Page 80 of Paging Dr. Summers

The house was too quiet for Brooke to be there—I would have heard lively chatter. Maybe everyone was out on the beach.

I stepped into the kitchen, and there was Eden sitting on a stool, aimlessly staring at a gift bag on the counter.

“Oh, hey,” I said. “I didn’t realize you were here. Where’s Brooke?”

“Gone,” Eden whispered, her eyes fixed on the bag.

I nodded, shrugging off the unease in her voice, assuming she meant that Brooke was at home and had forgotten her bike was at my house. “I’m going to head over to her place.”

Eden lifted her head. Her vacant eyes met mine. “She’s not there.”

“Where is she?”

“Logan, she left.” Her voice warbled.

I gripped the counter. Eden must have meant she was on a girl’s trip with Lola or something. Brooke wouldn’t just leave. Would she?

“Eden, please tell me where she is,” I begged.

Eden hesitated before she nudged the bag across the counter toward me with a pitying expression. “Brooke is on her way back to Nebraska. She left this for you.”

My head buzzed, trying to make her words mean something else—anything but the truth.

“Why?” was all I could think to ask. None of this made sense.

Eden’s pitying expression turned to chastisement. “Why do you think? She’s obviously in love with you, and you left her—right after she found out about her father, no less.”

Now, looking back, perhaps it wasn’t the brightest choice, but ...

“I didn’t leave her.” I thought it was important to make the distinction. “And she knew I was coming back,” I added, as if that would exonerate me from the damage I’d obviously caused. Then Eden’s words slapped me in the face. “You think she’s in love with me?”

Eden stood, shaking her head at me. “Yes, she’s in love with you, you idiot. That’s why she left. She doesn’t think there’s room for her in your life, and you proved her right leaving like you did.”

Hell.A panic unlike anything I’d ever felt consumed me. What had I done? “I left to make room for her,” I said, feeling out of breath.

Eden rolled her eyes. “You probably should have mentioned that.”

“I didn’t know what the outcome would be,” I responded, searching for an excuse. “I wasn’t even sure if Brooke wanted somethingmore. I was only trying to do the right thing—make sure neither of us had any regrets.”

The words felt flimsy even as I said them, but I needed Eden to understand. I needed her to see that I hadn’t meant for things to fall apart like this. Or to hurt Brooke. That was the last thing I wanted to do.

“Yeah, well, again, you should have articulated that.” She berated me with zero sympathy.

I grabbed the bag Brooke had left as if the answer to my dilemma was in there and dumped the contents on the counter. Out tumbled a pink photo album covered in heart stickers, the bracelet she’d made at the Strawberry Festival, and an envelope with my name written across the front in Brooke’s neat, familiar handwriting. I snatched the letter, and Eden grabbed the album and started flipping through it.

“Look at all these cute photos of you two in here. You look happy. You really are an idiot, Logan.” She drove that point home. Again.

Believe me, I got the message. I ripped the envelope open, careful not to tear the letter, and pulled out the paper, the smell of which was reminiscent of Brooke’s soft floral scent. As soon as I unfolded it, her words spilled off the page. I couldn’t digest them fast enough.

Dear Logan,

How could I have ever known how the words “Paging Dr. Summers” would change my life on my first day in Aspen Lake? When you walked into that ER room, I felt this immediate connection. I know I thoroughly embarrassed myself that day, inadvertently coming on to you and asking if you wanted to be my summer fling. There was just something about you that was so familiar. And mixed with your ridiculous good looks and how nervous I get around hospitals and doctors, it was a lethal combination sure to bring on word vomiting.

I couldn’t help but smile, thinking of the day she’d come crashing into my life. It was one of the strangest encounters I had ever had. Yet there was no denying the instant attraction or the immediate guilt that I now regretted. That guilt had created a barrier that should never have come between us.

I don’t think it was any coincidence that we met that day or thatwe became neighbors. It was like my mom knew I needed you in my life, even if just for a short while.

It was a gift. All of it. Even the heartache I feel now, because it tells me that what we had was real and good and worth the hurt. And oh, man, does this hurt.

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