Home to Seaview Key (A Seaview Key Novel) (23 page)

Seth merely rolled his eyes. “Your cheeks are glowing. Your eyes are bright. You look just fine to me.”

“You don’t know everything. Where’s Luke? I want a real doctor to confirm that diagnosis.”

Abby caught an odd expression pass over Seth’s face. She pulled him aside. “Are you okay? She was just teasing. You do know that, right?”

“Sure,” he said. “Take a walk with me, okay? Or are you too exhausted?”

“I’m fine.”

After they’d walked for a few minutes, she turned to him. “Okay, tell me why Ella Mae’s comment seemed to bother you so much.”

“It didn’t bother me exactly. It’s just that she said something that I’ve been thinking about lately.”

“About not being a real doctor?”

He nodded, then glanced over at her. “Maybe I should think about going to medical school.”

Abby felt a twinge of excitement. “Are you serious? Is that something you really want to do?”

“Maybe,” he said. “I never really gave it much thought before. I was so anxious to get away from home, I just took the training for being a paramedic, then joined the military. With the money from my parents’ estate, I could take the time now and go to medical school.”

A troubling thought occurred to her. “And then what? Seaview Key probably doesn’t need two doctors.”

“It might, if one of them specialized in pediatrics,” he said thoughtfully. “Sure, Luke handles all of it now, but I think the island could use a specialist. I don’t need to get rich from medicine. As long as I’m making a decent living, it’s all good.” He studied her. “What do you think, honestly?”

“I think if it’s something you really, really want, you should go for it,” she said without hesitation. “But, Seth, if you’re doing this for some other reason, then you need to give it more thought. It’s a big commitment. You’d need med school, an internship, a residency. All of that takes time.”

“I know how long it would take,” he said irritably. “I still think it makes sense for me. What other reason could there be?”

Abby was terrified of voicing her real concern, that he was doing it because he thought it would put the two of them on a more equal footing. “Does it have anything to do with me?” she asked carefully.

“Absolutely not,” he insisted. “I’ve been giving this some thought for a while now. Even before you came to town, I was considering doing something more with my training.”

Relieved, she nodded. “Then go for it.”

“It would mean being away at medical school for a long time,” he said. “I’d try to get into Florida or Florida State.”

“They’re not so far away,” she said. “It might be kind of fun to go to college football games again.”

“So you’re with me on this?” he asked, studying her closely.

“A hundred percent. We can make it work, Seth, at least if you want to make it work. If you’re looking for an excuse to take off on me, just say the word.”

He looked genuinely shocked by her words. “Not a chance,” he said at once. “In fact, one of the reasons I’ve been struggling with the idea recently is because I don’t want to walk away from what we have.”

“You’re sure?” she pressed.

He caressed her cheek. “I can’t deny that meeting you got me to thinking more seriously about all of this. I want to be the kind of man who makes you proud.”

Her heart sank at that. “But Seth you do make me proud. You’re a wonderful man already. Otherwise, I would never have fallen for you.”

A spark lit his eyes. “You’ve fallen for me?”

“Oh, don’t act so surprised. Didn’t I kiss the stuffing out of you on the day we met?”

“Maybe a little,” he said with a grin. “But there were extenuating circumstances.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again, thoroughly enough that he couldn’t mistake her enthusiasm. When she finally stepped back, a little breathless, she said, “No extenuating circumstances that time.”

“So it’s okay if I start believing this just might get serious?” he asked.

“I think it’s definitely a safe bet,” she admitted. “It’s probably time to stop denying what everyone else can plainly see. Casual’s not really working for us.”

Amazingly, the admission didn’t give her a single qualm. They might not know exactly where they were headed yet, but she was almost a hundred percent sure they were going in the same direction. And whatever might lie ahead, she didn’t feel any sense of urgency to get there, not when the route itself was so thoroughly intriguing.

* * *

Abby slept late the morning after the fish fry. Seth had crawled out of bed at dawn to go for a run and then take his shift with the rescue squad.

