True believer - Nicholas Sparks [86]
Last night, she knew, she’d almost made a mistake. She’d expected him to try to kiss her, and she was pleased by how resolute she’d been when he wanted to come inside.
She knew she’d hurt his feelings, and she was sorry for that. But what he probably didn’t realize was that it wasn’t until after he’d driven off that her heart had stopped pounding, because part of her had wanted to let him inside, no matter what it might have led to. She knew better, but she couldn’t help it. Even worse, as she tossed and turned in her bed last night, she realized she might not have the strength to do the right thing again.
In all honesty, she should have seen it coming. As the evening had worn on, she found herself comparing Jeremy to both Avery and Mr. Renaissance, and to her surprise, Jeremy more than held his own. He had Avery’s wit and sense of humor and Mr. Renaissance’s intelligence and charm, but Jeremy seemed more comfortable with himself than either of them. Perhaps she should just chalk it up to the wonderful day she’d had, something that hadn’t happened in a long time. When was the last time she’d had a spontaneous lunch? Or sat up on Riker’s Hill? Or visited the cemetery after a party, when normally she would have gone straight to bed? No doubt the excitement and unpredictability had reminded her of how happy she’d been when she still believed that Avery and Mr. Renaissance were the men of her dreams.
But she’d been wrong then, just as she was wrong now. She knew Jeremy would solve the mystery today—okay, maybe it was just a feeling, but she was sure of it, since the answer was in one of the diaries and all he had to do was find it—and she had no doubt that he would have asked her to celebrate the solution with him. Had she been in town, the two of them would have spent most of the day together, and she didn’t want that. Then again, deep down, it was exactly what she wanted, leaving her feeling more confused than she’d been in years.
Doris had intuited every bit of it this morning when Lexie stopped by, but that wasn’t surprising. Lexie could feel the exhaustion around her own eyes and knew she looked like a wreck when she showed up out of the blue. After throwing a few days’ worth of clothes into the suitcase, she’d left her house without showering; she didn’t even attempt to explain what she was feeling. Even so, Doris had simply nodded when Lexie told her she had to go. Doris, tired though she was, seemed to understand that while she’d set the whole thing in motion, she hadn’t anticipated what might happen as a result. That was the thing about premonitions; while they might be accurate in the short term, anything beyond that was impossible to know.
So she’d come here because she had to, if only to preserve her sanity, and she’d return to Boone Creek when things were back to normal. It wouldn’t take long. In a couple of days, people would have stopped talking about the ghosts and the historic homes and the stranger in town, and the visiting tourists would be nothing but a memory. The mayor would be back on the golf course, Rachel would date the wrong sorts of men, and Rodney would probably find a way to accidentally bump into Lexie near the library, no doubt breathing a sigh of relief when he realized their relationship could go back to the way it once was.
Maybe it wasn’t an exciting life, but it was her life, and she wasn’t about to let anyone or anything upset the balance. In another place