Riverbend Reunion(78)

Risa checked the time on her phone and headed to the kitchen. It was only twenty minutes until noon, and she had soup to heat up and grilled cheese sandwiches to make. The rock in her chest had disappeared. Lily and Daisy weren’t too disappointed. Jessica and Wade were in a wonderful place—taking it slow and not rushing into anything. To Risa’s way of thinking, that was a good plan. If she hadn’t gotten in a hurry all those years ago, she might have had a very different life.

But you might not have had those two precious girls, the voice in her head said.





Chapter Eighteen


Jessica took a long bath and shaved her legs on Friday night after work. That done, she even used a curling iron to make her blonde hair a little more presentable and applied some makeup. Like Wade, she had never been to one of their class reunions, so she wasn’t sure what to wear. She finally chose her simple little black dress—which was sleeveless, stopped at the knee, and fit her curves perfectly—and a pair of strappy sandals. She checked her reflection in the mirror and added a pair of pearl earrings, but she still felt like a giant going to a hobbit party.

She turned around and closed her eyes. It didn’t matter what she looked like. Her friends would be there to support her, and Wade had offered to give her a ride, so none of them had to drive all the way out back there to pick her up. Next week, she vowed, she was going to take the RV to Killeen and trade it in on an SUV. She’d thought about a car and then a truck, but an SUV seemed to make more sense since she could haul more people in it. She was all the way across the bar and about to go out the front door when it opened, and Wade just stood there with a grin on his face.

“Can we pretend we’re on a date?” he asked.

“You would want to do that?” Her eyes traveled from his freshly shined cowboy boots, up his khaki western-cut slacks, and to the forest-green shirt that matched his eyes. “Any woman there would be glad to be your date. Why would you want to saddle yourself with a giant?”

“I never did go for those petite women.” Wade offered her his arm. “For the first time in my life, I’ll be the envy of every guy that ever graduated from Riverbend High School.”

“With a compliment like that, how could I ever refuse to be your date?” Jessica slipped her arm into his.

“I should’ve asked you earlier and brought a corsage,” he said as he locked the door behind them.

“This is not a prom,” she said with a chuckle, “and I’m probably overdressed as it is, but it was this or my camouflage pants.”

Wade opened the truck door for her. “You look drop-dead gorgeous to me.”

“You clean up pretty good yourself.” She got into the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt.

He whistled all the way around the front end of the truck and slid in behind the steering wheel. “I didn’t think I’d ever be this happy again after Danny died. I owe you, Jessica.”

She smiled across the console at him. “We all owe each other. If you hadn’t come to the parking lot that first night I arrived in Riverbend, and if you hadn’t suggested turning the old church into a bar, none of this would be happening.”

“What would you have done if that hadn’t happened?” he asked as he started the engine and drove away from the bar.

“I would have given the church to the city to do whatever they wanted with it and driven my RV on west in search of a home,” she answered honestly. “I told myself when I left Maine that I would know where I belonged when I got there because I would feel peace in my heart.”

“So, you feel peace?” Wade asked.

“Yes, I do,” she said with a nod. “Do you?”

He didn’t answer until they turned off the dirt road onto the paved one leading down to Riverbend. “I didn’t, but I do now. I feel like I can finally let Danny go, and that . . .” He paused.

She turned to focus on his face. A lot could be read from a person’s expression, especially when they were searching for the right words. Wade suddenly smiled, and it reached all the way to his eyes.

“I’m not sure how to say this, Jessica,” he said. “We are partners, and getting into a relationship might not be a good idea, but I’d like to see where this chemistry between us would lead, but I’ve been afraid to even bring it up for fear if it didn’t work out, we would . . .” Another hesitation.

Now his face looked less relaxed and more tense. She reached across the console and laid a hand on his arm. The electricity between them seemed even hotter than ever.

“We’re adults,” she told him. “If a relationship didn’t work out, I think we could handle being friends, but if we never see where whatever this is between us might go, then we might be passing up on something wonderful.”

“Right!” he said as he turned into the high school parking lot and found an empty space. He turned off the engine and turned to face her. “So, can we call this a real date tonight?”

“Yes, we can.” Jessica was tired of fighting the battle between her heart and her mind.

“That means I get the last dance of the evening?” Wade leaned across the console and kissed her on the cheek.

Jessica’s heart threw in an extra beat and then raced ahead with a full head of steam. Her face suddenly felt hot enough to melt all her makeup off. Granted, it had been a while since she’d had a boyfriend, but she felt like a teenager out on a first date again.