After her shower, she poured herself a cup of the coffee he’d made before he left the house and went onto the porch to enjoy the morning. She was smiling when Luke came around the corner of the house, a frown on his face.

“You look gloomy,” she told him. “What’s up? I thought you’d be thrilled at how well yesterday’s fish fry went. The next one will bring in enough to pay off the last installment on that rescue boat.”

“I know. That’s great,” he said.

“Such enthusiasm. I’m all aglow.”

He scowled. “I’m not here about the blasted boat. I’m worried about you.”

“About me? Why? My life is just about perfect these days.”

“Is it really?”

“Sure. I’m pretty confident Sandra’s going to vote in favor of Blue Heron Cove. The work to get that boat is almost done. I’ve been reconnecting with old friends.”

“And Seth? Where does he fit in?”

“We’re good,” she said, aware of where he was headed. “But if that scowl on your face is anything to go by, you disagree.”

She listened patiently to Luke as he stumbled through what appeared to be a lecture on the way she was mistreating Seth. She couldn’t believe there was any truth to what he was telling her, that Seth needed a real commitment from her, not some kind of game. She was pretty sure they’d already resolved all of that.

“Excuse me? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Seth and I have been totally honest with each other.”

“Do you know that he’s considering going away to medical school?”

“We talked about it,” she said. “If it’s something he wants, I’m all for it.”

“He never once mentioned medical school until you turned up. He’s using it as an excuse to get away from this crazy situation you all are in.”

“I worried about the same thing at first,” she said, clearly surprising Luke. “He says that’s not the case and I believe him. He told me he was considering it before I even turned up here. I think it may have more to do with his admiration for you than it does with me.”

Luke looked skeptical. “That’s certainly a convenient theory for you. You don’t have to take responsibility for driving him away.”

She stared at Luke incredulously. “Exactly how am I driving him away?”

“Because you won’t commit to the future we both know he wants. The same future I suspect you want, as a matter of fact.”

“Luke, you’re crazy,” she said with certainty. “Our relationship is every man’s dream, an undemanding woman with no expectations. Seth seems happy enough to me. You’re worrying about nothing.”

“He thinks he’s giving you what you want,” Luke argued. “Is he? I never thought you’d be satisfied with some crazy no-strings fling. Am I wrong about that?”

“What we have is more than that,” she corrected. “Just because we’re not rushing into a major commitment doesn’t mean we’re not heading in that direction. And you’re out of line for butting into this. It’s between Seth and me.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll back off, but before I do, I’ll tell you what scares me. I’m convinced the two of you are going to ruin a good thing because neither one of you has the guts to ask for what you really want.”

He leveled a look into her eyes. “That’s all I’m saying, Abby. Don’t wait too long to be honest. Universities are jam-packed with young women who’d be eager to get serious with a man like Seth.”

Shaken by what he’d said, she watched him go, then reached for her cell phone.

“How fast can you get over here?” she asked Seth. When he’d replied that he ought to be able to make it there in a half hour, she said, “Make it five minutes, okay?”

It wasn’t the first time one or the other of them had communicated a sense of urgency, but if Luke was right about any of this, it might be the last time such a call was necessary. Maybe it was time to take her foot off the brakes and go for what she wanted full-throttle.

Of course, if Luke had gotten it all wrong, then she was about to wind up with a very large portion of egg on her face.

23

S
eth’s blood was pumping as he drove over to Abby’s. Though there’d been other calls like this one, he’d sensed something different in her voice this morning. He cut the ten-minute drive down to four minutes.

Even so, she’d apparently had enough time to set out wine and light candles, even though it was the middle of the morning. Something was definitely up, he concluded.

“Special occasion?” he asked, eyeing the romantic ambiance with confusion.

“That depends,” she said. “We need to talk.”

He picked up a glass of wine and took a long sip. “That’s never good.”

