The Story Of Us

by Teri Wilson

  Unfortunately, she didn’t have fifteen hours to spare, since the town council meeting was scheduled to begin less than an hour after Sawyer left.

  She shelved like a madwoman, channeling all of her confusion into getting the shiny new books perfectly displayed before it was time to close up and head to her aunt’s flower shop so they could walk to the meeting together.

  She debated whether or not tell Anita that Sawyer had dropped by…and ultimately decided against it. Anita had always loved Sawyer. Everyone loved Sawyer. But if she mentioned it, the fact that he was back in town would become a thing. And Jamie had already decided it definitely wasn’t a thing. It was a non-thing, really. Sure, it had been nice to see him, but she had more important things to think about.

  Namely, saving her bookstore.

  The town council meeting was set to take place at the Waterford Community Center, an old church that had been converted into a theatre and meeting hall. With its tall steeple and arched stained-glass window, it had always been one of Jamie’s favorite buildings in the business district. Even though the space hadn’t served as a house of worship for thirty-some-odd years, it still carried the distinct, comforting aroma of candle wax, furniture polish and old hymnals. Light spilled in from the nave windows overhead, and every tiny sound echoed off the smooth oak floors.

  As lovely as the old building was, Jamie hummed with nervous energy when she and Anita walked through the door. The turnout for the council meeting was huge. They were ten minutes early, and the foyer was already packed. A few of Anita’s friends huddled in a group around the coffee station, and she peeled off to greet them while Jamie took in the architectural plans displayed on large easels around the perimeter of the room. A scale model of a hyper-modern superstructure that looked more like a spaceship than a building sat on a table beside a podium.

  Jamie stared at it, aghast, until a nice-looking man in a sleek business suit and red power tie approached her.

  He smiled. “It’s Jamie Vaughn, right? With True Love Books?”

  “And Cafe, yes.” She nodded.

  “Eric Duncan.” He held out his hand. “I’m new to the city council, and the area.”

  “Nice to meet you, Councilman.” Jamie shook his hand and smiled back at him.

  “I’m glad you dropped by to see the designs for the development.” He tipped his head toward the miniature spaceship.

  Ugh.

  “Proposed development,” she corrected.

  “Proposed development.” He let out a soft laugh, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. He seemed nice, at least. Not like the sort of person who would want to tear down a bookstore. “We’re hopeful it will generate some much-needed interest in the local business community.”

  “Well, what about the Fire and Ice Festival? It has drawn a lot of interest in the area and been very popular for the last three years,” Jamie said.

  Practically everyone in Waterford came out for the festival which was a street fair held in the heart of the business district in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. All the local businesses set up booths and the whole area was decorated with flaming heart-shaped torches and grand ice sculptures—hence the festival’s name. In just three years, the Fire and Ice Festival had become a full-fledged Waterford tradition.

  Eric nodded. Good. At least he’d heard of the event. “And I hope it continues to be, but we should consider all options.”

  “Sure. I just have a million questions.” She could hear herself talking too fast, but Eric the Councilman was beginning to glance around, distracted, and she still had a lot to say. “Starting with what happens to the existing stores if this project goes through?”

  Someone in the periphery called his name, and he cut her off. “I’m sorry, could you excuse me for a second?”

  Then Eric and his power tie were gone before she’d made any headway whatsoever. Super. She lifted her chin, determined. There had to be someone else influential she could talk to before the meeting commenced.

  She peered into the crowd, searching for another member of the town council, but froze in place at the sight of a familiar chiseled face. Her breath caught in her throat.

  Sawyer?

  His gaze flitted toward her and they locked eyes for a moment across the packed room. Sure enough, it was Captain Wentworth himself, smiling and shaking hands with Councilman Eric.

  “Hi,” she mouthed, waving at him before she could stop herself.

  Something strange was going on. What on earth was he doing at the town council meeting? And why would he possibly be interested in schmoozing with a local politician?

  Sawyer broke away from his chat with Eric to head her way, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she’d finally get to the bottom of his sudden reappearance.

  “Jamie!” He flashed her a crooked smile.

  The dimple in his left cheek that she’d always loved so much was still right there, looking as boyish and charming as ever. Because of course it was.

  She opened her mouth to say something witty yet probing, but before she could utter a word, Aunt Anita returned with a squeal.

  “My goodness. Sawyer O’Dell?” Anita looked him up and down as if he were some kind of handsome mirage.

  Sawyer’s face split into a wide grin and he wrapped his arms around her. “Hello, Anita.”

  Jamie stood by awkwardly while they hugged and tried not to think about how Anita had doted on her the entire summer after graduation, determined to help mend Jamie’s broken heart. There had been copious amounts of ice cream and trips to the Waterford animal shelter to bottle-feed orphaned kittens. Anita had been amazing, and by the start of Jamie’s first college semester, she’d felt almost whole again.

  Still, Anita had never once bad-mouthed Sawyer back then. And all those ice cream dates and kitten outings suddenly seemed forgotten…

  Which was completely fine. Jamie was completely fine, thank you very much. She was over Sawyer O’Dell.

  She grinned brightly at him, just to prove it. “So. Nothing for fifteen years and then I see you twice in one hour?”

  “Um. Yeah.” Sawyer glanced back and forth between Jamie and Anita, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back again. He seemed a little uncomfortable all of sudden. Guilty, even. His bone structure, however, remained annoyingly perfect. “Well, I wasn’t exactly sure how to broach the subject earlier…”

  “Sawyer?”

  His eyes cut to a woman dressed in an elegant white blouse and an expensive-looking black pantsuit who was sashaying toward them, intently focused on Sawyer.

