* * * * *
The clock was striking twelve minutes past six when Jackson came hurriedly through the door, a brown bag dangling from his fingertips and the smile Violet was finding more and more difficult to forget sitting on his lips.
“That was close. I almost didn’t make it. The traffic on the parkway was terrible today.”
The same lightheaded feeling swept over her again. This meant her previous reaction wasn’t an anomaly, but an indication of a pattern. One would think she’d be smart enough not to fall for a pretty face. Talk about setting the bar high. “I’m glad you made it back in one piece. It’s been quiet around here. You’re the first person I’ve seen for the last two hours. Let me go get the shadow box.”
When she sat it on the counter, he said, “I can’t wait to see Jetta’s face when I give this to her. I keep telling her she’s in the wrong business. She should be selling crafts instead of being stuck in an office all day. How much do I owe you?”
“Twenty-nine dollars and thirty-two cents.”
He looked doubtful. “That can’t be right. If I’m not mistaken, this is mahogany.”
“You’ll have to take that up with Summer.”
Reaching into his wallet, he pulled out a credit card and handed it to her. “Who’s Summer?”
“She owns this place. She also happens to be my sister.”
“I have an older brother and sister. I could handle working with Willow; Carl not so much.”
She gave him the receipt. “I’m the youngest of five. Lance is the oldest, followed by April, Leah, Summer and then me.”
“I can’t imagine growing up with four sisters.”
“I’ve often wondered if that’s why Lance left home at eighteen and is still single.”
Jackson laughed. “I’m not touching that one.” He pushed the bag in her direction. “This is for you.”
“For me? Why?”
“It’s a ‘thank you’ for helping me find Jetta the perfect birthday present.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“I would never have thought of coming in here if it hadn’t been for you, so in a way, you did help me.”
“That’s a stretch.” She reached inside the bag and pulled out a blue-and-white checked box with the words Angel’s Confections written in yellow. “I’ve never heard of this place.”
“It’s in Manchester. I know the owner. She and her husband were my first clients.”
When Violet opened the lid, she saw about a dozen chocolates in the shape of musical notes. “They’re almost too pretty to eat.”
“I hope that won’t stop you. Angel makes the best chocolate in the world.”
“Don’t worry. I love chocolate too much not to eat them.” She replaced the lid and raised her eyes to his face. “This was really nice of you. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ve been wondering about something. How do you know French?”
“I minored in foreign language. I haven’t had much occasion to use it so I like to throw it out every now and then. Parlez-vous français?”
“Not really. Rachel isn’t just my boss at Tasteful Affairs. She’s also my roommate, and she’s dating an exchange student from France. Pierre’s been teaching us some of the common phrases.”
“Let’s see how well you’ve been paying attention. Comment ça va?”
“Très bien, merci.”
“Very good. How about this? Quel temps fait-il aujourd’hui?”
“What conversation would be complete without a discussion about the weather? Il fait chaud.”
He jiggled the keys in his pocket. “Your accent isn’t half bad for a beginner. Here’s something more challenging. Tu as de beaux yeux.”
“I don’t know that one.”
“Here’s a hint. Pierre might not have said it, but I’d be willing to bet he thinks it every time he sees you.”
“Does it have something to do with me being tall?”
He shook his head, smiling widely. “Not even close. I wish I could stay to hear all your guesses, but if I’m not ready to leave work by seven, my girlfriend is never going to speak to me again.”
Violet’s heart jerked painfully in her chest. She wasn’t sure why having his relationship status confirmed was worse than only supposing him to be involved with someone. It wasn’t as if she had a chance anyway. With a Herculean effort, she kept the half smile on her face. “You could just tell me what it means.”
Picking up the shadow box, he started toward the door. “It’s more fun this way.”
“Thanks a lot.”
The store felt strangely empty after he left. This didn’t make sense considering she’d been alone before Jackson showed up. Her glance moved to the box of chocolates. Such kindness both surprised and touched her. Violet could count the number of dates she’d had since high school on two hands; she could count the items she’d received from them on one finger.
Growing up with three beautiful sisters wasn’t easy when you were average. Not that anyone in her family ever mentioned it, but it was pointed out to Violet again and again by everyone else. Males took one look at her sisters and dropped her like a hot potato. They didn’t mind talking to her or hanging out with her, but she didn’t make the cut as girlfriend material. She always ended up in the friend zone.
She compensated for her lack of social life by staying busy. Holding down two jobs and working on her master’s degree was a decent enough smokescreen. What most people didn’t realize was that her sensible, no-nonsense exterior hid the heart of a hopeless romantic. More than anything, she wanted to know that she alone held someone’s heart; that out of all the women in the world, the man she loved had chosen her.
Just before she shut down the computer in Summer’s office, she did a quick Google search of what Jackson said to her in French. She couldn’t help smiling as she read the translation. What girl doesn’t like to be told she has beautiful eyes? Even if the guy in question is just being nice.
