Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Xavier blinked, stunned and puzzled, as Emily raced away from him for a second time with little more than a hastily stammered excuse.
That was… Well, it was strange, wasn’t it?
He frowned for a moment as he let her walk away. He wasn’t deluding himself. If she walked away this time, it was probably for good. Running into her at her work was one thing. Doing it again would just make him seem like a creep. Thank goodness for online banking, otherwise he’d have to switch to the bank in Blueberry Bay.
And it was her right, of course, to not want to see him any longer. They’d gone on one date. It wasn’t like she owed him her life story if she didn’t want to go on another date with him. He was a grown man. He could process the disappointment.
But those thoughts faded as quickly as they came because something nagged at him, tugging at the corner of his mind in a way that felt like instinct. In his career, Xavier had learned to trust those instincts. The time that something had told him that Lily Porter’s runny nose was just a case of the sniffles like kids got all the time at that age. And, sure enough, a few more tests had showed that Lily had a really serious virus, one that could have been devastating if left untreated for much longer. Or even the simpler cases, where instinct told him to run an x-ray on an ankle that was probably just a sprain but turned out to be a fracture that might have gotten worse without a cast. It was the instinct that whispered in his brain, “ You’re missing part of the story. ”
He heard those whispers now, so, before Emily could vanish from the parking lot and, as a result, from his life, he squared his shoulders and went after her.
“Emily, hey! Wait!” he called.
If she kept walking away, he wouldn’t pursue her further. Tingling instincts didn’t mean he could disregard Emily’s wishes or barge past the boundaries she set for herself.
After a moment’s hesitation in which Xavier’s heart pounded furiously in his chest, her feet did come to a stop. He saw her heave in one more breath before she turned to face him.
She looked… sad. Stressed and sad. And it made the part of him that was a doctor who liked to heal and the part of him that was a man who liked a woman ache with worry for her. He approached until he was within a reasonable distance for talking but not so close that she would feel crowded.
“Emily,” he said softly. “Listen, it might be none of my business. Heck, I know it’s none of my business. But it really seems like there’s something bothering you, and…” He chose his words carefully. “And, if you’ll let me, I’d like to make it my business. Like I said, I think you’re great. And if what’s making you feel scared or stressed is just the idea of dating… we don’t have to do that. We can be friends, if you’re open to it. And even if you don’t want to be close, I have to say, I’m a pretty good listener.”
He gave her his gentlest smile, the one he used on doctor-shy patients.
She nibbled her lip like she was considering.
He waited, feeling like he was holding his breath, although it gusted out of him when she shook her head.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she insisted. It was not the least bit believable.
He felt his own smile grow sad. He wanted to help her, wanted to be there for her, but not at the expense of making her uncomfortable. Still, he had just one last thing to say.
“I’m not sure that’s true,” he said, keeping his voice as gentle as he could, so that she knew this wasn’t an accusation or something intended to hurt her. “And you don’t have to tell me. But I do think you should tell someone , Emily, whether it’s a friend or a family member or a therapist. Because it seems like whatever is going on, it’s really getting you down. And I don’t want that for you. And I doubt you want it for yourself.” He took a step backward, although he didn’t look away from her. “Just think about it, okay? And if you ever decide you’re looking for a friend… or maybe even a date, you still have my number.”
He turned to leave, planning to head directly back to his car. He could do his banking tomorrow, or, better yet, ask the receptionist from his practice to run over so he didn’t risk running into Emily. Not pressuring her was the right thing to do, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t disappointing.
“Xavier, wait.”
He hadn’t made it two steps before she called him back. He turned to face her, hope flickering in his chest. She was gnawing her lip again, but this time there was an undercurrent of determination to the gesture.
She tilted her head toward her car. “It’s cold out here. Want to sit with me?”
“Yeah,” he said, hoping that didn’t sound too eager. She unlocked her car and slid into the driver’s seat while he took the passenger seat. Though they were getting into the latter half of March, it wasn’t quite “going out like a lamb” yet. Still, getting out of the wind was enough to keep the worst of the chill at bay, without Emily needing to turn on the heat. She looked absently out the windshield while he waited, letting her take her time.
“Okay,” she said after a long, quiet moment. “Let me get this all out, okay?”
“Sure,” he agreed. The hope had turned into a fluttering hummingbird that made his heart race.
“Okay,” she said again. “So, I used to own a business with my best friend. We met in college—I was a business major, and she was a chemistry major. At first, we didn’t have much in common, but we bonded over this and that. When we graduated, we started working on this idea for eco-friendly cleaning products because Simone was allergic to one of the ingredients that’s in a lot of stuff, mostly floor cleaners and other heavy-duty things. But it got us thinking.”
