A Better Reason to Fall in Love (2 page)

Regardless of Naomi’s practical assurances, however, Tabby did believe in love at first sight. She also believed in dreams coming true, and she knew Jocelyn had been dreaming of belonging to Armando the Cliff Diver for over three months now. Furthermore, this would be their fourth lunch at the Acapulco, and Tabby felt certain Armando would ask for Jocelyn’s cell phone number this time—maybe even ask her out. After all, his attraction to her had only seemed to increase with each consecutive visit the girls had made to the Acapulco. He’d sought her out on both occasions following their first lunch at the cliff diving restaurant. He had originally said he’d wait until he’d seen her a few more times before asking for her number, and now he had seen her a few more times. Tabby felt almost giddy at thinking about it—at imagining the look on Jocelyn’s face if Armando did choose today to ask her out. Lunch was going to be fun, and Tabby couldn’t wait!

“Three more months!” Emmy sighed with exasperation as she folded Luke’s letter and returned it to the envelope. “How will I ever make it, Tabby?”

“It’s already been nine,” Tabby said, smiling with understanding at her friend. “You guys are on the homestretch. Don’t get discouraged now.”

Emmy nodded, but Tabby could thoroughly imagine how difficult it was—knew it was an unimaginably worrisome situation to have the man you loved stationed so far away and in constant danger.

“Did he tell you all kinds of mushy love stuff?” Tabby asked in an attempt to draw her friend’s thoughts back to more positive venues.

Emmy smiled, giggled, and even blushed as she nodded. “He totally did!” she exclaimed in a whisper. “Oh, Luke is so romantic! I love his letters. They make me feel…you know…insanely wonderful!”

Tabby giggled. “I know,” she said. “I can tell.” She sighed. “I hope you keep every letter he sends you. Letters are a lost art, a treasure the world will regret letting go of one day. Society will suffer for making them obsolete.”

“Are you kidding? Of course I keep them,” Emmy said. Her pretty brow puckered a moment as she tucked a strand of strawberry-blonde hair behind one ear. “And you’re right. They say in ten more years, letters will be something people have forgotten about altogether…that kids won’t even have a concept of what they were.”

Tabby sighed and touched her computer mouse. She looked at the time on the monitor and whined, “A whole ’nother hour before lunch.”

Still, Emmy smiled. “Don’t despair, darling,” she said. “Maybe Mr. Cute Butt will walk past your desk. That would make it worth waiting an hour for lunch, wouldn’t it?”

“I have never said he has a cute butt,” Tabby defended herself. Silently, however, she thought about how many times she’d thought the phrase all the same. She clicked the icon on her desktop to pull up the magazine ad layout she’d been working on.

“Maybe not out loud,” Emmy teased. “But I know you think it.”

Tabby rolled her eyes, smiling at her friend’s uncanny insight.

“I mean…have you heard all the nicknames everyone has for him?” Emmy asked. “Amber in accounting calls him Mr. Tight Tush…and Kristin over in payroll calls him—”

Emmy snickered a moment and giggled, “How about Mr. Firm Fanny?” and clamped one hand over her mouth to muffle a louder burst of laughter.

Tabby laughed too. “The Derrière-inator!” she whispered.

Emmy covered her mouth to stifle a louder laugh. Yet she quickly suggested, “How about Gladiator Gluteus?”

Tabby buried her face in her hands, attempting to muffle her own amused giggling. It was difficult, however. It seemed like any time giggling would get ahold of Tabby, especially at work, she had a terrible time reining it in.

“Now I’m really glad I’m just ‘the girl with the red hair’ around here,” she whispered, still giggling.

“And I’m glad I’m just ‘the girl with the soldier,’” Emmy said. “Besides, I’m proud of it!” Emmy reached across her desk and flicked a paper clip at Tabby. “Now get to work,” she said. “You’ll get us both in trouble.”

Tabby glanced up to see the sales and marketing analyst for the company, Jagger Brodie, walking—rather sauntering—toward the PR office. Without realizing it, a heavy sigh of something akin to longing escaped Tabby’s lungs as she watched Jagger Brodie cross the main office space. He was entirely the most attractive man Tabby had ever known—not that she really knew him well, but she knew him well enough to know he was hot! Tall, dark, and handsome, Jagger Brodie looked as if he’d stepped directly out of some sort of trendy clothing store ad, only wearing a business suit instead of nothing but a pair of jeans. He had the deepest green eyes Tabby had ever seen, a flawlessly chiseled jawline, and ebony hair that alluringly beckoned to be combed with female fingers—Tabby’s fingers.

“Boom chicka wow wow!” Emmy whispered.

“Absolutely!” Tabby breathed as she watched Jagger Brodie saunter past.

She envied Jocelyn for a moment, knowing he was most likely on his way to drop something off on Jocelyn’s desk or to speak with her. Jocelyn got to talk with Jagger almost every day, whereas Tabby was lucky if he dropped graphics changes off to her once a week.

“Ba boom chicka wow wow!” Emmy whispered again. “He’s sporting a red tie today. Ooo, the power tie! He must be feeling confident.”

Tabby smiled, amused and yet simultaneously amazed at Emmy’s observation. She’d noticed the red tie too. “There’s a big marketing meeting this afternoon,” she told Emmy. “I heard he’s presenting some hardnosed material.”

