Red Clover Inn. Carla Neggers
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Even if it hadn’t been his intent when he’d stopped at the wedding, he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation.
The scone was perfect, just what she needed. The nightmare that had been her brief, volatile relationship with Tommy Ferguson was behind her, and good riddance to it. She drank some of her tea. Still no hint of a headache. If her encounter with Tommy hadn’t triggered one, then maybe she was done with that particular fallout from her diving accident.
Weddings being what they were for her these days, she felt unsettled, self-conscious and slightly awkward, as if she’d done something wrong. She wasn’t usually introspective. If she had to have dreams tonight, she preferred them to be about Greg Rawlings and his taut abs, but she’d thought about him enough in the past thirty-six hours.
She’d booked her flights while on the train. She’d leave tomorrow for a two-week stay in the United States. She’d arrive in and leave from Boston but could easily change her return date or departure city and absorb any penalties. In addition to spending time in Knights Bridge, she’d fit in a trip to Washington to see about Max’s house. She had no firm schedule. That was new to her, but she tried to think of it as liberating rather than unnerving.
She took a meandering route back to her New Town apartment. A Samantha Bennett–Justin Sloan kind of love wasn’t in the cards for everyone. Any uncertainty she’d had about their relationship had evaporated yesterday. Unexpected and unconventional they might be, but Charlotte didn’t doubt that she’d be congratulating her cousin and her husband on their anniversary for decades to come. She didn’t want to believe she’d had her one chance at true love and had blown it by picking the wrong man, but she knew, deep down, that was exactly what she believed.
“Doesn’t matter,” she whispered to herself.
She had a good life in a beautiful city. That was what counted.
But if you can’t dive, Charlotte? Then what?
She shook off the question, as she had dozens of times since April. In the months since she and Tommy had parted ways, she’d focused on her work, letting it take over her life, and now she didn’t even have it, at least not in the same way. She’d spent a semester in Edinburgh as a graduate student and then returned three years ago when she started her job at the institute as a marine archaeologist and diver. The submarine project with Malcolm and Francesca Bennett had been exciting and all-consuming, and even before her accident, Charlotte had wondered what was next for her.
It had been such a stupid accident. A private excursion, not part of her job. If only she’d stayed home that weekend...
She swept her fingertips across a black iron fence, touching raindrops. Would Greg Rawlings like Edinburgh? Had he ever been here? She pictured herself walking hand in hand with him on a quiet, gray Sunday morning. It was a fun image, but she suspected her reaction to him had been sparked more by the romance in the air than anything they had in common.
Weddings, she thought with a shudder.
She didn’t want to stereotype him, but she had experience with his type. DS Agent Rawlings was a rough-and-tumble sort. He had an irreverent sense of humor, an obvious penchant for risk and, no doubt, considerable experience in dangerous conditions. The man was sexy as hell, but they had very little in common. Just as well she’d likely never see him again. The only scenario she could think of was if she happened to visit Samantha and Justin in Knights Bridge at the same time Brody and Heather were in town and Greg stopped to see them.
“Not likely,” Charlotte said, surprised at how much the improbability bothered her.
The drizzle turned to a gentle, persistent rain. She kept an umbrella in her tote bag but didn’t bother with it since she was only a block from her apartment. She picked up her pace and ran up the steps to her front door. Once inside, she hung her jacket on a hook where it could drip into her copper boot pan, shook the rain off her hair and went into her tiny bedroom, if not in a great mood at least less off balance than when she’d left for her scones—and decidedly more awake.
She unpacked her suitcase from the wedding and set it on her bed to pack again, but she was drawn to the window that looked out on her cobblestone courtyard. Her throat tightened with unexpected emotion as she took in the window boxes bursting with late-spring flowers, glistening as a ray of sunlight broke through the gray and chased off the drizzle. Edinburgh was so different from what she’d known growing up in the Washington suburbs, with summers on the Bennett family farm in rural New Hampshire. She loved her work with the institute.
You are at high risk for a recurrence of decompression illness if you dive again.
How high?
Very.
Her doctor had made clear a recurrence, although unpredictable, could be even more dangerous than what she’d experienced in April.
It’s not worth the risk, Charlotte.
Are you advising me never to dive again?
Yes.
She turned from the window. Maybe the risk factors had changed now that she’d recovered. Maybe her doctor would reconsider, or she could get another medical opinion.
She opened her closet.
Edinburgh was home now.
She’d be back.
The Cotswolds, England
At first Greg thought his bedside clock had stopped but his phone showed the same time. “Damn,” he said, setting his phone back on the bedside table. “Noon?”
He couldn’t remember ever sleeping until noon without a good reason, such as recovering from surgery for a gunshot wound, landing in a wildly different time zone or working all night. Even when, on the rare occasion, he’d had a bit too much to drink, he’d never slept until noon. He was a morning guy. Up with the crows.
“It’s this promotion,” he said, throwing off his duvet and sitting on the edge of the bed. It wasn’t in the top ten of comfortable beds he’d slept in, but it wasn’t in the bottom ten, either. Since he’d conked out until noon, it’d obviously done the job.
He rolled to his feet without a hint of stiffness or the deep fatigue he’d experienced when he’d first arrived in England. He peeked out the window. Gray. Wet. Not much wind. A good day to sleep in, except he had a plane to catch. He’d booked his flight last night and would be in Boston...well, he wasn’t sure. Sometime today.
He took a shower, got dressed and went downstairs. Breakfast was done. He didn’t see anyone else from yesterday’s wedding festivities. He ordered coffee and talked the waiter into bringing him toast and bacon and delivering it to him out back on the terrace. The waiter sent him off with a towel after Greg had assured him he didn’t mind the wet conditions. The rain had stopped. Fresh air was good before getting locked up in a plane for seven hours.
Since he was the only one on the terrace, he had his pick of tables and chose one by an urn of flowers. He dried off a chair and the tabletop and sat. He recognized pots of herbs, if only because they looked like herbs he’d seen in the grocery store. He’d always thought he’d have a garden one day. No idea why he’d thought that, since his family hadn’t exactly been gardeners. He’d never been around long enough to grow vegetables at home with Laura and the kids. He’d mow the yard and trim trees, and then he’d be off again.
His coffee arrived, hot and steamy, perfect in the damp, chilly conditions. The air felt great to him. He didn’t care he was the only one out here. Liked it, in fact. The waiter returned with toast and bacon, and Greg took his time, enjoying the good food, the quiet.
As lives went, his wasn’t a bad one.
He decided dessert was in order since he was having lunch and breakfast in one meal and ordered scones. Glorified biscuits in his world, but he didn’t want anything that would haunt him on the plane.