CHAPTER 19
Sara turned to Austin, who stood at the bottom of the steps of the community center. The sun was setting behind him and he looked like an ad in a men’s cologne campaign. He looked rugged, and sexy. The kind of guy that every woman wanted and every man wanted to be. “Thanks for walking me.”
The grin that spread on his lips was so sexy Sara nearly swooned. If she had, she knew that he’d be there to catch her, just like he had the night before when her knees went out.
“You sure you want to go in there? We could be at the lake right now. We could check that beginning of summer tradition off your to-do list.” The bad-boy glint in his eyes and the promise of seeing Austin naked, and wet, was almost enough to tempt her into agreeing.
But after the revelations that she’d found out today, she didn’t want to flake on Mrs. D who’d run into her at the festival after breakfast and pretty much demanded her presence this evening.
The steel handrail was cold on her palm as she wrapped her fingers around it and leaned toward Austin, her face was mere inches away from him as she softly spoke. “I was told, by a very reliable source that if I received an invitation to the Needlepoint Mafia I had to come and kiss the ring.”
“I’ve got a ring for you to kiss,” he flirted.
The rough, gravelly quality of his voice skittered down her spine stopping right between her legs.
Her inner walls clenched.
Her mouth watered.
Her palms dampened.
Her heart raced.
One night together. That was all it had taken for her body to be conditioned to this Pavlovian response. Everything in her was screaming to blow off the knitting club and follow him…anywhere.
But she knew that was not the right move. She was in control. Not her hormones.
Pushing down the desperation threatening to overtake her, she decided to level the playing field a little. She didn’t want to be alone in what she was feeling.
Leaning even closer to him, their breaths mingled as she spoke, letting her lips brush his as she whispered, “I’ll kiss your ring later.”
With that suggestive declaration, she spun and rushed into the building. But she didn’t miss the flash of desire that sparked in his eyes. She couldn’t help the smile that spread on her face.
She’d never had a playful relationship like this one. In high school she barely dated. Guys that age weren’t really too pumped about spending Friday and Saturday nights at home with her little brother and sister. In college it was the same thing. Then she was busy starting her business, and the next thing she knew she was married with a baby on the way.
Her connection with Austin was fun, it was intense, it was…easy. Even in the beginning, especially in the beginning of her relationship with Jack everything felt like work. And it was. The two of them as a couple was like trying to force a square peg in a round hole.
But Austin was so different. She’d only known him a couple of days, but he felt like her oldest friend and confidant. The connection that they shared was so real. So deep.
She had no idea what the future held for them, but somehow she couldn’t picture her life without him in it.
“Sara?!” Jess called out as she walked into the room that the club was being held in.
Her friend’s exclamation garnered several shhhhs from the women seated around her.
Is this like a library situation? Sara wondered to herself as she weaved her way through the chairs over to her friend who was wearing a shirt that had a crochet needle and a ball of yarn with words in a rainbow shape above it that read: I’m an amazing hooker. Be jealous.
Jess’s perfectly lined eyes were wide as she patted a seat beside her and whisper-mouthed, “What are you doing here?”
Sara lowered to the seat and pulled out the mittens that she’d been working on for Charlotte. She’d always prided herself on her ability to read a room, and it was clear that the knitters here took their craft very seriously.
“Mrs. D invited me.” Sara spoke in her most inside of inside voices as she continued the cable stitch pattern.
“Why?” Jess whispered, then shook her head. “I mean, I’m glad you’re here, don’t get me wrong, but…why?”
Sara didn’t take offense to her question. “I ran into her today at breakfast and she recognized me. She knew my grandma.”
She briefly, and quietly filled Jess in on everything that happened over breakfast and then also that she’d run into Mrs. D again at the festival, where she told her the time and place of the meeting that night and said that she expected to see her there. It wasn’t so much of an invitation as an expectation.
“Wait, so Austin’s grandpa and your grandma were together?”
“Yeah.” Sara still wasn’t sure that she’d wrapped her head around it. “Well, for a summer they were.”
Jess picked her needles back up and shrugged slightly. “A summer is plenty of time to fall in love.”
Sara might’ve argued with her last week, but after meeting Austin, she had to agree. It didn’t seem that time played much of a factor in love.
“Hey, sorry I’m late. Some of the kids’ parents were late picking them up.” Brynn mumbled as she dug into her bag and took a seat beside Jess. When she looked up and saw Sara, her face lit up. “Hey! What are you doing here?”
