The Story Of Us

by Teri Wilson

  Sawyer apparently had no problem with it, as the half-empty bowl in front of him attested. He paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth, grinning like a school kid. “It’s Sundae Madness! I can’t believe they still have it.”

  She pointed back and forth between his empty burger wrapper and the huge sundae dish. “I think that was your exact order on our very first date.”

  “Yeah, it was,” he said, scooping up another bite. So he remembered that night as well as she did. Interesting. “Oh, wow. I’ve missed this so much. I’ve been to a million other ice cream shops, but nothing compares to Jeff’s.”

  Truer words were never spoken. “Oh, I missed it like crazy when I was in Minnesota.”

  “When were you in Minnesota?”

  “Right after I graduated from Reed.” Seeing him sitting on a park bench, holding a pink plastic spoon with Jeff’s old, wooden duck-shaped sign mere feet away, was giving Jamie serious high school flashbacks. Maybe that was why the words spilled out of her easily now, just like they used to. “I did an internship at a newspaper in Minneapolis and then they made me a full-time reporter. Mostly ‘human interest’ stories.”

  “Did you like it?” he said.

  “I did, yeah. I learned a lot about storytelling that way.” Just not enough to finish writing a full-length book on her own…yet. “But eventually I came to realize how much I missed this place. So six years ago, when I got back, Mr. Ogilvy made me manager of the store, and then when he decided to retire, I knew I had to buy it.”

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. You living outside of Oregon, however, does. I never thought you would.” His frowned into the melting remains of his ice cream.

  “I know. You said that when you broke up with me all those years ago.” Surely he hadn’t forgotten that little tidbit.

  “We broke up with each other,” he said, jabbing at the air with his spoon for emphasis.

  She raised a dubious eyebrow. “Did we?”

  “I thought we did.” There wasn’t an ounce of irony in his tone.

  So that was the way he’d seen things all these years. He’d considered their break-up mutual, when in actuality, she’d cried herself to sleep for weeks after that devastating conversation.

  Technically, he hadn’t outright dumped her. He’d simply said they were too young to try and make a long-distance relationship work once he left for school. In the speech he’d given her, he’d seemed focused on all the ways it would be bad for her if they tried to stay together. He’d said that he didn’t want her pining away for him back in Waterford while he was away at Columbia. He wanted her to spread her wings and do the things that made her happy.

  But you make me happy.

  It was all she’d been able to say, because it had been the truth. She’d loved Sawyer O’Dell with her whole heart. And he’d loved her too. She’d known it, but when she’d reminded him of that, all he’d told her in reply was that time was on their side—something that had meant less than nothing to her then. But looking back on it now, she remembered him saying that maybe, when the time was right, they’d find their way back to each other.

  She’d been so heartbroken in the aftermath that she’d forgotten that part. That was probably a good thing. If she hadn’t let go of the idea of them reuniting, she might have never moved on. But now, those words seemed fortuitous somehow.

  When the time is right…

  But the time wasn’t right. Ridley and True Love Books aside, Sawyer was back in Waterford only temporarily—he had no intention of staying put.

  “No,” she replied, pulling herself out of her thoughts. No, our breakup was absolutely not mutual…but it might have been the right decision after all. “Look, you had a very good point. People should go out into the world. See other things. Have other experiences before they decide where they want to settle down. That’s what I did, and that’s how I know,” she said, and she meant it. She got it now.

  He put down his ice cream spoon and gave her a tender smile, visibly relieved to put this part of their past behind them.

  This is nice, she thought. See, we can be friends.

  They just couldn’t be more…ever. Ridley Development wasn’t the only thing standing between them. There was also the matter of simple geography.

  “This is where I want to be.”

  Sawyer probably should have spent the day knocking on doors throughout the business district, pleading his case with the shop owners. At the very least, he should have been manning his new barista cart, chatting up the good people of Waterford when they came to set up for the festival, and reminding them that they could trust him because he was the same Sawyer O’Dell he’d been fifteen years ago. There was only one problem with that plan…

  It was the truth.

  He was beginning to think he might actually be the same Sawyer O’Dell—just as caught up in Jamie to the exclusion of everything else as he had been back then—and that wasn’t part of the plan at all. This wasn’t a vacation. It was a very important business trip, one that could make or break his entire future. But for some crazy reason, every time Jamie smiled at him or told him some new detail about her life or twirled a lock of her cascading hair around her fingertip the same way she used to do when lost in a book, he forgot about the re-design altogether. Back in high school, she’d been able to derail him from any action or train of thought just by looking his way. He’d assumed he’d outgrown that reaction, right along with teenage hormones. But…apparently not.

  That was not good. At all.

  Still, when their impromptu lunch was over and it was time for both of them to get back to work, he walked her back to True Love Books. He told himself they were both headed in the same direction anyway, so it only made sense to go with her. But the fact of the matter was that he couldn’t help himself. They’d walked this path together so many times before. It just felt…right.

  “So are you still writing?” he asked as they made their way from the shaded path of the park back through the sidewalk streets of the homey neighborhood that bordered the business district.

