Kirk glanced out the front window of Communication Location for the hundredth time since they’d unlocked the doors at nine o’clock. Balloons and streamers fluttered from a sandwich board on the sidewalk announcing the grand opening. Inside, dozens of customers milled around the shop, examining the merchandise and indulging in doughnuts and coffee.
His throat caught. A woman stood with her back to him, her brown hair swinging across her shoulders as she turned over a package of headphones. Could that be Lyssa? Kirk rounded the end of the counter.
“Excuse me, can you answer some questions about these GPS units?”
Kirk glanced at the group in front of him then back at the woman. He bit back a sigh. “Sure. What do you want to know?” Business before pleasure.
“Colton here wants to know why this one costs so much more than the other one,” the younger man said.
The young woman with the two guys rolled her eyes and stepped back, caressing the camera hanging around her neck.
She was cute, but not like Lyssa. Kirk glanced at the woman across the store, still with her back to him.
These guys looked like an easy upsell, especially with the coupon, and Kirk needed to prove to Dale that throwing in their lot with the church program had been a good idea. He turned to the task of explaining the merits of the two units the guys had set on the counter. A few minutes later he closed the deal on the more expensive one, and the girl raised her camera to record the moment.
“Oh, come on, Reagan. Do you have to take photos of everything?” the younger man complained, leading the way out the door.
Kirk headed across the store just as the brown-haired woman turned. He ground to a halt.
Definitely not Lyssa. But she knew their grand opening began today. She’d come, wouldn’t she? Just to check things out? No guarantees, of course. Not after all those phone calls she hadn’t picked up. Didn’t she think she owed him some sort of explanation after the chemistry they’d shared? She’d felt it, too. Her eyes had revealed her emotions, even while she pulled away from him.
The woman approached the counter, headphones in hand, and Dale stepped in to ring her purchase through.
A fresh breeze wafted across the small community park next to the church, making the muggy June Saturday bearable. Lyssa stood under a hickory tree beside the registration table. Genius of Noah to run the launch outside. People of all ages streamed into the area they’d cordoned off, from elderly men to groups of teens to families with small kids.
And Kirk.
She tried to drag her gaze away but didn’t manage before he saw her. What was he doing here? Lyssa focused on straightening bags of trail mix on the table, willing him to walk on by.
“Lyssa?”
He hadn’t gone past. But—to be fair—he also hadn’t followed through pulling the sponsorship. He’d talked his brother into staying the course for whatever reason. Jeannie kept telling Lyssa what a close call she’d had, that he’d let his true colors show through for just long enough to remind her of them.
His grin faltered. “I’m sorry I missed you the other day.”
The other day? That had been over a week ago. Of course he’d called since, but she’d resisted the impulse to accept his calls, instead listening to his recorded voice after each one. Not that she could explain it to him. She lifted a shoulder noncommittally. “All’s well that ends well.”
Lyssa tried to look past him, maybe reel somebody else in with her eyes. Someone who might want questions answered about the hunt, for example. Even a kid searching for his parents would be a nice change. But no one showed any signs of interest in her as they chatted in little groups of their own, carrying collapsible lawn chairs and drifting closer to the bandstand where Noah tested his equipment.
“We had a good opening week.”
Lyssa’s eyes flew back to meet Kirk’s. “That’s nice.”
He stepped closer. “I’m really sorry about what happened. My brother has had some difficulty adjusting to his wife’s death. He—I can’t predict how he’s going to react to things these days.” His blue eyes bored into hers.
“I’m sorry, too.” Sorry she’d trusted him, for starters. “It was simply too late to do anything about it.” Too late to do anything about her heart, too. It pounded erratically whenever Kirk was near. She’d get over it, though. She had to. “I convinced him of that.”
Lyssa managed some sort of smile. “I appreciate it. I hope the treasure hunt draws a lot of people into the store so he’ll be happy with the results.”
“So far, I’d say that’s happening. I see quite a few people here who picked up brochures from Communication Location.” He poked his chin toward a table right at the park gate. “And I’m ready to do more business this afternoon when the kickoff closes.”
“That’s awesome.” Too bad she couldn’t get any enthusiasm into her voice. “Oh, look. I think Noah’s about ready to open the rally.” She turned away from Kirk and pretended to focus on the bandstand, but her whole body seemed magnetically drawn to him. Good thing the table stood between them, or she might make a fool of herself.
“Welcome to Rainbow’s End Treasure Hunt!” Noah’s voice boomed across the sound system. “Find a place to set your chair, and let’s get started.”
There must have been a few hundred people milling around the small park. Even though they’d planned for this many, Lyssa hadn’t believed it would happen. But maybe they hadn’t planned for enough. Maybe she’d run out of registration packets. Maybe—
“Lyssa? I’m sorry this thing with my brother came between us when we’d just started to connect with each other. Can we talk over dinner, maybe tonight?”