She half-smiled as she reminisced, although it held a touch of bitterness to it.
“At first, it was a side gig, right? We were in our early twenties, had this drive and energy, so we’d go to our day jobs, then come home and work on our big entrepreneurial dreams. It took about a year or two, which I now realize is so short but felt really long back then, but it took off. If you’ve ever heard of Green Clean Girls, that was us. GCG. The brand exploded. In three or so years, things went from being just Simone and me and a little rental space we had for our equipment and supplies to having twenty employees, then fifty, then a hundred. Since I was the business side of things, I was the ‘face’ of the company. I did magazine interviews, slots on news shows, the whole nine yards. Everyone wanted to talk about our story, about two friends hitting it big, and about our values to keep eco-consciousness at the top of our priority list.”
She sighed. The windshield was beginning to fog as their body heat warmed the inside while the outside was still battered by late spring chills.
“The thing about green practices is that they’re more expensive than the stuff that damages the environment. That’s why most companies do it. They’re not actively trying to hurt the ecosystem—they just don’t care. They only want to make a buck. So Simone and I were making a good living, but we weren’t getting filthy rich like some other leads of major companies… which is what ours was becoming. I thought it was worth it. I figured that paying our employees a fair wage and not poisoning the earth was more important than millions and millions of dollars.” She let out a short, bitter laugh. “Simone, as it happens, did not agree.”
On an impulse, Xavier reached out and grasped her hand in his. She still didn’t look at him, but he felt a flicker of something like hope when she didn’t pull free from his grip on her fingers.
“I found out—” She broke off, cleared her throat, and tried again. “I found out that Simone had been stealing from the company. She’d been buying non-eco-friendly ingredients, claiming they were the more expensive green stuff, and then pocketing the difference.” This time, when she laughed, it wasn’t bitter. It just sounded sad. “I… couldn’t believe it, at first. I mean, the whole reason we’d started was because of her allergy. She could be setting up others to have the same reaction, these painful, itchy hives. Not to mention that it would ruin the whole company’s image and reputation when it got out. And nobody can keep something like that hidden forever. It always comes out.”
Xavier’s heart ached at the clear pain in her voice. She wasn’t saying it out loud, but he could sense that the thing that hurt the most wasn’t the loss of her business. It was her friend’s betrayal.
“She told me it was my fault, for not paying her what she was worth, for caring more about the salaries of a random worker than her best friend. She really said that! She really said that we should pay our employees an unlivable wage so she could, what, get rich? And then, when I brought the matter to our board, because by then we were big enough that we had a whole corporate structure, I learned that she had been trying to pin the whole thing on me . So when it blew up, I’d be the one who went down.”
She used her free hand to swipe angrily at her eyes.
“The story went… Well, it went nuclear, to be honest. We were pariahs in the business world. If I hadn’t discovered it when I did, I could have faced prison time. A lot of time, because corporate embezzlement is a big deal. And I would have been forced to pay the money back… which of course, I couldn’t do, because I hadn’t stolen it in the first place. So while Simone was saying that I was a bad friend for not recognizing her value, she thought that I deserved, what? To go to jail?”
Her voice was thick, and it took all of Xavier’s willpower not to reach for her to wipe away her tears himself.
“I was the face of the company, so when the scandal broke, I was the face of the disaster too. At first, I thought it might be contained. I was a businesswoman, not a celebrity, you know? But then people started stopping me in the streets, asking how I could do such a thing, asking how I could basically poison people with chemicals that weren’t properly listed. They didn’t know the full story, but that doesn’t really matter that much when someone’s yelling at you that you gave their baby a rash that didn’t fade for a month. And even if I knew I hadn’t done those things, even if I knew Simone was really the one who had put people’s safety and our company at risk, I still started to feel like I was a failure.”
Her tone was gradually calming, although it still sounded defeated in a way that Xavier wanted to soothe. But he minded his promise to let her get everything out before he spoke.
“I went from feeling like I’d gotten the life I wanted through hard work and trusting the right people to not trusting anything about my decision making. And the way people shrunk away from me for all those months, like my failure was contagious, made me feel so isolated.” She shrugged. “Who would want to get involved with that drama and scandal? So I moved to Whale Harbor, took a job at the bank, and didn’t look back. Then, when your friend at the hospital seemed to recognize me, I… panicked. Not only because I didn’t want her to recognize me, although that’s true too. But I didn’t want you to know who I am—who I was and look at me differently.”
