The Story Of Us

by Teri Wilson

  Nice choice. The room erupted into oohs and ahhs.

  Rick managed to take a breath and laugh until Lucy gave Sweater Guy a playful punch as she shouted, “Yes!”

  Sawyer figured he was in for a long night. He wasn’t sure if anyone had ever needed to wingman this hard in the entire history of wingman-ing. He met Rick’s gaze, nodded and did a little shadow boxing motion.

  Don’t give up, champ.

  His attempt at subtle encouragement didn’t go unnoticed—not by Jamie, anyway. When Sawyer glanced over at her, he found her glowering at him, mouth agape.

  His face went warm. “What?”

  While Rick answered questions from a few of the attendees, Jamie murmured to Sawyer, “Oh, I mean, I just think if a guy wants to say something to a woman—like ‘Hey, I like you’ or ‘Hey, I’m actively employed by the company trying to tear down your store’—that direct communication goes a lot further than dancing around the topic or, you know, being vague about it.” She wagged a finger back and forth between Sawyer and Rick. “But you guys do you.”

  Sawyer shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Beside him, Anita shook with silent laughter. Councilman Eric just seemed confused, and Sawyer was in no mood to fill him in.

  “Okay, if one partner would head to the back and grab some salad fixings…” Rick pointed at a long table set up behind the cooking stations.

  Jamie—clearly energized by her wave of indignation—grabbed a silver bowl and a pair of tongs and took off as if she’d been shot out of a cannon.

  Sawyer followed, hot on her heels. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention my involvement with Ridley when I first saw you at the bookshop.”

  There. He’d said it. He’d apologized.

  She whipped around to face him, blond ringlets flying. Her skin was so beautiful, it made Sawyer want to weep. “Thank you.”

  “But, in my defense…” He just couldn’t keep his mouth shut because, after all, he wasn’t totally in the wrong. “I didn’t know it was your bookshop until just then.”

  “But you knew it was True Love and you knew how much that place means to me.” She grabbed a chunk of arugula with her tongs.

  Was she seriously not going to cut him the tiniest bit of slack? He was just doing his job. He shook his head and shoveled arugula into his bowl. “Well, yeah, but not for a long time.”

  “No, it wasn’t a long time ago to me. And if you think your being a part of Team Ridley is going to stop me from saving True Love, then you have another thing coming.” She clicked her tongs together right in his face for emphasis. The effect was surprisingly ominous.

  Sawyer grabbed his bowl and chased after her. He still knew Jamie well enough to know when she was up to something. The high fives when she’d walked in with Lucy, the wielding of kitchen implements…these things weren’t insignificant.

  “What are you cooking up?” he asked once they’d returned to their side-by-side cooking stations.

  She blinked at him with exaggerated innocence. “Miso-glazed salmon. Weren’t you paying attention?”

  “I was paying attention.” In fact, he’d been paying Jamie Vaughn far more attention than he wanted to admit. “And you are planning something.”

  She completely ignored him, focusing instead on the food at her table and Eric, whose presence was really turning out to be a thorn in Sawyer’s side for reasons he didn’t want to contemplate.

  “Sawyer?” Rick said.

  “What?” he snapped.

  Rick aimed a quizzical look at the bowl in Sawyer’s hands and motioned toward the cluster of his classmates lingering by the table of ingredients. “Do you want to give everybody else some arugula?”

  What the…?

  Sawyer glanced down. “Oh.”

  His bowl overfloweth. Arugula spilled over the rim and onto the floor. He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t left a single leaf behind for the other cooking students.

  Titters of laughter broke out, and when Sawyer looked back up, every pair of eyes in the room was on him—with the notable exception of Jamie and Eric, who only seemed to have eyes for each other.

  The night was getting longer by the second. He winced. “Sorry.”

  Was it time for dessert yet?

  Chapter Seven

  To Jamie’s immense delight, the Waterford Chronicle article about True Love Books & Cafe was splashed across the front page of the Arts & Culture section the following morning. A photograph she’d sent the editor was printed alongside it—Jamie, standing by the bookstore’s front counter and holding up the box of Valentines she’d found behind the piano.