She lurched around to face Kirk. Opened her mouth and closed it again. Anything she said now could be setting herself up for further pain. Better not to give any hope—for him or for herself.
“I don’t think so. It’s best to leave things the way they are.” Lyssa tried to stare him down, like she didn’t care, but she felt as if any second she’d dissolve in tears or throw herself into his arms. She clenched the table’s plastic edge to prevent that from happening then turned her back to him. Hopefully, he couldn’t see her tremble.
“You just plug the handheld into your computer with the USB connection, like this.” Kirk lifted his own GPS unit and fitted the cord into it. Good thing he’d come to the rally prepared. Also a good thing the church’s wi-fi stretched this far.
He glanced at Lyssa across the stream of people leaving the park. Her hands flew as she talked to someone; then she smiled brightly and passed over a brochure.
Once, briefly, Kirk had been privy to that smile. His heart sank. Not anymore, and he barely knew what he’d done wrong. This couldn’t all be about Dale and the sponsorship.
Lyssa’s gaze met his. Time suspended for a second or two. Then she hitched her shoulder slightly, turned away from Kirk, and reengaged the African American gal beside her.
“Then what?” the young woman in front of him asked.
Right, he was helping these two gals. They looked so much alike they must be sisters, even though one was dressed for the trail and the other for the outlet mall. “Okay, so it’s plugged in. Then you need to log into the website—if you haven’t created an account, you’ll need one. Free and easy. Then enter our zip code, and scout through the resulting caches until you find one or several you’d like to try for.” Kirk glanced at the woman in front of him. “With me so far?”
She nodded, focused on the laptop screen, but her sister hung back.
He shot a glance at Lyssa, but she was busy.
Back to his demonstration. “Now, if you have a paid membership on the website instead of a free one, you click here to transfer the information to your handheld.” He waited for the download to complete then removed the unit from the cord. “If you go with the free membership, you can see all the waypoints online but will need to enter them into your unit manually. It’s not that big a deal.”
“Good. Madison and I want to make sure we like treasure hunting before committing more money to it.”
Madison rolled her eyes and fiddled with her purse strap.
Kirk bit back a grin. The amount of the membership was peanuts compared to the unit they’d bought from him the day before. “Now, when you’re out on the trail, you’ll have the lats and longs of your position—you know what those are, don’t you?”
The sporty sister nodded. “Latitude and longitude. Those imaginary lines they draw around globes in school. Remember, Maddie?”
Madison hitched a shoulder.
Close enough. “Right. So you have those, plus the coordinates of the cache’s location. Your unit will let you know when you’re getting close.”
“Oh, that sounds cool.” The girl grinned at him. “And then you find the treasure.”
Kirk laughed. “Not quite that easy.” He tilted the unit for her to see the poem Lyssa had written for the first cache he’d found … with a lot of help from her. “Here’s an example of a clue to help you find a cache once you’re out there.”
She frowned. “Is that supposed to make sense?”
Kirk couldn’t help shooting a look across the park, but Lyssa wasn’t watching him. “It does when you’re at the correct coordinates.” “Okaaaay.”
Kirk handed her a brochure. “This gives you the details of how to log on to the Rainbow’s End website and what to do at each cache so it will count for the treasure hunt. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks! We’ll have a lot of fun with this. Won’t we, Maddie?” The girl grabbed her sister’s arm and hauled her away, waving the GPS unit around.
Best wishes to those two.
The crowd had thinned out by that time. Lyssa finished up with a middle-aged man while her dark-skinned friend stacked brochures into a carton. The girl said something to Lyssa, and then her gaze passed Lyssa and landed on Kirk. She froze for an instant before turning her back.
Kirk frowned. Lyssa must have said something about him to her friend to make her swivel away, but what? The staring-at-a-train-wreck look on the woman’s face bothered him. He’d seen that expression before. Seen her before.
Where?
“You’re right, it’s him,” Jeannie hissed under her breath.
Lyssa refused to look up. He’d caught her eye too many times today already for her comfort. “Like I would lie.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Jeannie popped the cardboard tabs shut on the box. “Still, I hoped you were wrong. After all, you went on a date with the guy.”
More than one, if she counted the hikes. “Look, can we just get out of here? Noah’s team will get the tables and chairs later.
If he’d quit staring at that brunette over there. Good grief.”
Jeannie didn’t spare a glance for Noah. “Professor Kennedy is packing up to leave, too. If we go now, we can’t avoid him.”
He wasn’t very avoidable at the best of times. “Kirk.”
“Kirk?”
Lyssa gave her head a shake. “He’s not Professor Kennedy. Not here. Not now.”
Jeannie narrowed her eyes. “You’d better remember him as the obnoxious professor who hung you out to dry this past week, not the cute romantic guy you had no business going out with, or you’ll be in trouble.”