She took one last deep breath, then finally turned to look at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her cheeks damp from the tears she hadn’t managed to keep at bay.
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “That’s my story. Now you know.”
Xavier gave into his impulse and reached out to cup her cheek, rubbing his thumb gently against the tear track lingering there.
“Thank you for telling me that,” he said as she leaned into his touch, her eyes fluttering closed. “But, Emily… I already knew it.”
Her eyes popped open, wide and shocked. “You did?” she gasped.
He gave her a soft smile. “I’m a small-town doctor,” he said by way of explanation. “When we get magazines in our waiting room, they stick around for a long time. It wasn’t until after I’d seen you around town a few times that I realized you were the same person as on the cover of one of the old business magazines we had kicking around. I got rid of it as soon as I realized you were local,” he added hastily as a flicker of nerves crossed her expression. “Whale Harbor is full of wonderful people, but they can be a touch nosy at times… with only good intentions, of course,” he added with a wry chuckle.
“Right,” she said with her own little laugh, although hers sounded more shocked than anything else. “So you knew the whole story? Why didn’t you say something?”
“Well, I figured you’d tell me when you were ready. And I didn’t know the whole story,” he amended. “I didn’t know a lot of the background—and let me add, I am so sorry that your friend betrayed you like that. That’s a horrible thing to experience, and I think it makes perfect sense that it affected your confidence. But the story as I knew it was that you were a whistleblower, essentially. That you caught something in your company before it got worse.”
“Some of the press did frame it like that,” she murmured. “But compared to all the shouting that felt like it was everywhere, all the time… it was hard to hear those more supportive voices.”
“The angry voices are always the loudest. But when I pieced together this part of your story, it didn’t change how I felt about you.” He took in a deep breath. She had been wonderfully vulnerable and trusting with him, so he could offer her the same trust. “And, in case that’s not clear, what it meant was that I had a huge crush on this gorgeous woman I kept seeing out and about.”
She smiled, soft and tentative, as a flush graced her cheeks. “You did?” she asked.
“I did.” He stroked her cheek once more. “And to be extra, extra clear, the past tense isn’t because my crush went away… it’s because it matured into something more as I got to know you better.”
Her smile grew a fraction. “I haven’t scared you off?” she asked, like she was just starting to dare to hope.
He let his expression mirror hers. “You haven’t scared me off,” he said with a chuckle. And then, because his admission of liking her wasn’t nearly as difficult as the things she’d told him, he pushed himself for a little more honesty. “The thing is, Emily, I’ve been… in a little bit of a rut, to be honest. For a long time, it didn’t bother me. Work was my life, and it was a life that I liked. And then I hit a point where it started to feel like not enough. But I still didn’t know what to do with myself.”
This time, she squeezed his hand, and it made him brave enough to continue.
“And that was harder,” he admitted. “Because I felt so alone and wasn’t sure how to get myself out of that space.” He smiled, and suddenly telling her the truth wasn’t hard at all. “And then I met you and I… felt not alone.”
“Yeah?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yeah,” he said. It was simple and perfect and true. With her, he did not feel alone. And it was such a marvelous feeling. “So if it’s okay with you, I’d really like to get to know you better. And then maybe we can feel not-alone together for a while.”
Emily felt a little like the ground had fallen out from beneath her—and not in an unpleasant way either.
Xavier’s easy admission that he had known all about GCG and the scandal that had sent her scurrying to Whale Harbor had shocked her to her core. His reminder that some of the press about her story had gone in her favor had felt like a warm hug. And his request to get to know her better felt like hope.
It hadn’t really occurred to her that the beloved town doctor might be feeling as lonely as she did.
He looked at her now, his hand still on her face like it belonged there, his gaze optimistic but not expectant. She felt like he really saw her , Emily Harper, not the caricature of a failed businesswoman.
How long had it been since she felt like her true self?
And, goodness, it had felt so good to finally tell her story. She’d spent so long hiding and trying not to look at the ugly pain of her past that she’d let it grow bigger than she could handle, like the monster under the bed. But, like that imagined monster, shining a light and really looking showed her that it was just shadows and dust bunnies. Yes, her history with Simone and her company was painful. And no, one good conversation wasn’t likely to eliminate all her concerns about her judgment.
But it was a good start. And she felt so, so relieved to have taken that step and so, so grateful to Xavier for pushing her down that road.
“You mean it?” she asked.
“I very much mean it,” he said.
Her grin felt big, too big for her face, impossible to contain. “Okay,” she said. “Yes. I would love to go out with you again, Doctor Xavier Lofton.”
