Chapter Eight #2
Snagging one, I held it near my mouth. “Legend?” I bit into the cake, unprepared for what I was about to experience.
A soft moan escaped as the lemon landed on my tongue and practically melted across it.
“Goodness, Jaelyn. That’s heaven.” Her grin told me that it was the right thing to say, so I returned the smile before I took another bite.
“The Legend of the Bells Pass Gazebo goes that any couple who kisses under the gazebo’s roof at night, while the tree is lit, will be the town’s Christmas couple for the year.”
“Christmas couple?” I asked after I swallowed.
“Yes. The kissing couple will be the one the gazebo picks to bestow love everlasting, and they’ll be married before the tree is next lit.”
“Wow,” I said with a chuckle. “That is quite the legend. I bet it happened once, and suddenly it was written in stone, right?”
She tossed her head back and forth a couple of times before she answered. “More like a dozen, and that‘s just the couples I know personally. There was a bicentennial book published a few years ago that lists them all.”
“Wait, what?” I asked, turning to her now that I’d finished the cake. “A dozen?”
“Yep,” she agreed, smiling fondly at the building before us. “Mrs. Violet is one of them. Ivy and Shep, Lance and Indigo, Honor and Dawson, even Becca and Cameron.”
I made the mind-blown motion with my hands. “That’s wild! Okay, but how does that work if more than one couple kisses under the gazebo that year?”
“No one has the answer to that question, though it’s asked frequently. The best answer we’ve come up with is that the gazebo picks the couple it believes are true soulmates, and that’s the couple for the year.”
Leaning back on the bench, I gazed at the building, occasionally side-eyeing the woman beside me. “That’s quite the story.”
“I wouldn’t call it a story around anyone from Bells Pass,” she said, putting air quotes around the word story. “Here, it’s gospel. Ivy and Audrey conspire every year to see if they can figure out who the couple will be.”
“Who was last year's?” I asked, happy to be sitting with her and talking about anything and everything because I enjoyed her company so much.
“Last year, it was our librarian who reconnected with her high school sweetheart after he moved back to Bells Pass. Two years ago, it was Honor and Dawson. They’re the ones who wrote the bicentennial book for the gazebo.”
“How cool,” I said, not able to hide my smile.
“Especially since those two were oil and water from the day Dawson started working at the school. I love how the gazebo doesn’t care about any of that. When the right couple is under its roof, it just knows.”
“Have you spent any time under its roof?” I asked, my attention focused on her as she fumbled to cover the cake container.
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Too busy for love, right? I’m sure you understand, being a doctor and everything.”
I shrugged, letting the silence linger between us.
“I still have time for love, not that I’ve dated anyone in a long time, but that’s not from lack of time or desire, and more from inability to find someone I connect with.
I’ve spent enough years of my life alone.
I want to find someone to share it with before I’m too old to enjoy it. ”
“Definitely. You’re practically an old man,” she said, tongue in cheek, and I shoulder bumped her.
“I just turned thirty-nine, so I'm not ready for the nursing home yet. How old are you?”
Her brow dipped as she met my gaze. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to ask a woman her age?”
“Yes, but she also told me it only matters if their hair is white.”
Her snort of laughter made me smile, but her answer surprised me. “I turned thirty last week.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Happy birthday,” I said, putting my arm around her and squeezing gently.
“There wasn’t much to celebrate,” she said with enough honesty that it broke my heart a little bit. “Just another day.”
I stood and held my hand out to her. With a lowered brow, she took it, and I pulled her to stand. “You’re wrong about that, so I think you should let me take you out to dinner to celebrate.”
With her hand still in mine, I turned and led her down the path while she sputtered about, likely looking for an excuse to say no. “That’s not necessary,” she said, shaking her head. “Nice of you, but not necessary. The day has come and gone now.”
“There’s this thing called a belated birthday. Ever heard of it?”
This time, she full-on laughed, and the sound rang through the park in a way that shot a sensation through my chest that I hadn’t felt in too long. Eight years and a few months weren’t too many to overcome, right? I didn’t think so, but her family might, so I’d better proceed with caution.
“I have heard of that, and while I’ve enjoyed our dinners at the diner, I don’t want to give people the wrong idea about us.”
“What idea is that?” I asked, holding tight to her hand lest she think she could pull her soft, warm one from mine.
“That we’re dating,” she whispered. “You gotta understand, Bells Pass isn’t like the big city. Here, if you’re seen together more than twice, the rumor mill fires up, and it’s all so and so and so and so sitting in a tree.”
“Or under the gazebo’s roof,” I said with a wink to her gusty sigh. “I get it, but I’m new here, so for at least the next month, you can tell people you’re welcoming me to the town by being my friend. You can explain that I can’t cook, so you’re introducing me to all the great places to eat.”
“You have an argument for everything, Major.”
“Champion of the debate team right here,” I said, poking myself in the chest. “So, are we on? I’m off Saturday night. You pick the place.”
“Fine,” she said with a chuckle. “We’ll go to dinner on Saturday night, but not at the diner. If someone sees us there together too many more times—”
“We’ll be K I S S I N G?” I asked, to which she gave me another bombastic side-eye. “Not that I would mind that, but probably not in a tree. We might fall out.”
“Major,” she said as we arrived back at the truck. Once she unlocked it, I opened the driver’s door for her. “We can go to dinner, but we can’t date.”
Rather than answer, I shut the door and walked around the passenger side. Once in, I turned to her. “Because?”
“You’re a doctor. You’re older than I am.”
“Which one bothers you more?” I asked, a brow raised. “Me being older or me being a doctor? Cause in my opinion, neither matters when we’re both consenting adults.”
Her fingers tapped nervously on the steering wheel as she considered my question. “Of course, it matters, Major. I barely have my life together at thirty, and you’re a doctor.”
“That sentence tells me it’s not the age gap that matters to you. I love being a doctor, but that’s not all that I am, Jaelyn. I like to think I’m deeper than that.”
“You are,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I suspect you meant that since you’re a waitress, that means I would never be interested in dating you.
” Her shrug was choppy, but I could read between its lines to see I was correct.
“For the record, you’d be wrong. There is so much more to who you are than what you do.
I can say that as many times as I want to, but until you’re ready to believe it, we’re at a stalemate.
In light of that, I’m not going to hold you to your word about dinner.
If you'd like to go out with me on Saturday night, feel free to text or call me. Okay?”
Her nod was short as she started the truck and left the park without a word.
Something told me I had just pushed Jaelyn Riba too far out of her comfort zone to be smart, but there was something about a woman who thought she had no worth that rankled every nerve I had.
Truthfully, I knew it was smart not to get involved with her.
She didn’t need someone like me to complicate her life, but at the same time, the look of fear, sadness, worry, and hurt in her eyes came at me like a challenge every time.
It was as though she wanted me to be the one to wipe it away and replace it with happiness and satisfaction.
Oh, the last one would be easy if I took her to my bed and showed her how beautiful she was, but that wasn’t the kind of happiness and satisfaction that would last. That was the kind that complicated matters, so for now, I’d have to bide my time and wait for her to decide if she could see past my job to the man I was or if she’d let the fear decide for her.
As the diner came into view, I smiled out the window as I prepared for battle.