The Story Of Us - Teri Wilson Page 0,26

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 news 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