Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice (18 page)

   Cassie returned her attention to Erin. "While we're on the subject of men you don't want to hear about, I should tell you I'm seeing Rob Elliott again."

   "You're what?" Erin's horrified disbelief didn't surprise Cassie. Erin had borne the brunt of Cassie's misery after Rob broke up with her.

   "He's here for the summer, and we've decided to give it another chance."

   "
Why?
Didn't he hurt you enough last time?"

   "It's not too serious at the moment. He can be good company."

   Erin nodded, as if it made sense to her. She hugged Cassie. "It's hard to be alone, isn't it?"

   Cassie swallowed hard. Her relationship with Rob wasn't about not wanting to be alone. They had a lot in common. "Yes, it is."

   Erin watched him depart. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Cassie?"

   "With Rob? We've talked about what happened last time, and I think he's grown up a lot. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt." Cassie laid out microscope slides in a neat row.

   "I can't forget what he did to you before. How do you know it won't happen again?"

   Using an eyedropper, Cassie carefully put a drop of water on each slide. "Isn't that supposed to be my line? I thought I was the one who was always suspicious of men's motives."

   Erin shook her head. "I'm done with trusting men."

   Scott's voice came from the doorway behind them. "Is that for my benefit?"

   Startled, Cassie squeezed the eyedropper too hard, squirting the water across a slide. By the time she had cleaned up the mess with a paper towel, Scott was standing next to them. Erin looked stunned.

   "Erin, I need to talk to you."

   Erin turned her face away. "I don't have anything to say to you. As you said last fall, what's over is over."

   "One of the many stupid things I've said in my life. I was confused about what I wanted."

   "And what I wanted didn't matter."

   "Of course it mattered. I felt terrible about hurting you."

   Erin looked straight at him and raised her chin. "Not terrible enough to be willing to talk about it then. You made up your mind. I was out, and that was that."

   "Erin, please. I want to tell you how I've changed, not rehash the past."

   "I'm not any more willing to talk about it now than you were then."

   Scott's expression changed. "Is this turnabout, then?"

   "No. It's that I don't trust you, and nothing you do can change that. I want you to leave."

   "Erin…"

   Cassie looked up from the microscope slides she had been examining as if a Nobel Prize depended on them. "Scott, she asked you to leave. I'm sorry."

   He continued to study Erin, and for a moment Cassie was afraid he was going to be difficult. But then, without a word, he turned abruptly and left.

THE END OF THE summer was rapidly approaching. Cassie began to wrap up the season's work. Chris moped around the lab for a few days until Cassie took pity on him and told him she'd be happy to have him back next summer, assuming her new grant came through. She could understand his feelings, remembering her own student days and how she had schemed to get back to Woods Hole each year.

   Jim stopped by her lab one morning, a pile of papers under his arm. "Rob seems happy these days."

   Cassie carefully measured the marsh water remaining in the beaker and marked down the amount. "That's good, but don't let him apply to University of Delaware yet."

   "You're not as happy with him?"

   She was happy enough, but Rob wanted to move too fast. "How do you find any time to do science with all this matchmaking? Everything's fine. I'm just not sure about it yet."

   "Ever hear from your friend Calder again?"

   "Jim!" Why did he have to mention that name to her? "Not recently."

   "Just wondered." He dropped the stapled papers on the lab bench in front of her.

   "What's this?" She picked it up.

   "First draft of the MBL annual report."

"What about it?"

"Have a look under Major Gifts."

   Suddenly nervous, she paged through to the fundraising section. There it was, among the short list of foundations and individuals donating $100,000 or more,
S. Calder Westing, III—Summer Research Fellowship
Fund. She had a sudden image of Calder's concerne
d face that day in March as she told him about her funding problems. And two weeks later she had received the call that the problems had been miraculously resolved. She had been so relieved she had never given any thought to how they found the money.

   "Oh, God," she said. Why had he done it? Sympathy? No, sympathy was buying her a piece of pie. Guilt? At the moment,
she was the one who felt guilty, as if sh
e had somehow taken advantage of him without knowing it. Did he think she expected it of him? She didn't want to consider that possibility. And to think she hadn't bothered to answer his last email. What was she supposed to do now? Write him a thank you note? How could she even say thank you for a gift of that size?

   "Guess he really likes Trivial Pursuit," Jim said. "Or something."

   "Or something." She wondered what Jim would say if she told him Calder had been there this summer and made no attempt to contact her.

   Cassie tried to focus on her work again once Jim left, but it was hopeless. She couldn't stop thinking about Calder and what he had done. It couldn't have been pure whim on his part, not given the problems it could cause him. If his father objected to him spending an evening in a biology lab, he'd have fits over Calder giving the MBL a small fortune. Finally she gave up any attempt to concentrate and told Chris she was leaving.

   She started home, but on impulse stopped by the Woods Hole Public Library. Her copies of Calder's books were in Haverford, and she had avoided thinking about them ever since learning they were his. Now she felt a need to read them again.

   Both books were on the shelves, as if they were waiting for her. She clutched them tightly once she had checked them out. As soon as she was home, she curled up in the worn armchair and began to read Th
e
Edge of Tomorrow.

