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 that 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