Wrecked (Stories of Serendipity #8): #8 by Anne Conley

uncomfortable with this situation?
    Memories flooded Renae, pushing memories of the night of Jason to the side knotting in her stomach. Memories of the car after the crash, the light pole falling on the driver’s side, the passenger side left intact, where Sabrina could just stumble out, every bit as drunk as Cody had been. Where Kelly’s father had been killed instantly, his mistress had survived. And she stood right in front of Renae, eager to become her personal trainer. With Renae’s current… whatever… standing right behind her.
    Renae was in hell.
    “I’ve got to go. Sabrina, this isn’t going to happen.” She all but ran to the locker room for her things. When she came out, Jason was waiting.
    “Hey. I’m not done.”
    “I am. I’ll call you.” Renae swiped at the tears of frustration at what her life had become before bolting out the front door to her van.

Chapter 17

    J ason had left her alone. He’d seen her at the gym on Monday when Jodie had told him to do something for himself and take a break from the shop and dad. So he’d gone to try and get his head on straight with the weight machines. It hadn’t worked because after he’d been rebuffed by Renae again, he’d only obsessed about her.
    He’d gotten his mind off the shop and his dad, but he couldn’t get her out of his head. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to grovel at her feet, begging for another date, but he wanted to explain about standing her up. She didn’t deserve to think it had been her fault. That’s what she told Les anyway, but to him, she’d said she hadn’t called him back because he hadn’t shown up, like it was retribution or something. He figured if he looked at it from her point of view, he did deserve it. But if she would only let him explain…
    It was Thursday. Jodie had put his seal of approval on the changes Jason had made to the shop, telling him it was going to be more profitable, and their dad would love it when he was okay enough to go in. Joe only had two more weeks in the boot before his next doctor’s appointment, and in the meanwhile, Jodie had put himself in charge of finding another caretaker for him. Jason was relieved to not have to deal with the responsibility, and Jodie was having a hard time finding someone to meet their suddenly stringent criteria. Jason felt a little justification in his own initial choice, but the guilt was still there.
    Jason was behind the counter on his knees, trying to sort a shipment of FedEx packaging that had come in, beating himself up over obsessing about Renae, when the scent of cinnamon filled his nostrils.
    “God dammit. Get out of my head,” he muttered to himself. When he wasn’t thinking about his dad and his stupid mistakes, he was thinking about Renae. And her unwillingness to talk to him.
    “What?” Her voice answered him. He rose to his feet instantly and saw her. He watched as her face paled and realization dawned before she turned to leave, but he vaulted the counter to beat her to the door.
    Making a human barrier she would have to cross to get to the door, he asked breathlessly, “You didn’t remember I run the place now?” Vaulting countertops was a lot easier to do when he was twenty-two.
    “No. I’ve been…distracted.” She was looking at anything but him, her eyes dancing around the shop.
    “Don’t leave. Let me take care of that.” He grabbed the box out of her hands and hefted it, carrying it back to the counter. “I get it. You don’t want to go out with me, but don’t make me lose your business.” He grabbed the packing tape from its new place behind the counter. “Where we shipping to?”
    “Nacogdoches,” she said softly, looking at her hands twisting on the counter in front of her.
    “Any hazardous chemicals? Spillable liquids?”
    “No. It’s cookies and pajamas.” His hand with the tape stilled briefly at the image of her baking cookies in an apron with a light dusting of flour in her reddish hair. When he’d