Something About You (Just Me & You) by Lelaina Landis Page B

most men, Jackson appreciated lingerie. What was it with men and their
penchant for women in undergarments? Why not swimwear? Or form-fitting gym
clothes?
    Didn’t they essentially have the same effect?
    Sabrina supposed she’d understand men’s sexual proclivities
only in theory.
    Jackson Sprinkle, with his daytime soap actor good looks,
had made sense in theory too. Sabrina had confidently assumed that her
husband-to-be, having spent the better part of five years around or with her,
knew what she considered important in life by the time the Polar Star embarked.
Thanks to contaminated shellfish for a bit of illumination. After a leisurely
brunch of chilled shrimp cocktail and lobster omelets, the ship’s captain had
officiated their brief marriage ceremony on the ship’s prow. Three hours later,
Sabrina and Jackson and a good number of other passengers had come down with a
punishing case of food poisoning. The sojourn turned particularly horrific when
she and Jackson started to race each other to the tiny latrine. There was
little else to do while they recovered but loll in their bunks, drink flat Coke
and talk.
    The heart-to-heart had been years overdue.
    Tanked up on Dramamine, Jackson had informed her that even
though she had decided against changing her name, he’d listed her on his life
insurance policy under his surname. Sabrina Sprinkle. Then he’d outlined
his two-year plan to get them out of Texas and back to the sodden gloom of his
native Washington state. He then told her that he expected her to hand in her
resignation once she became pregnant.
    She did intend to get pregnant as soon as possible, didn’t
she?
    Jackson’s revelations made Sabrina want to dive into the
turbulent waters of the Norwegian Sea and swim all the way back to the sunny
shores of Miami. She couldn’t remember how she eased into telling him that
everything he wanted from their marriage was precisely what she did not. But
vivid in her memory was the inflexible look on Jackson’s face as he stared her
down, refusing to budge a single inch.
    Make your choice now, Sabrina. I’m not changing my mind
about any of it.
    To his credit, he’d pleaded with her to change hers for only
three hours. Then after a bout of heated bickering over who should sign over
whose interest in the house, he had dispatched a Petition for Annulment to the
Travis County District Court and placed a request for separate cabins. The next
day, they had flown back to Texas on the same plane, sitting together in tense
silence. Sabrina had spotted him stalking the Dome a few times with one of the
Tide Brothers in tow, but their only communication with each other had been
through the attorney at the title company.
    She hung the last of the never-worn cocktail dresses in the
closet and felt a serious case of the mopes descending. She wished Molly were
back from France. She’d want the low-down on her un-wedding. What would her
best friend say when she found out Sabrina had made out with Sebastian’s
college roommate? Or that Gage Fitzgerald had taken the liberty of using the
encounter as talk show material?
    Sabrina pulled on her running shorts and a faded T-shirt
with the University of Texas insignia on the front instead. Outside her front
door, the sun had set, but Cadence Corners was still in full swing. Pedestrians
meandered from one dining spot to another, pausing to check out the windows of
local boutiques.
    Sabrina loped past the string of cafés and stores that lined
either side of Plum Street. She zigzagged her way through the neighborhood,
taking a short cut through Peachtree Plaza to the last street on her run. A
familiar three-story structure popped into view. Ella Fontaine, a beloved
pillar of the community, had bought the large, rambling house during World War
II and converted it into a bakery and boarding house. The business had remained
under the same ownership for five decades. Sabrina had fond memories of walking
to the bakery with Molly after school