“I am very glad to hear it, Ms. Emily Harper,” he said, with a wild smile to match her own. “Dinner?”
“Yeah, dinner,” she agreed. Their first date had been so wonderful, and it felt amazing to look forward to a second one without all her usual anxiety over her identity being known.
“Amazing,” he said. He finally released her cheek and hand as he dug into his pocket for his phone. “Okay, I fully admit that I have been living in a seaside town for too long if I know this, but it’s a great time of year for cod, so they’ll have a great catch in at Harvest Grocery Store. We could drop by and get something caught fresh this morning, and then I do a mean fish fry, if I do say so myself?—”
“Wait, wait,” Emily said with a laugh, interrupting him. “You want to have dinner tonight ?”
He gave her a look that was a bit more mischievous than his usual calm, steadying presence. Emily had to admit that she liked this playfulness on him.
“I do,” he said. “For one, it’s dinnertime right now, and since you’re sitting in a car with me, I know you haven’t started cooking anything yet. For another, do you think I’m going to give you another chance to back out? I just convinced you to go out with me again!”
She let out a startled laugh, the sound bright and happy.
“You make some good points,” she said. “Okay, let’s go get what we need for Xavier Lofton’s famous fish fry.”
“Well, I don’t know about famous, but I will say one thing: you will not be disappointed,” he promised as he directed her toward the center of town, the grocery store only a few minutes away from her job.
There was, she thought, not for the first time and certainly not for the last time either, something to be said for small towns.
Indeed, the man behind the fish counter not only had a cod ready and prepared, but he also knew the fisherman who had caught it by name.
“Antonio brought this one in, Doctor Lofton,” he said, gesturing to the massive fillet. “You know, the young guy who works on whale watching in season? Brought it fresh today. You won’t find anything frozen at my store, no sir. I also have this wonderful asparagus salad that goes beautifully with a white fish, so if you’re looking to have a nice side to go with it…”
Emily bit back a smile as the white-haired man showed off his offerings to Xavier with all the boasting of a proud father. She had to hide the overly fond look from her face in turn when she noticed how attentively Xavier listened to the man go on about fish. She’d already caught a few sidelong glances from the other store patrons, after all.
Somehow the idea of being grist for the Whale Harbor gossip mill didn’t feel as suffocating as it would have felt only this morning, however. It had settled inside her that this place, these people, were different. They wouldn’t be gossiping about the failed businesswoman who deserved everything coming to her, as so many people had spat at her on the street in New York City. They would be rooting for her and Xavier to find happiness together.
Emily admitted that she liked the idea too.
Shaking her head at the way her romantic flights of fancy were getting away from her, Emily slipped off while Xavier was drawn into a robust debate about the benefits of panko breading versus baking with lemon butter when it came to fresh cod. She ducked over to the baked goods section and purchased a small chocolate cake that was just the right size for two. She purchased and had it tucked away in a brown paper bag by the time Xavier came to the front, arms laden with ingredients.
“Sorry about that,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. “That’s one thing about being the town doctor. Everybody knows you and they all want to chat.”
She smiled. “It was nice. You’re a wonderful listener.”
“Yeah?” he asked shyly, before teasingly turning her own words back on her. “I didn’t scare you away, then?”
“Not even a bit,” she confirmed, stepping aside so he could check out his purchases.
When he caught a glimpse of the paper bag she carried, he frowned. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I asked you out. I should be the one getting dinner.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, patting her bag softly. “This is just dessert.”
His expression brightened. “I guess I really didn’t scare you off if you’re already thinking about having dessert together,” he teased as she blushed.
The drive back to his house was also quick, revealing that he and Emily lived only a few streets away from one another.
“In fairness,” Xavier said as he dug through his pockets for his keys, “in a town like Whale Harbor, everything is really only a few streets from each other. Also, be warned: you are about to be attacked with cuteness.”
“I am?”
“Oh, yeah… well, she doesn’t jump or anything. But she’s the cutest dog in the whole wide world, so you’ll want to prepare emotionally.”
She laughed, charmed by his love for his pet. And, indeed, when he opened his door to a dog happily spinning around in circles at excitement over her owner’s return, Emily did, in fact, feel her heart melt.
“Hi there, Coco,” Xavier said, lifting the grocery bag out of reach with one hand while he reached down with the other to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “This is Emily. Be nice. We like her.”
Emily felt herself blush at this, although she felt she covered it up well by handing off her own bag to Xavier so she could kneel down and give Coco the attention she deserved.
“Hello there, pretty girl,” she greeted as the dog gave her hand a sweet little lick. “Your dad was right. You are the cutest dog I’ve ever seen.”
