by Deb Kastner
“Sounds intriguing,” Olivia said, popping a French fry into her mouth. “The man, not the topic,” she clarified with a laugh. “Although that’s interesting, too. So he’s going to be doing this stateside mission thing with you? And habla español a little bit between you?” She waggled her eyebrows.
Vee nudged Olivia with her elbow. “Cut it out. Knowing how to speak a little Spanish will be very important in the line of work I’m planning to do.”
“Of course,” Olivia agreed. “You know I’m just joshing with you.”
Vee chuckled and nodded. “Yeah. I know. I’m easy bait. And I have to admit that the whole man thing is interesting. Or should I say complicated.”
“Hey, Vee.” She hadn’t seen Ben enter the café, much less realized that he’d approached her table—with Olivia sitting right there, to boot. “How are you doing tonight? And you, Olivia?” he continued, though his gaze stayed on Vee.
His bronze-green gaze held hers, and his toothy smile made her stomach do a somersault. Transparently gorgeous any way she looked at him. And for some reason he was only looking at her.
She shouldn’t be looking at him at all, especially not with her best friend present. She dropped her gaze to the tabletop and searched for something to say, something that wouldn’t make her sound like an idiot. She couldn’t seem to be able to form words. The thoughts were in her head, but nothing came out of her mouth. She was afraid if she tried to speak it would come out garbled. Then she really would sound like an idiot.
Tension mounted as each excruciating second ticked by. Sweat trickled down the nape of Vee’s neck. She didn’t know how long it was until Olivia noisily cleared her throat, but it felt like an eternity, and a painful one at that.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m here, too, though I can clearly see why you didn’t notice me,” Olivia said with a teasing laugh that bordered on flirtatious.
Vee stared at her friend in shock. She had expected Olivia to be mad. She would have been if she was in the same situation.
At least Ben had the grace to look chagrined, his lips twisting as he considered what to say.
Olivia laughed again, beaming a hundred-watt smile at Ben, who shifted uncomfortably.
“I think my food’s ready,” he said awkwardly, brushing his hand back through the dark curl falling down over his forehead. “I guess I’ll see you ladies later. Have a good might. Meal. Night,” he stammered, then shook his head, turned on his heels and practically ran for his table.
Vee mused silently as she watched Ben stride across the room and slide into a booth with his back toward her. He must have sensed her gaze upon him because he turned and winked at her.
Vee slid an inch lower in her booth, as if somehow that would make her inconspicuous, because at the moment she felt as if she was wearing an enormous exclamation point on her head.
“Well,” commented Olivia in a drawn-out syllable. It wasn’t a question. Vee shivered.
“Well?” Vee repeated without acknowledging that she had any indication of where Olivia’s train of thought had gone. “Do you want to tell me what just happened here between you and Ben, or do you want me to guess? Because if I guess, I can guarantee it’s going to be more interesting than anything you can make up on the spur of the moment. I thought you guys weren’t talking to one another. He broke my heart and I’ll never fall in love again, and all that.”
“I’m over it.” Olivia shrugged. “Actually, I’m more interested in what happened between you and Ben.”
Vee ignored her. This was not about her. “You’re actually speaking to him again?”
“Sure. This isn’t junior high anymore. I don’t like drama.”
Vee had to contain her urge to snort. Olivia Tate was one of the biggest drama queens she knew. But she appeared to be serious about this, so Vee let her continue.
“We live in the same small town. It’s inevitable that we’ll run into each other from time to time, especially because we both go to the same church.”
“That’s very mature of you,” Vee stated blandly.
Olivia burst into shrill laughter that made a few heads turn. “Really, Vee. You kill me, sometimes.”
“Maybe you can get over it, but I can’t. I have a long memory. He hurt my best friend, and that’s all there is to say about it.”
“That’s always been a problem for you,” said Olivia, suddenly serious. “You always stick up for the underdog.” She reached out and gave Vee’s hand a squeeze. “My little pit bull. I know you love me, but I’m okay now. When I look back on what happened now, I see that it wasn’t all his fault. I need to take some of the blame, too.”
Vee’s jaw dropped. “He cheated on you! He was going out with another woman after the two of you had decided to date exclusively. How could that be your fault?”
“He definitely took another woman out, but I’m not sure they were actually dating.”
“What?”
Olivia shrugged. “He told me at the time that she was just a friend. I didn’t believe him then, but now I think he might have been telling the truth.”
“Wh-what changed your mind?” Vee couldn’t help asking.
“He has. Or rather, his ex-girlfriends have. See, back then I was sure he was playing me false, not just because he had dinner with his so-called ‘friend,’ but because when I confronted him about it he didn’t even try to change my mind. I told him to leave, and he left. I told him never to call me again...and he didn’t. I thought that meant he didn’t care about me, that our relationship hadn’t mattered to him at all.”
“What does that have to do with his ex-girlfriends?”
