1022 Evergreen Place - Debbie Macomber [72]
She swallowed and looked away, embarrassed because what he’d said was true.
“I woke up the next morning happier than I could remember being in a long time—only to discover you were gone.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Then I found your note. What a shock. ‘Don’t call me again. Last night was a mistake.’”
Gloria stared down at her shoes.
“It might’ve been a mistake for you, Gloria, but I refused to think of it that way.”
She had nothing to add.
“Hot one minute, cold the next. I tried to reason with you. I lost count of how many messages I left you.”
“Ten,” she said, then wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
“Ten,” he repeated. “Ten messages, and how many weeks of silence?”
“Two.” There, she’d done it again, letting him know she’d counted each and every one of those tortured days.
“And now you’re telling me to take a flying leap into the nearest cow pasture, right?” His stance remained guarded, defiant.
“I think it’s for the best not to see each other again.”
“That figures. Well, go ahead, Gloria, run away and pretend there’s nothing between us if that makes you feel better. Trust me, after this last episode, it doesn’t come as a surprise.”
She blinked at the vehemence in his voice, the hardness in his face.
“I’d rather we parted as friends,” she said.
He went still, then shook his head. “Sorry. If you want to water this relationship down to ‘friends’ in order to make it palatable, then feel free to do so, but it doesn’t work for me.”
“How…what are you talking about?”
“Friends, you say? First, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Friends are people I trust. You’ve burned me twice, and I don’t feel that friendly toward you. If this is the way you treat your so-called friends, I pity them. I pity you.”
Gloria’s stomach tensed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I…I thought, you know, that if we passed each other on the street we could…be polite. And if I ever came to the clinic, we could be cordial to each other.”
He rolled his eyes. “That isn’t going to happen, so don’t worry about it. Fine, you want to be friends, we’ll be friends.”
He stepped away from her and started across the parking lot to his car. Every instinct demanded she follow him and make things right between them. Yet she remained rooted to the spot.
She stood frozen for several minutes, warring within herself. Chad climbed into his car and drove off, and still she stood there, not knowing what to do.
Corrie had said she needed to “acknowledge what happened” and move on. Chad had agreed. But if that was what she’d sought, she’d failed miserably. Instead of ending their affair on a friendly note, they were more at odds than ever.
Somehow she made it through her shift and, at eleven that night, went home. Although she was mentally and physically exhausted, she couldn’t fall asleep. Many hours later, she downed two over-the-counter sleeping pills and pulled the sheet over her head. The sun had begun to rise, and morning light slithered into her bedroom through the gap between her curtains.
Gloria rolled onto her left side and bunched up the pillow. Ten minutes later she was on her right side and then she rolled onto her back.
She glanced at the clock and wondered how long it would take for the sleep aid to kick in. She closed her eyes, but when she did, all she could see was Chad standing defiantly before her. He didn’t say a word, yet she felt his disappointment and his pain.
She felt her own.
All at once she threw aside the covers and sat up as his words echoed in her mind. She’d suggested that being friends meant that if they ran into each other again, they’d be cordial. Chad had said that wasn’t going to happen. He hadn’t meant he wouldn’t greet her.
What he was telling her, she realized now, was that he wouldn’t be around for her to greet. He was leaving town.
The Tacoma hospital had told him they’d hire him any time he wanted the job.
Chad was leaving Cedar Cove. And her.
Twenty
Mack finished his five-mile run and walked the last block to the duplex to cool down. Cool