  The response to the story was overwhelmingly supportive, beyond anything Jamie could have possibly imagined. To her complete and utter astonishment, the story went viral shortly before noon, with enough tweets, retweets and Facebook posts to spread news of the impending threat to her bookshop far and wide.

  Customers poured in, not just from Waterford, but from the surrounding towns as well. They lingered by the cherry tree display at the front of the store where Jamie and Lucy had strung up the old Valentine cards from The Story of Us box, securing them with glittery gold ribbon and pink clothespins. Some customers stayed for hours, reading each and every handwritten message while sipping coffee or nibbling one of Rick’s heart-shaped cookies. They bought books, too! Love stories by the armful. Jamie darted back and forth between the storeroom and the sales floor, trying to keep up with the demand. Meanwhile, the cupcake supply dwindled at an alarming rate. By two o’clock, she was forced to make an emergency run to Rick’s Bistro to pick up more.

  She took advantage of her time away to make a quick stop at Anita’s Flowers to share the exciting news with her aunt. The store had been so busy that Jamie hadn’t had a spare second to talk to her about the article, much less the sudden boom in business. Her fingertips flew over her tablet, opening the newspaper’s webpage. She practically shoved it at Aunt Anita the minute she stepped inside her shop.

  Anita insisted on reading the article aloud, even though Jamie had practically memorized every word of it.

  “‘Is romance on your mind? True Love Books & Cafe in Waterford may be the place to go. With dozens of proposals and successful first dates in its history, some say the bookstore and café is love’s lucky charm. While we’ll never know for sure, many former customers believe in its romantic magic so much, they’ve been sending thank-you Valentines to the store for decades.’” Anita paused for a breath before getting to the last line, Jamie’s favorite part. “‘Isn’t this just the type of Waterford legacy worth saving?’”

  Jamie liked those words more and more every time she heard them. She’d actually done it! She’d managed to completely change the narrative surrounding the proposed Ridley development. No one in town was talking about Sawyer’s fancy plans anymore. Now they were talking about things that actually mattered—things like True Love Books and romance and community.

  “Oh, this is wonderful, Jamie.” Anita looked up, grinning from ear to ear. “Was the article your idea?”

  Jamie nodded and hugged the tablet to her chest when Anita returned it to her, then followed her aunt to a display cooler filled with long-stemmed roses. “I did the interview yesterday. I probably should’ve thought of it before, but it didn’t occur to me until I found the Valentines and with the vote coming up—which, did you hear?”

  Anita shook her head as she pulled the cooler door open. “No.”

  “It got moved up,” Jamie said. The town council had announced the new date less than an hour ago. “To February fourteenth.”

  “Valentine’s Day?” Anita plucked a few white roses from a vase and frowned. “So soon?”

  “I guess Ridley is putting pressure on them to make a decision.” Jamie was convinced the sudden interest in True Love was behind the abrupt schedule change. “But honestly, this article has generate
d so much interest in the store. We have people coming in from Portland. And Eugene! Lucy called this morning and said there was a line already outside the door.”

  Jamie couldn’t believe it. The last time she’d seen anyone form a line outside a store anyplace in Oregon was at the popular donut shop in Portland—the one with the pink boxes and all those crazy donut flavors. This kind of excitement and enthusiasm for her shop felt like a miracle.

  “Will it be enough, though?” Anita chose two more white roses and closed the cooler door.

  Jamie followed her to the counter where a floral arrangement sat waiting, half-assembled. “What do you mean?”

  “If you stop Ridley Properties this time, won’t a development team just come right in behind them?” Anita placed the flowers on the counter and peered at Jamie over the top of her glasses. Something about the look in her eyes dampened Jamie’s glee over True Love’s sudden popularity. “I mean, it sure seems like the council has their sights set on wiping this whole area clean and starting over.”

