The Story Of Us - Teri Wilson Page 0,29

not some impersonal skyscraper without an ounce of meaning to the community.

She shouldn’t have to explain this to Sawyer. He should know. He’d always known.

Then again, maybe he’d simply been away long enough to forget.

She cleared her throat. “Um, I should get back to work.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, clearly as ready as she was to end their conversation.

He’d seriously expected her to compliment his plans to run her out of business and turn their hometown upside down?

She waved a hand at their surroundings. If he’d somehow forgotten where he’d come from, she was more than happy to remind him. “In my bookstore. Because…” She flashed him a self-satisfied smirk. “…it’s busy.”

His response was a frustrated grunt, and Jamie just walked away. Because really, there was nothing left to say. Besides, she had lattes to make, books to sell and a beloved Waterford institution to save.

From him.

If Sawyer had hoped stopping by True Love to talk to Jamie would somehow make him feel better, he’d been wrong. So very, very wrong.

He should have known better. Jamie had made her position crystal clear, which he’d tried to explain to Dana. But her comment about any “lingering animosity” he might have with Jamie had gotten under his skin. He didn’t like to think there might be actual hard feelings between them. They were both simply doing their jobs, weren’t they?

It’s not personal. It’s business.

He repeated these words to himself over and over again as he walked through the historic business district, back toward Rick’s modern home. But no matter how many times he spun them around in his head, he still had a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Probably because he knew there was no dividing line between personal and business matters where Jamie Vaughn was concerned. Jamie was hands-down, one hundred percent authentic and passionate about everything she did.

Sawyer had always loved her earnestness. It had been one of his favorite things about Jamie back in the day. But now…

Well, now it was driving him bonkers. And to make matters worse, it might just cost him his chance at a permanent place at Ridley.

“I have to do something to counter Jamie’s article,” he said, dropping onto one of the bar stools at the counter of Rick’s sleek kitchen.

Rick glanced up from the pile of cremini mushrooms he was busy slicing into paper thin layers for salad. Sawyer hadn’t anticipated being fed so many gourmet meals while in Waterford, but apparently that was a side benefit of staying with a chef. Definitely not terrible. “Good luck fighting against True Love.”

“Have you been by there today? It’s like a mosh pit.”

“It’s like every unattached person in town suddenly has an interest in the written word.” Rick’s chopping grew noticeably more aggressive. “Including Quentin.”

Sawyer narrowed his gaze at his friend, who was now reaching for something in the huge subzero refrigerator built into his light oak kitchen cabinets. “Who’s Quentin?”

“Sweater Guy from my cooking class.” Hence the aggressive chopping. “Lucy and him exchanged phone numbers and now, according to Lucy—who likes to tell me these sorts of things—they’re making plans for dinner.”

He plopped a bowl of shiny red peppers onto the counter. “Which was not the outcome that I was going for.”

“You know, Jamie had a point,” Sawyer said, although he wasn’t sure he should be pointing this out while Rick had a butcher knife in his hand. “You should tell Lucy how you feel.”

“Yeah. Maybe I should’ve told her when she was a hundred percent single. But now she’s not.” Rick severed a pepper neatly in half with a single, purposeful slice.

“Whoa. They’ve only just talked.” A conversation didn’t mean anything. He would be willing to bet that he and Jamie had exchanged more words lately than Lucy and Sweater Guy. “She’s still ninety-eight percent single.”

Worst case scenario, ninety-five percent.

“Whatever. What about you and Jamie?” Rick said, as if he could see straight inside Sawyer’s head.

Was he that obvious? “Wow, there was no effort at subtlety in that conversation pivot.”

“Nope.” Rick made quick work of chopping the peppers and added them to the bowl of sliced mushrooms and greens. “So? Have you talked to her since your cooking class disaster?”

Sawyer stood and paced a few feet, noticing for the first time that Rick’s kitchen sort of looked like an IKEA showroom, which of course reminded him of Jamie’s comment about his designs for Ridley. What were her exact words, again?

Nordic minimalism.

Somehow, he didn’t sense she’d meant them as a compliment.

“Briefly.” He took