Page 17 of The Story of Us
Not anymore, though. Not since he’d decided to shut down her bookstore.
“I’m sorry, honey.” Lucy reached for Jamie’s hand, gave it a gentle squeeze, and then released it.
“Oh, it was a long time ago.” Jamie shrugged. But an ache formed in her throat, and she didn’t quite trust herself to keep talking about Sawyer and her broken schoolgirl heart without doing something silly and pointless like dissolving into tears. So she pointed at the new cookies Rick had recently dropped off—Scottish shortbread, shaped like hearts and covered with dark chocolate drizzle. “Have you tried these, by the way? They areamazing.”
Lucy gathered a stack of books lying by the register and headed to the sales area to re-shelve them. “Rick’s working on a new recipe.”
“Ohhh…” Jamie loved it when Rick experimented, especially when his efforts involved chocolate.
“Oh, that reminds me. You’re coming with me tonight.” Lucy swerved deftly around a woman in a dark blue raincoat whose head was buried deep in one of the newly released romance novels.
Jamie had no choice but to follow. “Where?”
“Rick’s Valentine cooking class.” Lucy held up a finger. “And no ‘I’m writing’ excuses. I need you there in case I meet someone. That way we can discuss the pros and cons.”
Ahh, just the opening she needed. “And what about Rick?”
You’re welcome, Rick.
“Yeah.” Lucy shrugged. “I’ll ask Rick’s opinion, too. You know, guy’s perspective. But first, I need to meet my own true love.”
Seriously? How could she be so clueless? Rick had practically been tossing rose petals in her path every time he saw her and somehow Lucy still hadn’t realized he was madly in love with her.
Jamie sighed. “Well, how do you know you haven’t already met him? I mean, Waterford isn’t exactly Portland in terms of population.”
Lucy shook her head. “Oh, no. I will know when I meet him. We willbothhave that moment where we just…know.” She cocked her head, dreamy-eyed. “You know?”
Then she frowned down at the book in her hands. “Wait. This goes someplace else.”
Lucy bustled to the other side of the shop, leaving Jamie to ponder the existence of such a magical moment.
What had she said, exactly?
Jamie gnawed on her bottom lip.
We willbothhave that moment when we just…know. You know?
“Hmm. No, I don’t know.” Jamie had never experienced such a moment. Sure, she’d read about them, but she’d never once had one herself. And she wouldn’tbehaving one anytime soon, if ever, because she was still very much on a dating hiatus. Nothing had changed in that department, and it wouldn’t.
Especially not while Sawyer was back in town.
Sawyer juggled his messenger bag in one hand and a small shopping basket in the other as he followed Rick up and down the aisles of Aubergine Specialty Foods in the business district. Somehow, when he’d asked Sawyer to be his wingman for his Valentine cooking class, he’d left out the part about shopping for groceries.
Aubergine was the sort of grocery store where only someone like Rick would shop. A true foodie’s paradise. For starters, it was minuscule, crammed full of tiny twenty-dollar bottles of olive oil, pasta imported from Italy and gourmet cheeses Sawyer had never heard of. It also had a crisp black-and-white striped awning out front and a sidewalk fruit stand, as if someone had plucked it right off the streets of Europe and dropped it in Waterford. The fancy little shop definitely hadn’t been around back when Sawyer was in high school.
Plenty of things had changed since then. Sawyer knew this. He was just having kind of a hard time adjusting to Waterford’s new reality.
“Why didn’t you tell me that Jamie bought True Love Books?” he said to the back of Rick’s head while his friend perused the selection of spices.
Rick grabbed a small bottle of peppercorns and placed it carefully in the basket. “Remember a few years ago when I casually mentioned she was dating that dentist? Your reaction was to tell me to never let you know anything about Jamie because it distracted you.”
Distracted. That was one word for it. A more accurate description probably would have been that thinking about Jamie with another man made him crazy.
Sawyer cleared his throat. “Vaguely.”
“Well, you did.” Rick shrugged and added something else to the shopping basket. “So I didn’t.”
“Anything else you’re not telling me?” he asked, doing his best to ignore the sudden throbbing in his temples. He’d known coming back to Waterford to help secure the Ridley project might get complicated, but this was beyond complicated. This was a disaster in the making.