She chuckled. “Talking hasn’t been our first priority for a while, has it? Maybe that’s been a mistake.”

Seth took another gulp of the wine. If it was one of those expensive bottles, it was definitely wasted on him. Thank goodness he wasn’t on duty this morning, because it appeared he wouldn’t be in any condition to take a call if she didn’t get to the point soon.

“I thought we were doing okay these days,” he said. “So why are you suddenly talking about mistakes?” Before she could reply, the answer dawned on him. “You’ve been talking to Luke, haven’t you?”

She nodded. “He was here a little while ago. I thought he was way off the mark for the most part, but he did get me to thinking about something.”

Seth regarded her worriedly. He knew Luke had reservations about the two of them. Had he somehow convinced Abby to end it?

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked her.

A smile tugged at her lips, her very alluring lips.

“To the contrary,” she said, holding his gaze. “I’m thinking I should tell you how I really feel for a change.”

“I thought you were being honest with me all along,” he said. “Didn’t we have a heart-to-heart on Christmas, and again the other day after the fish fry?”

“I was definitely being honest on both occasions,” she agreed, then amended, “Up to a point.”

Seth frowned. “How does that work?”

“I told you how I felt, or at least what I thought you wanted to hear, and then I got scared.”

“Of what?”

“Losing you if I got too serious. I mean, we were all about easy, right? No complications. No demands. Moving forward, maybe, but at a snail’s pace?”

“That is what we agreed,” Seth said. “But we’ve also acknowledged that it’s starting to get serious. Is that the part that’s bothering you? Isn’t it true?”

“Oh, it’s true,” she said. “The serious part, anyway. But I’m not just getting there. I
am
there. Pretending otherwise isn’t working for me anymore. I want complications, Seth. I want a commitment. I might even want forever.” She gazed directly into his eyes. There was a hint of fear in hers. “I hope you can deal with that.”

For the first time since he’d arrived, Seth released the breath that had seemed caught in his throat. “So, if I were to go for broke right here and now and propose, if I were to ask you to marry me, you might say yes? Even though there’s medical school to get through?”

“That’s just one of those complications I was talking about. It’s not a deal breaker,” she said, smiling.

She leveled a lingering look into his eyes that had his hand shaking so badly he had to set the wineglass on the table to keep from spilling the wine all over the place.

“Seth,” she said quietly. “Maybe you ought to try that proposal on me. If you really want to, that is.”

He swallowed hard and tried to wrap his mind around what she was saying. For so long now he’d been so sure he’d never take another chance on love, but the irony was, without even realizing it, he already had. The risky part was in the past. All he had to do was utter the words and he could have everything he’d thought was lost to him.

“I love you,” he said, his gaze locked with hers. “I didn’t go looking for love. I didn’t expect it. But here you are.”

“Here I am,” she echoed, moving closer and placing a hand against his cheek.

“Want to make it for a lifetime?” he asked.

Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, but her eyes were shining, which he considered a good sign.

“There’s nothing I want more,” she said.

And then she was in his arms and neither of them needed words to communicate what they wanted. Their hearts were totally in sync.

Even though everything he’d ever imagined was within reach, Seth couldn’t help thinking of the obstacles.

“What if Blue Heron Cove doesn’t get approved?”

“Then I’ll come live in some dinky little apartment near campus and cook for you while you study,” she said without hesitation.

He smiled at the image. “You’d be satisfied with a dinky little apartment?”

She glanced around at the small house she’d turned into a home. “I might have to spruce it up a little,” she conceded. “But we’d have this to come home to.”

He searched her face. “So, this is it for you? Seaview Key is home? No reservations?”

“Not a one,” she told him. “As long as you’re here, I’m home. I never told you this but that contractor I wanted tried to convince me to work with him, rather than pursuing Blue Heron Cove. He thought we’d make a good team.”

Seth felt his heart stumble. “Why didn’t you say something? It sounds as if it would have been a great opportunity.”

