Page 5 of Call It Serendipity

“Actually,” I rasp, “I’m running late.”

Snatching my drink from the counter, I manage to at least add, “Will you excuse me?” before I dart for the nearest escape just as before.

The cool mountain air is a welcome relief for the heat licking through my body, and I point my face up to the sky as I let it wash over me. I’m not sure why I keep reacting to him in this way, but a very large part of me is already regretting it.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in there.”

Dropping my chin back down, I turn to find Jake standing on the sidewalk behind me. He’s got an adorably guilty look on his face—one I’ve seen often from the puppies at the shelter.

The difference is, he has nothing to feel guilty about. “Oh, no, you didn’t. What’s embarrassing is the way I keep… responding to you.”

“The running away?” he asks lightly.

“Yeah, that part.”

He takes two steps closer and asks, “Which way are you heading?”

I nod towards the shelter only a short distance down the road.

“Can I walk with you?”

“Oh. Um, sure.”

Falling into step beside me, Jake allows a moment of silence to pass between us before he says, “I wasn’t sure I should come out here. A smarter man might think that you were trying to avoid him.”

A surprised laugh slips from me as I steal a glance in his direction.

The corner of his smile ticks higher.

“Well, I’m glad I have a third chance at saying what I should have right away—thank you. It doesn’t feel like enough, but thank you for saving my life, Jake.”

He dips his chin towards me. “It’s enough.”

I swallow and avert my gaze.

“I’m just glad I was in the right place at the right time,” he adds. There’s a solemness to his voice now, and it strikes me again how bad the situation could have been.

“I am, too, even if I don’t seem like it.”

“A situation like that would rattle anyone.”

Glancing up once more, I’m met by soft attention, and my heart flutters.

I am certainly rattled.

4

“If you aren’t heading this way…” Lucy murmurs, her attention jutting around us as we step over the edge of the quaint downtown.

I’m not, but I’ve gotten a glimpse at her smile now. A small, tentative one. It makes me want to walk a mile or two to earn more of them.

“I offered to walk you,” I start, sliding my free hand into the front pocket of my jeans. “That’s what I plan to do.”

Her dark eyes blink back at me through equally dark feathery bangs. “Why would you do that?” she asks, almost to herself.

It’s a fair question. Along with—why have I been unable to stop thinking about her for the past few days? Like a constant loop, flashes of her come and go relentlessly.

At first, I had myself convinced it was the adrenaline. How could I not think about the woman I almost witnessed in a fatal accident? How could I not want closure after being the one to pull her from harm’s way?