Love Finds You in Hershey, Pennsylvania (13 page)

Sadie didn’t hear anything from Jasper or Dmitri for the rest of the afternoon. As Jasper had suggested, Mac helped Sadie call around the neighborhood, telling the parents that the party had ended early and asking them to come and pick up their children.

Kylie didn’t mind this abrupt conclusion, as it gave her the opportunity to work at charming her grandfather, asking him question after question on topics she thought grandpas would be familiar with.

“And does Tommy Fitzkee’s grandmother
really
have a wooden leg?”

Mac explained that he didn’t know Tommy Fitzkee’s grandmother but that it was possible she had a
prosthetic
leg, although probably not one made out of wood, exactly. Kylie was most satisfied with this answer and brought up another item requiring her concern.

“Then we can get Malibu Ken a
post-fat-tick
leg too, can’t we, Grampa?”

Sadie wasn’t entirely comfortable with Kylie’s quick familiarity with her grandfather, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. “Hardheaded” wasn’t a trait that applied only to Mac and Sadie, after all. When Kylie decided on something, she clung to it like mildew to tile.

And Kylie had decided she liked Mac Cameron.

Mac hung around for the rest of the afternoon and most of the night, keeping Kylie distracted and out of Sadie’s way as she cleaned up the party items with a mad fury born of frustration.

What could she have been
thinking
?

One line in particular kept playing over and over in her mind:
I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

Every time she thought about it, she felt a sharp pain stab her gut. What an insensitive remark. How
stupid
. And now she probably
had
killed Dmitri Velichko. She wanted him out of the restaurant business, not out of life altogether. Truth be told, she kind of liked the guy. He was charming and mysterious, and his enthusiasm for certain topics reminded her of Kylie’s own childlike glee.

The mother in her wanted to wrap Dmitri Velichko in a warm blanket and tell him that everything was going to be all right.

It was unfortunate that the businesswoman in her simply wanted to strangle him.

Strangulation.
She let out a weak sigh. He’d probably suffocated to death by now, his airway passages closing in on themselves. A
peanut
allergy, of all things. How could she possibly have known?

After the remains of the party had been cleaned away and the rest of the cake tossed into the garbage—she couldn’t bear to save it after what had happened—there was nothing left to do but wait. Sadie put the time to good use by continuing to mentally flagellate her own self-centeredness and stupidity.

She barely noticed as Mac prepared Kylie some dinner, helped her brush her teeth and say her prayers, and tucked her into bed. He came and sat beside Sadie then, making one weak attempt at consolation by saying, “I’m sure Jasper’s got everything under control.”

Sadie didn’t respond, but she relaxed ever so slightly at these words. Jasper would make sure it was all right. She hoped.

Not another word passed between Mac and Sadie until Jasper pulled into the driveway at 11:13 p.m.

Jasper greeted Sadie with a weary smile as she flung the door open and ushered him into the house. Stepping inside, Jasper tossed Mac his truck keys.

“She drives like a dream, considering what she’s been through,” he commented.

Mac smiled. “You gotta know how to stroke her. You must have the touch.” He cleared his throat as Sadie glared.

“How can you be discussing vehicles at a time like this?” she questioned in exasperation. Mac and Jasper exchanged glances. Clearing his throat, Mac bid them a good night before slipping out of the house.

After closing the front door behind him, Sadie followed Jasper as he shuffled down the hall and into the living room with a groan, where he sank in exhaustion onto the couch.

“If you think I look bad,” he said, “you should see the other guy.”

Sadie let out a sob and sank onto the couch next to him. He looked at her in surprise.

“I’m a horrible person!” she wailed. “Just horrible! I don’t deserve to live!”

Jasper sat up and laid a comforting hand on her knee. “Aw, Sadie…don’t think that way.”

She turned toward him at his reassuring words and launched herself at him, burying her face into his neck.

“It’s true! I’m an awful, awful, mean, mean person!”

It came out muffled as “ma-fell, ma-fell, bean, bean parson!” but Jasper understood the context of it. He rubbed her back gently.

“It’s not your fault, sweetheart. You couldn’t have realized…”

“I said I’d have to kill him!” she argued. “But I didn’t mean it— I didn’t!”

Jasper made soothing noises of reassurance. “He knows that, Sadie; he does.”

She sniffled and pulled back a little. Her eyes were red, but it only made the brown in them stand out all the more brilliantly. Her little crying fit had pinked her cheeks and cast a rosy glow to the end of her nose.

Jasper thought she looked lovely.

“Do you really think so?”

Her little-girl vulnerability nearly made him sweep her into his arms right then.

“Think what?” he asked her, momentarily confused by the sight of her lips so temptingly near to his own.

“Think that Dmitri knows I didn’t mean it?” she prompted. “Do you think he can forgive me?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” he softly asked, his eyes lingering on those lips. “I always do.”

“But you’re different,” she argued, completely oblivious to the direction his thoughts had turned. “You’re Jasper. You’re my best friend. You’re
required
to forgive me!”

It took a moment for her words to get through, but when they did, it was a bucket of cold water on the thoughts he’d been having. He shifted back a little to give himself some air that
didn’t
include the scent of Sadie in it.

“I wouldn’t take such things for granted if I were you.”