Olivia grinned. “Well, over the years, I’ve found myself comparing notes with a lot of girls our Mr. Atwood has dated, and I’ve reached some new conclusions.” She paused, clearly waiting for a signal from Vee.
“Fine,” Vee said, rolling her eyes at her overly dramatic friend. “I’ll ask—what new conclusions?”
“I think he’s just really clueless about women.”
“But how is that possible? He’s dated so many!”
“Yeah,” Olivia agreed. “And the reason he’s dated so many is because he finds some ridiculous way to mess his relationships up. One girl told me she broke up with him because he’d never call her back after she called him—but she admitted that when she left messages, she’d usually say something like ‘Nothing’s wrong, I was just calling to hear your voice. You don’t have to call me back.’ So he didn’t.
“Another girl made him go with her when she went shopping. And when she asked him if a dress made her look fat...”
“He said it did,” Vee filled in, seeing where this was going.
Olivia giggled. “Let’s just say he didn’t lie to her. So after our big fight, when I told him to get out and never call me again...”
“He left. And never called you again.”
“Bingo. Yes, he hurt me. Yes, he should have known better. But it wasn’t all his fault. You can let it rest. I promise my feelings won’t be hurt if you do.”
“Do what?” asked Vee, confused.
Olivia winked. “You know.”
“Uh-uh. I don’t. And I’m not sure I want to.”
Olivia merely shrugged and flashed a knowing grin. “You don’t want to talk about it. Okay. So tell me more about this cyber-hunk of yours.”
“Where to start? His writing flows like music. Like a symphony of words. Mushy as all get-out and sweet as a daisy in the springtime. I’m afraid I got a little too caught up in that.”
“What girl wouldn’t?”
“In some ways I feel like I know BJ very well, but in other ways I really don’t know anything about him. I’ve never even seen what he looks like.”
“You have got to be kidding me. You’re getting all twitterpated over a ma
n when you’ve never even seen his face? Girl, you are a mess.”
“Tell me about it,” Vee agreed with a miserable groan. “But I’m not twitterpated, as you put it. Actually, I’m trying to figure out a way to back out gracefully without hurting his feelings.”
“But why? Maybe you’ll meet him face-to-face and fall instantly and madly in love.” She sighed dramatically. So much for not being a drama queen.
Vee met her friend’s gaze and lifted her eyebrows. “Can you not see why I have a problem, here? This whole relationship is a sham.”
Olivia’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose. When you put it that way. So what are you going to tell him?”
“I have no idea. That would be the reason behind the expression you saw on my face when you walked up.” Vee wiggled the computer mouse to light up the screen.
She pulled up her email. There was a note from BJ.
Dear Veronica Jayne,
We’ve been corresponding for months now, and I feel like I know you pretty well. I hope you feel the same about me. We aren’t strangers anymore, are we?
What do you think about exchanging pictures? I’d like to see what my flower girl really looks like.
Sincerely,
BJ
“Veronica Jayne? Flower girl?” Olivia was definitely getting her jollies at Vee’s expense. She was enjoying this way too much.
“Veronica Jayne is my online handle. It also happens to be my given name, thank you very much. It says so right on my birth certificate. He calls me his flower girl because that’s what I told him I do for a living—I work with flowers. Which is also true.”
“Kinda. Not firefighting?”
“Me in my firefighter’s garb. Now there’s an attractive image. No, thank you.”
“Hey! I’m here to tell you that you rock that uniform. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you being a female firefighter.”
“No, I know that. I was going for something a little different, you know? Everyone here in Serendipity sees the no-nonsense firefighter who’s just one of the guys, which is not particularly good for my love life. I guess I wanted to present a different side of myself, something a little more soft and feminine.”
“Oh, I get it,” Olivia responded. “You think that since you’ve only shown him the ‘girlie’ parts of you that he won’t like the rest. Is that why you want out?”
“That’s part of it, I suppose. But it goes the other way, too. He might not like the parts of me I haven’t shown him—and I might not like the parts of him he hasn’t put on display. Who knows what he’s really like in person?”
“I think you should wait and find out. See how things go when you guys meet face-to-face.”
“No, I need to do this now.”
“Before you’ve seen what he looks like, even?”
Before she lost her nerve, more like.
“He’s offering to send you a picture of himself. Are you seriously trying to tell me you aren’t the least bit curious if he’s handsome or not?”
“Of course I am.”
“Then let him send you a photograph. He was the one who offered, right? You get to see what he looks like, and then you can tell him you just want to be friends or whatever. What’s the harm in that?”
“I don’t know. I get all jittery when I think about it. What if he’s nothing like the man I pictured in my head?”
“So what if he isn’t? You said yourself it didn’t matter what he looked like.”
“But what if he is, Olivia? What if he’s the most attractive man I’ve ever seen? What am I going to do then?”
Olivia glanced across the room at Ben and flicked her chin in his direction. “I highly doubt that your BJ guy is going to be the best-looking guy you’ve ever laid eyes on. I saw the way your gaze lit up when Ben stopped by our table.”