“What? Have you lost your mind?” she asked her friend. She was astonished Emmy would even suggest such a thing. Yet, at the same time, she wasn’t. Emmy was the most outgoing person she’d ever known—seemingly afraid of nothing.

“Not at all,” Emmy told her. “He’d go out with you. I know he would!”

“I’m not asking him out, Emmy,” Tabby said, shaking her head.

“I know, I know,” Emmy whined, rolling her eyes. “Old-fashioned girl and all that. Blah, blah, blah.” Emmy smiled, lowered her voice, and leaned toward Tabby. “Just do it. Just ask him out!”

“I’ve never asked a guy out in my life, Emmy!” Tabby exclaimed. “And I’m certainly not going to start now…especially with Jagger Brodie. Seriously, are you on drugs?”

“I suppose I can’t expect you to ask him out…when you hardly even talk to him,” Emmy sighed. “Still, you’re gonna mess around too long, and some other chick will net him.”

Tabby watched Jagger disappear into the PR office. She exhaled a heavy sigh of disappointment. An odd sense of longing washed over her—a longing for something she couldn’t quite put a label on.

“You know…back in the old days,” she began.

“Oh, no! Not one of your nostalgic soliloquies, Tabs,” Emmy teased.

Tabby ignored her friend and continued, “Back in the old days, everybody would’ve been more interested in his handsome face than in his tight bum.” She smiled at Emmy, adding, “They’d admire him for what an ambitious guy he seems to be, how hard he works, and how polite he is.”

Emmy’s eyes narrowed. She smiled. “Have you been reading
Anne of Green Gables
again, Tabs?” she asked.

Tabby shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Well, you can stare at his handsome
face
all you want then…but it won’t get you anywhere,” Emmy observed.

Emmy was so funny—the way she always said exactly what she was thinking, no matter what anybody else might say. Tabby wondered what it felt like to be so entirely uninhibited.

“Naomi would throw up if she could hear us now,” Tabby said, smiling as the vision of Jagger Brodie’s handsome face lingered in her mind.

Emmy giggled. “Oh, for sure!” Her eyes narrowed. Lowering her voice, she said, “Though all it would take is for the right guy to come along and Naomi would be as stupid about romance, love, and handsome boys as we all are.”

Tabby smiled. “Oh, I know it! I just wish he’d hurry and show up.”

“He will,” Emmy said, picking up a pen and wagging it at Tabby. “One day he will. One day, even Naomi will get all goofy over a guy.”

Tabby looked up to see Jagger Brodie exiting the PR office and heading back toward his own.

She glanced quickly to Emmy, amused as they whispered, “Boom chicka wow wow!” in unison.

When she looked back to Jagger Brodie, however, her heart leapt into her throat. He was looking directly at them! He smiled—a dazzling, mesmerizing smile—and his green eyes flashed with something Tabby feared was understanding.

“Ladies,” he greeted as he sauntered past.

“Good morning, Mr. Brodie,” Emmy managed to respond, though Tabby was too mortified at having made eye contact with him to say anything.

He stepped into his office, closing the door behind him.

“Oh, good one, Tabs,” Emmy teased. “And I thought redheads were supposed to be so confident and all.”

“Another urban legend entirely shot down,” Tabby said. She was disappointed in herself at that moment. How could she not even respond to his greeting? He must think she was an idiot—or worse, a snob.

“I’ve got to finish this design by lunch…so be quiet, okay?” she said, suddenly desperate to end her conversation with Emmy concerning Jagger Brodie.

“Ah, yes! Lunch,” Emmy sighed. “And the dashing Armando! He better ask Jocelyn for her number this time, or I’ll have to hire someone to take him out.”

“I know!” Tabby agreed. “There’s a new place that just opened, and next week’s my turn to pick where we eat. I don’t want to feel obligated to choose the Acapulco again…which I will if he doesn’t make a move today.”

Tabby sighed as she started working on her current deadlined project. Even if Armando didn’t ever ask Jocelyn out—even if it wasn’t meant to be between them (which she hoped it was)—it would be great to see Emmy and Luke get married over the summer. Emmy and Luke belonged together—they absolutely did, no matter what anyone else might think. Tabitha Flanders held to her hope that true love—true commitment to love—wasn’t really as rare as it sometimes seemed. She knew Luke and Emmy would prove that it wasn’t about to become extinct. Furthermore, if it was rare or not, she hoped she would one day find it—prayed that there was one man left in the world who could love her the way she dreamed of being loved. She wanted to be that man’s obsession—the only woman who could ever own his heart—and she wanted to love him the same way—thoroughly, singularly, and forever.

CHAPTER TWO

Tabby couldn’t help but smile as she watched Jocelyn write her phone number on Armando’s forearm with the permanent marker the waitress had provided.

“I mean, really,” Emmy whispered to Tabby. “How else are you gonna give your number to a guy who’s wearing nothing but a towel?”

Tabby bit her lip to keep from giggling.

“So I’ll call you tomorrow to get directions to your place?” Armando asked. He smiled at Jocelyn, his dark eyes flashing with eagerness. “And I’ll come for you at seven in the evening.”

“He’s too good to be true,” Naomi offered—though Tabby was amused to see that Armando’s charm had obviously bewitched even practical Naomi a little, for she sat twisting a strand of dark hair around one index finger. “I mean,” Naomi began, looking as if she’d only just realized that some men could be charming, “nobody procures a gorgeous Latin lover simply by going to a restaurant and watching guys dive off replicated cliffs. It just doesn’t happen.”