Sequence of tenses - American English

[rose_notamember]

Hello,
I've been reading a story by a presumably American author whose native language is English. A couple of sentences confused me - I wouldn't use Past Perfect, but Past Simple. I hope someone will be able to tell me who is right - me or the author.
Here are the sentences (N.B. The entire story is written in the past.):

1. At the time, Peter had been afraid to think that had been love.

The first verb in Past Perfect I can understand, but why the second one? Wouldn't "At the time, Peter had been afraid to think that was love." be better?

2. The dentist had heard the pain in his voice, so he had scheduled the appointment immediately.

Again, "had heard" is justified (though you can't really see that without a broader context), but why "had scheduled"?

Thanks in advance,
Rose

[Clark]

Hello,
I've been reading a story by a presumably American author whose native language is English. A couple of sentences confused me - I wouldn't use Past Perfect, but Past Simple. I hope someone will be able to tell me who is right - me or the author.
Here are the sentences (N.B. The entire story is written in the past.):

1. At the time, Peter had been afraid to think that had been love.

The first verb in Past Perfect I can understand, but why the second one? Wouldn't "At the time, Peter had been afraid to think that was love." be better?

2. The dentist had heard the pain in his voice, so he had scheduled the appointment immediately.

Again, "had heard" is justified (though you can't really see that without a broader context), but why "had scheduled"?

Thanks in advance,
Rose

I would interpret the first sentence as 'at that time Peter had been afraid to think of the affair he had had before as love.'
The second sentence looks ungrammatical.