“No you did not,” Vee responded adamantly. She wanted to crawl underneath the table and hide there. Maybe dig a hole to China and forget learning Spanish. Not only was she struggling with an attraction to a man who no doubt looked at her as nothing more than an annoying coworker at best, but her very best friend Olivia, ex-girlfriend of said attractive man, was picking up on it.
This was bad. Really bad.
“Ben looked at you the same way,” Olivia stated as matter-of-factly as if she were reciting the weather forecast. “I wouldn’t mind, you know—if you and Ben got together. You’d make an adorable couple.”
Vee was embarrassed—humiliated—that her emotions were running so close to the surface. This wasn’t like her, and it made her more uncomfortable than she could say.
“And now that he’s had some time to grow up a little bit, he’s probably less clueless about women. He’s certainly gotten smarter about dating every woman in town,” Olivia continued. Same song, different verse. “Ben isn’t the same fresh boy that he was when he came back to town from the military. He’s matured. And you’ve got to admit he is pretty sweet-looking. You two would look so cute together. I really wouldn’t mind.”
Vee shook her head furiously. “I’d mind. Can we please not talk about this anymore?”
“Okay,” agreed Olivia easily. “Then let’s get back to your cyber-guy. Picture or no picture?”
Vee stared at BJ’s email for a moment before pressing reply. She typed in a single word in response.
Okay.
Chapter Ten
Okay.
Ben stared at the one-word email. Veronica Jayne wanted to exchange pictures with him. His heart raced so hard that it roared in his ears.
What did his flower girl really look like? Was she blonde? Brunette? Tall? Short?
More to the point, would it matter? It was time for him to discover if he had any depth of character whatsoever or, as he feared, if he was just as shallow as the next guy, not able to look past a pretty face into something more substantial and meaningful.
Veronica Jayne hadn’t attached a photograph of herself, so he assumed she wanted him to go first. He used his mouse to click the folder containing his digital pictures and scrolled through them, searching for a photo of himself that put him at best advantage and that he imagined Veronica Jayne might like.
There was one of him and Zach panning goofy for the camera, their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, but he quickly nixed that one. He didn’t want to confuse Veronica Jayne by sending her a picture of two guys, he reflected with a startled chuckle. What if she thought Zach was the better-looking of the two of them?
Ben wasn’t willing to take that chance. Zach Bowden had turned more than a few women’s heads in the years before he’d married and settled down. What kind of comparison was there between the two men? Ben didn’t even want to know.
He finally settled on a picture his mother had snapped of him on a Sunday afternoon over the dinner table. It was a close-up of his face, and he was smiling his natural smile. It would have to do.
He hit Reply and attached the photograph to the email, then poised his fingers over the keys to write her a short note.
Dear Veronica Jayne,
Well, here it is. Or rather, here I am. I have to admit I’m a little nervous about what you’ll think of me. Don’t judge too harshly. I’m looking forward to receiving a photograph of you so I can finally put a face to your lovely name. Veronica Jayne. My flower girl.
BJ
“Hey, Uncle Ben,” Felix called as Ben’s two nephews scampered into the room. “What are you doing? Mom said you’re supposed to take us to the church carnival.”
Ben closed his laptop with a snap and laughed as he rounded up his nephews and tickled their ribs. “I was just finishing up some work here. You guys are anxious to go to the carnival, huh?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the boys answered in unison.
“Impatient little rugrats.”
He ruffled their hair. “Are you ready to throw rings at pop bottles and win the cakewalk?”
“What’s a cakewalk?” Nigel asked, screwing his face into an adorably bemused expression, his dark brows lowered over expressive eyes. “Do we really get to walk on cakes?”
Ben barked out a laugh. “No, little man. You don’t walk on cakes. You win one if you’re the last person standing. Or sitting, technically. In a chair.” The two boys shared confused looks and he shook his head. “It’s hard to explain. You’ll just have to learn to play it when you get there.”
Ben bundled the boys in their jackets and they headed out.
It was only a couple of blocks to the church from his parents’ house, so he and the boys walked, enjoying the temperate spring air. Felix and Nigel were both squirrelly from being cooped up in the house all day, and Ben thought it would be good for them to run off some of that energy before entering the carnival, which would be a crush of people in a relatively small area.
He was in excellent physical shape, but it was all he could do to keep up with the little guys, and he gained a new appreciation for mothers who had to herd their kids around day in and day out.
Located on the northeast corner of town on Main Street, the parking lot of the little white chapel was already full to overflowing with vehicles. Festive music streamed from the open doors of the fellowship hall, and he could already hear the joyous sound of children’s laughter, which made him smile. Nigel and Felix picked up their pace, dashing into the building ahead of Ben.
“Come one, come all,” greeted Jo exuberantly as Ben entered through the double doors. “Come eager to spend your money for a good cause—new choir robes for our trusty sanctuary choir! Hey there, Ben. Are you and the boys ready to win some prizes?”