  “Here and there.” She gave a little shrug, which surprised him.

  Jamie’s head had always been so full of stories. It made sense that she’d bought the bookshop, but he’d also expected to discover that she’d written half a dozen books of her own by now. In her high school days, she’d filled countless notebooks with poems and short stories.

  “Have you published anything?”

  Jamie sighed. “Not yet.”

  He studied her profile as they walked past the old stone church at the corner of Main and 2nd Street. She was nibbling her bottom lip like she always did when she was unsure of herself. “Have you tried?”

  “I haven’t.” She shook her head and gave him a sheepish grin.

  He felt himself frown. “Why not?”

  “Probably for the same reason as everybody else who writes but doesn’t publish—fear of rejection.” She shrugged again. “Rejection hurts.”

  True, but the Jamie he knew never backed down from a challenge. She certainly wasn’t afraid to put her heart on the line for her bookstore.

  Writing was personal, though, wasn’t it? Jamie had once told him that it felt like putting her heart on paper. And if it was published, her heart would be out there for all the world to see. Maybe that was why she’d chosen journalism in college instead of pursuing her dream of writing a novel. News stories were more cut and dried, less personal. Even human-interest stories were about reporting facts instead of creating new characters and plots. Publishing a novel would have been inherently more vulnerable.

  He wondered if their break-up had anything to do with her fears of rejection. He sure hoped not.

  They’d already discussed their break-up, though. Oddly enough, talking to her about it at long last had felt like a closure, of sorts. He wasn’t sure if he should open tha
t door again.

  Beside him, Jamie swallowed and her expression began to close like a book. In an effort to lighten the mood again, Sawyer came to a halt by a big yellow caution sign at the intersection. “Duck crossing?”

  The sign had a silhouette of a mama duck and four baby ducklings, all in a row. Only in Waterford.

  “Yeah. Those went in a little while ago.” Jamie laughed. “Do you remember Mrs. Montenegro?”

  He did indeed. She lived in a big mansion in the center of downtown Waterford and organized bird-watching walks for tourists. “The woman on Ashland Avenue.”

  “Exactly!” Jamie’s hair whipped in the wind, and she pulled her bright pink knit scarf more tightly around her neck. “So, turns out she was buying land on the outskirts of town, just little by little, until eventually, she got the local preservation society to designate the area a bird sanctuary.”

  “Really?” He was interested in the duck story. But he was also thinking about how nice it would be to take Jamie’s hands and warm them up with his.

  “Yes. But an unforeseen result is we now have an influx of ducks.” She nodded toward the duck crossing sign.

  “Ducks?”

  “Oh, yeah. Ducks.” She spread her arms out wide. “Hundreds of ducks.”

  He laughed. It felt good to forget about Ridley for once…to just enjoy the moment with her. “And they, obviously, follow the rules of the road?”

  Jamie’s laughter mixed with his, and that’s when he knew she wasn’t thinking about the re-design anymore either. It was just the two of them. Here. Together. “Well, I don’t know if they actually—”

  And then, just like that, their moment ended when Chuck called out to him from across the street.

  “Hey, Sawyer!” He stood in the doorway of the pizzeria and waved. “Dad wants to say hi.”

  Right. Because he was in Waterford to woo business owners, not his high school sweetheart.

  “Um…I should…” He pointed toward the pizzeria, but his stubborn feet refused to move.

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.” Jamie nodded, and the somewhat frozen smile on her face made him even more reluctant to abandon their walk back to True Love. But he didn’t have much of a choice.

  Besides, she knew the way home. She always had. Sawyer was the one who couldn’t quite seem to figure that out.

  He stalled for a moment longer, postponing the inevitable, until Jamie waved him on. Then he jogged across the street, where Chuck’s dad was waiting for him with a welcoming smile and effusive handshake. At last, a shop owner who just might be on his side.

  A wave of relief passed through Sawyer, and he told himself not to look back at Jamie lingering on the street corner. But he did it anyway, and the wistful glimmer in her true-blue eyes made his chest tighten.

  Who was he kidding? She hadn’t forgotten about Ridley at all. Not for a second.

  The meeting at the pizzeria lasted all afternoon. It was more a reunion than an actual business discussion, but after donning an apron and proving to Chuck and his dad that he could still roll out pizza dough and toss it in the air like a pro—or at least like a reasonably competent amateur —Sawyer walked away with a promise that the pizzeria would throw their support behind the Ridley project.

  Finally, a small victory. Sawyer would take them where he could get them, so when he returned to Rick’s house later in the evening, he was in the mood for a little celebrating.

  Perhaps not on the scale of whatever Rick had going on, though, because when Sawyer walked through the door, he found his friend sitting at the kitchen table in front of six opened bottles of wine. Jazz music drifted from the stereo speakers as Rick swirled a glass of red in his hands.

  “Hey. What’s all this?” Sawyer said, scanning the area for another wineglass. Nope, just the one.

  Rick barely glanced up at him before picking up a pencil and jotting something down on a notepad. “I’m doing a last-minute Valentine’s-themed wine tasting at the restaurant.”

