The Story Of Us - Teri Wilson Page 0,17

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, clearly 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