  No, that couldn’t be true. Jamie refused to believe it. “Actually, it’s pretty evenly split. Which means that Eric will have the final say, and he’s very open to listening.”

  He’d been so attentive at the cooking class. Granted, she hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to him about the Ridley situation since Sawyer had been within earshot for practically the entire night.

  Anita smirked. “Or he notices a pretty woman is the face of the opposition.”

  “It’s not like that,” Jamie corrected. There was no room for anyone named Eric in a romantic hiatus. Zero.

  Anita shook her head and laughed. “Oh, honey. I saw how he looked at you at the cooking class. Sawyer saw it, too.”

  She shot an amused glance at Jamie and then strolled toward the other side of the flower shop, forcing Jamie to scurry after her.

  “Sawyer?” Jamie cleared her throat, lest she sound overly interested in anything he might think. “What did Sawyer say?”

  “He didn’t say anything.” Anita paused at a shelf full of colorful glass vases and chose a frosted green one for her arrangement. “I mean, after your little spat…”

  “It was not a spat.” Jamie rolled her eyes so hard it was almost painful. “Couples have spats. We had a…vigorous disagreement.”

  “However you want to put it.” Anita waved a dismissive hand. “The point is, Sawyer kept watching both of you through the whole class.”

  Why did this inconvenient nugget of information send a little thrill skittering through Jamie’s veins? And why did she suddenly have to bite down hard on her bottom lip to stop herself from smiling?

  She squared her shoulders and reminded herself how much she was starting to loathe Sawyer O’Dell and his hideously modern architectural aesthetic. “Well, there’s nothing going on between me and Eric. Especially after…”

  Anita arched a single, accusatory eyebrow. “Sawyer?”

  Seriously? She hadn’t dated the man in over a decade. She’d moved on…mostly. “Matt! The guy I was just dating who moved away?”

  “But to be fair to Matt, he wanted you to go with him,” Anita said.

  “Unlike Sawyer, who just left.”

  Anita tilted her head. “To go to college.”

  “Whose side are you on?” Jamie said, only half-seriously. She knew good and well that Anita had always been her biggest supporter.

  “Always yours.” Anita laughed, then pointed to Jamie’s tablet. “Which is why I’m so proud of you for that.”

  “Thank you.” A fresh wave of happiness coursed through her—as it should. There was absolutely no reason why Jamie should spoil her triumphant day by thinking about Sawyer. Or their long-ago breakup. Or her heart’s annoying habit of skipping a beat every time she ran into him.

  Jamie’s gaze flitted over her aunt’s shoulder toward a cluster of bobbing red balloons with the word Love printed on them in shiny silver letters. She wondered briefly if anyone made balloons that said Romantic Hiatus.

  Probably not.

  “I wonder what the feedback will be like from the Ridley side?” Anita began tucking her new arrangement into the vase. White roses and baby’s breath spilled over the edge, perfectly offset by deep emerald leaves.

  She’s so good at this, Jamie thought. The flower shop was just as important to the community as True Love Books & Cafe—maybe even more so. Anita had seen just about everyone in town through the myriad of life’s ups and downs—weddings, birthdays, funerals. Waterford needed Anita’s Flowers.

  Jamie shrugged in answer to her aunt’s question but hope fluttered deep in her belly. With any luck, the feedback from Ridley would be a big white flag of surrender. Then everything could go back to the way it had been before. No more Ridley. No more scary fliers from the town council.

  No more Sawyer O’Dell.

  Sawyer knew something had gone terribly wrong when he was awakened by a text from Dana before the sun came up.

  He squinted at his phone in the semi-darkness of Rick’s spare bedroom, wondering what could have possibly happened overnight to warrant the dressing down that seemed to be coming his way. Dana’s words were brief and to the point.

  Get to the office in Portland immediately.

  He suddenly felt like he was right back at Waterford High, being summoned to the principal’s office, especially when Dana’s initial text was followed quickly by another, more dauntingly specific message.

  We need to discuss Jamie Vaughn.

