by Teri Wilson
No, she decided the second Sawyer walked into the room and took his place next to Dana beside the lectern. It’s definitely a bad thing. Her face went instantly hot, and she was certain every person within a five-mile radius could tell she was hopelessly in love with Sawyer O’Dell.
Emphasis on hopeless.
She forced herself to look away, focusing instead on the crowd assembled for the meeting. Every single shopkeeper from the business district was in attendance—Olga from the dance studio, Beth from the hobby shop, Chuck from the pizzeria, along with his dad. So many others, too. A long conference table had been set up along one of the side walls, where members of the town council sat facing forward. Eric was situated right in the center with a gavel in his hand and a microphone stand in front of him.
Everything looked so official. It was impossible not to feel at least a little bit intimidated. Before she could stop herself, Jamie glanced at Sawyer in search of comfort. Big mistake, obviously. Huge. His warm brown eyes looked as soft as velvet and as soon as their gazes locked, Jamie found it impossible to look away.
True love doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be true.
Her heart beat impossibly hard.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Eric said into the microphone, prompting Dana to step up to the lectern and begin the presentation.
“Thank you. Council members, I’m Dana Sutton. With me is Sawyer O’Dell, and together we represent Ridley Property Development…” As if Jamie needed the reminder. She felt Lucy’s gaze on her, checking to make sure she was okay, but she kept her focus straight ahead as Dana continued, “…which, as you know, has presented a proposal for a redesign to the Waterford Business District.”
Gosh, this was painful.
Jamie squirmed in her chair, almost wishing they would just commence with the vote and call it a day. She didn’t have the emotional bandwidth for another splashy presentation of the architectural renderings of her beloved business district disappearing to make way for some hideous spaceship, and she was pretty certain that was what was next on the agenda because a drop-down screen began to unfurl behind Sawyer’s head.
Dana dazzled at the lectern. “We are here today to withdraw that proposal.”
Wait.
What?
The room buzzed with interest. Lucy grabbed Jamie’s arm, and she knew she should probably react. But she couldn’t. Until she knew exactly what was going on, all she could do was sit there numbly, afraid to get her hopes up.
But then Sawyer shot her a tiny, almost imperceptible wink…and her spirits rose like a buoyant, beautiful, heart-shaped balloon on a string.
“And we’d like to present a new one.” Dana turned toward Eric and his colleagues. “If the council is amenable.”
Eric leaned forward in his chair. “You realize this will mean we’ll have to delay the vote until everyone has a chance to review the designs, in depth?”
“We do. And, honestly? My business instincts are completely against this.” Dana pressed a hand to her heart, and Jamie was more bemused than ever. “But my creative instinct says that what Sawyer came up with deserves to be seen.”
Eric nodded. “Well, then, let’s see it.”
Dana stepped aside to make room for Sawyer at the lectern as the lights dimmed.
He looked out over the audience, briefly locking eyes with Jamie again before he spoke. “Everybody wants the Waterford business district to succeed. The question is—which direction do we take in order to achieve that goal?”
He pointed a clicker toward a projector set up on a small table beside the podium, and a current image of the Waterford business district flashed onto the screen. “If we only choose to preserve history, then we risk failing to revitalize the business district and losing out on the opportunity to bring new business to Waterford.”
He clicked again, and the onscreen image switched to the three-dimensional design that Ridley presented at the previous town council meeting.
“If we just wipe the slate clean, we lose the charm and history of what makes Waterford the kind of place we like to call home,” he said. Then he took a deep breath and aimed a quiet smile directly at Jamie. “But after being back here for the first time in a long time, and having several conversations with the very persuasive Ms. Jamie Vaughn…”
His eyes twinkled, and Jamie couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe.
“…I started thinking about another route,” he said. This time, when he pressed the clicker, a new version of the design appeared.
Sawyer’s drawings came alive, spinning and revealing themselves, piece by piece. The plans definitely included a new building, but on the ground floor, supporting the new construction, the town favorites remained—the pizzeria, Anita’s Flowers, Olga’s Dance Studio, Beth’s Hobby World, Kagan’s Bikes. He’d even including the duck crossings.
And at the glorious center of everything stood True Love Books & Cafe on its original street corner with the old oak tree towering over its courtyard. Jamie couldn’t believe it. It was everything she wanted—and more, because even though the existing shops were still part of the new project in the same storefronts they currently occupied, the presentation included many charming improvements. Doggy water fountains were evenly spaced along the sidewalk, a huge pergola was placed over the entrance to Anita’s Flowers as a support for the elaborate flower arches she’d always wanted to create, and the pizzeria now had a wide picture window where passers-by could stop and watch pizza dough being tossed into the air. The Ridley coffee cart was still a thing too, parked at a jaunty angle near the entrance to the park, with a pretty striped awning, barstools and a sign promising free hot chocolate on snowy days.
Jamie glanced at a beaming Anita, then at Rick and Lucy, who exchanged a definite I knew it look. So this was real…she hadn’t imagined it. Sawyer had listened to her. He’d truly paid attention to all the things she’d been telling him about Waterford and True Love and the old oak tree. Even better, he’d come to understand what made their town so special, because all the added touches were beyond her wildest dreams. So sweet, so perfectly Waterford.
