Page 32 of A Breeze Over Rosewood Beach (Rosewood Beach #9)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sally looked around her bustling café with a smile.

She loved it when her restaurant was filled with customers, even though it kept her on her toes.

The air was filled with the appetizing smells of sizzling hamburgers and freshly chopped basil leaves.

She felt as warm and cozy as a dinner roll tucked into a cloth-lined basket, knowing that outside, the winter wind was blowing coldly but there in her café she was comfortable.

Her practiced eyes scanned over the tables, and she noted that there were no empty plates that she needed to clean up.

She decided to stop by the booth where Vivian, Noelle, and Dean were sitting with Noelle’s grandmother Gloria.

Sally knew that they had met at the café to talk about planning Dean and Noelle’s wedding, and she was eager to hear how that was going.

She grabbed herself a quick cup of coffee as a pick-me-up, added a splash of hazelnut creamer and a splash of milk, and then went to sit down next to Vivian at the booth.

“Hey, girls—and Dean,” she added with a laugh. “How’s the wedding planning going?”

“Help me, Sally,” Dean joked. “They have me here hostage, and my mashed potatoes have all run out. All that’s left for me here is torture.”

He grinned impishly at his fiancée, who shook her head at him.

“It is not torture, you still have plenty of that bacon cheeseburger left,” Vivian told him wryly.

Sally laughed, enjoying the cheerful banter amongst these people that she cared about so much. “Oh, come on, Dean, I know you enjoy planning your wedding to Noelle. Every time it gets brought up, you look totally starry-eyed. It’s perfectly clear that you love thinking about it.”

“This is true.” Dean grinned.

“So how is it going, really?” Sally asked, turning to Noelle, who she knew she would get an honest answer from.

“Great.” Noelle’s eyes shone with happiness.

She looked becoming in the pink knit hat that Julia had made her for Christmas, and it brought out the lovely red tones of her hair.

“Everyone’s been having all kinds of great ideas, and Vivian and Grandma have been helping us get all those ideas organized. ”

“This is going to be such a beautiful wedding,” Gloria said, smiling warmly. Sally noticed that Noelle and her grandmother both had expressive, kind eyes. “We were just talking about the flower arrangements—Noelle wants a kind of wildflower theme, with daisies.”

“Daisies are my favorite flower,” Noelle said with a laugh. “I know I should probably have something more elegant, but I just love them.”

Sally shook her head, smiling. “It’s your wedding! You get to do whatever it is you want to do. I think wildflowers for your bouquet sounds lovely.”

She was just about to mention that she had a cousin who had done the same thing, when she noticed someone walk through the front doors of the café.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw that it was Oscar. He was looking particularly dapper, she thought, in a gray wool coat and dark blue knit scarf. She wondered if he’d purchased the scarf at a local gift shop since coming to Rosewood Beach, since she’d never seen him wearing it before.

“Excuse me for just a moment, would you?” she said, standing up.

She wanted to talk to Oscar, and she wondered if he wanted to talk to her as well, since he was looking around the café as if in search of someone.

She felt pleasantly surprised by the fact that he was there, and she wanted to say hello to him, even if it was only for a minute.

“Hi, Oscar,” she said, hurrying up to him with a wide smile on her face. It faded a little, however, when she noticed how serious he looked.

“Hi, Sally.” He nodded at her and cleared his throat. “Would you like to go for a walk with me?”

“A walk?” She felt suddenly nervous. Did he have bad news? Was he about to tell her that he didn’t think they should be seeing each other romantically anymore? “Yes—yes, I can do that. Just let me chat with my employees quick to let them know I’m stepping out.”

He nodded, offering her a small smile. She felt as though she would have liked to take his smile and slip it in her pocket to keep, especially since she was worried that she wasn’t going to get to see his smiles as often anymore.

She hurried back to the table where her friends were waiting. “I’m going for a walk with Oscar,” she announced breathlessly. Even though she’d meant it only as an explanation for why she wouldn’t be coming back to sit with them, the booth was instantly filled with grinning faces.

“Who’s Oscar?” Noelle asked impishly, scanning the restaurant and then looking pleased when she caught sight of Oscar standing by the door. “That handsome older man by the front door?”

Sally nodded, feeling herself blush. She wanted to protest and tell them that their romantic suspicions weren’t anything to write home about—but she was dating Oscar, wasn’t she?

Wasn’t she? She felt another flutter of nervousness and glanced back toward the intriguing man who Noelle had referred to as handsome.

Oscar was very handsome, and in his coat and hat he looked very distinguished.

She felt a pang as she realized just how different from her he was, and what a very different world he came from.

He probably wanted to speak with her to end things between him.

After all, what would someone like him see in someone like her long-term?

“So is this like a date?” Dean said, his brows rising a bit. “Are you dating that guy over there, Sally?” He sounded so overjoyed for her that Sally’s heart twisted a little between feelings of happiness and worry.

“It’s just a walk,” she said breathlessly.

She offered her friends a quick smile and then took a couple of steps back, preparing to hurry away.

“I’ll talk to you all later!” She waved and turned away, but not before she saw all of them lean in toward each other to start whispering.

She knew they were happy for her, and she wanted their happiness to be for good reason.

But her heart was feeling heavy with the worry that she was going to be left behind again.

That was the danger of love—what if she was about to get her hopes dashed again?

She ducked inside the kitchen to let her staff know that she would be leaving the café for a little while. “Call my cell phone if there’s any kind of true emergency,” she told them. “Otherwise, you’re all smart kids. I know you can handle it if things look hectic in here.”