“Because Seaview Key is what I want. You’re what I want. I don’t have a single doubt about either of those things.”

Relief flowed through him. “That’s good, then.”

She hesitated for a minute, worry etched on her brow. “Seth, we’re not entirely crazy for thinking we can make this work, are we?”

“I certainly don’t think we are. Did Luke suggest otherwise?”

“No, actually I think this was exactly what he was hoping for when he came over here. He seemed to think we’d gotten way off track by not admitting what we really wanted.”

Seth smiled. “I’ll have to thank him one of these days. Not right away, of course. He’s already entirely too smug about thinking he knows what’s best for me.”

“That’s what good friends do,” she reminded him.

“Then I’ll thank him sooner rather than later,” Seth said, pulling her into his arms. “But not just now. I have much better things in mind.”

And he set out to prove it.

* * *

There was one thing Abby wanted to do before she and Seth walked down the aisle. It was the one thing that might change their plans. She made an appointment with a fertility expert on the mainland, then made the trip over on the ferry on her own.

After the examination and several tests, she sat across from the doctor in her sunny office and waited for the verdict.

“I’m not seeing anything obvious to explain why you haven’t gotten pregnant in the past,” she told Abby. “We’ll have to wait for the test results to know definitively whether there’s a problem.”

“And if nothing turns up, it would be okay for me to try?” Abby asked, her heart in her throat. “It’s not too late?”

“A pregnancy at your age would be high risk,” she replied candidly, “but not out of the question. You seem to be in excellent health overall, so as long as you get good prenatal care, follow directions and are prepared for the possibility of bed rest at some point, I think it would be safe to try. You’d want to consider amniocentesis to be sure there are no abnormalities, but we can discuss that when the time comes. Let’s get the results of these tests first, then see where we are.”

Abby nodded, trying hard not to let her excitement get ahead of the results that would be the true test of what might be possible. “Thank you so much.”

“I’ll be in touch as soon as I know more,” the doctor promised. “May I ask, is there some reason this is so important to you? Your patient questionnaire indicates you’re divorced.”

Abby couldn’t stop the smile that broke across her face. “I’m engaged, actually. We both want children. I just don’t want to get his hopes up if it’s not likely we’ll have them.”

“Then we’ll both hope for the best,” the doctor told her.

When Abby got back to Seaview Key, she found herself stopping by Hannah’s. When her friend opened the door, she regarded Abby with concern.

“Is everything okay? You look a little shaken.”

“I saw a fertility expert today,” she admitted.

Hannah’s eyes widened. “Come on in. I’ll pour tea.”

They settled at the kitchen table with glasses of iced tea and a plate of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies.

Abby bit into a cookie, then grinned. “Jenny’s,” she guessed.

“Of course. Mine are more like hockey pucks.” She studied Abby closely. “Why the sudden decision to visit a doctor?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

Hannah chuckled. “How many of yours are still locked away in my head?”

“Okay, crazy question,” Abby conceded. “It’s just that Seth and I don’t want word to get out just yet. We’re engaged.”

Hannah’s eyes lit up. “Oh, sweetie, that’s fantastic. But why the secrecy?”

“We both want to savor it for a little bit,” Abby admitted, then shrugged. “And we don’t want Luke to get all smug and take credit for nudging us in the right direction.”

Hannah laughed. “Yeah, I can see why you’d want to avoid that. My husband does love being right. And here I told him not to meddle.”

“Well, he did meddle and it worked,” Abby said. “Anyway, after Seth and I decided to get married, I started thinking that maybe it wasn’t too late to try for a baby.”

“How does he feel about that, especially with this whole medical school thing I hear he’s considering?”

“That’s the thing, I didn’t want to say anything to him until I knew if a pregnancy was even possible.”

“But what if he sees it as a huge obstacle to his plans?” Hannah asked worriedly.

“There’s no reason it has to be,” Abby said defensively. “We’re not two young kids. We’ve both juggled a lot of balls in the air in our lives. And we have financial resources.”

