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She considered her empty wallet again.
No help there, she thought.
Wait. It wasn’t completely empty.
She fumbled around inside the bag for her wallet while she waited at a stoplight. Once she found it, she withdrew the business card tucked inside and looked at the address. The place wasn’t too far from here.
She turned left at the next stoplight, her course decided. When she pulled up in front of the building, she parallel parked on the street in the spot right outside the main entrance and put the car in park. She took a moment to study the large four-story brick building that was a perfect blend of old and new architecture. Connected to the other buildings on either side, it took up a large part of the block, boasting a corner spot.
She’d always been fond of American history, so when she’d first arrived in Philadelphia, she’d enjoyed walking around the city, studying houses and historical sites that had been around since the nineteenth century. It was clear this building was quite old, though it had been beautifully restored.
The tall, arched windows on the first floor were part of the original design, but the glass inside was new, crystal clear and shiny. The sign on the main entry indicated the two businesses—a doctor’s office and a restoration company—that resided behind the dark brown wooden door. The front portico was impressive, grand and inviting, made even more so by the ornate lunette window above the door.
She assumed the businesses occupied the first and second floors, which were both dark, as it was well after work hours. However, there was lots of light coming from the top two floors, allowing her to easily see the third-story balcony that jutted out above a large bay window on the second floor. She found herself wondering about those top two floors, not because she was terribly fascinated in the layout of the building, but because she was curious about the people inside.
She’d lifted the business card several months earlier from a bulletin board her boss had hanging near the front door of the diner—his way of promoting local businesses. At the time, she hadn’t been able to reason out why on earth she thought she’d ever need it. She sure as hell didn’t have a home that needed renovation.
Jess had brushed it off initially as a foolish—and lonely—woman’s silliness. The men who lived here—Tony Moretti, who owned the restoration company as well as the doctor, Rhys Beaumont—were regulars at the diner where she worked, so she’d seen them pretty much weekly ever since she’d started working there four years ago.
She’d overheard them talking about buying this building a couple of years earlier, describing their plans for renovating it to their weekly Wednesday lunch companions, a large group of men who were either relatives or friends. She’d been so enthralled by their intentions for the building, she’d eavesdropped more than was polite, refilling their water glasses far too often.
The men always sat in her section at the diner, and the other waitresses constantly expressed their jealousy over that fact. Tony, Rhys, and the other men were all handsome and funny, kind to her, and good tippers.
Those small tidbits—plus their names, occupations, and this address, thanks to the business card—were the sum total of Jess’s knowledge about them. So coming here had been stupid as hell. Because apart from where she worked and her first name, the men didn’t knowhereither, and there was no way she could knock on that grand, gorgeous door, and say, “Hey, remember me from the diner? Can my son and I crash on your couch tonight?”
She shook her head, feeling like a fool for thinking the words, and even more foolish for coming here.
Chalk up another stupid decision due to her lack of sleep.
Her mother had always accused her of having too much pride, but damn if it hadn’t taken a beating this month. Regardless, she pushed away thoughts of the strangers inside the building, turning her attention to the more pressing matter.
Unfastening her seat belt, she twisted around so she could speak to Jasper.
“Are you up for a little adventure tonight?” she asked, trying to infuse as much excitement into her tone as possible.
Jasper gave her a curious look. “What?”
“We’re camping,” she said, aware the word alone would help sell her insane idea to her son.
As expected, he lit up like a Christmas tree, his eyes going wide. The two of them had spent a lot of time at the public library this month, as it gave them somewhere warm to kill a few hours so they wouldn’t arrive at her friends’ houses until just before bedtime. She’d been working hard not to overstay her welcome or be an unwanted burden.
Jasper’s latest obsession was camping books. She couldn’t count how many times she’d readLlama Llama Loves CampingandCurious George Goes Campingto him the past few weeks.
“We are?!” he said, unhooking his seat belt to jump up and hug her.
She laughed at his enthusiasm, even though she knew what she was proposing was stupid, and even dangerous. “Yes, but our camping is going to be a little different from the books we’ve been reading because we’re going city camping.”
Jasper was squirming around, full of energy now. “What’s that?”
“Well, since it’s winter, we have to improvise. So we’re going to build a backseat tent out of clothes. All our clothes.”
God bless six-year-olds and their willingness to try anything.
“Okay!” he shouted, unable to contain himself.
“But first, camp food.”
She did an internal eyeroll because, while she’d never camped, something told her peanut butter crackers weren’t the normal fare when crowding around a campfire. Pulling half a sleeve of saltines and a nearly empty jar of peanut butter from her bag, she waved them in the air, as if displaying something really wonderful. “Since we don’t have a camp stove or a fire, we’ll have to eat something that doesn’t need to be cooked.”