  So. Not a party, then. But at least Rick wasn’t planning on drinking all of this alone.

  “What made you think of this? Oh, let me guess.” Sawyer aimed finger guns at Rick. “Lucy.”

  “Yeah, Lucy. I saw her down at the park and we talked.” Rick took a sip from his glass, and his eyes went all dopey like they always did when he talked about Lucy. “I don’t know if I’m seeing what I want to see, but I feel like maybe…I mean…”

  His tongue was all tied up in knots, and Sawyer knew it had nothing to do with the wine.

  Still, the stammering continued. “Probably not, but…”

  “Rick.” How many more times was he going to have to say this? “You need to tell her how you feel.”

  Rick took a deep breath. “Okay. So I’m going to do a wine tasting. Create a fun, friendly environment where I can tell her how I feel.”

  He dropped his head in his hands. Sawyer didn’t believe him for a minute.

  Rick looked back up. “You’re going to help me out and make me look good like you did the other day?”

  “You don’t need me for that.” Sawyer snagged a bottle of Bordeaux for himself and gave Rick a solid pat on the back.

  His presence hadn’t made any difference whatsoever at the cooking class. But at least he could take heart in one simple truth—he wasn’t the only one whose love life was a complete and total disaster.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning, Jamie took advantage of a quiet hour at True Love to pop over to Anita’s Flowers and get a few things off of her chest.

  She’d vented to Eliot the night before, but he’d dozed off mid-rant, purring up a storm. Waking him would have just been rude, so she’d bottled everything up inside until Lucy turned up for work earlier. But every time Jamie mentioned Sawyer, Lucy’s expression morphed into one of amusement, as if Jamie would be talking about Sawyer for any reason other than the proposed Ridley project. Honestly, it was like Lucy thought Jamie was spending time with him because she still had feelings for him, which was definitely not the case.

  Then what was yesterday about, exactly?

  Business.

  Mostly, anyway.

  Jamie paced up and down a row of potted orchids while Anita polished the deep emerald-hued leaves of a plant. She tried her best to ignore the knowing look on her aunt’s face, which bore a striking resemblance to the one Lucy had worn earlier. “They were just shaking hands—just Sawyer, Chuck and Chuck’s dad. Like they’re old friends.”

  “Or former employer and employee,” Anita said. So not helpful.

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “From an eternity ago.”

  Seriously, what could they possibly have talked about all afternoon? According to the business district’s rumor mill, Sawyer had stayed at the pizzeria for hours. Someone had even seen him throwing pizza dough up in the air.

  What was next? Was he planning on donning a tutu and pirouetting his way over to Olga’s Dance Studio?

  “I remember every person I’ve ever employed.” Anita regarded the shiny leaf in her hand and, seemingly satisfied, moved onto the next plant in the row.

  “Yeah, well. You’re good like that,” Jamie said. Then, upon further reflection, “And so is Chuck…and Chuck’s dad.” That was yet another thing she loved about the business district exactly as it was.

  She shook her head, as if doing so could help her focus on the real problem at hand. “It’s Sawyer I’m mad at.”

  “Mad?” Anita abandoned her plant-polishing efforts to turn around and aim a skeptical look in Jamie’s direction.

  Her face went warm.

  Busted.

  She wasn’t necessarily angry at Sawyer. Not anymore. She felt…a lot of things, actually. Far too many to try and untangle.

  “Okay, I’m frustrated. I’m not mad.” She shook her head. “He is winning people over right and le
ft. And now I think Olga’s Dance Studio is going to back the proposal.”

  Anita’s lips pursed. “Well, it’s not just Sawyer’s charm.”

  Jamie paused. That didn’t sound good. “What do you mean?”

  Anita held up a finger, then strode past Jamie and made her way to opposite side of the sales counter. She pulled open a drawer, retrieved a sheet of paper and slapped it on the countertop.

  Oh, no. Not another one.

  “Is that…?” A flier. This was one white instead of blue, but it had Ridley’s logo in the upper left-hand corner. Jamie recognized it from the paper cups at Sawyer’s coffee and hot chocolate stand.

  Anita nodded. “Mm-hmm. Twenty percent increase from their last offer.”

  Jamie’s head spun as she scanned the words on the page. It was official—Ridley had upped its buyout offer by twenty percent.

  This changed everything. The initial offer had already been generous enough that most of the business owners Jamie spoke with had been at least tempted to accept the deal, and now Ridley had gone and sweetened the pot.

  She felt like she might be sick.

  “I’m not going to accept it.” Anita held up her hands.

  Jamie shook her head. The effort it took to keep her chin from quivering was monumental, but she couldn’t ask her aunt to turn down such a large sum of money. She just couldn’t. “Aunt Anita.”

  “No. This is my home, and this store is still my joy. Besides, I’m too young to retire just yet.” She reached out to give Jamie’s hand a reassuring pat.

  As relieved as Jamie was to hear that her aunt still didn’t want to accept Ridley’s offer, she still felt sick to her stomach. “Yeah, but if you got that, it means the others did too.”