“Yours,” Hannah reminded her. “We both know how he’d feel about relying on your money.”

“Well, it will be
our
money when we’re married,” Abby said defensively.

Hannah merely lifted a brow.

“Well, that’s how I’m going to think of it,” Abby said. She hesitated, then asked, “Do you think I’m nuts?”

Hannah smiled. “For what? Wanting to marry Seth? Absolutely not. For wanting a baby? Of course not. But I’m not the one whose feelings count.”

“I will talk to Seth,” Abby promised. “But only after I hear from the doctor. There’s no point in getting his hopes up or fighting about this, if there’s no chance I’ll get pregnant.” She regarded Hannah hopefully. “Right?”

“I suppose so, though I’ve learned the hard way that being open and honest always pays off in marriage. Secrets, even innocent ones, tend to get all twisted around and out of proportion.”

Abby sighed. “You’re probably right. If the opportunity presents itself before I hear from the doctor, I’ll fill Seth in. Now I think I’ll go home and fix something amazing for dinner.”

“You do that and it sounds to me as if opportunity will be knocking,” Hannah suggested.

“I’m not sure I hear it,” Abby told her.

“Well, listen more closely,” Hannah advised.

Abby hugged her hard. “Thanks for listening.”

“Anytime,” Hannah said. “And I’ll add this secret to that data bank in my head.”

As Abby drove home, she realized that for the very first time, she truly felt as if she and Hannah had recaptured the friendship she’d been so afraid might be lost forever. Everything had felt totally right about sharing this secret with a woman she’d known almost her entire life.

* * *

There was something on Abby’s mind, but for the life of him, Seth couldn’t figure out what it was. She wasn’t talking. He assumed it had something to do with the vote on Blue Heron Cove that was coming up tonight. With its potential to impact Abby’s future, that would make anyone tense.

“Are you nervous about the vote?” Seth asked her over breakfast.

“A little,” she admitted.

“Any idea about how Sandra will vote?”

“She’s called a couple of times to ask questions,” Abby said. “I couldn’t tell which way she was leaning, though. Jenny’s tried to pry it out of her, but Sandra’s been tight-lipped. Jack says her cohorts haven’t said a word when they’ve been by The Fish Tale for beers. He guesses Sandra hasn’t told them how to vote yet.”

“You do know that no matter how this vote goes, we’re going to be just fine,” he said.

She smiled at that. “Of course we are. Totally separate issue.”

“And after the vote, we’re announcing our engagement,” he continued. “This secrecy thing is for the birds. I’ve almost blurted it out to Luke half a dozen times. Even Ella Mae knows something’s up. She’s called me over there twice in the past week without even bothering to pretend she doesn’t feel well. She just asks a bunch of prying questions, then kicks me out when she doesn’t like my evasive answers.”

Abby chuckled. “You really like her, don’t you?”

“Sure. I told you before she reminds me of my grandmother.”

“Speaking of your family,” she began pointedly, “what have you heard from Meredith or Laura?”

Seth stiffened. “Nothing, which should be a relief, but it isn’t. It scares me to death.”

“Are you thinking they’ve had it out and put each other in the hospital?”

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” he admitted. “I should call and see what’s going on.”

“What about Laura’s lawyer? Any word from him?”

“No. I think my deposition discouraged him.”

“Well, I hope that situation gets resolved. I want them here for our wedding.”

Seth stared at her incredulously. “You want my sisters in the same room for our wedding?”

“I insist on it,” she said.

“Boy, you really must love me even more than I imagined to be willing to take that risk.”

Abby laughed. “I love you plenty. Now, you’d better get out of here and work your shift. I may need your shoulder to cry on at that council meeting tonight.”

“I’ll be there,” he promised.

Though he still wasn’t satisfied that he knew what was really on Abby’s mind, he could tell he wasn’t likely to get any straight answers until she was ready to reveal them.