“Thanks so much,” Jett said, retrieving her bag and slipping out of the car. “Have a great day.” She closed the door behind her and stood uncertainly on the sidewalk, taking a deep breath.
The air today felt…charged; anticipatory as was the norm before a nor’easter hit.
Or was it just her nerves?
She certainly had plenty of those nasty things zinging close to the surface as she wondered how she’d be received.
One thing was certain, she couldn’t stand on the sidewalk all day. There was a weather-clock ticking, and despite her dubious welcome, she needed to move her feet.
Striding forward, repeating the mantrafake-it-‘til-you-feel-it, she pushed through the door, and?—
“Can I help you?”
The words carried from behind a counter that doubled as display cases.
And it wasn’t Trask inquiring. It also wasn’t one of his brothers. It was the woman whose voice Jett immediately recognized from the call yesterday.
“Sheila? Hi. I’m Jett. I?—”
“I know who you are. I know,” the woman cut her off. “I looked up your profile.” She barely took a breath to continue. “You left because of Trask. You told him off. He was confused.”
If Jett had wondered about Sheila before, she had answers, now. All the while the young woman was talking, she hadn’t made eye contact with Jett once, but continued to type furiously.
Jett leaned over to have a closer look, and…
Nope.
Jett’s mistake.
Sheila was actually playing a video game on her computer, and from the massive score Jett could just make out, it looked like she was killing it.
Jett straightened her shoulders. “I’m actually here to apologize for that ill-timed and emotional comment I gave you over the phone, and to set things straight between myself and Trask so I might still be offered the job here.”
“You have the job,” Sheila told her deadpan. “You have the job. Spencer and Tabitha—she’s my sister. Tabbi is my sister.They told Trask he was an idiot. Buck said so, too. I don’t think Trask is an idiot. He’s bossy. He must have made you mad.”
Sheila’s eyes came up for the first time as she put her game on pause, and she blinked at Jett.
“You flew back. You’re here,” Sheila added.
“I am,” Jett concurred. “And like I said, I need to meet with Trask to smooth things over. I thought he’d be here today. Did he step out for a few minutes?” Jett knew that Trask took his job at Diver Downeast very seriously, and would be making sure the place was fully set for the grand opening Spencer had told her was planned for the first of next month.
“He’s not here.” Sheila continued to regard her, but this time looked…bothered? “He’s away.”
“Okay,” Jett placated gently, not wanting to upset Sheila. “Do you know when he’ll be back? Did he say where he went?”
Sheila nodded, perhaps taking a chill-out cue from Jett, because she went right back to her game.
“Uh, huh,” Sheila said, a huge explosion on-screen actually making her smile.
“He went to Portsmouth to see you.”
Trask hadn’t mindedthe drive as long as he could keep his mind off his destination, or thewomanat said destination, but he’d be pulling into her father’s driveway any minute now, and he was floundering.
How did he present himself? What should he say? Had Jett told her father that Trask had been an asshole; that he was the reason she’d returned home so suddenly?
All the unknowns were killing him.
Trask liked plans, and order, and predictability, but from the moment he’d met Jett, all those things on which he’d previously based his life had been up in the air, thrown helter-skelter. It was like juggling Jello.