  “Are the designs ready to show?” she asked, completely ignoring Jamie and Anita’s presence.

  Sawyer nodded. “Yes. They are queued up.”

  Designs?

  What designs?

  Somewhere in the periphery, Jamie could see Anita nervously fidgeting. But she didn’t dare drag her attention away from Sawyer and the strange woman, who she suspected might be named Dana.

  “Excellent.” The woman nodded, finally appearing to notice Jamie and Anita. Sure enough, a D-shaped charm hung from a delicate gold chain around her neck. “Hello. Are you local business owners?”

  Jamie was too busy staring daggers at her to say anything, so Anita jumped in with an introduction. “Yes, we are. I’m Anita Vaughn from Anita’s Flowers. And this is my niece…”

  Jamie raised her hand. “Jamie Vaughn. True Love Books & Cafe.”

  She glanced at Sawyer. Beads of sweat were starting to break out on his beautiful forehead.

  “Nice to meet you both.” Dana’s glossy blond bob swung as she spoke. “I hope you’ll be as excited as we are about the vision we have in mind for the project.”

  “Proposed project,” Jamie countered. She really wished she didn’t have to keep saying that.

  Dana gave a dismissive wave of her hand, cl
early unconcerned with semantics. “I’m confident that Sawyer’s designs will help persuade the council to go forward.”

  Sawyer’s smile froze in place, and Jamie stared at him in complete and utter horror.

  “Ready?” Dana smiled widely at Sawyer before heading for the podium.

  He went still for a second, like a deer in headlights.

  Jamie’s entire body quivered with indignation. She crossed her arms as aggressively as she could. “Your designs?”

  He glanced at Anita and then back at Jamie, wincing. “Yeah…”

  And then, much to Jamie’s annoyance, he fled. He beat a hasty path to the head of the room and started chatting with Dana and Councilman Eric while gesturing to the spaceship model.

  Correction: his spaceship model.

  “Are you all right?” Anita rested gentle fingertips on Jamie’s elbow.

  She wasn’t all right. She wasn’t fine anymore, either. Far from it.

  How could she have been so blind? She really should have seen this coming. She’d asked Sawyer point-blank why he was in Waterford, and he’d never answered the question. He wasn’t a Jane Austen hero at all. He could recite all the Shakespeare he wanted, but that didn’t mean Jamie knew him anymore. He was practically a stranger.

  Sawyer laughed at something the councilman said and Jamie glared at him. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Chapter Five

  An hour later, Jamie was back at True Love, sipping a latte so beautiful that it was more of a work of art than a simple coffee drink.

  Either Aunt Anita had given Lucy a heads up about the Sawyer situation or her best friend intuition was simply really spot-on, because the moment Jamie crossed the threshold, Lucy was ready and waiting with a giant latte cup in each hand. Each of the drinks was topped with a perfect heart swirled into the foam—a feat that had taken Lucy weeks to perfect once Jamie had invested in a gorgeous stainless-steel espresso maker for the store. Now True Love sold more coffee drinks than the diner down the street.

  People liked romance. They liked hearts swirled into their foam and visiting a shop that was as much a love letter to the community as it was a bookstore. But all of that would change if Sawyer got his way.

  Jamie sipped her latte and pored over the details of the proposed Ridley project on her iPad while Lucy rang up customers. She’d been right to be worried about the plans for the redesign. The model of the spaceship building was slated to be the new centerpiece of Waterford’s business district, and Ridley wanted to put it on the exact corner that True Love currently occupied.

  “There you go. Enjoy!” Lucy said as she handed another of her frothy lattes to a customer, along with one of Rick’s decorated sugar cookies.

  “I knew it,” Jamie said once the door shut behind the customer. “They’re wiping out all of the stores.”

  She placed the iPad on the sales counter and turned it so Lucy could get a proper view of the architectural plans.

  Lucy swept crumbs from the countertop and glanced at the tablet.

  “Just like Tanner Falls,” Jamie said for added emphasis.

  “Really?” Lucy pulled a face.

  “Yep. And Sawyer is a part of it.” A big part. Huge. As in, he was the literal architect of her worst nightmare. “I cannot believe he didn’t tell me.”

  Lucy tilted her head, thinly veiled amusement dancing in her eyes. “How long did you two date?”

  Jamie wasn’t entirely sure how to answer that question. Until he’d broken up with her and left Waterford, it seemed as if Sawyer had always been a part of her life. “Well, we met in the eighth grade but didn’t start dating until our sophomore year.”

  Lucy’s gaze narrowed. “Were you Prom Queen and King?”

  “He was king.” Sawyer had always been the popular one. Jamie, not so much. “I was the girl who stayed late in the library, focusing on my books and studies.”

  Lucy laughed. “Of course you were.”

  “Yeah, you would think those differences would’ve driven us apart, especially being so young. But…” Her heart gave a bittersweet tug. “That wasn’t until after graduation.”

  “What happened?”

  Jamie took a deep breath. “Well, right before he left for college, he came to me to give me this big speech about how we were way too young to be so serious, especially with him going off to Columbia and me staying here at Reed. You know, we had our ‘whole futures to consider.’ We broke up. And that was that.”

  That wasn’t that. Not exactly. She’d not-so-casually left out the part about being a heartbroken mess for the whole summer after that painful conversation.

  Sawyer had been the love of her life back then. In the years since, she’d never come close to loving someone that way. Not Matt, not anyone. Sometimes she thought Sawyer O’Dell was still the love of her life.

  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 are amazing.”

  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 will both have 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 will both have 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’t be having 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 l
eft 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.

  “She’s not happy about the project,” Rick said nonchalantly.