True believer - Nicholas Sparks [107]
“It might have,” Jeremy insisted.
“Oh, yeah? What? Were you planning to move down here to the Twilight Zone? Or is she coming to New York?”
Jeremy folded and refolded his napkin without answering, not wanting to be reminded of the obvious.
In the silence, Alvin raised his eyebrows. “I definitely have to spend more time with this lady,” he said. “I haven’t seen someone get under your skin like this since Maria.”
Jeremy looked up wordlessly, knowing that his friend was right.
Doris was lying propped up in bed, looking over her reading glasses when Lexie peeked in her bedroom door.
“Doris?” Lexie asked.
“Lexie,” she cried, “what are you doing here? Come in, come in . . .”
Doris set aside the open book in her lap. She was still in her pajamas, and though her skin had a slightly grayish cast, she looked otherwise okay.
Lexie crossed the room. “Rachel said you stayed home today, and I just wanted to check on you.”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little off today, that’s all. But I thought you were supposed to be at the beach.”
“I was,” she said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “But I had to come back.”
“Oh?”
“Jeremy showed up,” she said.
Doris raised her hands as if in surrender. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t tell him where you were. And I didn’t tell him to go looking for you, either.”
“I know.” Lexie gave Doris’s arm a reassuring squeeze.
“Then how did he know where to find you?”
Lexie brought her hands together in her lap. “I told him the other day about the cottage, and he put two and two together. You can’t believe how surprised I was when I saw him walking up the beach.”
Doris eyed Lexie carefully before sitting up a little straighter. “So . . . you two were at the beach house last night?”
Lexie nodded.
“And?”
Lexie didn’t answer right away, but after a moment, her lips formed a small smile. “I made him your famous tomato sauce.”
“Oh?”
“He was impressed,” she said. Lexie ran her hand through her hair. “I brought your notebook back, by the way. It’s in the living room.”
Doris slipped off her reading glasses and began wiping the lenses with the corner of her sheet. “None of this explains why you’re back, though.”
“Jeremy needed a ride. A friend from New York—a cameraman—came down to film the lights. They’re going to film tonight, too.”
“What’s his friend like?”
Lexie hesitated, thinking about it. “He looks like a cross between a punk rocker and a motorcycle gang member, but other than that . . . he’s okay.”
When she grew silent, Doris reached over and took Lexie’s hand. Squeezing it gently, she studied her granddaughter.
“Do you want to talk about why you’re really here?”
“No,” Lexie answered, tracing the seams of Doris’s quilt with her finger. “Not really. This is something I have to figure out on my own.”
Doris nodded. Lexie always put on a brave front. At times, she knew it was best to say nothing at all.
Seventeen
Jeremy glanced at his watch as he stood on the porch at Herbs, waiting for Alvin to finish his conversation with Rachel. Alvin was giving it his best shot, and Rachel seemed to be in no rush to say good-bye, which normally would have been considered a good omen. Yet, to Jeremy’s eye, Rachel seemed less interested in Alvin than in simply being polite, and Alvin wasn’t reading her cues. Then again, Alvin always had trouble reading cues.
When Alvin and Rachel finally parted, Alvin joined Jeremy, a big grin on his face, as if he’d already forgotten about the events of last night. Which he probably had.
“Did you see that?” he whispered when he was close. “I think she likes me.”
“What’s not to like?”
“Exactly my point,” he agreed. “Man, she’s something. I love the way she talks. It’s so . . . sexy.”
“You think everything is sexy,” Jeremy observed.
“That’s not true,” he protested. “Only most things.”
Jeremy smiled. “Well, maybe you’ll see her tonight at the dance. We might be able to drop in before we head out to film again.”
“There’s a dance tonight?”
“At the old tobacco barn. I hear the whole