Page 49

My body and my brain were just so… tired. I almost wished I didn’t have that doctor’s appointment in the afternoon, because curling up in bed and disappearing for a while sounded like heaven.

I felt someone on my left and started to step aside until I spotted the black hoodie. Xander sidled up beside me, pretending to be interested in a thriller with a shadowy cabin on the cover.

“Maybe your book will be here someday,” I said, looking at his face.

He looked over his shoulder as though someone might have heard his big secret. “Doubt it,” he said, turning back to me.

I sighed and let my hand rest on a bright yellow self-help book with blocky letters shouting about boundaries and burnout. Xander scooted closer.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” he said, thumbing through the pages of the book under his hand. “About you and Graham.”

A woman brushed behind us, muttering something to a man with a briefcase. I flipped the yellow book over and stared at the author’s headshot on the back. “Thank you,” I said, feeling a little ashamed about my “Holden fucking Caulfield” comment earlier that morning. “I appreciate your discretion.”

He nodded, running his fingers over the raised foil lettering of a fantasy novel between us on the table. “Do they know?” he asked, nodding in the direction of our gate.

“Meghan does,” I said. I stepped closer, making him look at me. “And so does your intern.”

Xander’s eyes widened. “Isaiah?”

I nodded. “He caught us yesterday morning before we left.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. My thoughts exactly,” I said, frowning down at the books. “Xander, are he and his uncle close?”

He lifted a hand to play with the strings of his hoodie. “Noah’s been taking him golfing this summer. I think their family’s pretty tight-knit.”

“Wonderful.”

The look Xander gave me following that exchange was almost sympathetic. He looked like he wanted to solve this for me. Glancing at the rest of our group sitting at our gate, he said, “He’ll be the one under fire for it, not you.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

“Are you in love with him or something?”

I flipped the yellow book back over, aligning it perfectly with the one below it.

My fingers traced the corner as I considered Xander’s question.

I’d been avoiding that thought completely, and now it was looking me in the face.

“I just don’t want him to take the fall because of me, though that feels inevitable at this point. ”

Xander was quiet. I’d left my phone in my seat, so I had no idea what time it was. It had to be close to boarding time. “We should head back,” I said, beginning to step away.

But Xander blocked me from leaving the store, blurting, “I have dirt on Noah Sherman.” His voice was low, as though the people standing around might recognize the name.

“What dirt?”

He moved closer. “He’s been cheating on his wife with a barista at Riverside.”

My mouth fell open, and Xander continued.

“If Noah even tries to take a page from Silas’s book and uses what he knows to blackmail Graham into positive campaign coverage—which wouldn’t surprise me—Graham could flip it right back on him.”

“How sure are you about this affair?”

“One thousand percent. I’ve seen the texts he sent her.”

I didn’t doubt him for a second, but I still wanted more information. “What’s your source on this?”

He dipped his chin toward his chest, blinking a couple of times before answering in a monotone voice, “The barista.”

Of course. Xander had connections everywhere in Woodvale, from the elusive biker gang to the priest at the Catholic church downtown. He knew everyone. Why wouldn’t he have the scoop on the drama at Riverside Coffee?

I almost didn’t want to know how he got access to the young woman’s texts.

There was a bigger question on my mind, anyway. “Why are you helping us?”

“You,” he corrected, without missing a beat. “I’m helping you.”

“Why?”

“Told you last night,” he said, adjusting his hood to loosen it. “I like you. You’re a good person.”

I stared at him, unsure what to say. I didn’t really believe I was a good person. Would a good person sleep with the off-limits CEO of her company? Probably not.

“So are you,” I finally replied, and Xander gave me a wry smile like I’d just said the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

But it was true. As much as he wanted everyone to believe he was a badass, underneath he was just a softie with a fear of planes, hopelessly in love with a librarian who may or may not love him back.

Some motion by our gate caught our attention. The gate agents had opened the doors, and a few people were lining up already. “We’d better go,” I said, and we hurried back to our luggage, where the others sat up straight and started gathering their things.

When our group was called, I pulled my suitcase behind me and stepped up just behind Graham. I hesitated for a second, then reached out and tucked my hand under his arm. Leaning close to him, I said, “I’ll eat a snack on the plane, if that’d make you happy.”

He didn’t turn to look at me, but I felt his shoulders relax, and his cheek lifted in an amused smile he couldn’t quite hide.

“It would,” he said just loud enough for me to hear, and we inched forward in line behind Meghan and Chase.

I let go of his arm to show the gate agent my boarding pass, and we walked onto the plane.

Together.

At least for now.