And Sandeep was a bit perplexed by the interaction, considering this was the same girl currently laboring under the delusion that her recently deceased husband was still alive. But at the moment she didn’t look particularly concerned about him.
Oh, well. It was none of his business what went on in this town. After he finished the stitches, bandaged the boy’s hand, and sent the couple out into the dark night, he settled back down into his microfiber recliner and picked up his now-lukewarm tea. After a less-than-satisfying sip, he pressed play on the remote, allowing the Dowager Countess to come alive and relishing the fact that he preferred his drama on television, where it belonged.
—
It was past ten thirty and dark as pitch by the time Piper and Anders silently made their way back to the bed-and-breakfast, like two soldiers just returning from war.
They turned down the lane between the houses, and at the foot of Piper’s stairs leading up to the carriage house, Anders finally spoke.
“I’m, uh . . . sorry you had to see that.”
Piper lifted her right shoulder and let it drop. “Blood doesn’t really bother me.”
“I was more talking about the crying? And the . . . squealing. I honestly didn’t know my voice could go that high. Oh, and the cursing—I cursed, didn’t I?” Anders had nearly blacked out from the pain of it all, and gratefully only had flashes of memory. He had the distinct feeling he’d be a lot more embarrassed if he remembered the whole of it.
“A lot.” She nodded.
“Yes. Sorry about that.” Anders’s eye was drawn to Piper’s right hand, where she was absentmindedly massaging her palm with her left thumb. “Oh, God, your hand!”
Anders reached for it, holding it gently in his uninjured hand. “I hurt you, squeezing it so tight?”
Piper wanted to respond—reassure him she was fine—but her breath had suddenly evacuated her lungs. The sensation of Anders’s thumb slowly running over her knuckles, gently inspecting each one for damage, caused a jolt of electricity to run up her arm, making the tiny hairs stand on end. As if she hadn’t been touched in months. As if she hadn’t been touched ever. Piper took a small step backward, taking her hand with her.
“Glad you kept all your fingers,” she squeaked, and then quickly turned and took the steps up to her carriage house two at a time.
“Good night,” Anders called after her.
She pulled open the door and let it gently close behind her, shutting Anders and his words safely outside. Her eyes immediately scanned the couch for Tom’s sleeping form, but he wasn’t there. Panic gripped her lungs as she stood frozen with her back to the door. She thought of Anders. Of the warmth of his hand encapsulating hers. And how—God help her—part of her wished it still was.
A noise jerked her head toward the bathroom. A clatter, as if something had fallen onto the floor. “Tom? Is that you?” she asked.
Tom, of course, didn’t respond.
And as she made her way across the den toward her bedroom door to check and see if he was alright, she realized that was the thing about loneliness. It made you susceptible to doing a whole manner of things you might not otherwise do.
—
Dr. Khari wasn’t the only person to take notice of the wildly unlikely, yet undeniable growing attraction being Piper and Anders.
“Will you get away from that window, woman?” Harold peered across the room at Pearl from his comfortable position in their full-size bed, where he was working on a sudoku under the lamplight of the nightstand.
Pearl turned to him with that look in her eyes he’d seen far too many times—the look she got when she was minding everybody’s business but her own.
“It looked like he was trying to hold her hand!” She peeked out between the gap in the curtain once more, glancing doubtfully down at the backyard where Anders now stood pitifully alone.
“Good for him,” Harold murmured, returning his gaze to the stubborn lines of numbers, searching for the mistake he’d made causing the fourth line to have two threes.
“Do you think? I don’t know. What about Tom?”
“I doubt he’ll have much to say about it,” he replied dryly, right before spotting and quickly erasing an erroneously placed seven.
“Harold! You know what I mean.”
Harold brushed the rubber crumbs from the paper and looked up at Pearl once more. Her hands twisted around themselves so vigorously, Harold was surprised she hadn’t rubbed her skin clean off.
“You worry too much. Let those children be. They’ll figure it out.”
But Pearl wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t sure of that at all.
Chapter 20
Two Months After the Storm
Piper woke up with a start on a Sunday in June, blinking at the empty pillow beside her, instead of Tom’s familiar face. She lay still as a stone, listening for sounds in the small house, but heard nothing. Where had he gotten off to so early in the morning? They hadn’t even had breakfast.
Warmth hung in the air like a preheating oven, even though she’d left a window open for the nighttime breeze. Summer had officially arrived, she thought—a little melancholy at how quickly the seasons seemed to change. Truth be told, she was also feeling melancholy to find herself alone, but she quickly brushed it off. She’d been alone most of her life before Tom came along, especially when it was just her and her mom—and she’d been just fine. What was one morning?
She slipped out of bed and padded to the kitchen to turn on the kettle for tea. While she waited for the water to boil, she ambled around the small room, stopping at her prized display of insects. She stared at the shadow
