Christy-Lynn smothered a sigh. At this rate, she was never going to get to the invoices. “Who is it?”

Tamara flashed a grin. “I’ll give you a hint—tall, dark, and scruffy.”

“Wade’s here?”

“Of course he’s here. He’s here all the time—as if you didn’t know.”

“Yes, but not to see me.”

Tamara rolled her eyes, as if she were dealing with a particularly dense child. “Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, consider yourself informed.”

Wade was in the café when she stepped out of the back room. He nodded as she approached. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “You okay? You look tired.”

“Yes, I’ve been told. What’s up?”

“I came to ask you to lunch.”

It took a moment to process the words, and she still wasn’t sure she had it right. “What?”

“I said I came to ask you to lunch.”

“Why?”

It was hardly a gracious reply, but she was too surprised to search for the Miss Manners response. They saw each other several times a week—or perhaps avoided each other was a more accurate way to describe the curt nods that passed for a greeting whenever they happened to make eye contact in the café. How had they gone from that to lunch?

“I’m proposing a truce. I’ve decided it’s silly that we keep bumping into each other and never know what to say.”

“I don’t keep bumping into you,” Christy-Lynn pointed out coolly. “You keep coming into my store.”

“Fair enough. Sometimes I need a change of scenery, and this works. So what do you say? Lunch?”

“I’m working. Or trying to. It’s not going very well.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Not unless you want to unpack and shelve three boxes of books.”

“Tempting, but I’ll take a rain check.”

“So it was more of a hypothetical offer then.”

He grinned, suddenly looking very boyish. “Something like that. Maybe we can do lunch another time?”

Christy-Lynn gave him a half-hearted shrug. He was obviously intent on clearing the air between them, though after so many years, she wasn’t sure why he cared. Maybe he was one of those guys who needed to be liked. She, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to keep him at arm’s length. “Yeah, maybe.”

She watched him leave, waiting until he had climbed into the Jeep and driven away before turning back to Tamara, who was quietly grinning from ear to ear as she pretended to wipe down the counter.

Christy-Lynn shook a finger at her across the counter. “I know what that smile’s about, and you can get that idea right out of your head. We don’t even like each other.”

“He’s hot though, isn’t he?”

“I’m not paying you to ogle the customers.”

“No,” Tamara said, smirking. “But it’s a nice perk.”

“Hey, what’s going on in here?” Aileen had appeared, a feather duster in hand. “You’re not supposed to be having fun without me.”

“I don’t know about fun,” Tamara said saucily. “But I’m pretty sure the boss has an admirer.”

“No, the boss doesn’t,” Christy-Lynn snapped. “Now get to work, both of you. I’ll be paying bills if you need me. And no whispering behind my back, or I’ll know.”

She could hear Tamara and Aileen already giggling as she walked away. For weeks now, they’d been making snide remarks about the frequency of Wade’s visits, though they clearly had the wrong idea about his motives. It was understandable, she supposed, seeing what they wanted to see. They were young and still starry-eyed, too naive to know that true love and happily ever after were the stuff of fairy tales—and that sometimes the line between frog and prince got pretty blurry.

TWENTY-ONE

Monck’s Corner, South Carolina

April 12, 1998

It usually starts over cigarettes—who smoked the last one, whose turn it is to buy—and eventually shifts to beer. Tonight’s sparring match is no different, the petulant sniping, the petty slurs, the raised voices escalating into full-on tirades. Christy-Lynn is in her room, nose buried in a history book, U2 on full blast to drown out the ugliness going on in the kitchen.

It’s hardly a new occurrence, although Derrick, the latest in her mother’s recent stretch of live-in losers, is louder than the last few. He scares her sometimes when he drinks, which is most of the time. He swears and throws things and is quick with a slap when her mother talks back. It’s better when they’re both high—or at least quieter—but that’s only when there’s money for a score. They’ve been on COD status with their dealer since her mother lost her job at the Piggly Wiggly.

Borrowing.

That’s what her mother had called it when they caught her skimming money from the register. Her boss had called it embezzlement and fired her. The only reason she wasn’t locked up is because he dropped the charges when she told the police she had a little girl at home that she was raising on her own.

They’re letting her pay it back fifty dollars at a time. Except she isn’t having much luck finding another job. Someone from the Piggly Wiggly must have let the cat out of the bag, which means it’s just tip money from the Getaway Lounge and whatever Derrick brings home when he’s sober enough to work.