Lured In Read Free Page B

turns out he’s still interested,” Kate said slowly, as though testing the waters, “I hope you won’t just blow him off. It’d be good for you to have someone in your life, and, let’s face it, if that person turns out to be Sam Ross, it’d be great for the Buoys.”
    “Oh for the—” Jessie started, then rolled her eyes when Kate winked at her. “That’s great you guys, thanks. You’ve both been super helpful.”
    “We do what we can, right, Kate?”
    “Absolutely.” Hands fisted, Kate shook them like pompoms. “Go, Team Sam!”
    Jessie shook her head, then pointed toward the martini glass in Olivia’s hand.
    “Did you need my help with that?”
    “Oh, right. Joe wants a martini, and the only thing I can think to put in it is vermouth and olives.”
    Jessie was out of her chair like a shot. As brilliant as Olivia was in the kitchen, she’d proven time and again that tending bar wasn’t anywhere in the realm of her expertise. And if the “Joe” in question was Joe Finder, any hint of an olive in his glass would send him into anaphylactic shock.
    “I’ll get it, thanks.”
    She took the glass from Olivia and headed toward the bar in the restaurant, with Kate and Olivia’s quiet cheers chasing after her.
    “Team Sam, Team Sam, Team Sam!”
    For the rest of the night, Jessie tried to focus on the guests, as she always did, making sure they had everything they needed, that Olivia received the meal orders quickly and accurately, and that Finn and his brothers got a bit of time by themselves so they could all go over the
Hooked
contract before Ronan left tomorrow afternoon.
    And yet, no matter how hard Jessie tried to focus on other things, Kate’s voice seemed to be on repeat in the back of her mind.
    Maybe it’s time you worked through that fear.
    Kate was right; it was way past time Jessie learned to deal with it. But last spring when she’d watched Finn take a header off the dock, every one of her nightmares came roaring back in brilliant blasts of Technicolor—only this time they were joined by a silent scream in her head.
    Not Finn!
    Instead of running to help him, every muscle in her body locked up, making it impossible to take a single step. Even after he’d pulled himself up onto the dock and proved that he was fine, it had taken her days to completely shake off the terror.
    And every day since, whenever she looked at him—which she seemed to be doing a lot of lately—she cursed herself more. What if he’d needed help? What if he’d hit his head and drowned because she couldn’t get her stupid self in the water?
    It wasn’t the first time she’d worried about it and it probably wouldn’t be the last, not unless she could finally buck up and do something about it. But could she? After being held hostage by fear for so many years, could she finally put the nightmares and images of her sister’s blue-tinged skin out of her mind?
    No, not completely anyway, but she couldn’t spend the rest of her life being held prisoner by it, either.
    It was time.
    Right
.
Okay
.
You can do this
.
    How often had she said that to herself over the years? Too many to count. But how many times had she actually believed even for a fraction of a second that she
could
do it?
    Not once—not until this moment, right now. She didn’t know what had changed, but she couldn’t waste time worrying about that; all she could do was cling to that delicate thread of belief with both hands.
    She needed to do it. For herself, of course, but it would also allow her to be hands-on in the only part of the operations at the Buoys that she’d never been part of before. And that would be a huge help to everyone.
    And, yes, it would also help clear her conscience with Sam coming up next month. She should have just told him the truth right from the start, or at the very least coughed it up in an email (the perfectly acceptable way for chickens to deal with everything), but she hadn’t.
    She hated that she’d basically