Her eyebrows lowered together severely. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What it sounds like. Don’t always assume I’m going to just up and forgive you because I’m your so-called best friend.”

“What do you mean by—so-called? You
are
my best friend.”

Jasper scoffed. Sadie scowled.

He looked at her and forgot his irritation.

“Look, I don’t wanna fight.”

Just the opposite, in fact
, he thought.

She nestled into his side exactly like Kylie did when they watched
Beauty and the Beast
.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Some days it feels like that’s all I get done saying. Why do I keep messing up?”

He stroked her hair, gently pulling the strands back from her face and smoothing it to a rich, chestnut gloss.

“ ‘Cause you’re human, Sadie.”

“Then what are you?” she asked him. “You don’t have to apologize for something three times a week.”

He teased her. “That’s ‘cause I’m special.” He added more seriously, “And I don’t fanaticize over things as much as you do.”

She looked up into his eyes, her lip quivering slightly. “Do you really think I’m a fanatic?”

“Fantastic?” He pretended to hear her wrong. “Absolutely! I think you’re phenomenal!”

She poked him with her finger, and he squirmed.

“Be serious.”

His eyes grew warmer now. “I am serious. Believe me, I’ve never been more serious.”

She swallowed with some difficulty, and to his delight, Jasper noticed that her eyes focused on
his
lips now.

“Jasper…about last night…”

His arm tightened ever so slightly around her.

“What about it?” he murmured.

His breath tickled her nose, and she twitched.

“I don’t think…” She began inching upward by mere hair lengths, getting closer and closer to his face. “I don’t think…,” she repeated and then released her breath in a sigh. “I can’t think.”

The next thing he knew, they were kissing again.

Sadie had told herself, late last night, that the first kiss between her and Jasper was, as the Brits said, a “one-off.” The charged current between the two of them had been a fluke—an anomaly. There was no need to assume that the same static charge could happen twice. It was an unexplained phenomenon with a low recurrence rate. Like comets and shooting stars. These things flashed and then burned up…or something like that. It would be the same if she and Jasper should ever happen to touch in that way again.

That was what she told herself. These were the examples she outlined.

She had been wrong.

Somehow this kiss was even more electric than the first one. Jasper’s lips on hers felt the same way she’d once heard someone describe fireworks—a sudden explosion of light and flame entering the world with a shaken bang.

She didn’t want it to stop. And it didn’t. Not right away, anyway.

Jasper kissed her passionately and then tenderly and then, just when she thought she might drown without air (and had passed the point of caring), he let her go.

She stared up into his eyes. They were blue, but not like Dmitri’s. Dmitri’s eyes were pale and pure, but Jasper’s were a rich, cobalt blue and warm as tropical waters. She licked her lips now as she gazed into those molten pools of blue lava… .and remembered the volcano. Er, the toilet.

“Your keys,” she stated.

“What?” His voice was gravelly with an emotion Sadie didn’t dare dip into at the moment.

“Mac got your keys from the volcano. I mean, the toilet.”

“My keys?” Jasper blinked several times, and Sadie wondered if he could see her all right.

“The volcano took your keys,” she prompted. “Mac had to rip out the entire toilet to get them back.”

Things must have been becoming clearer to Jasper. He straightened, and Sadie, who had been leaning heavily against him, shifted down into the folds of the sofa.

“You’re worried about my keys? At a time like this?”

She cleared her throat. “Why? What are you worried about?”

“I…” He opened his mouth and then closed it, repeating this action several times. He reminded Sadie of Kylie’s guppy impersonation.

“You look like a fish,” she randomly commented.

His nostrils flared. “A fish?”

She shrugged.

“Sadie…do you want me to leave? Is that what you’re hinting at? Because you can just say so, you know.”

She sat up, and the heat between them dissipated as swiftly as a match in the Arctic.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what’s all this talk about my keys?”

“Kylie said the volcano took them. I just thought you’d be worried.”

Jasper just stared at her. “I’m worried about Malibu Ken’s leg too, but you don’t see me bringing it up right after we
kissed
, do you?”

She made a face. “That’s different.”

He looked away with a weary sigh, and Sadie felt a twinge of guilt at his beaten expression. He stood to his feet. “Fine. You’re right. It’s late, and I’m going to the nursing home tomorrow.”

Every other Sunday, Jasper visited the nursing home in York County to take his great-aunt Matilda to church and then out for lunch. She was a senile old woman with a wealth of eccentricities, but she and Jasper got along famously. Sometimes Sadie went with him. She didn’t think tomorrow would be one of those times.

The tone of his voice left Sadie feeling sad.

“Where are the keys?”

She gestured to the coffee table. She thought about reassuring him that she had washed them thoroughly after their adventure through the commode’s hidden orifices but decided that now was not the time.

He lifted them into his hand and turned to go.

“Tell Kylie I said happy birthday,” he said. “And since I’m sure you’re wondering—Dmitri’s going to be fine. He even managed to drive his SUV back home.”

A wave of remorse washed over her. She had been so possessed with her own guilt in the matter, she hadn’t even asked if Dmitri was okay. Funny how that worked.

Jasper turned toward the doorway, but she noticed he paused for a long time. He was waiting, she knew. But she didn’t know what to say.

Finally he left her.