Too late.
“Lys, you’re sure he doesn’t know who you are?” “Not a chance.”
“Uh oh,” Jeannie muttered, so low Lyssa barely heard her. She glanced up.
Kirk stood mere inches from her elbow, looking from her to Jeannie and back again.
Kirk shifted the briefcase to his left hand and held out his right. “Hi, I’m Kirk Kennedy, but I’ve a feeling we’ve already met.” He kept his focus on Lyssa’s friend, but the awareness of Lyssa right there nearly did him in. His mind reeled from overhearing that statement of her friend’s. Know Lyssa from where?
“Jeannie Dawson. Nice to meet you,” the girl said crisply then turned a shoulder toward him. “Ready to go, Lys?”
Kirk dropped his hand back to his side.
Lyssa glanced from her friend to Kirk, biting her lip. She picked up a canvas bag full of trail mix packages and her ever-present pocket folder, hugging it close.
Was his smile as frozen as it felt to him? “Lyssa? Can we talk a minute?”
Jeannie wedged the box against her right hip and tucked her left arm through Lyssa’s.
“Here, let me carry that.” Without waiting for a response, Kirk plucked the box from Jeannie. “Where are you parked?” At least he’d bought a bit of time. Maybe time to figure out what had gone wrong and how he could make things right.
Jeannie humphed, but Lyssa pointed at the parking lot. “Far end.”
Didn’t look like Lyssa’s friend was going to give them privacy, and if Kirk’s sharpening memories of his first year of teaching were accurate, he might finally have a clue why. He fell into step beside Lyssa, only to discover Jeannie had swapped spots with her. Should he openly challenge her friend’s obvious ploy? But he’d been here with Jeannie before, or somewhere similar. She hadn’t backed down then.
And she wasn’t going to start today. “So, Professor Kennedy from Lincoln University. What brings you to Osage Beach?”
His hunch of where he’d seen her had been correct, but that didn’t mean he needed to be as hostile as she was. Besides, she had a right to ask. “Helping my brother open a business.”
Jeannie stopped on the path, forcing the others to do the same. “And involved in a church rally? I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”
A burn rose up his neck. “Things have—”
“Churches are merely social clubs for pansies, if I remember correctly. Have you turned into a pansy, Professor?”
He stared at her, not daring to seek Lyssa’s eyes. “No, I …” How could he explain what had brought him to this point?
It wasn’t just Lyssa and the treasure hunt.
Jeannie yanked the box from his hands. “Thanks very much for offering to carry this, Professor, but we’ll manage just fine from here.”
“About that—”
“Have a great day.” Jeannie gave him a sharp nod and pulled Lyssa’s arm. They started down the path.
Kirk gaped after them, the apology sputtering on his lips. It wasn’t until the women entered the parking lot that Lyssa glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes wide.
“You didn’t need to do that.” Lyssa jerked away from Jeannie’s grasp as they approached the car. “You were downright rude to him.”
Jeannie slipped the box off her hip onto Kermit’s hood. “Get a grip on yourself, Lys. You know he’s only using you to get his business name out to the town. You offered the cheapest advertising in Osage Beach.”
“No, that’s not it at all.” Though the cost for frontlining in the brochure had been reasonable. Was that why Dale had relented in the end? Or had Kirk stuck up for her because he … liked her?
“Look, you always had a soft spot for Professor Kennedy, even after he strung me out in class time after time. That was fine. You were an undergrad. Just a kid. Now you’re an adult—a teacher—and you need to open your eyes. A guy like him doesn’t do an about-face and suddenly start being sensitive to Christians. Did you hear him deny what I said?”
Lyssa shook her head. He really hadn’t. Too bad she’d never probed. Too bad she’d never dared let on she remembered him from Lincoln U. She’d preferred to keep her head stuck in the sand in the hope that if she pretended everything was all right, it would be.
“I’m just trying to save you some heartbreak, Lys.” Jeannie popped the hatchback and set the carton inside. “You need to get a backbone.”
Why, so she could be nasty and abrasive, too? Look at her dad. Look at Jeannie. Until now Lyssa had slid through life making the fewest possible waves, trying not to draw too much attention to herself. And what had it gotten her?
She eyed Jeannie. It had gotten her a roommate who persisted in protecting her while telling her to buck up. Jeannie couldn’t have it both ways. But neither could she.
Kirk had never downplayed her church affiliation when they’d seen each other here at the lake. College didn’t count. Not anymore.
Lyssa whirled around in time to see his car turning onto the street. Gone. But maybe not forever.
“Let’s get going, Lys. You driving, or am I?”
Lyssa set her jaw. “I am.” She rounded Kermit and opened the driver’s door.
Jeannie slid in the passenger side and cocked her head at Lyssa. “Give it up, Lys. You’ll thank me later.”
If so, it would have to be much, much later.