Bending Over Backwards (7 page)

“Have you always lived here, or are you a transplant?”

“Transplant, but not far. I grew up in Boston,” she offered, figuring it didn’t hurt to share that much.

“Really? Is your family still there?”

She couldn’t stop her frown, or the wave of sadness that sometimes hit her thinking about it, even now. Some things stayed with you.

“No. Not anymore.”

“No siblings?”

She shook her head.

“Me, either. I guess it’s just as well. My mother had to work damned hard to raise me. Two would have been difficult, especially in the city.”

Her tension faded as their discussion turned away from her life. “Your mom raised you alone? What happened to your father?”

“Left when I was young. I barely remember him. I get the idea, though Mom never said much, that we were better off without him. She mentioned that he died when I was twelve. Maybe he did, or maybe she wanted me to think so.”

“You didn’t try to find out?”

Leo held her gaze, munching a fry, but his eyes were dead serious. “Why would I? He left, she stayed. That was all I needed to know.”

Jasmine sat back in her chair. “Wow. Well, good for you. She must have been a great mom.”

He smiled. “She was.”

“When did you lose her?”

“About six years ago. Heart attack.” He looked down, the memory obviously still a painful one for him.

“I’m sorry you lost her so young, but you were lucky to have her. I can see that you loved her very much.” Jasmine thought back to a time when her parents actually were her parents. When her mother made cookies and her father had—once or twice—come to her school plays.

It was so long ago that it felt like she was thinking about someone else’s life. Her throat tightened and she took a large gulp of her milkshake.

“Thanks.” He dug back into his own meal.

Jasmine liked how Leo’s eyes warmed when he talked about his mother, and how he smiled, a little crookedly, when he watched the kids playing ball across the street. She liked his hands, his mouth and his voice.

Uh-oh.

“Thanks for this, Leo, but I have to get home. Early class in the morning.” She offered an apologetic smile as she rose from the table.

“No problem. At least I know you ate something substantial.”

She laughed. “Yeah, probably enough to get me through all of my work tomorrow.”

“You teach classes all day, every day?” he asked as they walked back to the parking lot.

“I do. It’s my business, and while Amanda picks up some of the load, Body Sense is my baby. I can’t afford to hire her, or anyone, full-time, yet. I’m not quite out of debt on the start-up costs. Maybe next year I can bring on another instructor, but for the moment, it’s up to me.”

“It takes a lot of hard work to make a small business succeed these days. It requires all of your attention. And a lot of money.”

Jasmine stopped in her tracks. “Yes! Thank you. It really does. And it’s a competitive field. If I don’t offer a certain class, there are plenty of other places here for clients to go. I know my clients come back because they get to work with me, at my studio. That means something to them. So it’s hard to think of handing that over to someone else. Yoga is personal, and many clients don’t like substitute instructors.”

It was nice to have someone who understood why she had to work so hard instead of making her feel like she was pushing too much.

“I can see that. Does it ease up in the winter?”

They reached their cars, parked in the studio lot, and she faced him, leaning against hers.

“Somewhat. Tourists are gone, and so are many of the summer residents. I don’t have outdoor classes then, obviously, but there’s still a regular daily schedule of sessions.”

“How long have you been into it?”

“Nine years now.”

“That’s a good stretch to have kept a business running. Most fail within three years.”

“Thank you.” She accepted the compliment, practically glowing.

“Do you really have to go? It’s so nice out—maybe a walk down by the water?”

Jasmine almost caved, almost said yes. That seemed to be a problem with Leo—she had a hard time saying no to him.

“I really can’t. Early morning, remember.”

They stood a foot or so apart, quiet, the breeze from the water—just a quarter mile down the road—caressing their faces. People still walked by and milled around, but Jasmine felt like the world narrowed down to her and Leo in that moment.

He reached out, tugged the curl he’d touched earlier, the back of his fingers brushing against her jaw.

“Okay then,” he agreed easily. “Good night, Jasmine. Thanks for the lesson.”

It almost made her do a double take. For some reason, she thought maybe he would press the point or try to kiss her or…something.

Instead, he winked, waved and walked to his own car. He waited for her to pull out before he did so himself. Watching over her again? It had been a while since anyone had done that, too. She’d watched over herself for a good, long time now, and she was doing a fair job of it. But still, it was nice of him to wait, she thought.

She frowned as she drove down the road.

Leo was nice.

She didn’t know what he was like in his previous life, before he lost his memory and his job, but now, here, he was a really nice guy. A sexy guy. A funny guy.

It made her want him more, which was something she didn’t want. Or maybe she did. Suddenly, it was all very confusing. She popped in some music, letting the lyrics distract her on the rest of the way home.

“Are you okay?” Amanda asked, looking closely at Jasmine as they finished up the next morning’s senior session. Twelve octogenarians all smiled brightly and rolled up their mats, looking a lot more energetic than Jasmine felt.

“Tired. Thanks for taking most of that one. I’m beat.”

“I’m so sorry I had to bail on you yesterday. Those migraines come out of nowhere. But I’m fine today. Why don’t
you
take the day off?”

“Maybe you could take the afternoon sessions, and I could use that time to catch up on paperwork,” Jasmine agreed, too spent to argue.

“That’s not exactly taking the day off.” Amanda gave her a stern look, hands on her hips.

“I know, but I’ll be sitting in my nice, cool office, which is as close as I’m likely to get.” Jasmine was relieved she wouldn’t have to run another session that day. Walking back to her office, she shut the door and thought about a nap before tackling the paperwork.

