AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Here we were, sitting in the dining room of the Chandler Ranch. I had to admit that I was flummoxed with how to proceed. We’d started dating, yes, but he hadn’t told me the ranch was nearly this beautiful. Or nearly this elegant and huge!
“Here we are. One pizza from the best place around,” Jesse said, grinning. “Enjoy.”
“Thank you, Jesse,” I said with a smile.
As we set to eating the pizza, Jesse said, “I think you drifted off to sleep a couple of times on the way here.”
“Yeah… I do that sometimes on long road trips,” I admitted sheepishly before taking a bite of pizza. “Store’s doing so well now, but I still lose track of time when I’m beading at night. The fire station fundraiser boosted our sales enough that we have the income stream to hire more people. Did I tell you we foundsomeone to be our new full-time cashier? And someone who can help make jewelry?”
“That’s wonderful,” Jesse said as he put a slice of pizza on his plate. “What’s Maria doing while you’re here?”
“Maria is working on designing our holiday collections now,” I replied. “She has an eye for the design element of the job, and between that and the purses, she’s pretty busy most of the time.”
“Well, as long as you two are happy with the way things have turned out, then I say it’s a win,” Jesse continued. “I’m glad to see that the store can function a few days without you so long as the inventory is up to speed.”
“Or we’ve got the beading people in the shop making more instead of with our online sales,” I admitted. “Either way, it’s going to be great.”
Jesse smiled.
“I’m glad to hear that you’re able to take these new steps with the shop.” He took my hand and squeezed it gently before letting go so that we could eat.
And eat we did in comfortable silence. After we had learned how to best communicate with each other, the silences had stopped feeling so awkward. Now, it was like we didn’t need to say anything to each other. I appreciated this. There weren’t many people in the world with whom I felt comfortable with prolonged silence. For Jesse to be one of them was a good thing, considering we lived together.
My phone rang as I was swallowing the last bites of my pizza.
“You should get that. I’ll go put the extra pizza away,” Jesse said as he stood up.
I answered the phone.
“Is this Jade Santana speaking?”
“This is she. How may I help you?” I had forgotten to look at the caller ID, but I suspected that this was important from the way the person on the phone was speaking.
“My name is Detective Cordova with the Lantana police,” the voice said. “I’m calling about the arson at your artisanal shop.”
“Oh!” I had almost completely forgotten about the investigation going on.
The fire station was almost sure that it was arson, and they had been working with the local police to figure it out. Whatever had happened, I was just glad that things were going to be resolved properly.
“Do you have news for me?” I continued, hoping that there would be a development.
The case had been lying stagnant for a while, but not for a lack of trying on the detectives’ part. Even Jesse had been doing some investigation as a firefighter. But nothing had come up. Yet. I hoped that there was finally news. Even if it was just an update of what had caused the fire or how it had spread so quickly.
“I do,” Detective Cordova started. “We’ve caught the arsonist.”
I gasped in surprise. This was such good news!
“It seems the previous owner of the building had a business that failed there. He was selling taxidermy turkeys, which as you can imagine, did not sell well. He apparently decided that if his business failed in that building, then no business in that building would succeed. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Thank you for the information, Detective,” I said. “He has been arrested, yes? He’s not going to be a problem anymore for the community?”
“He won’t be a problem any longer,” the detective confirmed. “We just thought that you would be interested in hearing this news, considering what happened to you because of his actions.”
“Thank you.”
I smiled widely as I hung up the phone. Jesse had appeared in the doorway, and he raised his eyebrows in question.
“Was that news about the arsonist? He’s been caught, then, from that conversation you just had on the phone?” He walked over to meet me at the table.