Chapter Five
In spite of getting to the vet when they opened at seven-thirty, Jackson still had to wait nearly a half hour to be seen. That didn’t sit too well with Abbott and Costello. They didn’t like going there anyway. He couldn’t blame them; he’d never liked going to the doctor or getting shots either. Feeling as if they deserved a treat after their ordeal, he took them to the park for a run before heading home.
The doorbell rang as he was going upstairs to take a shower. A quick glance through the blinds had him frowning. His other issue with Myrna (other than treating his office as her own) was her assumption that he wanted to spend every free moment with her. The two of them had been together until midnight last night and had plans for tomorrow. Wasn’t that enough ‘togetherness’ for a forty-eight hour period? Surely a few hours apart wasn’t too much to ask.
Forcing a smile to his face, he opened the door. “Good morning,” he said, relieving her of the two shopping bags in her hands.
She eyed his sweat-stained shirt with amusement. “I like the look, but I’ll wait to kiss you until you clean up.”
“Good idea. What brought you out so early?”
“They’re putting a new roof on the condo next door to me. I couldn’t sleep through all the hammering. I hope you haven’t had breakfast yet.”
Jackson trailed her into the kitchen. “I had a protein bar at five-thirty.”
“That’s long gone by now. I’m going to make a breakfast casserole. Someone brought it into the office last week. It was fantastic.”
“A casserole for breakfast? Sounds interesting. I’ll help by getting out of your way. Abbott and Costello are in the backyard.”
“Let’s leave them there. One dog is bad enough. What on earth convinced you to get two?”
Jackson took this for the rhetorical question it was. He didn’t insist that she share his love of dogs, but he did expect her to understand that they weren’t just pets. Abbott and Costello had been part of his life for two ye
ars. If it came down to them or her, the choice was an easy one.
When he returned downstairs, Myrna wasn’t in the kitchen. She was sitting on the couch in the family room, phone in hand. She looked up suddenly as if she hadn’t heard him come in. The guilty expression on her face caused his insides to clench. As quickly as it appeared, the look was gone. In its place was a flirtatious smile that in other circumstances might have made him forget what he’d just seen. But these weren’t other circumstances. Jackson had caught her in a similar situation several times in the last few weeks. Something was going on; he just didn’t know what it was.
As one who’d been forced into the position of keeping secrets, he knew there were some things you couldn’t share. On the other hand, he did expect honesty between two adults who’d been seeing each other for a few months. Just because love wasn’t involved didn’t mean there weren’t standards to uphold. If she’d become interested in someone else, she needed to tell him. Trust was the building block of any relationship.
“The casserole should be ready in about twenty minutes,” she said, reaching for her purse and dropping the phone into the side pocket.
He sat down beside her. “What time does your retirement party start tonight?”
“I’m supposed to be at the restaurant at five-thirty. I wish you could come.”
Jackson tried to look suitably disappointed. Listening to a bunch of speeches about someone he didn’t know wasn’t his idea of a good time. “I’ve got an open house this afternoon and the charity auction at The Club Car. How are you pulling off the surprise part of this? Won’t your boss recognize the vehicles in the parking lot?”
“They asked everyone to park somewhere else or use their spouses’ car. I’m going to leave my car parked at your office. Fiona’s giving me a ride in her boyfriend’s SUV.” Myrna snuggled closer to him. “She and Alan are going to Gulf Shores next weekend. We’ve been invited to come along. Wouldn’t you like to get away from Columbus for a few days?”
“I can’t. I’ve got clients coming in from out of town on Saturday.”
The displeased look he recognized settled on her face. “Can’t Austin show them around?”
“He worked Memorial Day weekend.”
She slumped back on the couch. “That was a total bust. You were in Nashville, and I had to go to my brother’s college graduation.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“You sound like my mother. I get tired of doing the right thing. What good has it done me so far?”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You must really be hungry. You’re not usually this grumpy.”
Myrna laid her head on his shoulder. “And you’re never grumpy at all. How can you be so even keel all the time?”
Because he’d had years to perfect hiding his emotions. “I try not to get caught up in things, either good or bad.”
“Isn’t that like saying you’re emotionally stuck in neutral?”
“It’s not a bad place to be. Emotions are easily influenced and can’t always be trusted.”
Her eyes fell from his. “I’ll go check on breakfast.”
Jackson didn’t immediately follow her. Instead he went to stand at the window. As he watched the wind stir the leaves of the dogwood trees lining his driveway, he suddenly thought of Violet. If it didn’t sound so ridiculous, he would say that he missed her. How could he miss someone he barely knew?
Their acquaintance consisted of a few short conversations. That wasn’t enough to explain the affinity that had formed between them or his unusual reaction to it. He laughed inwardly. Maybe it would be better (and wiser) not to delve too deeply for the answer. He might not like to know why he’d noticed the coming and going of her car, driven twenty miles out of his way to buy her chocolates, and handed out cheesy compliments in two languages.
* * * * *
It was day four of Violet’s housesitting adventure. So far nothing catastrophic had happened. In spite of her mother’s worst fears, Bluebell hadn’t upset Jeeves or tried to eat her father’s expensive tropical fish, and all the plants were still alive. Summer had been right about the frequent phone calls. Violet’s mother had called at least six times every day.
