Chapter Eighteen
Jenna watched through a slit in her curtains as Sawyer backed out of the driveway and pulled away. She was shocked, proud, a little giddy. Not necessarily in that order. And she kept replaying two lines in her head, over and over again.
Are you in love with her?
I think I might be.
Are you in love with her?
I think I might be.
Are you in love with her?
I think I might be.
Over and over, like a streaming show with a glitch that kept bumping it back to the same spot.
She’d heard Sawyer pull in, had her hand on the doorknob ready to scoot next door to greet her, maybe get in a little making out before she had to go back to the bookstore.
But the ex had shown up out of nowhere—Where the hell had she been?
Hiding in the bushes?—and while Jenna knew she really shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, she couldn’t get her feet to move.
So, she’d stood there. And listened. Listened to it all.
Are you in love with her?
I think I might be.
Jenna let Arnold in from the backyard. The boys had all eaten, and now she sat on the floor and let them crawl on her, push noses against her, get kisses and love from her.
The whole time, she wondered about her own feelings for Sawyer.
They were complicated but also not, and they were currently rolling around in her head, clearly trying to drive her mad.
She dropped a kiss on Arnold’s head as she pulled her phone out of her back pocket and sent a text to the group thread.
Girls, I have a signing tonight at the shop, can anybody meet? I need to talk something out.
Dakota was first to respond, as usual. I’m out in 15. I’ll be over.
Veronica’s dots started to bounce before Dakota was even done. On my way, babes.
With a relieved sigh, Jenna pushed to her feet, gave her boys one more kiss each, and locked up the house.
She’d taken advantage of the lovely winter evening and walked home from the shop, so it took her almost fifteen minutes to walk back, but the fresh air did her good.
By the time she arrived, her lungs were clear, even if her head wasn’t, and Shane and Delia had things well under control.
Shauna Cramer was a new author, only on her second romance novel, but she lived in Northwood and she was lovely—kind and funny and a damn good writer—and Jenna was thrilled to be hosting her very first book signing.
Shauna arrived wearing black pants and a nice sweater, her reddish-brown hair pulled back in a clip, her wire-rimmed glasses magnifying her large eyes.
She was clearly nervous as she shook hands with each of the three BookLove folks, but she was also excited.
That much was evident by her enormous smile.
Shane was showing her to the signing table when Dakota walked through the door carrying two recycled cardboard trays with a total of six cups.
She left three on the front counter, telling Delia they were for her, Shane, and the author.
She shot Jenna a head bob as she carried the remaining three to the back.
Veronica showed up five minutes later, gave Jenna a wave, and headed back to join Dakota.
“Can you guys handle things here if I’m in the back with the girls?” she asked her employees. “We need a meeting.”
Shane gave a snort as Delia nodded. “We got this.” He turned to Delia and held up a hand, which she slapped a high five onto with great enthusiasm.
“Just give a shout if something comes up.”
Delia held up the coffee Dakota had brought. “We have caffeine.” She indicated the small table off to the side where some refreshments had been set up. “We have Christmas cookies. We’re all good.”
“You guys are the best.” Jenna gave them a grateful smile, then headed back to her girls, who were all settled into the loveseats and talking quietly. She picked up her cup, took a sip, and hummed her approval. “Needed this,” she said to Dakota. “Thanks.”
“So?” Ronni asked. “Tell us your woes.”
Jenna grinned. “Well, not exactly woes.”
“Oh.” Dakota sat forward in curiosity. “Not woes. Better than woe?”
Jenna laughed through her nose. “Yeah. Definitely. I think so.” She took a deep breath and told them the story of what she’d overheard earlier, starting with Amanda’s unexpected arrival.
“She ambushed her on her own doorstep?” Dakota asked, and the annoyed look on her face said exactly what she thought about that. “Ballsy.”
“It’s not the first time,” Jenna said. “It’s like the second or third.”
“Pushy bitch,” Ronni muttered.
Jenna told them the exact conversation, right up to those two lines that had been rolling around in her head for the past hour.
“She said that?” Dakota asked, sitting forward on the loveseat, leaning closer. “She said she might be in love with you?”
Jenna blew out a breath, relieved to have shared what she heard with somebody. “She did.”
“Wow,” Dakota said, and when Jenna glanced at Ronni, she was grinning hugely.
“What?” Jenna asked.
Ronni shrugged but kept grinning. “I mean, she’s in love with you.”