   It was a disconcerting experience, reading the familiar words with the unfamiliar sense of Calder associated with them. She could hardly imagine him writing some of the tender and insightful moments. She wished she could remember what Calder had said about the book that night in the car. Something about loss and redemption. She could understand now why he had been so oddly noncommittal. Another opportunity missed.

   Rob called as darkness was falling. "Are you okay?" he asked.

   "I'm fine." The lie came readily to her lips.

   "Why did you leave without saying anything to me?"

   Because she had completely forgotten his existence. She couldn't keep going like this. "I'm sorry. I don't think this is going to work for us."

   "What?"

   "Having a relationship. I was wrong to let it start." She had ended up in Rob's bed because she was so hurt by Calder's desertion. And now she was hurting Rob when it had been her mistake all along.

   "What? Cassie, if you don't like checking in with me when you leave, that's fine. We certainly don't need to break up over it."

   "It's not that. I've been thinking about it. I'm sorry." How had she ended up in this position? She, who prided herself on concern for other people's feelings, and now she was trampling all over Rob's. He'd done nothing to deserve it.

   There was a silence on the other end. "Look, I'm coming over. We can talk about this then."

   "It won't change anything." Cassie held the book close to her.

   "I'll see you in a few minutes."

   He arrived with a grim expression she had never seen before. "Now what's all this about wanting to break up? And I want some answers this time. None of your evasions."

   No evasions. She supposed she owed him that much. "I said there wasn't anyone else, but that was only partly true. There was someone. He was already out of the picture, but I wasn't over him." Her hand caressed the cover of the book.

   Rob didn't say anything. After a moment, he went to the refrigerator and took out a beer. He twisted off the cap. "Why is this coming up now?"

   It had been almost a year to the day since Calder came to her lab, kissed her, and made her forget everything the second he touched her. "I found out today that I misjudged him. Like you misjudged me once."

   He took a long swig of beer. "What are you planning to do about it?"

   The blue sky on the book cover promised a deceptive calm.
The Edge of Tomorrow,
by Stephen R. West. She remembered the first time she had seen it, in the bookstore, with Calder watching her. "I don't know. Nothing, probably."

   "Are you still in contact with him?" Rob dropped the beer cap in the trash can. Cassie could see the ridges it left on his palm where he had clenched it.

   "No. He emailed me a few weeks ago, but I didn't answer."

   "What did he say?"

   "Nothing much."

   The bottle clanged as he slammed it down on the counter. "
What did he say?"

   She tore her eyes away from the book and looked at Rob. "He saw squid on the menu at a restaurant, and it reminded him of me. He hoped I was getting plenty of it here."

   "You don't work on squid."

   "It was a joke. He's not a scientist."

   "What does he do?"

   A long minute passed as she considered how to answer. "He's a writer."

   "You're still in love with him, I take it?"

   Love. The word she had always tried to avoid using in the same thought as Calder Westing. It was so much easier to call it a fixation. "Yes. I'm sorry."

   "Are you getting back together with him?"

   "No. That isn't a possibility." She set the book carefully on the table beside her.

   "Why?"

   She shrugged. "He's rich. Famous family. High society." The corner of her mouth twitched. "Republican."

   "Jesus, Cassie." He sounded disgusted. "I thought you were the one person I knew who wouldn't be impressed by money. So much for that theory."

   "I don't care about his money. I don't expect I'll ever see him again."

   He stared at her as if he wanted to keep fighting, and then he slapped his hand against the counter. "So what the hell does he have, then?"

   Cassie expelled a long breath of air. Poor Rob. He had a right to be bitter. She had used him to forget her pain, and now she was discarding him just as Calder had discarded her. He deserved better, and instead he was paying for her mistakes.

   He turned his face away when she stepped toward him. She put her hand on his shoulder. "I don't know. And I'm not evading the question. We didn't even get along particularly well."

   "So you have a fantasy about this unattainable guy who sends you an occasional email about squid. Why does this have to get in the way of your real life? Why are you dumping me for someone you'll never see again?"

   She let her hand drop. "I can't be involved with you when I feel this way about another man."

   He paced across the room and then looked out the window. "What if…" He stopped, then turned back to her. "What if I'm willing to accept that you have a thing for him? Since you won't see him again, it shouldn't matter."

   This time Cassie was the one to look away. "That wouldn't be fair to you. You deserve better than that, and you'd end up resenting me for it."

   "
Don't
tell me what's fair for me. This sure as hell isn't."

   "I'm sorry. I can't tell you how much I wish I'd understood this before you became involved."

   Rob dropped heavily into a chair and rubbed his hand across his forehead. "I should have known it was too good to be true. You didn't need me. You already had everything you wanted. You wouldn't have looked at me twice if you hadn't been upset that day. Was it him then, too?"

   Exhausted, Cassie wanted to tell him it was none of his business. "I'd found out he was in town for two weeks and hadn't tried to contact me."

   Rob studied her, a peculiar expression on his face. "He really got to you, didn't he?"