Forgotten First Kiss

Chapter 5

Jeremy Hotston did not answer my phone call. His voice mail was also full. I tried a text, and an auto-responder said he was out of the office until further notice.

Well, that was unexpected.

What had I assumed? That Jeremy Hotston had been standing somewhere, breathless, on pins and needles, waiting for my call? That he spent all his days loitering in florist shops and parking lots, pining for me?

The next morning, my ire had not abated. I tried calling Tennille, but she didn’t answer. It was her morning when she worked as a jiu-jitsu instructor. I probably should have remembered that. But even when class time ended, she still didn’t respond.

I peered at the paperwork again. In the morning’s clear light, it appeared even worse. Not only did this contract seem to transfer ownership of the business to Tennille and Liam, it included something called a quitclaim deed to the property itself.

That building had belonged to my great-great-great-grandmother, Constance Merchant. Inspired by her late husband’s last name, she’d opened a shop, the first ever hard-goods store in Wilder River when it was first settled. With grit and persistence, she’d run her business, ordered and shipped in lumber and nails, and more or less facilitated the building up of the town out of the wilderness. I’d been named for her, Danica Constance Denton.

And I’d bought her store when it came up for auction, as the first thing I’d done when I graduated from college. Putting a gym there had been the only thought in my mind. Three goals—honoring Great-Grandma Constance, living out Angelica’s dream, and running my own business—had all converged in Constant Energy Gymnastics, which I’d named in honor of Grandma Constance.

There was no way—in any rational state of mind—I would have signed that contract.

And Tennille knew that.

The names associated with the law firm were listed at the top of the contract, and I stared at them hard. They seemed familiar. In spite of my ethical stand against searching people on the internet, I looked up the lawyers, one by one.

Sure enough, one hailed from Wilder River—Ivan Rutledge. I scrolled down to see his picture at the bottom of his bio.

He couldn’t look more like Liam Lexington if he’d gotten one of those major plastic surgeries. Whoa. Like, identical twins. Had to be one of Liam’s relatives.

I shut off the computer, my stomach churning way too much for this early in the morning.

My parents were not worldly, not business people. Mom always took care of Angelica. Dad was a retired high school band teacher, with a personality the antithesis of shrewd negotiator. Angelica was brilliant—but at chemistry, not contracts. Her husband was an accountant, great with numbers but not as great with people, which was why I was insisting on going to be with Angelica after her surgery.

A growl tore from my lungs. I had no one—no one—in my life who could help me with this.

Jeremy Hotston, my gut whispered.

I marched to the cupboard and shushed my gut with my go-to comfort food: a brownie, the kind from cellophane with rainbow sprinkles. But that only kept it busy for a couple of minutes, and it came back—this time in a stern voice, telling me that Jeremy Hotston had a good reputation. And he’d sent me flowers after I’d violently ejected him from my home.

No, he hadn’t accepted my call. But could I find him somewhere?

“Mom?” I asked when she picked up her phone. “Can you get me the number for Garrett Boltinghouse?”

A squeal of delight that could have broken glass shrilled through the receiver on my phone. “You’re calling him? Oh, sugar. I’m so happy that you’re being courageous.”

“Courageous.” Right. “Thanks,” I said when she promised to get right back to me.

A few minutes later, I had Garrett’s number in hand. But how to proceed? I texted him and asked him to see whether Jeremy Hotston was around and if he could ask Jeremy to get in touch with me. It was an emergency.

Thirty minutes later, there was a knock on my door.

“Mom, you didn’t have to come over just because—” Instead of finding Mom standing there with another bag of groceries, the sight of Jeremy Hotston slammed me.

Taller, wider in the shoulders than I ever would have expected him to become, and with a muscle-twitch in a chiseled jaw. If what everyone said was true and he’d gone into the military, man, he would have looked fine in a uniform. My eyes lingered too long on that broad chest.

Jeremy gave me one of those I’m here, now what looks, challenging me, as if daring me to cross him.

Or maybe I was misreading it.

Whatever his look, intensity thudded in the air between us, and a ghost of a memory—a remnant of something that might have happened in a parallel life—swished through my mind ever so swiftly. A single pulse of true connection.

And then it was gone, leaving me desperate to reclaim it.