Page 25 of Forever Endeavor

“Despite my misgivings, I’m still a sucker for romance,” she admitted. “Go on.”

“We shed our wet layers and ordered two steaming bowls of soup. Of course, I was curious about this stunning creature but didn’t want to interrogate her with a line of questioning. She was dressed up fancy for a holiday party at one of the city’s swankiest hotels. Except she wasn’t headed to just any holiday party, it was her engagement party. Her fiancé was from a wealthy family that had made a fortune in importing…or maybe it was exporting? I can’t recall.”

“And yet, she was in a diner sipping soup with a stranger. You.”

“She didn’t say why, exactly, but she was having second thoughts about going through with it. Every time she glanced at the rock on her finger, her lips would pucker into a frown.”

“Sounds like she literally had cold feet,” Billie said.

“I was enamored by her sparkle and sweet demeanor, and before I knew it, I was pouring my heart out to her about Jimmy. She didn’t judge or condemn me, and it was such a gift to finally unburden myself to such a tender listener. Over the course of those two hours, we formed a real connection. I convinced myself if I could persuade her to dump her fiancé and run away with me, we’d live happily ever after. It’d be one hell of a story to tell the kids someday.”

Billie’s heart ached knowing that a weighty “but” was about to drop like an anchor.

“But I hesitated. I made a beeline for the men’s room to work up the courage to ask her out. She had shivered her way into my heart, and without even realizing, she gave me every reason to step back from the ledge and go on living.” He sighed. “By the time I returned, she was gone. The table was abandoned and the hook that held her coat was empty. The only trace of her was a napkin with her lipstick. She disappeared like a dream at dawn. Poof…gone.”

“Oh no. What do you think happened to her?”

“I imagined every scenario possible. That she’d come to her senses about her fiancé or that she detected my intentions and wanted to flee another messy entanglement. I’ll never truly know, but I’ve never stopped wondering. Even after I married Meg years later, my heart would still catch in my throat if I caught even the faintest whiff of jasmine perfume.”

Billie’s mind raced. Cal’s poignant story had all the makings of a Nicholas Sparks tearjerker, heartbreaking yet sweetly hopeful.Screw you,Sparks. This is my story.

“And you never caught her first name?”

“I’ve beaten myself up for that oversight for decades,” he said, shaking his head. “We exchanged no personal details. Not a name, not a number, not a single kiss. And yet I memorized every freckle that danced on her bare shoulders as if I’d been counting the stars.”

What a great line. I’ve got to write that down.“Lucky you were a cop, so you notice those things. Most men don’t,” she said.

“So that’s it. Now you understand what I meant by love saves. I may not have lived happily ever after with that girl, but I got to live happily with someone I loved because of her.”

It was a beautiful story, but maybe, just maybe, Billie could improve upon it. What if, with a little digging, she could learn what happened to Cal’s mystery woman or better yet, find her? A reunion would certainly bring him the closure he deserved, and at the same time, restore her belief in lasting love and give her novel the perfect ending. It had the potential to be the happily ever after to end all happily ever afters.

“Thank you for sharing that with me, Cal. I’m feeling incredibly inspired,” she said. “By chance, do you have any paper floating around on this raft?”

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