Page 8 of A Journey For Jasmine

What he saw was a young attractive woman whose eyes kept drawing him into the conversation when she made a funny comment.

He didn’t want to say Jasmine had no filter, but she was doing the bulk of the talking and it felt more like friends than a business meeting.

His mother excelled at business meetings, but he could tell she was enjoying herself more in this relaxed setting.

Forty minutes later, the two women got up to leave. He shook their hands again. Jasmine’s eyes dropped to his left hand and then back to his face with a smile.

“What did you think?” his mother asked him a few minutes later.

“It’s flowers,” he said. “What is there to think? I can’t keep anything straight. I know names but couldn’t tell you what anything looked like other than a rose. I don’t even know what jasmine looks like.”

His mother shook her head at him. “She looks lovely to me.”

“Very funny,” he said.

“And she had her eye on you.”

“I doubt it,” he said.

“Wesley. I notice things, unlike you.”

“I noticed too,” he said. His eyes dropped down to the tan line on his left ring finger.

“She looked there too,” his mother said. “I’m glad you finally removed it. It was long overdue.”

He sighed. Noelle had died almost two years ago. It felt like a betrayal to take that symbol of love off his hand, but he knew that leaving Tampa behind meant he had to leave that part of his life too.

His late wife would be so pissed off at him if she knew he was barely putting one foot in front of the other all this time.

But damn, she’d be thrilled with what he was going to do. He did it for her. She loved the water and boats. They’d visited here years ago and she fell in love with the area.

They’d even been to this marina on a friend’s family boat. Noelle had talked about this vacation on and off for years.

To this day he wasn’t sure what made him look at real estate here when he had back in the winter. It was around the holidays and he was struggling to get through and looking at old photos and found some from their vacation.

He’d searched homes out of curiosity. Or maybe it was something to do.

When he’d seen the marina listed it just felt like Noelle was slapping him on the shoulder and jumping up and down, saying, “Do it. You’ve got the money now. Just do it.”

He’d rather have his wife than the money he’d gotten from the settlement. His mother had said the same and knew it was going to be her last case. It wore her out mentally, but this one was personal for her.

The purchase of this marina barely touched what they’d gotten, but all he cared about was that it would have made Noelle happy.

“So you’ve said enough times,” he said, running his hand over the grooves that seemed as if they were branded into his skin.

“It will get easier, Wesley,” his mother said.

“As everyone has said, but it doesn’t seem it.”

His mother put her hand on his arm. “You’re getting there. You will on your time. I miss Noelle as much as you. She was the daughter I never had, but she’d be ticked off and you know it if she thought you weren’t going to live your life.”

“I’m living it,” he said. “I found this place.”

“You did,” his mother said. “And that tells me you are ready to move on.”

“I did it for her,” he said.

“No, Wesley. You did it because she would have wanted you to foryou. There is a difference. You’ll understand that soon enough.”

---