Page 32 of A Future in the Bay

She checked the time and continued to pace. She found herself wondering if she would ever find someone who was a good match for her. She felt that she wouldn’t be able to let go of her need for structure—she could never understand how other people could be so haphazard. Would she be able to find someone who was as careful about details as she was? She was beginning to think that was very unlikely.

By the time her tea was fully steeped, her mind was filled with questions about what a healthy relationship would look like for her. She took her mug and sat down at the kitchen table, drinking the hot liquid carefully.

Was there a middle ground? she wondered. Could she find someone who was willing to compromise, and accept the way she liked to do things? Could she compromise too, and learn to not care quite so much about how everything was done?

She took another sip of her tea, savoring the herbal flavor. Outside, the wind whistled against her apartment, rattling the windowpane a little bit. She heard a car passing on the street below, and she felt surprised—and, strangely, a little less lonely. It felt good to know that she wasn’t the last person left awake in the whole town.

She sat quietly for a while, mulling over her thoughts. In the past, she’d never had a lot of time for just sitting and thinking. Her workload in New Hampshire has been so heavy that she’d been constantly going from working to running errands to working out to cooking to spending time with Ron to sleeping to working again. She’d managed to get it all done with a precision that was just shy of superhuman, but nevertheless it had been exhausting. Now that her workload was so much lighter in Blueberry Bay, she was finding that she had a lot of time on her hands, and she felt uncomfortable with it. She didn’t know what to do with all that time—she wasn’t used to just doing nothing. It was as if she was a machine that was always set to high power mode, and she was finding herself having to learn how to be in medium or even low power mode.

She felt uncomfortable with her new schedule. Her new, slower pace of life was giving her a lot of time to think. And meeting the residents of Blueberry Bay and seeing how they lived their lives was giving her a lot to think about. All of the people in town appeared to operate at the slower pace that she seemed to have been forced into—and they all seemed happier than the busy people in New Hampshire had been.

Could she really start a new life there in Blueberry Bay? She felt so different from all the people she’d met there. They were wonderful—she liked them a great deal—but she felt as if she was coming from another planet or something like that. The energy with which she lived her life was so different from theirs. She thought about Olivia, who had seemed so happy when she talked about her family and her boyfriend. She’d seemed like such a genuine, compassionate person. And then there was Caitlin, who had been so kind and sweet.

Gwen took another sip of tea, wondering if she would ever be able to fit into Blueberry Bay. She tried to picture herself as a thriving member of the community, and she couldn’t quitemanage it. She had a feeling she would need to change before that could happen, and she didn’t want to change.

She sat quietly for a while longer, slowly drinking her tea and at last feeling herself become sleepy. She stood up, rinsed out her cup, and set it inside the dishwasher. Then she crawled back into bed and shut her eyes, enjoying the feeling of the cool sheets against her cheek.

Would she ever fit into Blueberry Bay? she wondered as drowsiness swept over her.

And would she ever find the kind of person that she could build a life with?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Isaiah whistled to himself as he walked along the sidewalk toward Gwen’s private medical clinic. It had been several days since his injury, and he was on his way to get his stitches taken out. He was looking forward to getting them removed, and he was also looking forward to seeing Gwen again. He was curious to see if she’d warmed up to him at all since the last time he saw her.

He opened the front door of the clinic, and was greeted in a friendly manner by Heidi, who then led him back to the examination room. He sat down, waiting for Dr. Gwen to arrive and feeling a mixture of excited and slightly nervous.

She stepped inside the room, looking prettier than usual in mint green scrubs. Her cheeks were a little flushed, and the added color seemed to bring out the intensity of her eyes.

“How are you feeling?” she asked briskly, still maintaining her no-nonsense doctor’s tone.

“I think I might live after all,” he said, grinning at her. “How are you feeling?”

She gave him a polite smile, but he got the impression that she was trying not to laugh, and that delighted him. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said primly, going to prepare her tools.

She removed his stitches in her quick, dexterous manner. “Keep your hand bandaged for a few more days, until the wound is fully healed. It’s important to keep bacteria out.” She continued to talk as she sanitized his hand and rebandaged it, giving him careful instructions on how to care for his healing cut. He heard everything she was saying, but he was finding it a little difficult to concentrate. He liked the precise, efficient way with which she spoke—he found it impressive that she was so good at her job.

“Anything else, Doctor?” he asked when she had finished bandaging his hand.

“Just don’t intentionally impale yourself again,” she said dryly, and he grinned.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, pleased by her quip and even more pleased about the way her eyes were twinkling. He could see a teasing glint in her eyes, and he liked it. “For your sake, I’ll refrain from impaling myself.”

“For my sake?” she countered, cocking her head. “What about for your own sake?”

“Oh no,” he said, grinning. “Only for you.”

He was allowing himself to be more flirtatious with her, leaning forward and maintaining eye contact with her. She smiled at him, a little coyly, and his chest filled with butterflies.

“I’ll walk you out into the lobby,” she said, hurrying over to the door as if she suddenly felt awkward.

He stood up and followed her, keeping his eyes fixed on the back of her head and trying not to grin too much. He wondered what was going through her mind.

As they stepped through the doorway into the lobby, he heard his sister Olivia’s voice. His eyebrows lifted as he saw Olivia standing at the front desk, talking to Heidi.

“Isaiah!” Olivia said, feigning total surprise when she saw him. “What are the chances we’d be here at the same time?”

He had to suppress a laugh. His sister was pretending it was a huge coincidence that she was there at the same time that he had his appointment, but he knew it wasn’t a coincidence—he’d told Olivia when his appointment was. After a second, he remembered that Olivia had made a point of asking him when his appointment was, so it was clear she had been scheming this moment for a while.

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