Summer of Love by Marie Ferrarella (easy to read books for adults list .TXT) 📕

“No,” Everett responded quite seriously. “I’m not.”

After twelve hours of work on very little sleep, all she should be thinking about was getting some rest, nothing else. So why in heaven’s name did she suddenly feel what amounted to an all-consuming hot tingle passing over the length of her body just because Everett had said that he wasn’t sorry he’d called her back?

What was wrong with her?

Punchy, she was punchy. That had to be it, Lila decided.

Talk, damn it. Say something! she ordered herself. The silence was getting deafening.

Clearing her throat, Lila said, “Well, I have to admit that you surprised me today.”

“Oh?” Everett responded. “How so?”

Lila was honest with him. She felt it was the best way. “I didn’t think you had it in you to just keep going like this. And I really didn’t think you knew how to talk to children.”

“Why?” he asked. “Children are just short adults.”

Lila laughed, shaking her head. “You would be surprised how many doctors don’t really know how to talk to fully grown adults, much less to little children,” she told him.

“That’s right,” Everett recalled. “When we started out today you told me that you were there to act as the go-between.” He continued to look at her profile, curious. “So I guess I passed the test?”

The light turned green and Lila pressed down on the accelerator. Once they were moving again, she answered, “With flying colors.” Again she felt she had to tell him how surprised she was by his performance. “I didn’t think that you’d keep at it long enough to see all the people on the list.” She struggled to stifle a yawn. The long day was catching up to her. “But it’s kind of late now,” she told him needlessly.

“It is,” he agreed.

She glanced at the clock on the dashboard, even though she already knew what time it was. “Too late for you to be driving back to Houston tonight,” she told him.

“Are you offering to put me up?” he asked, doing his best to keep a straight face.

That startled her. “What? No, I just—”

“Take it easy,” he laughed. “You don’t have to worry. I’ve already talked to Schuyler. She’s expecting me. I’m spending the night at her place.”

“So that means that you’re not going back until sometime tomorrow?” Lila asked.

He laughed again. “I can see the wheels turning in your head. No, I’m not going back to Houston until the day after tomorrow. So, if you want me to make a few more house calls with you tomorrow, I’m available.”

That would be a huge help. She was still down a few volunteer doctors and she still hadn’t found any more replacements.

“Don’t toy with me, Everett,” she told him, casting a glance his way.

His eyes were smiling at her. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Her heart fluttered. She forced herself to face forward. “All right. If you don’t mind putting in some more time, then yes, absolutely. I could really use you for however much time you can spare.”

“All right, then, same time tomorrow?” he asked as she pulled into the Foundation’s parking lot.

“Make it eight-thirty,” she told him.

“I’ll be there,” he promised, getting out of her car.

“If you decide to change your mind,” she began, feeling obligated to give him a way out. After the day he had put in today, she didn’t want to force him to come in tomorrow.

But Everett cut her off. “I won’t,” he told her just before he walked over to his own car.

Lila caught herself smiling. She knew he meant it.

Chapter Eight

When Lila got up the next morning, she felt absolutely wiped out. If possible, she was even more tired than the day before. It was as if her get-up-and-go had physically gotten up and left.

“You’re just burning the candle at both ends,” she told the tired-looking reflection staring back at her in the bathroom mirror. “And maybe a little in the middle as well.”

The shower did not invigorate her the way it usually did.

Dragging herself over to her closet after her shower, Lila pulled out the first things she found and got dressed. She was staring down the barrel of another grueling day, but at least she had a doctor for part of it, she thought. And after Everett left for Houston, maybe she would get lucky and be able to scrounge up another volunteer physician to conduct the house calls that were left on the list.

Determined to make herself look a little more human than what she saw in her mirror, Lila patiently applied her makeup. She succeeded in making herself look a little less exhausted—or at least less like someone who had recently been run over by a truck. The last thing she wanted was to have Everett take one look at her this morning and breathe a sigh of relief that he had dodged a bullet thirteen years ago.

Lila was still struggling to pull herself out of what was for her an atypical funk when she drove to the Foundation. This just wasn’t like her, she thought. No matter how tired she felt, she never dragged like this, as if there was lead in her limbs.

C’mon, snap out of it! she silently ordered.

Just like the day before, when she drove into the parking lot, she found Everett sitting in his car, waiting for her.

When Everett saw her car approaching, he quickly got out of his vehicle. The cheery greeting on his lips didn’t get a chance to materialize because he took a closer look at her as she got out of her car.

“Are you feeling all right, Lila?” he asked her.

So much for makeup saving the day, Lila thought. “I’m just running a little behind,” she answered, deliberately being vague. Changing the subject, she asked, “Do I have you for half a day—or less?”

Rather than give Lila a direct answer, Everett told her, “Why don’t we play it by ear and see?”

Lila put her own spin on his words. Everett was setting the stage