Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Was what had happened with his father when he was a teenager somehow a part of it? Something inside her felt it must be, but she couldn’t quite figure out how the two things would have played off each other.
She would have loved to have asked him. But while having hot sex with him seemed it would make the question okay, since they’d put up the boundaries around it, there was a part of her that thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask him to explain to her why he was so shut down about love. Maybe he’d think she was desperate, asking him to love her. And asking him why he wouldn’t. No, she wouldn’t give him that impression. Because that wasn’t what she was asking for. Even if the little voice inside her head seemed to think it wouldn’t be a terrible idea at all to be loved by Malcolm Sullivan.
It was another beautiful night. Yet again, Josie wanted to pinch herself, hardly able to believe that she was out on the Thames, floating under the twinkling stars, headed toward Hampton Court Palace. And all of that, with Malcolm at the helm.
He’d called his smaller boat a dinghy, but she was certain this was no dinghy. The boat was twenty feet long by her estimation, made of a gorgeous, highly polished wood, with leather seats. It was an antique boat, and she could see that he took pride in it.
“You rebuilt this yourself, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “It was completely trashed in a junkyard, but I could see its potential. I could see what it once was and what it could be again.”
“You said I was the one with the bright outlook,” she noted. “But you do too. Whenever you see something that most people would write off, like a broken-down boat or a cottage that’s been neglected for years, you use your imagination and your hands and your skill, and you bring it back to life.”
He wasn’t someone who ate up praise. It was more like he never seemed to think he deserved it. Which he proved yet again when he said only, “I enjoy doing it.”
“Have you ever thought of doing it more?” The question fell from her lips before she could stop it. “Of transitioning from the work that you currently do to working with your hands?”
“If I gave up my career to rebuild old boats and cottages, everyone would think I was crazy. I don’t like to boast, but what I do is quite lucrative.”
“Just because you’re good at one thing doesn’t mean you have to do it forever, does it? I mean, look at me. I think I was a pretty good freelance editor. I still am, with a couple of clients who I still work with from time to time. But just because I’m good at that didn’t mean it was wrong for me to transition into setting up reading retreats. I think people can be good at a lot of things. And I also think that we’re not just here necessarily to live one specific life. I mean, we are only here for a limited time, but while we are, we should experience as much as we can. I’m not sure money is the only reason to do something. Is it?”
Belatedly, she realized she was almost lecturing him. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. It’s just that all the books I’ve read over the years filled me with a longing to experience more and see more of the world. It’s partly why the reading retreats made sense. Because it meant I could go and see things and do things and experience some of the things that I read about. Some of the places. Smell the smells in the marketplaces in Morocco. Haggle over a gold leather jacket at a flea market in Paris. See the northern lights in Norway. When you read about places and experiences, that’s one way to experience them, but there’s nothing like going there in person.”
She’d never been to England before, but every book from The Secret Garden and those by Jane Austen to modern romances set in Cornwall had had her longing to come here. And now that she had arrived, this country felt like a second home—that’s how familiar it was.
He didn’t reply for a few long moments. She started to worry that she’d offended him.
But then he finally said, “You’re right. We shouldn’t be locked into anything in life. After all, I’ve been saying the same thing about Fiona. That she should try another life on for size. Leave her unhappy marriage and see what else is out there waiting for her. Owen did that, when he left the law and went to work for my grandmother. Alice wants to do that. Tom too.”