Her exclamation garnered another round of shhhs.
Sara and Jess filled Brynn in on the breakfast and the connection between her Grandma Betty and Austin’s Grandpa Cliff. And Sara revealed to her friends how the Princess and the Pea was her Grandma Betty’s favorite book and that Cliff had come home from the war, bought the B&B that her grandma had stayed in and changed the name to the Princess and the Pea.
Brynn’s eyes were watering by the time they finished. “How romantic. It’s like the Notebook.” The trio were silent for a moment before Brynn added, “Well, the beginning at least.”
Sara smiled and was about to ask them if they’d known Austin’s grandpa. She wanted to know what he was like. Who was the man that had been her grandma’s first, and maybe only true love? After breakfast, she’d started to ask Austin several times, but never did. She wasn’t sure what his relationship with him had been. Or how he felt about his grandpa’s relationship with Sara’s grandma. Mrs. D had said that he hadn’t met Austin’s grandma until years later, but still, Sara didn’t know if it was appropriate.
As much as she felt like she knew him, she had to admit that he didn’t talk about himself much. Or at all. She’d shared more with him than she’d ever shared with anyone in her life, but he really hadn’t. He hadn’t mentioned anything about his ex, or his parents, and he’d only spoken of his grandparents when discussing the B&B.
Maybe the connection she was feeling was one-sided. It was obvious that he was attracted to her, and he enjoyed spending time with her. But if he wasn’t being open with her, then was what she felt as real as she thought it was?
“Hey, look who I found.”
Sara heard Ali’s voice, which was several octaves higher than usual, and looked up to see her standing with Chrissy.
In the few days that Sara had been in town, she’d seen quite a bit of Chrissy. Trevor and Chrissy’s two youngest, Kimber and Cassidy had been inseparable at the summer program. They were the three amigos. Because of that they’d met up at the festival and also sat together at the softball game. Every time she’d seen her, the woman looked like she was doing a photo shoot. Her clothes, hair, makeup, demeanor, were perfect. Flawless. She was June Cleaver and Martha Stewart on steroids.
But tonight, her eyes were rimmed with red. Her shirt was wrinkled and she had on two different sneakers. One that was white with blue stitching and the other had red stitching. It could’ve been on purpose, but Sara doubted it.
“Are you okay?” Sara asked, immediately concerned.
Chrissy’s expression was tight as she took a seat next to Sara and Ali sat on the other side of Brynn.
“I’m getting a divorce,” Chrissy said as if the words sounded foreign to her own ears.
Sara knew the feeling.
“Mrs. D was walking by my house when I was served with the papers. She saw me crying and told me that she’d expect to see me at the meeting tonight.” Chrissy explained to the women, speaking at a hushed level.
“I’m so sorry, Chrissy,” Brynn reached over and squeezed her hand.
Sara hadn’t met Chrissy’s husband, but she’d heard that Jim Caldwell traveled a lot for work. A lot. Ali said that months would pass and no one would see him.
“Didn’t you say you were getting a divorce?” Chrissy turned to Sara.
Actually, Trevor had said, but Sara nodded anyway.
“How long were you married? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Eight years. But Jack was in the military and only home for about a year of that.”
Chrissy nodded. “I was married sixteen and I think Jim’s been home about the same amount.”
A woman who was in a group adjacent to them cleared her throat as she shot a disapproving glare their way.
“Get the stick out of your ass, Muriel. Our friend is having a situation.” Jess shot back at full volume.
Muriel’s lips pursed and her expression morphed from objection to shocked appall. She huffed as she turned her back on Sara and her friends.
Ali, Brynn, Sara, and even Chrissy all chuckled, quietly of course.
“Thanks.” Chrissy told Jess as she sniffed.
Jess nodded in solidarity and the two exchanged a look that Sara had a feeling had a lot to do with a history she knew nothing about.
As they all began working on their projects, the whispered-talk turned to books, movies, television, kids, and Jess’s upcoming nuptials.
Sara sat in the group wondering if this was how Shelby had felt when she went to Hope Falls. Her sister had immediately made friends and she said that she belonged there. It was strange going from never having a close female friend—at least one she wasn’t related to—to having four.
It made zero sense, but being here, in this town, with these people, felt right. Like her life had been missing puzzle pieces and now they’d all clicked into place.
It’s been a few days, Sara reminded herself.
This is vacation. Vacation is not real life. Real life isn’t a puzzle that gets solved by a spur of the moment road trip. No matter what it felt like.