True believer - Nicholas Sparks [78]
He again regretted his behavior on the porch, wishing for the hundredth time that he had taken her hint when he’d been thinking about kissing her. She’d made her feelings obvious and he’d ignored them. The regular Jeremy would have forgotten all about it already, shrugging the whole thing off as inconsequential. For some reason, this time it wasn’t so easy.
Though he’d dated a lot and hadn’t exactly become a hermit after Maria had left him, he had seldom done the spend-the-whole-day-talking-with-someone thing. Usually, it was just dinner or drinks and enough flirtatious conversation to loosen the inhibitions before the good part. Part of him knew it was time to grow up when it came to dating, maybe even try to settle down and live the sort of life his brothers did. His brothers readily concurred, and so, of course, did their wives. They were of the widely shared opinion that he should get to know women before trying to sleep with them, and one had gone so far as to set him up on a date with a divorced neighbor who believed the same. Of course, she’d declined a second date, in large part because of the pass he’d made at her on the first. In the past few years, it just seemed easier to not get to know women too well, to keep them in the realm of perpetual strangers, when they could still project hope and potential on him.
And that was the thing. There wasn’t hope or potential. At least, not for the sort of life his brothers and sisters-in-law believed in, or even, he suspected, the kind Lexie wanted. His divorce from Maria had proved that. Lexie was a small-town girl with small-town dreams, and it wouldn’t be enough to be faithful and responsible and to have things in common. Most women wanted something else, a way of life he couldn’t give them. Not because he didn’t want to, not because he was enamored of the bachelor scene, but simply because it was impossible. Science could answer a lot of questions, science could solve a lot of problems, but it couldn’t change his particular reality. And the reality was that Maria had left him because he hadn’t been, nor ever could be, the kind of husband she’d wanted.
He admitted this painful truth to no one, of course. Not to his brothers, not to his parents, not to Lexie. And usually, even in quiet moments, not even to himself.
Though the library was open by the time he got there, Lexie wasn’t in yet, and he felt a pang of disappointment when he pushed open the office door only to find the room empty. She’d been in earlier, though: the rare-book room had been left unlocked, and when he turned on the light, he saw a note on the desk, along with the topography maps he’d mentioned. The note took only an instant to read:
I’m taking care of some personal things. Feel free to use the VCR.
Lexie
No mention of yesterday or last night, no mention of wanting to make arrangements to see him again. Not even an acknowledgment above the signature. It wasn’t exactly chilly as far as notes went, but it didn’t leave him with the warm fuzzies, either.
Then again, he was probably reading too much into it. She might have been in a rush this morning, or she might have kept it short because she planned to be back soon. She did mention it was personal, and with women, that could mean anything from a doctor’s appointment to shopping for a friend’s birthday. There was just no way to tell.
And besides, he had work to do, he told himself. Nate was waiting and his career was on the line. Jeremy forced himself to focus on chasing the tail end of the story.
The audio recorders had picked up no unusual sounds, and neither the microwave nor the electromagnetic detector had registered the slightest energy variances. The videotapes,