Thoughts of Leo had kept her awake most of the night, tossing and turning, waging internal battles between need and want. She must have passed out an hour before the alarm went off, and it left her feeling like something scraped up from the sidewalk. Not the greatest inspiration to her clients.

She’d dragged through that last session—the
senior
session—barely keeping pace with Amanda. Hell, she was barely keeping pace with the students.

Jasmine winced, aching in a way she didn’t normally. She was tight and tired instead of loose and relaxed. Not good. She should’ve skipped dinner with Leo and gone straight home to bed.

But talking and sharing a bit with Leo had been nice. Their family pasts—not that he knew about hers—and their dedication to their work formed a bit of a connection. He didn’t remember his job, perhaps, but Jasmine knew about the ambition and single-minded focus it had to have taken for him to get where he had. It was part of who he was and probably what helped him understand her drive in a way most other people didn’t.

She needed to make her business succeed. It was her life. It was difficult to make anyone else understand what it was like to lose everything and to rebuild a life. She was on her own, captain of her own ship. If she failed, she had no one to blame but herself.

Skipping the nap, she plowed through paperwork, now and then checking with the studio to see how things were going.

Mandy was a great instructor. She was fun, relaxed and cheerful, joking and interacting with the group in more social ways than Jasmine had energy for. Jasmine talked with her clients about their form and their progress, but she didn’t know much else about them.

Mandy came back around lunchtime to see if she could pick up something for Jasmine to eat.

“That would be great, thanks. If you could grab me some kind of salad and a lemonade, I’d appreciate it,” she told her friend. “You were doing a good job out there, by the way. The clients like you.”

Amanda flushed with pleasure. “Thanks. I like them too. Such interesting people come in here. Did you know that Mrs. Paulson is a championship water skier? Or rather, she was, you know, back in the day. She brought some pictures, and they were amazing. Her granddaughter is competing now. Following in her footsteps.”

“No, I didn’t know that. How interesting.”

Jasmine felt inadequate and overwhelmed. How could she get to know all of her students? There were so many of them. It wasn’t realistic. No one had ever complained, she comforted herself.

“Well, I’ll be back in a few,” Amanda said cheerfully, not lacking energy at all.

The rest of the day went along uneventfully, and as Jasmine made her way home, she wondered how Leo was doing, and then pushed the thought from her mind, trying to refocus.

Sleep came easily that night. She was so exhausted she passed out on her sofa, and then made her way to bed sometime after midnight.

She was in the middle of the best dream. Leo was walking out of the ocean waves, wearing only black trunks, smiling at her in that way that told her his entire focus was on her.

No wonder. Looking down, she discovered that she was nude, right there on the beach. No one else was around.

Leo walked up to her, looking at her intensely before he took her in his arms, kissing her until she couldn’t breathe.

Who cared about breathing?

He led her back to the waves. She knew she should be worried—the water was cold and deep—but she wasn’t. She wanted to go with him so much. She didn’t care as he kissed her, keeping her warm as the water came up and encompassed them…

Some sort of ringing in her ears distracted her from the wonderful things he was doing to her underwater when he broke the kiss. What would be ringing underwater?

“You’d better get that. It sounds important,” Leo said, looking down at the sand, where her cell phone rang.

How did they get back out of the water?

Jasmine wanted to go back in but found herself reaching for the phone. The next thing she knew, she wasn’t on the beach, but in her bed.

Groggy, she fumbled for the phone on her bed stand.

“Yes?” she answered hesitantly. She didn’t know anyone who would call her at late hours.

“Jasmine Stanford?” a deep male voice inquired.

“Yes? Who is this?”

“Sergeant Drecker, Harwich Police. I’m sorry to call you so late, but the alarm went off in your business downtown. Your studio was broken into and vandalized along with several other nearby businesses, I’m afraid.”

Jasmine thought maybe she was still dreaming, though it had turned into a nightmare.

“Body Sense? My yoga studio, are you sure?” she asked, her heart rate skyrocketing, hands shaking. “What happened?” she asked, fighting to clear her head from the deep sleep.

“We’re still investigating, but someone did a real job on your place, as well as the ice cream shop and an antiques shop. Could be kids being jerks, but we’ll have to know if anything was stolen or if you had any money or valuables on the premises, etc.”

“Of course. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“We’ve posted two cars outside the businesses to keep watch, ma’am. It can wait until morning. You could come down to the station then.”

As if. “No, it can’t wait. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Jasmine felt her eyes burn as tears threatened while she changed her clothes and pulled her hair back into a tight bun. She didn’t care what she looked like; she needed to get down to her studio.

When she finally pulled up in front, she could barely speak to identify herself to the officer on duty. She saw her windows smashed in, spray paint all over the brick walls inside, random curses and filth written on the walls. The rest of the place was wrecked, as well.

The expensive bamboo shades were ripped and lay on the floor, the yoga mats on the display sliced into ugly chunks. Some were thrown out in the street, she realized, barely having registered that on the way in. All of her plants were dumped, and the water feature in the meditation room was pulled out by the plumbing.

“Oh my God,” she whispered to herself as she took it all in. The intrusive violence of it rumbled over her, through her, and she started to shake.

“Miss, you should sit down.” The young officer who had followed her in looked around at the room. “If it helps, I don’t think any of this is directed at you personally. It seems random, since the same damage was done at the other two businesses.”