“How’d you know that?” Kevin asked.

“Jenny’s Facebook page.”

“Oh, yeah.”

For a few moments Kevin talked about how Jenny was doing and the usual stuff. He didn’t tell Amanda that he was a few steps away from freaking out.

“You still at the same company?” Kevin asked.

“No, thankfully. Can you believe this? The company I was working at in Texas was the wrong fit. A lot of money but just—totally wrong. And we’d just moved out there, you know. A little scary with the kids and everything. But then I got with Texan Resort in Grapevine. It’s the sister hotel to the Opryland. What—a—blessing. That was a total miracle, to say the least.”

Kevin nodded, totally curious, especially about the miracle part. He’d met Amanda while working at Autumn House fifteen years ago. Amanda had worked for a major ad agency in Greenville and the two had crossed paths on a couple of projects. Kevin, of course, had envied the cool vibe and personality of Amanda’s agency. He would often find himself picking her brain to see how things were done and why they were done that particular way whenever Amanda came to meet with the staff at the publisher. A lot of the structure and style that had gone into Precision, now a major competitor to Amanda’s former agency, had come from those conversations.

“You still working in publicity?”

Amanda nodded. “Yeah—and this is the crazy thing. I was with the Texan Resort for like a month and then they brought me to the headquarters. So just like that, we ended up moving to Nashville.”

“Closer to your parents,” Kevin said.

“Yeah. Texas was fine but—it was Texas, you know? These guys—I mean, I’m telling you, they’re incredible to work for. And ever since the flood in Nashville, they’ve been working hard to get the word out that they’re still around and still in business.”

He grinned at her. “You’re pretty good at getting the word out.”

“Always.”

When she asked how things were going with Precision, he simply downplayed everything. Kevin couldn’t tell Amanda what was really going on, not here in the Apple Store with so many people around them.

“It’s so good running into you,” Amanda said. “Tell Jenny I said hi and please keep me in the loop on how things go with the twins.”

“Yeah, certainly.”

Amanda gave him another hug before Kevin walked out the doors.

Maybe there were few handshakes these days. But sometimes there were hugs.

Kevin made a note to himself that he planned on following up with Amanda. Very soon. Maybe, just maybe, there could be a chance to work with her again and make some inroads with a company like Gaylord Hotels.

He glanced down at the bag he was carrying and suddenly felt a wave of goose bumps. He paused and looked around. Just for a moment. He half expected Christmas music to be playing and snow to start falling. It was weird, but he felt like things were strangely being orchestrated by someone.