True believer - Nicholas Sparks [109]
Alvin set up the camera in various locations while Jeremy paced on his own, the stillness of the cemetery forcing his thoughts back to Lexie and his worries about her. He remembered their night together and tried once again to understand what had made her rise from the bed in the middle of the night. Despite her denials, he knew she was feeling regret, maybe even remorse, about what had happened, but even that didn’t make sense to him.
Yes, he was leaving, but he’d told her repeatedly that they would find a way to make it work. And yes, it was true that they didn’t know each other well, but considering the short time they’d been together, he’d learned enough to know that he could love her forever. All they needed was a chance.
But Alvin, he thought, had been right. Whatever her concerns about Doris, her behavior this morning suggested that she’d been looking for an excuse to get away from him. What he wasn’t sure of, however, was whether it was because she loved him and thought it would be easier to distance herself from him now, or because she didn’t love him and didn’t want to spend more time with him.
Last night, he’d been sure that she felt the same way that he did. But now . . .
He wished they could have spent the afternoon together. He wanted to hear her concerns and alleviate them; he wanted to hold her and kiss her and convince her that he would find a way to make their relationship work, no matter how hard that might be. He wanted to make her hear his words: that he couldn’t imagine a life without her, that his feelings for her were real. But most of all, he wanted to reassure himself that she felt the same way about him.
In the distance, Alvin was hauling the camera and tripod to another location, lost in his own world and oblivious to Jeremy’s worries. Jeremy sighed before realizing that he’d drifted to the part of the cemetery where Lexie had vanished from sight the first time he saw her here.
He hesitated for a moment, a hunch taking root in his mind, then began searching the grounds, pausing every few steps. It took only a few minutes until he spotted the obvious. Making his way over a small ridge, he stopped at the foot of an untamed azalea bush. Twigs and branches surrounded it, but the area in front seemed to have been tended to. Squatting down, he reset the flowers she must have been carrying in her bag, and he suddenly understood why neither Doris nor Lexie wanted people trampling through the cemetery.
In the gray light, he stared at the graves of Claire and James Darnell, wondering why he hadn’t figured it out before.
On the way back from the cemetery, Jeremy dropped Alvin off at Greenleaf for a nap, then returned to the library, rehearsing what he wanted to say to Lexie.
He noticed the library was more crowded than usual, at least on the outside. People were milling on the sidewalk in groups of two or three, pointing upward and gazing at the architecture, as if getting an early jump on the Historic Homes Tour. Most seemed to be holding the same brochure that Doris had sent Jeremy and were reading aloud from the captions highlighting the unique properties of the building.
Inside, the staff seemed to be preparing as well. A number of volunteers were sweeping and dusting; two others were setting out additional Tiffany lamps, and Jeremy assumed that once the official tour began, the overhead lights would be dimmed to give the library a more historic atmosphere.
Jeremy walked past the children’s room, noting that it looked far less cluttered than it had