Free The Wishing Tide by Barbara Davis

was for the nuns.”
    Lane laughed but realized he was serious. “You know, I never thought of that, but it makes sense. I always imagined nuns as stern and stoic, their noses always stuck in their Bibles or their prayer books, but who knows what they really do in their free time? They’re human, after all.”
    “So rumor has it.”
    There it was again, that weighty, Laurence Olivier stage voice he’d used at breakfast, gruff and thick with cynicism. Or was it bitterness? Rather than ponder the matter, Lane decided to change the subject. She wandered back to the table and examined several more books he had pulled from the shelves—
Bleak House
and
Little Dorrit
.
    “I see you migrated right to Dickens.
Great Expectations
was always my favorite. I fell in love with it in eighth grade. I bet I’ve read it ten times.”
    A tic appeared along Michael’s jaw. “That’s when I read it, too. It’s my least favorite of all his books, actually. A bit gothic for my taste, but then, my interest in Dickens, and the focus of my book, has more to do with the social commentary of his writings, on his view of the inequities suffered by the poor, especially the children, than with mere entertainment.”
    He had slipped into professor mode again, delivering what Lanefelt certain was part of his first-day-of-class lecture. “See, right there,” she said, wagging a finger. “That’s what I mean by important stuff. He was making a point, focusing attention on a problem. And now you’re doing the same thing.”
    Michael nodded somewhat grudgingly. “As a boy, Dickens experienced those things firsthand, and they formed the foundation for his life’s work. The shame is the same problems still exist today. We pretend we’re civilized, but we’re not so very different in how we treat the poor and ignore the sick, or the way we herd up displaced children like stray cats bound for the shelter.” He paused and looked briefly away. “Which is why there isn’t room in my treatise for broken hearts and crumbling mansions. Or for crazy old women who set fire to the house.”
    Lane blinked up at him, not sure whether to be impressed or insulted. He’d sounded more like a politician than a literature professor just then, filled with righteous zeal and compassion for his fellow man. Was he this passionate with his students? she wondered, because he was certainly nothing like any of the lit professors she’d ever had.
    The silence stretched while Lane groped for something to say. “All righty, then,” she blurted finally. “I suppose now that we’ve established our differences in literary taste, I should do what I came to do, which is to inform you that I usually walk down to the lighthouse every morning. I should be gone about an hour. There are muffins cooling on the stove, and I made a fresh pot of coffee should you want a refill.”
    “Thank you,” Lane heard him murmur as she slipped from the room to leave him to his research, and wondered why it was that every time they had a conversation that lasted more than five minutes, he ended up saying something that got under her skin.

Chapter 10
    Michael
    M ichael knew, as he watched Lane disappear, that he’d gone too far. He’d treated her like one of his students. Worse, he’d come dangerously close to insulting her taste in literature. He hadn’t meant it to come out the way it did, but sometimes he forgot that not everyone spent their days hiding in the pages of old books. When he was a child books had been his sanctuary, a refuge from the bullies and the memories he couldn’t outrun. Later, his friends were others like him, academic types more comfortable with dead writers than live people, who preferred words on a page to real life.
    It hardly made for satisfying relationships, as Becca, his on-again, off-again girlfriend, had icily pointed out while packing up her DVDs and exercise mats three months ago. Truth be told, he was relieved when it ended. Keeping up with a