Coming out of the bathroom, her eyes fell on the blue-and-white checked box resting on the nightstand. There had been no question that it was coming with her. After all, there were perishable chocolates inside just begging to be eaten. It didn’t have anything to do with who’d given them to her or the fact that she smiled every time she thought about him. She wasn’t silly enough to get sentimental over a customer showing his appreciation. Not now that she knew he had a girlfriend. A wry smile formed on her lips. She should feel right at home. She was, once again, heading straight to the friend-zone. It was like playing Monopoly and drawing the card that said, ‘Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.’
She picked up Jeeves from the window seat, called to Bluebell, and made her way downstairs to her mother’s old-fashioned kitchen. It was while she was going through her morning to-do list that she got a text from Rachel. She and Cory were on their way to Callaway Gardens to cater a couple’s shower. Violet would normally have been with them, but Summer had been in bed since Thursday evening with some kind of stomach virus. Violet felt sorry for Garrett. Summer wasn’t an easy patient. Like a lot of people who hardly ever get sick, she wasn’t handling it well.
Saturdays in the shop were always busy. Violet barely had time to sneak in a quick lunch. She definitely didn’t have time to worry about the whereabouts of a certain realtor. That didn’t mean she didn’t check to see if his vehicle was parked outside whenever she happened to be near the front window. That was asking for a nearly impossible level of detachment.
Just before closing two of her regular customers came in.
“Good afternoon, ladies. Are you looking for anything in particular today?”
“My granddaughter needs some more books to read,” Mrs. Wooley said, fanning herself with a magazine.
“You’re in luck. A lady from the library brought in two boxes on Tuesday. Some of them are like new.”
“Have you heard from Holly lately?” Mrs. Tyson asked as she walked over to the hat rack in the corner.
“I talked to her yesterday. Devon is working with his brother-in-law, Jordan is playing travel ball, and Rebecca is crawling all over the place.”
“When they start crawling, you can’t take your eyes off them for a minute.”
Mrs. Wooley looked up from flipping through a Goosebumps book. “I remember leaving the room for a few seconds and coming back to find my son Livingston standing on the kitchen counter.”
Violet turned the sign on the door to closed. “That sounds like my nephew Micah. He’s into everything.”
Mrs. Tyson swung around to face the other two, a straw hat resting on her artificially blonde head. “How do I look?”
“Like you’re ready for a day on the beach,” Violet told her.
“That’s what I wanted to hear. I’m going with my daughter and her family to Panama City on Wednesday. I need something to keep the sun off my face.” She laid the straw hat on the counter. “Now I just have to find a bathing suit.”
Violet walked over to the register. “Shopping for a bathing suit is depressing. Nothing can disguise the fact that I have no curves.”
“Be glad that’s the only thing you have to worry about,” Mrs. Tyson said with a grin.
“Isn’t that the truth?” Mrs. Wooley added. “After you’ve had a few kids, your body will never be the same.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Once her customers were gone, Violet ran the vacuum and then went into the office. It didn’t take long to sort through the mail and do the bank deposit. As she grabbed her purse and turned off the lights, she debated whether she wanted to cook dinner or pick up something on the way home. Just as she put her hand on the door to push it open, her attention was drawn to a couple walking toward the p
arking lot.
Her forward motion instinctively slowed as her eyes focused momentarily on Jackson before moving to his companion. Even from a distance, Violet could see that the woman was stunningly beautiful. Her wavy hair reached almost to her waist, and the clingy black dress and strappy sandals made the most of an attractively curved figure. Their relationship was evident in the way they looked at each other as well as their body language. If Violet had needed a reality check, she couldn’t have asked for a better one.
The pair didn’t get into his Land Rover. Instead they stood next to it until a sporty SUV pulled up beside them. Jackson waved to the driver before helping his girlfriend into the passenger’s side. He said something to make her smile before bending his head to kiss her.
Violet moved further back into the store, not wanting to see anything else. She tried to bring some kind of order to her chaotic thoughts. This wasn’t so easy considering the absurd ideas running through her head.
The honking of a horn broke the spell. She slowly returned to the door. Through the glass she could see Jackson sitting in the driver’s seat of the Land Rover. As she watched, he got out, walked around to the front, and put up the hood. He poked and prodded a few seconds before attempting to start the vehicle again. From the frustrated look on his face, it was obvious nothing was happening.
At this point, Violet’s discomfort with the situation took a backseat. He needed help, and she was the only one around. Taking a deep breath, she locked the door and walked over to join him. When she got close enough, she could hear him muttering to himself.
“Having trouble?” she asked.
He looked up quickly, his frown lifting. “Oh, hey, Violet. Where did you come from?”
“I just finished at the shop.”
“When I didn’t see Leonie, I figured you weren’t working today.”
The fact that he’d looked for her car went a little way in making up for having to see him kiss his girlfriend. “I drove my mother’s car today.”
He sent her a playful grin. “Don’t tell me you backed into someone else?”
Mine for a Day (Finding Love Book 8) Page 4