Page 20 of The Story of Us
Jamie beamed at Lucy as she answered in the affirmative. It was actually happening! The newspaper was going to run a feature on True Love Books. She could feel it. “And yeah, this year alone we’ve had four proposalsin the store.”
Lucy opened the second door—the one that led from the entry foyer to the main dining room of Rick’s restaurant—and Jamie practically danced her way through it.
“Now isn’t that a legacy worth saving?” she asked, really driving the point home.
Please let him agree. Please.
She bit her bottom lip while she waited for the editor to respond, feeling about as nervous as Eliot on bath day. When he said yes, she jumped up and down right there by the hostess stand in Rick’s fancy bistro. She couldn’t help it. Things werefinallylooking up.
“And when is it going to run?” She held her breath and nearly fainted when she heard the wordtomorrow. “Great! Thank you so much.”
She jabbed the off button on her phone and squealed at Lucy, “We’re in!”
Lucy held her hand up and they high-fived as if they’d just won gold at the Olympics. Honestly, it felt like they had. Tomorrow could be the turning point…by the end of the week, Sawyer might just pack up his hideous spaceship model and go crawling back to Portland. She wouldn’t have to see him for another fifteen years.
If ever.
But as soon as she and Lucy finished their impromptu victory celebration, Jamie became aware of a loaded silence surrounding her. She glanced up, and sure enough, there was Sawyer O’Dell, leaning against Rick’s polished mahogany bar, looking straight at her as he sipped a glass of red wine.
To add insult to injury, Aunt Anita stood right beside him, wine glass in hand. By all appearances, it looked like they were having quite a nice time together.
Naturally.
Anita didn’t have a mean or judgmental bone in her body. She probably thought Sawyer was just doing his job.
Which he was. But that didn’t mean Jamie had to like it. Also, she might have been more inclined to overlook his participation in the Ridley project if he’d been upfront and honest about why he was back in Waterford when they’d first crossed paths. He hadn’t, though.
Not one little bit.
She greeted him with an exaggerated eye roll, the sum total of the politeness she felt he deserved. “Ofcourseyou’re here.”
Sawyer’s lips tugged into an annoyingly charming half-grin. His gaze slid to Anita. “Thisisa small town.”
Too small, actually—especially now.
Finally, something she and Sawyer could agree on.
Sawyer probably shouldn’t have felt so smug about the shocked look on Jamie’s face when she first spotted him at the bar, but he couldn’t quite help it. He’d been surprised at every turn since arriving in Waterford, and now the shoe was back on the other foot.
Anita had filled him in over a nice glass of Sangiovese, so he’d known Jamie would be in attendance. From their discussion, he’d also managed to discern that Lucy was, in addition to being the object of Rick’s affection, Jamie’s employee and best friend. Rick, being Rick, had left out this crucial bit of intel when he’d recruited Sawyer into being his wingman. He’d definitely taken Sawyer at his word when he’d told him he no longer wanted to hear about Jamie.
That wasn’t the case anymore, obviously. Now Sawyer wanted to knoweverything.
Purely for business purposes, of course. Still, his pulse kicked up a notch when Jamie slipped out of her red coat and he caught his first glimpse of her black chiffon dress with its sheer sleeves and flippy little skirt. He’d barely had a chance to get used to her librarian-chic polka-dotted pencil skirts, and now this. He was in no way prepared for the sight of grown-up Jamie Vaughn in a little black dress, the sudden hostility between them notwithstanding.
He somehow managed to look away, only to find that an amused Rick had been watching him watch Jamie. Sawyer sighed, and Rick’s grin spread wide.
Fine. Maybe Rick’s delight in Sawyer’s current predicament would help him relax long enough to tell Lucy that he’d orchestrated this entire evening just for her. Sawyer certainly hoped so.
“Okay, everybody.” Rick clapped his hands, and all eyes—including Lucy’s—swiveled in his direction. In his crisp chef’s whites, Rick looked like he’d just walked off the set of some show on the Food Network. With any luck, Lucy was into that sort of thing. “If you all would find a cooking station…”
Sawyer glanced at Jamie. This was, after all, a Valentine’s event, and Rick had set up the cooking stations in pairs. Maybe in between all the dicing, chopping and sautéing, they could bury the hatchet—preferably not in each other.
Before he could suggest a truce, though, someone from the other side of the room called Jamie’s name.
“Jamie?” Eric, the esteemed city councilman, grinned at her and pointed to a table near the front. “Would you like to…”
She lit up like a Christmas tree. “Yes, I would.”
