Just thinking of Jessica brought a smile to his lips. She’d been so beautiful last night, so open and honest with him, that as hard as it was to wait to become even more intimate, he was glad they were waiting. He already felt like this was the beginning of a much more meaningful relationship than those that he’d had in the past.
“It’s for Jessica. He sold a baseball on eBay that she thinks was her father’s when he was a boy, and she wants to track down the new owner.”
“Fate.” Kurt’s eyes never left the laptop. He continued typing. He was a man of few words, but this one had Jamie stumped.
“What do you mean?”
“Steve. My Mom Threw Out My Baseball Cards? I assume her father’s parents lost the ball somewhere along the way and this guy got it, maybe after it passed hands a few dozen times?” Kurt shifted his eyes to Jamie. “Think like a writer. Connect the dots.”
Until then it hadn’t struck him how ironic the name of the store was, given Jessica’s situation. “So it’s fate that he works here?”
Leanna kissed Kurt’s cheek and patted his shoulder. “I’ll see you later. I’ve got to run. I’ll talk to the Steves I know and specifically the Steve that Kurt mentioned, and I’ll text you after I do.”
“See ya, Leanna. Thanks.” Jamie turned his attention back to Kurt. He wasn’t a big believer in fate, given his parents’ untimely deaths, but he was curious about what Kurt meant.
Kurt leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Fate. You know, something that’s destined to happen. The development of events beyond a person’s control. Jamie, look at me and Leanna, or Bella and Caden. Would you ever have put us together as couples? Fate, man. Jessica’s here, you’re here, Steve might be here. It’s all fate.”
Kurt went back to typing, and Jamie knew it must be nine o’clock.
Jamie thought about fate on the short drive back to Seaside. How could that be? Would fate have caused his parents’ safari vehicle to break down in the bush? Would fate have driven them into the bush without their guide that morning? Or placed the hungry lions there when his mother left the vehicle, he assumed to go to the bathroom? Would fate have put the video camera in his father’s hands as he filmed in the opposite direction and caught her screams as a backdrop to the beautiful scenery—or when the camera crashed to the ground and his father’s frantic footfalls and guttural, terrifying screams could be heard sprinting toward his dying wife? Against Vera’s pleas, Jamie had insisted on watching the video when he was in his late twenties. That video had taken the story of his parents’ deaths and made it real. He’d watched it over and over ten, twenty, maybe thirty times in a row—and then he’d buried the sights and sounds so deep he hoped they never resurfaced. But sometimes, when his mind was unoccupied, they did.
As Jamie pulled into Seaside, a painfully familiar thought pressed in on him. Had his father died saving his wife, or had he given himself over to the lions because he loved her too much to live without her?
Jamie wasn’t buying fate, no matter how well it fit his and Jessica’s lives at the moment. Fate was an invisible enemy with, in his eyes, an evil history that he didn’t care to have touch his future.
JESSICA BALANCED HER laptop on her hip and crouched at the bottom of the stairs to her apartment to pick a few wildflowers. She carried them across the quad toward Jamie’s cottage, intending to give the flowers to Vera and to ask Jamie for help finding the eBay seller again, since they got a little sidetracked last night. Deliciously sidetracked.
“Jessie, Jessie, Bo-Bessie!” Jenna waved from Amy’s deck. “Come on over and join us.”
Jessica loved that they included her. She stepped onto the deck and noticed that Bella and Amy were still in their pajamas. Bella’s nightshirt barely covered her butt, while Amy had on pink plaid pajama pants and a tank pajama top with a picture of a sexy cat with an hourglass figure, wearing a black bikini and holding a bottle of wine, and MAKE ME PURR embroidered above it. Jenna grabbed Jessica’s arm and guided her into a chair. She put her hands on her hips and looked pointedly up and down Jessica’s outfit.
Jessica swallowed hard. She and Jenna were both wearing cutoffs and white tanks, each with bikinis beneath. Of course Jenna was as voluptuous as Megan Fox while Jessica was less curvy, like Jennifer Aniston, but they looked like they’d coordinated their outfits, and from the look on Jenna’s face, Jessica guessed this wasn’t a good thing.
“Well, well, look at us.” Jenna narrowed her eyes and raked them down Jessica again as Amy disappeared inside the cottage.
Gulp.
“Now we’re total Seaside sisters!” Jenna leaned down and hugged Jessica. “Don’t worry. I can help you match your sandals a little better. Something blue to go with your suit would be nice.” She lifted her foot and wiggled her toes. “See? Green. Matches my suit.”
“It’s way too early for one of your OCD matchy-matchy lectures.” Bella rolled her eyes as Amy came out with a cup of coffee and set it in front of Jessica. “Sit down, Jen. Jessica, don’t let her anywhere near your apartment, or everything you own will be color-coordinated, alphabetized, and heaven only knows what else.”
Jenna flopped into a chair and stuck out her lower lip.
Amy patted Jenna’s shoulder. “We love your organizational skills. Don’t worry. Bella just didn’t get any last night, so she’s cranky.”
Bella slid her a shut up look.
“Did you get any?” Jenna asked Jessica with wide eyes.
“Me?” Jessica froze.
“Oh, come on. We know you spent the entire day with Jamie, and he’s such a doll. I mean, really. Easy on the eyes and sweet as pie.”
“Cliché,” Bella said. “Sweet as jam.”
“That’s a good one,” Amy said.
“Kurt gave me a thesaurus because I kept calling Caden hot and he got sick of hearing it.” Bella smiled and tucked her thick blond hair behind her ear. “So now I use other words, like sexy, smoldering, scorching…”
“Okay, okay, back to Jessica and Jamie.” Jenna touched Jessica’s arm.
“Jenna! She doesn’t have to kiss and tell,” Amy chided. “She’s nosy, Jessica. Sorry.” She sipped her coffee, then added, “But we are all curious. We love Jamie, and we only want him to be happy.”
“Yeah, so if you plan on using him and then tossing him aside, just forget it, because it’ll bring my claws out.” Bella blew on her fingernails with a serious, dark stare.
I wouldn’t know how to use a guy and toss him aside.
A smile spread across Bella’s lips. “We take care of our own.”
She didn’t know what to say, but her heart was galloping in her chest.
“They terrified me when I was younger,” Amy whispered to her.
Jenna playfully pushed Amy’s arm. “We did not. Bella’s all talk, Jessica. So, how was your date?”