Free Summer on Lovers' Island by Donna Alward Page A

apologize. I was touchy and I shouldn’t have been.”
    â€œIt’s just that we have to work together and I’d rather there wasn’t any friction.” She took another sip and he wondered if she was doing it just to mask her discomfort. She didn’t seem like the kind who would enjoy this sort of conversation. Put her in the middle of a medical emergency and she was in her element. This, though? Awkward.
    â€œI agree.” He did, and then some. She looked far more approachable today, without her white coat and neat bun. “Look, what you said … it’s my issue, not yours. Basing things on appearances is a bit of a hot button for me, that’s all.”
    â€œLike me asking why you drive a death trap?”
    A laugh burst out before he could help it. “Hey. The Beast is not a death trap.” When she smiled around her straw, he added, “No more than driving around with the top down.”
    â€œTouch é .” She laughed lightly. “Honestly? The car was my dad’s. He treated himself to it two years ago, when he was looking for something fun. I was driving a plain old boring Toyota until a few months ago. And I mean plain. Like beige .” She emphasized the color with an eye roll.
    He laughed despite himself.
    â€œI do know how to have fun, you know. Ask Charlie. She was the stick-in-the-mud when we were in college.”
    â€œSo what changed?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” She picked up a blue tortilla chip and bit off a corner.
    â€œI just … You seem, I don’t know, guarded. So serious all the time.”
    Her cheeks flushed a little. “Oh. Well, my dad died last winter.” She shrugged casually, but her eyes were dark and sad as she said the words quietly, the somber tone a contrast to the happy summer music and laughter filling the yard.
    Josh felt like a jerk. “I’m sorry to hear that. Was he ill?”
    She shook her head. “No. He was semiretired. A trauma specialist. He wasn’t even seventy, so we didn’t see the stroke coming. He’s the reason I became a doctor, and we were really close. It seems weird, not having him with me anymore.”
    â€œIt can be hard to live up to your family’s expectations.”
    She frowned. “Oh, Dad didn’t put that kind of pressure on me. When I was little, he used to tell me, ‘Lizzie, no one ever got anywhere by dreaming small. Dream big. Have adventures.’ And then when I got older he was the one who advised me to leave work once in a while and cut loose.” She smiled wistfully. “He wasn’t always like that. When I was little, he worked a lot. But one time I heard my mom put her foot down and say that he had a marriage to look after and not just a job. He really made an effort to balance life after that. We used to take these ski trips every year. My mother nearly had a fit when he decided the two of us were going heli-skiing.” Her face softened, and then she blinked quickly four or five times.
    No mention of where her mother was now, but Josh didn’t want to pry too much when Lizzie was already upset. Clearly she had adored her father. Josh also found it very telling that she mentioned his death but not a word about the situation at her last job. For some reason he liked her more for it, and what it said about her that she’d chosen losing her father as the defining moment of the past six months.
    â€œI lost my dad when I was young,” he offered. “It was also really sudden. I know it can throw you for a loop, especially when the presence has been a strong one. It’ll get better, though.” He smiled at her encouragingly, and when she looked at him, her lashes slightly damp, something changed inside him. She wasn’t the uptight city girl who drove into town in her flashy car and made judgments. In that moment of honesty, Lizzie Howard went from being temporary coworker to friend. And Josh