Her breath hitched. All this time she’d been doubting him, when in fact, Sawyer really was a true hometown boy.
True.
She blinked back tears as he finished his presentation.
“I believe this new design will help foster the sense of Waterford’s history and community while respecting the past, honoring the present…” He paused, cleared his throat, and his final words seemed to carry a tender promise. “…and planning for the future.”
“Thank you, Mr. O’Dell. Now…” Eric picked up his gavel, and before she could stop herself, Jamie flew to her feet.
“Can I say something?” she blurted.
Every head in the room turned in her direction. Most notably, Sawyer’s.
Eric nodded. “Please, Ms. Vaughn.”
She walked slowly to the podium, and both Sawyer and Dana stepped aside to give her some space at the lectern. She wanted to get this right—needed to get it right. There were so many emotions tumbling around inside her, she didn’t quite trust herself to speak without breaking down.
But she had to. Sawyer had done the impossible. He’d paved a way toward a future…for both of them and for Waterford. There was no way she could let the meeting adjourn until she let the council, and the town itself, know how she felt.
“Hi. As most of you know, I have been leading the opposition to the redesign. To me, there is a magic to the history of this place.” She held her arms out, encompassing everyone in the room. “In the story of us.”
A muscle in Sawyer’s jaw visibly tensed, and Jamie realized he was nervous.
So she fixed her gaze with his and said, “However, that doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice our future. And after looking at Mr. O’Dell’s new designs, I believe he’s found a way to bri
dge the divide. For which I am profoundly grateful.”
Her voice broke, and something inside her broke along with it. She was so tired of fighting… All this time, she’d thought she had been fighting for True Love, and in a way she had been, but she’d also been fighting against it—against the feelings she had for Sawyer, her one true love. She couldn’t do it anymore. She was ready to concede.
Her heart raced, and this time, when butterflies took flight in her tummy, she welcomed them. “So for what it’s worth, the redesign from Ridley has my full support.”
Everyone clapped. Someone let out a loud whoop, which Jamie suspected came from Rick.
“Clearly, your support is worth a great deal, Ms. Vaughn,” Eric said, picking up his gavel again. “If there are no objections, we would like to table the discussion until next week. But, as for me, I agree with Ms. Vaughn. I like it.”
The gavel came down, and just like that, true love won.
The second Eric banged his gavel, Sawyer was swept up in a wave of congratulations and effusive gratitude. Beth insisted on taking half a dozen selfies with him so she could scrapbook the moment at the next craft class at her hobby store. Chuck and his father said they wanted him to be the first person to toss a pizza up in the air in the special window display. Olga even promised him free ballet lessons. At long last, all of Waterford welcomed him back with open arms.
It felt good—better than he ever could have imagined. He wanted to stay and soak it all up, but he couldn’t help craning his neck and peering over heads in search of Jamie. They needed to talk, obviously. She’d thrown her public support behind the proposal, and he was pretty sure she might be willing to go on that Valentine’s dinner date with him now, but she was nowhere to be seen. She seemed to have vanished into thin air once the meeting had adjourned.
He tried to not panic. He’d find her. He’d search every square inch of Waterford looking for her if he had to, but there was still one more very important detail to be settled first.
He felt a hand land on his shoulder as he wrapped up a conversation with a few members of the town council and turned to find Dana waiting to speak with him. Good. He wouldn’t be able to face Jamie until he got this out of the way.
“Sawyer, congratulations. I feel confident that we’ll be welcoming you to Ridley Properties very soon,” she said.
They were the words Sawyer had been waiting to hear for months. Years, actually. A permanent job at Ridley would give him the security and stability he’d been searching for all his adult life. No more living out of a suitcase, no more moving from one town to the next every few years as he’d done when he’d been a child. Living in Portland full-time was everything he’d wanted.
But now he wanted something different, something more.
“Thank you, Dana. Thank you for everything, especially all your support tonight.” He’d been sort of stunned when she’d agreed to present the revised plan, especially on such short notice—which made rejecting a job at Ridley all the more difficult. “But…”
Her eyebrows rose. “But?”
In all the time Sawyer had known Dana, she’d always seemed entirely calm and collected. Nothing and no one caught her by surprise, but apparently, he just had. She blinked slowly at him as if waiting for him to tell her he’d misspoken.
He took a deep breath and did his best to explain. “You said that one of the things you liked about my work was my ability to anticipate the client’s needs.”
She pasted on a smile. “Which you just demonstrated.”
“But I think that it’s time for me to listen to my own needs. And I need to make a home, a real home.” He wanted it all—the house, the white picket fence—and Jamie Vaughn…if she would have him. Either way, this was where he belonged. It always had been, and it always would be. “And I would like it to be in Waterford.”
Dana let out a huge breath and shook her head, visibly relieved. “And you think that prevents you from working at Ridley?”
He narrowed his gaze at her. “Doesn’t it?”
