Page 100 of Above ’N’ Beyond

In a numb haze, she took the envelope, then went back to her office and sat behind the desk. Now she understood Jamie’s motivations so clearly, but did it really change anything? Did it matter that he was in love with her? Did it matter that she was still in love with him? So much had happened. So many obstacles still lay between them.

Absently, and without looking at the label, she opened the FedEx envelope and pulled out a stack of documents. The first page, a signed and notarized commercial lease agreement, had her frowning in confusion. She recognized the address. That building was vacant now but had once been a Mediterranean café. The address was on a side street in Nyack, not as desirable a location as the Bistro’s on Main Street but a nice spot nonetheless.

She blinked, not understanding what she read next. Her name had been typed into the document as the lessee. “What the—”

Bella flipped to the next page. A receipt. The lease had been paid in full for twelve months with an option to buy after three years. “Who paid this rent?”

The second to last page in the stack was a handwritten letter in neat masculine script.

Bella,

You—not Paola—are what made the Bistro a success. Don’t ever doubt that. Don’t ever doubt yourself. You can do it again. People will follow you. Customers will follow you. And you don’t owe me a thing. If anything, I owe you.

Good luck,

Jamie

Bella stared a moment longer at the letter. She honestly didn’t know what to think or feel. Jamie had paid thousands of dollars out of his own pocket so she could get a fresh start.

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, she set the documents on her desk. When she opened her eyes, a folded piece of paper that hadn’t been there before caught her attention.

She picked up the paper and unfolded it. It was a note, written in a shaky, scraggly scrawl, as if the writer’s hands had actually been shaking. Jamie’s father. Just before he’d left, she remembered he’d reached into his pocket. While she’d been helping him to stand, he must have dropped the note on her desk.

The note contained only one thing—an address in Manasquan, New Jersey. What the address meant exactly she couldn’t be certain. Only that it must be important, or Michael wouldn’t have wanted her to have it.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, wetting the page. A fluttery feeling took up residence in her chest. Finally, she had the power to fix things, and she knew what she had to do to make it happen.

Peggy poked her head in the doorway. “I need to lock up. I—” She came into the office. “Are you okay?”

Bella nodded, smiling for the first time in six months. “I will be.” Right now, she had to get cooking.

Chapter Thirty-Five

With one hand resting on Jax’s head and an ice-cold microbrew in the other, watching the waves crash onto the Manasquan beach had become one of Jamie’s favorite pastimes.

He’d gone back to work at JFK Airport but had taken the entire month off after the holidays, intending to spend it in blissful peace and quiet, doing nothing more than staring at the ocean.

The Pataglio beach shack was stunning now, but it hadn’t always been that way. His father had purchased it as a wedding gift for his mother, who loved the Jersey Shore. Shortly after his dad was arrested, they’d been unable to pay the mortgage on their family house on Long Island. His mother had refused to sell the shack to pay the mortgage, so she sold the house in Long Island and moved in with a friend.

Years later, Jamie and his sister scraped enough together to buy their mother another house in the same area so she could still be near her friends and not too far from Otisville. Recently, Jamie had put his own money into renovating the shack, which had, literally, been no more than that when his parents had first bought it. Hence the nickname.

Two days ago, he’d driven to the shack, but the blissful peace and quiet part had, thus far, eluded him.

“Jamie!” his sister, Ariana, shouted from the kitchen amidst the slamming of cabinet doors and banging pots. “Whatdya want for dinner? I can make spaghetti, baked chicken, or lasagna.”

“Anything’s good,” he shouted back. In truth, he wasn’t hungry, but feeding people whether they wanted to eat or not was ingrained in his family’s Italian DNA.

“Make all of them,” his mother said, coming into the living room and sitting on a chair facing Jamie. “You’re not eating enough.”

“You’re hovering,” Jamie countered.

His mother arched a brow. “That’s because you’re not eating enough. At Thanksgiving, you hardly ate any stuffing or mashed potatoes like you usually do. At Christmas, you barely touched anything on your plate.”

“Sorry, Ma.” He reached over to squeeze her hand. Normally, he loved his mother’s cooking. She was an awesome cook. All the traditional Italian food was her specialty. The problem was all that food made him think of Bella.

“That’s all right, son.” She covered his hand with hers, then stood and kissed him on the top of his head, the same as she’d been doing for as long as he could remember. “I know you’ve been through a lot. A good meal will do you wonders.”

When she’d returned to the kitchen, Jamie closed his eyes and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t told his mother or sister about Bella. Only his father knew the truth. That he missed Bella’s smile, her snark, and the way she cared for everyone around her. Most of all, he missed talking with her and loving her because, yeah, that was always at the root of the problem. He was so in love with her it killed him to get up every morning knowing she would never again be a part of his life. The only good thing was that his dad was here and doing better.