  Something inside Sawyer’s chest closed into a tight fist. He knew Jamie was up to something. She’d acted far too smug for his liking last night at Rick’s Valentine’s class. He’d done his best to keep things as civil as possible. He’d even extended an olive branch and apologized. But Jamie hadn’t cut him any slack whatsoever. She’d just waxed poetic about her precious bookstore and batted her eyelashes at Eric over their plate of mediocre salmon. Rick’s professional-grade recipe had been a tough nut to crack.

  Except Jamie hadn’t technically been batting her lashes or flirting in any obvious way. Still, Sawyer’s throat had grown thick every time she’d laughed at something Eric said or simply looked at her cooking partner with anything other than the veiled disgust she reserved specifically for Sawyer these days. And their salmon hadn’t looked anywhere near as mediocre as what he and Anita had managed to cook up. Everything Jamie and Eric whipped up looked nearly identical to Rick’s sample plate. Rick had even bragged about what a “great team” they made.

  He found it nauseating…in a completely neutral, non-jealous sort of way, of course.

  Sawyer shook his head.

  You are losing it, my friend.

  The arugula didn’t lie.

  At least he didn’t have it as bad as Rick—genuinely interested in a relationship with Lucy, who’d also spend the entire evening alongside another man, despite all wingman-ing efforts to the contrary. It wasn’t as if Sawyer was seriously looking to rekindle anything with Jamie. He was just confused, or caught up in some aching whirlwind of nostalgia, taunted by the age-old question of what might have been. The pull he felt every time she walked into the room wasn’t anything significant.

  It couldn’t be.

  In any case, that magnetic pull certainly didn’t work both ways. Jamie despised him. She’d made that perfectly clear. Maybe getting out of Waterford for a few hours was just what he needed to get his head back in the game.

  He threw off the covers and got dressed within a matter of minutes, then quietly left the house so as not to disturb Rick. Once behind the wheel of his car, travel coffee mug in hand, he finally conducted a cursory search on his tablet for any Jamie-related news. It wouldn’t hurt to know what he was in for once he got to the Ridley offices.

  An article popped up immediately—a piece from the local Waterford paper that had been linked to by half a dozen regional n
ews sites and every social media outlet he’d ever heard of. She’d gone viral.

  Find Your True Love at True Love: Is romance on your mind? True Love Books & Cafe in Waterford may be the place to go.

  Great.

  Sawyer groaned within the confines of his Subaru. Now it looked as if Ridley—and by extension, Sawyer himself—wasn’t only trying to close down a beloved bookstore but was also actively standing in the way of romance itself. No wonder Jamie and Lucy had been high-fiving all over the place last night. And no wonder Dana seemed so eager to take him to task.

  He made it Portland in record time—less than three hours—eager to get the painful meeting over with. As he expected, Dana was ready and waiting for him in the sleek white conference room when he arrived. He pasted on a grin and strode inside.

  Dana waved off his greeting and pointed to a silver mesh angular chair where he obediently took a seat. His backside barely had a chance to make contact with it before she handed him an iPad. He looked down, and Jamie’s face smiled up at him from the photograph accompanying the now-famous article about True Love’s importance to Waterford. He’d barely looked at the picture when he’d first pulled up the article earlier, more concerned with the contents of the story itself. Now, however, he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from it.

  Hair tumbling over her shoulders in loose blond curls, Jamie wore a soft gray sweater with pale pink stipes—cashmere, from the looks of it. Light spilled in from True Love’s big picture window, casting a gentle glow over the box of Valentines in her hand and the shelves of books behind her, almost making the photograph look as if it had been taken in another era. Timeless. Beautiful.

  Sawyer couldn’t help being struck by the softness of the image and how much it contrasted with the room in which he now sat, all hard edges and glossy surfaces. The difference made him feel inexplicably hollow all of a sudden, so he forced his attention back to Dana looming over him less than a foot away.

  She gave him a stiff smile. “Your goal was to persuade the community to embrace our deal.”