“Sawyer, you just pulled off a tremendous success that goes far beyond your talent for architecture. I’m not letting you go that easily. You want to be in Waterford?” She waved a hand at the people still milling about the town hall. His people. His town. “Fine.”
Sawyer didn’t know what to say. He just stared at her, dumbfounded. He’d been ready to give up everything to build a life in Waterford…to stay. And now Dana was telling him he might not have to give up anything at all. It seemed too good to be true.
“You have to be here while the project goes forward, anyway. Afterward, we’ll renegotiate. And I anticipate that it will go very well.” She gave him a rare, broad smile. Coming from Dana, it was all the assurance he needed. “For both of us.”
Then she patted his shoulder and walked away, finally leaving him free to find Jamie—except he still couldn’t catch a glimpse of her angelic smile or her halo of blond waves anywhere. He thought for certain she’d be busy chatting with her aunt or Lucy and Rick, who’d been making googly eyes at each other for two days straight, but the three of them stood off to the side together, watching him in a way that gave him pause.
He tucked his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket and strolled over to them, taking the bait. “Where’s Jamie?”
Anita gave a little shrug. “She’s not here.”
“Okay.” Sawyer glanced from one of them to the next. They looked like three identical cats who’d swallowed the canaries. “Where is she?”
“She told me to give you this.” Lucy pulled something from her pocket and handed it to him. A red envelope with his name written on it in Jamie’s swirling, romantic script.
He took it, tracing the distinctive handwriting with the pad of his thumb. It looked like something from Jane Austen’s day. So perfectly literary; so perfectly Jamie. “What’s this?”
“It’s a red envelope on Valentine’s Day. It’s a Valentine,” Rick said, because apparently he was an expert on romance now that he’d gotten his girl.
Sawyer laughed, shook his head and opened the envelope. It contained a square card— vintage, of course—with a single letter written in the corner. J for Jamie. He turned it over in his hands, wondering what he might be missing, but then he realized the envelope still felt weighted down by something else inside.
He turned it over, and a flash of silver fell into his palm. A single, shiny key on a sterling heart-shaped keyring. Fresh energy filled him. He felt light on his feet all of a sudden, as if maybe Olga could actually turn him into Prince Charming on the ballet stage. The key in his hand wasn’t just any key…
Jamie had given him the key to True Love, the one and only key to her heart.
He closed his fist around it, holding it tight.
Rick winked at him.
And as Sawyer all but sprinted for the door, Anita called out, “Have fun.”
He ran all the way to the bookstore, his wingtip shoes pounding the cobblestones for the entire three blocks. The moon shone high overhead, casting a soft glow over Waterford, as pink as a bouquet of cotton candy carnations—a Valentine’s moon, a moon for sweethearts. The old oak’s branches swayed as if the tree were dancing to some invisible music, and Sawyer was so hopeful, he could practically hear it. It was lilting and lovely and reminded him of the song he and Jamie had danced to at their senior prom.
That night seemed so far away now, and at the same time, it felt like yesterday. He could still remember the scent of Jamie’s bluebell perfume and how soft and delicate her tulle princess dress had felt against his palm when he slid his hand onto the small of her back. He’d felt invincible then, so full of dreams and plans for the future. How had it taken him so long to find that feeling again?
It no longer mattered. He was here now, for good. His pulse roared in his ears, and he squeezed the silver keyring so hard that when he reach
ed the threshold of True Love Books and unclenched his fist, the shape of a heart had pressed itself into his flesh.
He stood at the door, breathless in the cold of a pine-scented, Pacific Northwest night. The windows of the shop were darkened, but flickering shadows of candlelight waltzed across the shelves of books. As he reached to slide the key into the door’s lock, he spotted Eliot in the front window, watching him with his fat orange tail wrapped contently around his paws.
The door creaked open, and Sawyer stepped inside, heart still thumping wildly in his chest. But the sight that greeted him caused him to grow still. Reverent. It was the same True Love he’d known since he was a boy—of course it was. But now a path had been laid out for him—a trail of red rose petals, flanked on either side by luminous votive candles.
So this was why Jamie had disappeared so quickly after the town council meeting. He smiled to himself and walked gingerly over the rose petals as the trail wound through the branches of the cherry tree dripping with ribbons and Valentines, past the corner where the classics met fantasy, toward the blooming pink flower wall and the French doors leading to the courtyard.
A light fog had blown in from the coast, giving the courtyard a dreamy, ethereal feeling as he made his way toward the café table closest to the fountain. It was the same table where he’d sat just a few nights ago, reading the letters Mary and Harrison had exchanged while they’d been apart. Now a gourmet spread was laid out on the table—the Valentine’s dinner they’d promised to share. Jamie must have gotten a little help from Rick, which seemed only fair after all they’d done to help Rick and Lucy finally get together. Sawyer let out soft laugh. It hung in the air as vapor as he picked up the hardback volume that had been placed next to his plate.
The Princess Bride.
Naturally. Sawyer shook his head in wonder. The book’s worn spine and gently loved cover hinted it might be the exact same copy he and Jamie had both tried to nab on the day they’d met. She’d kept it, all these years.
