A Not-So-Distant Love by Heidi Kimball

Author:Heidi Kimball
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published: 2023-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Alec sat at his desk, papers spread before him. One of the candles guttered, a testament to the lateness of the hour. But it wasn’t the lack of light that kept him from his work.

He was useless.

Since Charlotte’s quick retreat over twelve hours before, he’d not slept. He’d not eaten. His hair had been ravaged by running his hands through it too many times to count. The cup of coffee she had made him sat unfinished and cold, the dark liquid she’d spilled and the broken pieces of her teacup untouched.

A perfect metaphor. His ordered life, now in disarray.

When, where had it all begun? He couldn’t say.

All he knew was that as she’d kissed him, something within him had changed.

Alec was a medical man. A doctor. He’d been educated and trained by some of the best minds in science. Spent years studying the human body and its operations. So, logically, he knew the organ that pumped blood through his body had continued to function since the blow of Nellie’s death. And yet . . .

He could have sworn that as Charlotte kissed him, his heart had started beating for the first time in three years.

Thump.

Thump, thump.

With the beating of his heart had come consciousness. An awakening. A slow awareness of the woman in the circle of his arms. Charlotte—her softness, her loveliness, her poignant kisses. Something warm and velvet had unfurled in his chest, so long suppressed that he hardly recognized it. Desire. It yawned within him, waking after these long years, the sheer power of it breathtaking.

So he’d kissed her back.

The joining of their mouths had been sweet ecstasy. A mix of light, heat, and passion. A blazing trail of discovery in which he was reminded that life was more than drudgery and duty. More than regret and despair. There could be tenderness. There could be beauty.

There could be Charlotte.

And it was that. Reality had crashed over him like a tidal wave of despair. Because no matter how badly he wanted her, there couldn’t be a Charlotte. Or any other woman. No love could hold up under the weight of his regrets with Nellie. No woman deserved a man who was chained to an eternal whipping post. Whose attempts at atonement were nothing compared to the mountain of mistakes he’d made.

He’d been a fool to forget, even for a moment.

So he’d pushed her away.

And he’d tried to stop the beat of his heart. Tried to rebuild the wall that kept him separate from the world. But it was no use. Somehow he couldn’t summon his passionless existence from before.

He was raw and vulnerable and without defense.

A loud bang on the door forced Alec up from the abyss of his thoughts. His gaze shifted to the clock on the mantel. Just after eleven. Another night call meant another night of no sleep. He set his papers aside and rubbed at his eyes.

Three successive bangs resounded so hard they made his front door shake. “Alec, I know you’re in there! I can see the candle burning!”

Liam? At this hour?

Alec was in no state for a visit.

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