Island Girls by Nancy Thayer Read Free Book Online

like eating alone, and she didn’t need to gain any more weight. She wasn’t in the mood to go out. It had been so long since she’d been on the island. She wanted to see the town again in the daylight, to take her time observing what remained from her childhood and what had changed.
    Returning to her room, she leaned on her desk and watched the light play over the little town. Really, it was enchanting, and probably almost exactly what the town looked like over a hundred and twenty-five years ago when May Alcott was living with her brilliant older sister Louisa in Boston. Birds were singing and rustling in the trees and bushes outside—and then a strange, modern ring interrupted her thoughts.
    Her cell phone. She checked the number: Liam.
    They’d gotten into the habit of calling each other every day to talk, some days more than once, mostly about college matters such as students, deadlines, committees, conferences, but lately their conversations had taken a more personal tone. She had gotten too relaxed, genuine, comfortable with him, assuming he saw her as a kind of big sister.
Big
being the operative term. She knew she was good-looking in her full-figured way, with a pretty enough face; rather striking, even she would admit, strawberry-blonde hair; and her curvaceous body, but she wasn’t enough of a babe to attract someone as downright gorgeous as Liam. Over the school term, she’d flirted with him in a lighthearted, frivolous fashion, but when he’d asked her out to dinner, she’d been surprised, even suspicious.
    They’d been in his office on campus at the end of the first semester. She’d brought in a chunk of her Alcott outline for him tocritique over the Christmas holiday. He’d asked her out to dinner. She’d laughed. “You mean, like on a date?”
    Liam had crossed his office to stand close to her. With a slight smile on his handsome face, he’d said, in a low voice that gave her shivers, “I mean absolutely like on a date.”
    She’d backed off so fast she’d bumped into the bookcase.
    “Don’t be silly. We can’t date.”
    “Why not?” He took a step closer. She could feel his breath. She smelled cinnamon.
    She thought:
Because you’ll sleep with me, make me fall in love with you, and drop me for the first Gisele Bündchen look-alike you see
. She said, “Liam, you and I are such good
friends
.”
    “I know. Why can’t we be more than that?”
    She shook her head. “No. Somehow one of us would do something stupid and we’d ruin our friendship. I don’t want to do that.”
    “Meg—”
    She slid sideways, out of his reach, and pulled open the office door. “Happy holidays, Liam. I’ll see you in January.”
    “Wait, Meg.” He’d looked perplexed, and no wonder, she thought. She was probably the first woman who’d ever turned him down in his life. “Not until January?”
    “The holidays are always so busy,” she gabbled, knowing she should run for her life.
    “Can we at least talk on the phone?”
    “Of course, just like we always do.” Relieved, she threw him a big smile over her shoulder as she hurried away.
    Sometimes on the phone they talked about the books they were reading, and the Alcott book Meg was gathering notes for, and about the freshman syllabus she’d designed and used to great success in the fall semester. About the poems he was writing … He read them to her over the phone while she lay in bed, tryingto react intellectually, nearly swooning over the sweetness of his voice. She was the only one he shared his first drafts with. That was an honor for her and a gift of intimacy she couldn’t bear to lose. Perhaps he had a schoolboy crush on her, but she had to be strong. She
was
strong. She made light of any amorous comment he made. She evaded his touch. She was sure she’d managed to safeguard their friendship.
    In the solitude of her small room, she lay back on her bed and answered the phone.
    “Hey, Meg. Just calling to see if you got there