“She said she might be,” Jenna clarified.
Ronni’s snort was so loud, it was comical. “Please. She totally is. You don’t say you might be in love unless you’re trying to soften the blow for somebody else. She’s totally in love with you. And she knows it.”
“I gotta agree with that,” Dakota said with a nod, pointing at Ronni. “So, the only thing left to address is…” She gestured with an open palm to Ronni to finish the thought.
Ronni did. “Are you in love with her?”
Dakota pointed and nodded again.
Jenna had avoided this entire subject for no other reason than it terrified her.
But sitting here, now, with her two best friends in the whole world, the fear was nowhere to be found.
The only thing she felt was a certainty.
A conviction that was new to her. Her brain called up an image of Sawyer—that gorgeous, perfect face, the clear blue eyes rimmed by black glasses, the wide smile framed by full lips that Jenna couldn’t look at without wanting to kiss them for days, her soft, dark hair, her beautiful, shapely body, those strong hands that took Jenna to heights she’d never experienced.
And then there was her brain. Her intellect was such a turn-on.
And there was her heart, big and tender.
There was so much about Sawyer Hall that Jenna could go on and on about, and all of these things, every last one of them fit together seamlessly to form a clear picture for Jenna. A clear picture of the woman she loved.
“Yes,” she finally said, very softly, and much to her surprise, her eyes welled up. “Yes. I am. I am in love with her.”
Dakota’s smile went soft and mushy. Ronni let go of a quiet squeal of delight and stomped her feet as quietly as she could, given her obvious excitement.
“Girl,” she said. “Thank God.”
Jenna squinted at her. “Thank God?”
Dakota laughed and used one finger to indicate herself and Ronni. “We’ve been talking about this for weeks now.”
Jenna feigned a gasp. “You two talk without me? How dare you.”
“We had to!” Ronni said. “It was killing us watching you go all melty soft and not saying anything. We were trying to give you space to figure it out, but it was pretty clear to us, despite our worry.”
“What was clear?” Jenna asked.
“That you were gonna end up together,” Dakota said. “Despite your differences, you fit really well.”
“And even though she didn’t become an instant fan of romance,” Ronni pointed out, “even if you didn’t change her mind about that, she tried.”
“She tried,” Dakota echoed. “She made the effort. She got big points from us for that.”
“She did make the effort, didn’t she?” Jenna took another sip of her coffee and looked from one friend to the other and back. “I feel kind of…gooey.”
“You look kind of gooey,” Dakota said, and Ronni nodded with enthusiasm.
“That’s it?” Ronni asked. “That’s what you wanted to talk about? Whether you were in love with her or not?”
Jenna nodded slowly at the realization that she simply needed her girls to help her navigate this path. “I just didn’t get that it was so clear to you both.”
“And to everybody else,” Shane said as he walked by, headed to the office.
Jenna blinked in surprise at his back while Dakota and Ronni burst into laughter.
In a moment, he was back, carrying a small stack of books. “Dee and I were ready to put your head through a wall,” he said as he passed again.
“True story,” came Delia’s voice from the front of the store.
Jenna felt the blush creeping up her neck and settling on her face as she said, “Well. I guess the signing hasn’t started yet and everybody’s eavesdropping.” She raised her voice on the last two words, but she was smiling.
“Pretty sure you’re in love,” came the less familiar voice that had to be Shauna.
The three women burst into laughter once again, and this time, Jenna’s heart was full. She felt light, like the proverbial weight had been lifted, and she was almost surprised when she didn’t float up off the loveseat and hover just above it.
“You look happy,” Ronni said softly, reaching across to squeeze Jenna’s forearm. “It’s nice.”
“There’s only one thing left to do now.” Dakota sipped her coffee and watched Jenna over the rim.
Jenna gave one nod in her agreement. Dakota was right. She had one more thing to do, and she realized she wanted to do it as soon as possible. “I have to tell her.”
Dakota reached her cup over the table to Ronni, who touched her own cup to it in a toast. “To love.”
There was no way Jenna was going to bail early on a new author doing a signing at her shop, no matter how competent her employees were.
And for a new author, Shauna’s signing was quite successful.
She didn’t have near the numbers that somebody like Lily Chambers pulled in, but she had a very steady turnout, and by the time they rang up the last customer, locked the front door, and turned on the Closed sign, BookLove only had half a dozen copies left in stock of Shauna’s new book.