, exactly. He’d been happy with her mom, for one thing. And Nora wouldn’t be alive if not for their relationship. However, both her friends’ and sisters’ dating experiences—and the consensus of the culture at large—suggested that rebound romances weren’t a great idea.

Sylvie’s abandonment had devastated her father. He probably should have taken more time to recover from that before pursuing anyone else.

John’s case was different than her dad’s. John didn’t have a child. And he didn’t seem devastated by his breakup with Allie. He’d told Nora at the party that he and Allie got along well but that things had never been very serious between them. Which she hoped to be true because selfishly it made her heart hurt to think about John having loved Allie deeply.

Nora lifted her gaze to the cerulean sky above, dotted with ribbons of happy late-afternoon clouds. Then she faced the little church. Six years ago, when Mr. Hartnett had first informed Nora that he would not sell his chapel to her, Nora had decided to find another chapel for her village.

Since then, she’d found five chapels. Some of them had been prettier than this one. Some had been in better condition. Every one of them would have worked wonderfully well for her village. But whenever it had come time for her to buy one of the five inarguably good chapels, she’d pulled back. Following through on a purchase hadn’t felt right to her because none of them had been this chapel. She loved this chapel in a way that was inexplicable.

Her heart was, very simply, set on it.

Her feelings for John were identical to her feelings for this chapel.

Her heart was, very simply, set on him.

Perhaps both in spite of and because of his shortcomings.

That he might break her heart wasn’t enough to dissuade her. That he’d broken up with Allie just weeks ago wasn’t enough to dissuade her, either. What could she do about that? Postpone contact between herself and John? And make herself unbearably impatient in the process? Give him time to forget about her and start dating someone else?

No and no.

She’d try her best to be smart and self-controlled. To hang on to her wisdom and judgment. To protect herself as much as she could. To take things with John very slowly and carefully.

Except . . . she’d been smart and slow and careful with Harrison, too. She’d made the best possible decisions, and even so her romance with Harrison had ended with her crying in the shower late at night for weeks upon weeks.

She never wanted to go back to crying in her shower. To living in a fog of sadness. To dashed dreams. Because of love.

Yet if you were going to care about someone, then you also had to open yourself to loss. Caring meant risk. The only alternative was never to care about anyone again.

Nora wanted the chance to care about John, no matter the risk.

Because her heart was set on him.

She climbed into her car and zipped along the road toward his house. The Indigo Girls song “Closer to Fine” poured from the car’s speakers, and Nora sang along gamely, even though her confidence began to falter as she neared John’s house.

He’s stalking around his mansion, racked with frustrated adoration, remember?

She turned onto his private road. Maybe she should have sent a text message letting him know she was thinking about stopping by. Had she chosen the correct move? Drat her dating inexperience!

She approached his house for the second time in her life and spotted, for the second time in her life, a silver Audi parked outside.

Allie was here.

She sucked in a gasping breath as if she’d been stabbed. What . . . what was Allie doing here? She and John hadn’t—they could not have—gotten back together. Could they?

She’d picked a terrible time to tell John she’d decided to date him. There was no way she was going to stammer out her intentions in front of Allie.

Just as she reached forward to shift her car into reverse and execute a three-point turn, Allie and John exited his front door. Allie turned to grin at John, and the movement sent the long, dark blond strands of her hair fanning outward before they resettled themselves over her chest.

A terrible lurch of jealousy and dismay stunned Nora into immobility.

She knew exactly when John caught sight of her, because he stopped suddenly. Guiltily, it seemed.

He was not stalking around his mansion, racked with frustrated adoration like he was supposed to be.

Had she waited too long? Until now, she’d suspected that she’d erred the other way. That the time she’d taken, that he’d asked her to take, had been a touch too short. It could be, though, that she’d gotten it all disastrously wrong and Allie had capitalized on Nora’s mistake, swooping in to steal Nora’s man . . . who’d been Allie’s man first. . . . So did that make him Allie’s by rights?

Part of her wanted to say nothing and simply accelerate toward Merryweather. That response would be so telling, though, so humiliating. She had a great deal of practice at retaining her dignity in the face of rejection. She could muscle through a performance if needed.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be needed. Allie was here, and that looked bad. However, it wasn’t like she’d caught the two of them kissing. Nora refused to jump to the wrong conclusion like leading ladies in romantic movies were so fond of doing.

She parked and stepped from her car, her legs trembling imperceptibly.

Allie’s expression remained smooth as she and John approached. In contrast, John’s expression was shuttered. Nora’s heart slipped another notch.

“Hi, Nora,” Allie said. “How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been well,” Nora answered, relieved that her tone didn’t betray her turmoil. “And yourself?”

“I’ve been enjoying my summer. Isn’t this weather awesome?”

“Awesome.”

“It really is.” Allie looked between John and Nora, understanding dawning in her eyes. “Well, I have dinner plans back in Tacoma tonight, so I’d better head that way.”

“Take care,” John said, voice neutral.

“Will do. You too.”

When John said nothing more, Nora noticed Allie’s shoulders droop a degree. It seemed Allie wasn’t quite as carefree as she’d first appeared, as someone who’d just reunited with an ex-boyfriend would be.

Allie made her way to her car. “Bye!” she called.

“Bye,” John and Nora said. Neither of them moved, not a flicker of an eyelash, not a covert glance at each other. Nothing, until they both lifted a hand to wave at Allie, who drove past them, then disappeared from sight.

Text message from Duncan’s personal assistant to Duncan:

Personal Assistant

Did a romance materialize between you and the American?

Duncan

She did have aspirations of a romance between us. But in the end, I realized that she wasn’t really my type.