“I suppose the place is packed as usual.”
She shrugged. “Yes.” Her discomfort was evident in the way she refused to meet his gaze. “What are you doing here?”
He couldn’t admit to having come to town to walk off his troubles. As he stood there looking up at her, he suddenly wanted to go into Rigby’s and have something to eat, to spend time around people without any responsibility for them.
He wanted to have fun. “I suppose there are people in there I’d know.”
“Yeah. Lots of them,” she replied before she started down the steps toward him. Just as she reached him, she moved to the other railing and continued past him. “Good night.”
Was she simply going to walk past him as if he didn’t exist? He hadn’t expected to see her tonight, but now that he had, he didn’t intend to let her walk away. He crossed the stone steps, placing his hands on the railing in front of her. “Wait.”
* * *
NEILL WAS SO close she could touch him, but all the touching in the world would change nothing. “What is it?” she asked, focusing all her attention on the harbor spreading out to the horizon in the moonlight, the gentle bob of boats tugging at their moorings, anything to avoid looking at him.
“I was hoping you might go back inside with me.”
“And give everyone with a pulse reason to believe that you and I are back together?”
The moonlight heightened the expression of surprise on his face. “I hadn’t considered the possibility.”
In other words, nothing’s changed.
He moved to the step below her, his face level with hers, the full force of his appeal threatening her self-control. “Sherri, I don’t expect you to understand why I did what I did back then. But you have to admit that today has been a difficult day for both of us. Could we put aside our differences and have a drink and a bite to eat?”
She glanced up at the door to Rigby’s and back at him. “I can’t go back inside there with you.”
“Can I ask why?”
“Because we don’t have anything in common other than our work, and I won’t be the subject of idle gossip. You’re the lucky one, you realize.”
“How’s that?”
“You didn’t have to face being alone while you worked out what to do about a baby the father wasn’t interested in.”
“That’s not fair!” He scrubbed his face, ducked his head, started to say something and then stopped.
The look of sheer agony on his face had her gripping the railing to keep from reaching for him. “I’m sorry. That was cruel of me. I...I don’t want to talk about this, about us. You see, until you arrived here I had my life under control. I was at peace with my past and ready to move on. With you here it’s all come back. And I don’t like how it makes me feel.”
“Can we go somewhere and talk about this? We can’t work together with so much unspoken between us. I’ve hurt you. I’m back, and clearly I’m not welcome in your life. I understand that.”
He didn’t really understand anything, but she’d already said more than she’d intended.
“Would you be willing to go up the hill to Marco’s? You used to love having their meatloaf and Caesar salad with garlic toast.”
“Now what made you remember that of all things?” she asked, unable to keep a smile from forming on her face. She loved Marco’s Restaurant and always had. It was one of her favorite places, as much for the exuberance of Marco Speranza as for the food.
“How about it? A quick meal, no strings attached.”
What could she say that wouldn’t sound hurtful and mean-spirited? Neill was a good man and a great doctor, but it ended there. She supposed she could agree to go to the restaurant with him. But why should she? She wasn’t hungry. She didn’t need anything more to drink. “I can’t.”
“You won’t reconsider?” he asked, stepping back away from her.
Didn’t he get it? He hadn’t had to give up anything or change anything in his life twelve years ago. He’d simply taken her phone call and gone back to his world of being a medical student, while her life floundered against the certain knowledge that she had a child on the way.
“I don’t know what we’d have to say to each other that wouldn’t leave us sitting through an awkward silence. It’s been a busy week, and I need to get home. You have to appreciate just how difficult this is for me.”
“I do.”
He spoke so softly it felt more like a breath on her cheek than a spoken word. She would have been better off walking away than letting the feelings flushing through her hold sway. But with the moon on his hair and his eyes on her, she was beyond being able to stop any of it. “Oh, Neill, how did we get to this place? What happened to us?”
Confused, angry, hurt and now mortified that she’d asked the very question that had haunted her all those lonely nights, she gasped for air. Tears began their bitter sting against her lashes. She couldn’t stand there any longer, knowing that if she did, she would succumb to his request to go to the restaurant with him.
Afraid her knees might not work, and clutching her purse to her side, she summoned her courage and began to move. She went around him down the steps and started walking back to Gayle’s place.
“Sherri!” Neill called, his voice filled with urgency. “Wait!”
“Don’t!” she said, tossing a warning glance over her shoulder.
She raced up the hill away from the pub, searching the night air for any sound of his feet treading the cobblestones behind her. Resisting the urge to look back, she increased her speed. When she finally reached Gayle’s driveway, out of breath, her face soaked in tears, she got in her car and drove home.
* * *
ON SUNDAY MORNING, all Neill could think about was Sherri and the self-loathing that had kept him company as he’d walked back to his house on Friday night, his appetite gone and his thoughts weighed down by the idea that he had only made things worse between them.
Sherri had made it clear just how hurt and angry she still was. His only defense was that twelve years ago he was a different person—uncertain, yet driven by those uncertainties to succeed regardless of the cost. And now more than at any other time in his career, he knew the real cost of his behavior toward Sherri and their baby.
Deep down, he knew the real reason he hadn’t gone to her in Bangor, and it had nothing to do with her not answering the phone. He hadn’t known what to do. He couldn’t have told his parents, and he hadn’t known where to turn for advice. Even worse, he was ashamed at the relief he’d felt when she hadn’t returned his calls.
Earlier this morning, he’d driven Morgan over to her grandmother’s on his way to the hospital to check on two of his patients. He planned to return to his mother’s house for lunch, and he wanted Morgan to spend time with Lilly before the meal. He’d agreed to the meeting at her place rather than at his new home because having Lilly at his house the other night had been a mistake. Just as he’d feared, at the end of the evening, Morgan had wanted her mother to stay rather than go back to the Wayfarer’s Inn.
If there had ever been any doubt about whether or not he should have ended his marriage, it had been erased over the past couple of days that Lilly had been in Eden Harbor. When she’d arrived at the hospital, she’d been solicitous and supportive of Morgan and appreciative of his efforts to be a good parent, but he was coming to realize that Lilly was at her best when words were all that was required. It was a different story when actions were needed to back up the words.
When Lilly had come over for dinner, she had chatted to Morgan in between taking long calls