Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick Read Free Book Online Page A

delivered yet, so we’re roughing it with air mattresses and sleeping bags right now.”
    “Don’t worry about me. I’m so tired I could sleep standing up.” Cait trailed her hand along the banister. “Hey, it’s Mr. Wonderful!”
    The ornate bronze figure glinted in the moonlight streaming through the window above the landing.
    Brooke smiled and patted Hermes’s little winged cap. “Did you know he’s the official god of travelers?” She tilted her head. “Well, actually, the book I consulted said he was the ‘Olympian god of
boundaries
and of the travelers who cross them.’”
    “Official god of boundary issues?” Cait laughed. “How fitting for this house.”
    Right on cue, Jamie’s sleep-tousled head appeared at the top of the staircase. “Who goes there?”
    Cait raised her mug in greeting. “A refugee from the Ivory Tower.”
    “
Cait?
But you …” Jamie rubbed her eyes and peered down at them. “What happened?”
    “Long story.” Cait reclaimed her overnight bag from Brooke and made a beeline for her old room at the end of the hallway. “With an unfortunate and unoriginal ending. Heed my words, ladies: Never, ever, ever date a college administrator.”

“… Without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people’s feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business.”
    —Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice
    N
ever, ever, ever date a college administrator
.
    Cait’s warning reverberated through Jamie’s mind early the next morning as she shuffled into the kitchen to make coffee. Because Brooke had yet to select window coverings, the bright morning sunlight had awakened Jamie at an hour when she would typically be going to bed if she still lived in Los Angeles.
    But she didn’t live in L.A. anymore. She’d thrown away her job and her attempts to get her life together in California, just as she’d thrown away her jobs and relationships in Miami, Honolulu, and Atlanta.
    Never, ever, ever date a college administrator
. Jamie would add tothat: Never, ever, ever date an investment banker, a chemical engineer, an auto mechanic, a sculptor, a zoologist, an actor, a computer programmer, or a social worker.
    Hmm. Come to think of it, maybe the take-home message here was that no man in his right mind should ever, ever date
her
.
    Though Jamie was always the first to make fun of her own romantic track record, she secretly harbored a growing sense of shame about her total inability to see anything through to its conclusion. When the tough got going, she quit, to the point that it was no longer an amusing postadolescent foible; it was a major character flaw. She hurt the people who cared about her. Not on purpose, not with malice, but the end result was the same, regardless of motive.
    She thought about Arden and the thick cream-colored envelope that had arrived via certified mail last week, and her stomach churned.
    Outside, she could hear birds chirping and a dog barking. The mornings were so quiet here. Careful not to slam the cabinet doors or clink the glasses, Jamie assembled a mismatched trio of coffee mugs. She leaned back against the chipped Formica countertop and gazed out the window at the clear cobalt sky and the copse of maple saplings in the backyard.
    Thurwell, New York, billed itself as a pocket of tranquillity tucked in the foothills between the old-world gentility of Saratoga and the rustic charm of the Adirondacks. The streets were small and safe, the air clean and invigorating. The town’s neighborhoods branched outward from the main thoroughfare of Pine Street, which boasted one major grocery store, two stoplights, a pair of boutiques featuring expensive outdoor gear, a few family-owned restaurants, a cozylittle pub, and a single-show movie theater. Most local businesses catered to the college population and the tourists who came to enjoy foliage and apple picking in the fall,