Her employees looked somewhat nervous at the sound of her words, but she simply chuckled and left the kitchen with a cheerful wave.

She swung by her office to put on her coat, hat, and mittens, and her nerves returned in full force.

She didn’t want to keep Oscar waiting too long, and she tried to hurry, but her hands were shaking a little.

Finally, she emerged into the main part of the café, where Oscar was still waiting for her by the front door. He smiled again when he saw her, but there was definitely a nervous look in his eyes, and that made her stomach do a somersault.

He held open the door for her, and they stepped out into the winter cold together.

“Oh,” Sally said, her breath almost taken away by the sight, “isn’t that sunset glorious?”

The last hues of the sunset were lighting up the western edge of the sky in magnificent pinks and golds.

Sally felt a kind of tingling in her core when she saw it, the same feeling she’d gotten ever since she was a little girl whenever she looked at anything particularly colorful or sparkly or both.

“It’s nice,” Oscar said. He didn’t smile, and a moment later, he cleared his throat.

She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.

They strolled side by side in silence for a while.

The wind off the ocean was cold, but smelled fresh and invigorating, as if the ocean was its own giant essential oil diffuser and it was putting out a soothing, spicy blend of scents.

Sally kept glancing at Oscar as they walked, becoming more nervous by the minutes despite the relaxing setting.

They made their way onto the boardwalk that bordered the pier and strolled along it side by side.

Sally’s nervousness grew, since she could see by Oscar’s troubled expression that he definitely intended to tell her something, and that it was something he was hesitant to say.

“What is it, Oscar?” she asked softly, touching his arm as they walked. If he was going to tell her things she didn’t want to hear, she wanted to know what those things were as soon as possible.

He stopped walking and turned to her. He took a deep breath and then reached out and took her mittened hand in his.

“Sally,” he said slowly, “there’s something I’d like to say to you.”

She held back the impulse to just shout, “Out with it already, Oscar!” Instead she nodded, trying not to squirm.

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” he said slowly. “I’ve been pondering my future, and what I want that to look like. And I’ve been thinking about Rosewood Beach, wanting to be honest with myself about whether or not it really matches up with my idea of what I want my future to be.”

Sally nodded, but a lump was forming in her throat, and a moment later, she had to blink back tears. She felt sure that he was about to tell her that he had decided to move away from Rosewood Beach.

I won’t cry, she told herself firmly. He’s being kind to me and letting me know. I don’t want to make him feel bad about his decision.

It was all she could do, however, to conceal the fact that she was on the verge of bursting into tears as Oscar continued.

“This place isn’t at all what I thought it would be,” he said, starting to walk again and looking out across the ocean. “I thought I would be bored to death here. I thought it was below me—that I’d taken a step down in life. But nothing could be further from the truth.”

Sally’s head snapped in his direction as her heart leapt up. He wasn’t saying what she had expected him to say, and hope, wild and wonderful, was trickling into her like water leaking past a dam.

“Yes?” she prompted, wanting him to finish his speech as soon as possible.

“My perspective on life has been changed, completely,” he said.

“And I have you to thank for that, Sally. I used to value money and prestige over kindness and a sense of belonging. I see now how wrong I was. Rosewood Beach isn’t just a beautiful town, it’s a town that’s filled with people who really know how to live life to the fullest. Lives full of good companionship, and creature comforts, and enough time to rest, and valuing compassion over greed.

I want to be one of those people. There’s so much more to life than what I was striving for previously. ”

They’d both stopped walking by then. They stood side by side on the boardwalk, looking out at the ocean and the last tints of color that painted the sky.

Sally bit her lip, barely able to hold back the tidal wave of hope that was waiting to crash through her.

“What do you mean, Oscar?” she whispered.

“I mean,” he said slowly—so slowly she wanted to squirm again—“that I’ve decided I want to stay here in Rosewood Beach.

And you’re a major part of that decision, Sally.

I’m… well, I’m very intrigued by you and I would like to get to know you better.

I’d like to be in a relationship with you, Sally. Would you be interested in that?”

The dam burst. Hope and happiness flooded Sally like a monsoon of joy. She squealed and tackled Oscar in a hug, practically spinning him around in her exuberance.

“Oh my goodness!” she cried and then blushed furiously. She laughed as she took a step back, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ears and trying to collect herself. She felt embarrassed about her outburst, but Oscar was grinning from ear to ear.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, laughing helplessly. She’d never seen him look so happy, and there was a light shining in his eyes. “I was so worried I was going to get rejected.”

She shook her head. “I was so worried you were about to tell me that you were leaving town.” She grimaced.

“I don’t want you to leave, Oscar. I’ll admit that it can be hard to get to know you beyond that gruff exterior of yours, but I’m up for the challenge.

” Flirtatiously, she took a step toward him.

“You need softening up, Oscar Jennings.”

Oscar cleared his throat again. “Well, they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you’ve already been pretty successful in that. You’re very welcome to keep trying.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” she said, wrapping her arms around him.

He put his arms around her as well, and for a moment they stood there looking into each other’s eyes. Sally felt as though the whole world was spinning faster, and she didn’t ever, ever want it to stop.

“Would you be my girlfriend, Sally Lipton?” he said, his voice so soft it was almost a whisper.

“I can’t think of anything I’d like better.” Their faces were very close together now.

A cool, lushly-scented gust of ocean wind blew against them as they brought their lips together for a kiss. Sally felt her heart lift up as if it was being blown upward by the wind, into the first light of the stars.