Xavier beamed, as proud as any pet parent could be at the praise to his pup.
“Do you mind letting her out back while I get started in the kitchen?” he asked, pointing toward a sliding glass door that let out into a fenced-in yard. “I’ll open a bottle of wine too, if you’d like some?”
“Yeah, that sounds amazing,” Emily said, crossing the living room while Coco frolicked behind her, excitement renewed as she realized she was going outside. “Do I need to wait outside with her?”
Xavier stuck his head back out of the kitchen he’d just entered, an adorable look of dismay on his face. “Goodness, no! You’d freeze. She’ll tap on the door with her nails when she’s ready to come back in. We’ll hear her.”
Emily found, however, that she got a certain peace out of watching Coco frolic. The dog made two running laps around the yard before trotting off to a corner that seemed to be her favorite spot for digging. When she came back in a few minutes later, she was grinning a little doggy grin.
The duo went together into the kitchen, where Xavier was just sliding the prepared fish into the oven. Emily accepted the offered glass of wine while Coco went to slurp at her water bottle.
The two humans settled in at Xavier’s small kitchen table as the delicious smell of cooking filled the air, making Emily’s stomach grumble. Xavier put out some baba ganoush and fresh-baked pita that he’d picked up at the grocery store as a quick appetizer, as well as a small dish of olives, and the two snacked while they waited for their main meal to be ready.
“You don’t have any pets, right?” he confirmed as he swirled his wine idly. “I feel like we discussed this on our first date.”
“No,” she confirmed sadly. “I always wanted a dog, but it seemed mean to have one in the city, since my apartment was so small, and I worked so much.”
“Well, Coco seems to have adopted you,” he said with a chuckle, looking down at where the dog had settled in with her head on Emily’s foot.
“That’s only because she’s the best dog ever,” Emily cooed, reaching down to give the sleepy dog some more scratches.
“This was my plan all along,” Xavier joked. “My secret to securing a third date: Coco.”
The conversation flowed easily between them. Emily thought it seemed even more effortless than it had on their first date, as if her unburdening herself had made things more wonderful between them than she could have imagined. Xavier’s fish came out of the oven looking and tasting perfect, the lemon butter he’d been convinced to try a light, delightful accompaniment to the buttery, flaky fish. With it, they had the shaved asparagus salad and roasted potatoes crusted with herbs.
Neither of them moved to call the night quits as they finished eating and moved on to dessert, the chocolate cake Emily had chosen sumptuous and decadent. When they finished their slices, neither of them leaving so much as a flick of frosting on their plates, Emily rose to help Xavier with the dishes despite his protests. They moved through the motions of tidying up together like they’d done it a thousand times before. It filled Emily with a gentle, warm sort of satisfaction.
And still, even when everything was cleaned and dried, the dishwasher humming quietly in the background, their conversation didn’t lull. She only had a momentary flicker of worry that she was overstaying her welcome. Then Xavier lifted their half-drunk bottle of wine.
“Want to move to the living room?”
She really, really did.
They settled on either ends of Xavier’s couch, discussing everything and nothing. Emily told him about her worries about moving to New England as she was a die-hard Yankees fan and knew this was Red Sox country. He told her about how his nieces were obsessed with painting his nails, making each finger a different color and then laughing until they cried while they called him “Uncle Rainbow Hands.” She told him about how she’d become a total snob about homemade pizza dough after she’d found a perfect recipe for it and promised to make it for him sometime soon.
Things flowed so wonderfully and easily between them that Emily was astonished to realize, at one point, that the sun was coming up on the far side of the glass doors. Her mouth dropped open as she looked at Xavier in surprise.
“Um,” she said. “I think it’s morning.”
He blinked at her like her words didn’t make sense, before reaching for his phone. “Oh my goodness,” he said. “It is. I think we were… up all night.”
After one more long moment of staring at one another in shock, they broke into helpless laughter.
“I think we’re too old for this kind of thing,” Emily said through her laughter. “We’re going to be paying for it today.”
The happiness that shone through his eyes made her heart swell to bursting.
“Worth it,” he said.
Even though she didn’t feel tired, even though she felt as though she could talk to him forever, Emily decided that she probably did need to get home. They deposited their long since empty wine glasses in the kitchen, then headed toward the front door. Emily was just slipping into her shoes when Xavier winced.
“Uh, I hate to ask you this, but can you do me a favor? Because I only now just realized that I left my car at the bank last night.”
With a startled laugh, she held out her hand, and they left into the morning sunshine together.