Read The Seeker A Novel (R. B. Chesterton) for Free Online

blues settled on my shoulders. Sometimes a bit of laughter was better than the bottle of pills my therapist had prescribed. Swallowing medication is hard for me. A mild sleeping pill now and again I can manage, but no more. Dr. O’Gorman tells me it’s psychological. An aversion to the family industry of peddling oxy has affected my gag reflex when it comes to pills. No worries that I’d ever kill myself with drugs.
    Walking home, I paused at a coffee shop and bakery. My mouth watered at the scent of cinnamon and hot bread wafting from the Honey Bea. I’d worked up an appetite and hadn’t eaten lunch. A latte and sweet bun would remedy the situation and hold me until Dorothea served dinner.
    I’d pushed the door open and stepped inside before I saw Joe. He sat at a back table, coffee steaming in front of him in a large white mug. He watched me with undisguised interest. My first inclination was to back out the door, but I held my ground. My reaction was unreasonable. I behaved as if I were guilty of something, and I knew what I suffered from. I’d felt it at Walden Pond, and now I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t attracted to him. He was a good-looking man with a defined jaw and dark hair that fell across his forehead. Ruggedly handsome. My body reacted to him even if my brain denied my interest.
    After placing my order, I took a seat and pulled a book from my satchel. Joe could stare, but I would ignore him. I buried myself in a critical analysis of Thoreau’s socialist leanings. I read the same paragraph over and over again.
    “Miss Cahill.” Joe stood over me, coffee in hand. “Mind if I join you?”
    I wanted to say yes, that I minded greatly, but it would have been a lie. Nodding to the chair across from me, I marked my place in the book and closed it.
    “How’s your stay at the inn going?”
    Warmth crept up my neck and into my cheeks. “It’s very nice.” What was wrong with me? The question was harmless enough and not even personal.
    “Dorothea’s a talker, but she has a huge heart. She’ll take care of you as if you were her own.”
    “Yes.” I felt like a callow schoolgirl instead of a grown woman.
    “She said you were working on your dissertation.”
    “Yes. On Thoreau.” My hands hugged my elbows, although the room was toasty warm and my face was hot.
    “So that’s your interest in Walden Pond.” Joe seemed genuinely curious. “He was always one of my favorites. He understood serenity and the value of being alone.” He rubbed the dark shadow of a beard. “My mother always said a man needs to live alone for a couple of years to appreciate the company of a woman. Thoreau would’ve been just about ready, based on Mother’s standards.”
    Surprise must have scurried across my face, because he laughed. “Is your reading of Thoreau different?”
    “I’m sorry. I’ve been in town a week and no one I’ve met has even read Thoreau. He’s a historical figure, a tourist attraction, maybe even an icon, but no one in Concord knows his work. They know he’s famous but they don’t know why.”
    “There are some folks hereabouts who study his work. They understand the significance of the way he combined human life and the natural world. He was the first nature writer.” His fine, dark hair hung over his left eye, giving him a youthful look. He was in his early thirties, but when he smiled he looked younger. “A few of us rogue Bay Staters still read him. Crusty single men with no prospects.”
    The man had a sense of humor in his flirtations. “I don’t think I’ve run across any of those.”
    “You might just have one in your sights.” That grin again. The one that said “don’t take me seriously but at least laugh.”
    “My lucky day.” My humor was rusty from disuse, but Joe was the most interesting person I’d met in Concord. A park ranger who read Thoreau. “Why do you read Thoreau?”
    “I didn’t study literature, but I loved it. Thoreau was a significant influence in my