Nevermore Bookstore: Chapter 22

Advance or retreat.

Two equally intolerable options.

But he couldn’t listen to this shit any longer. Couldn’t sit here and see the distress curling Cady’s shoulders forward as if they could shield her heart while this fucking harpy tried to take her entire life away from her.

Fuck that.

For this—for her—retreat was not an option.

He advanced.

Sort of.

Hard to charge into battle behind a woman as wide as she was tall and had to wear shoes two different heights for very obvious orthopedic functions.

“The chair does not recognize Judy Miller at this time. In order to speak, you have to petition to the council or wait until the floor is opened.” Caryn banged her gavel on the semicircular podium where the six city council members had attempted to preside with the gravitas of a military tribunal.

Except for Gemma, who’d paused in her furious knitting of a giant squid to gape at him like everyone else. “Holy fuck me sideways,” she breathed, just close enough to the microphone to have the whisper caress the ear of everyone present.

“Um…do I put that in the notes?” asked the recorder, a fluffy-haired, apple-cheeked woman with pleasant ochre skin and a cornea-melting fuchsia pantsuit.

“No,” Caryn barked, as Vee simultaneously purred, “Please do.”

The place was packed, everyone breathing the same air. Taking it. Transforming it. Holding it hostage so there was none left for Fox.

As he fought for breath, he realized it was packed like a wedding, in a way. Pro-Cady on one side, pro-self-interest and bureaucratic bullshit on the other.

He’d been glad to see the townspeople, in general, were firmly in Cady’s court, supporting the small business owner against America’s version of landed gentry.

An Orwellian scene but fucking weirder.

Unfazed by Gemma’s profanity or Caryn’s propriety, Judy waddle-sprinted down the aisle with the self-importance of a wronged female plaintiff in the eponymous Judge Judy’s televised court. “Don’t be such a Karen, Caryn.” She cackled as if that joke hadn’t probably been made at least a trillion times in the past decade. “Surrender the floor to me or read what I have to say in the Townsend Crier on Sunday in time to ruin your fancy brunch.”

Damn. Judy was not fucking around.

Caryn’s eyes narrowed on Fox. She clearly did not recognize him at all. “Who do you bring with you, and what does he have to do with the situation?”

“I didn’t bring him.” Judy threw a lascivious look over her shoulder that would have been a possible #MeToo crime if their genders were reversed. “I came because of him.”

“Yeah, she did.” Myrtle’s gravely whisper into Vee’s ear made use of the room’s hundred-year-old acoustics, and several chuckles competed with the groans of the perpetually offended.

A bead of sweat trickled from Fox’s orderly hair down the column of his spine beneath his dress blues. He’d done this a million times in a million different rooms. Addressed someone who had a title that commanded respect, or maybe a superior rank, but who couldn’t best him at anything but paperwork.

Just…most of those rooms were built in the last century.

And had windows.

Or more than two doors.

And the attendants were… Well, this crowd was probably equally as full of old, officious white guys as any the military could threaten. And this crowd was just as grumpy with the additions of their bitchy, bureaucratic wives. Basically, this was Hell’s waiting room, and Fox wasn’t going to take a number. He’d force himself to the front of the line.

Curling his shaking hand into a fist, he decided he’d waited long enough for Judy to get a head start so he didn’t bowl her over and make an ass of himself.

“Madam Chairperson, Mayor Stewart, members of council and committee.” He offered a clipped nod to each, measuring his eye contact with respectful precision. “Major Roman G. Fawkes, 75^th Ranger Regiment, Second Battalion, formerly of Joint Base Lewis-McCord, requests the floor.”

There. At least he’d have most of the Boomers, veterans, law enforcement, self-proclaimed alpha males, and Karens of the figurative variety more likely to lend credence to his word.

How he looked in a uniform didn’t hurt in picking up a few more favorable opinions.

Not that he was cocky, just working with the tools his meat suit and hunter/gatherer lifestyle provided.

“Get it? F-A-W-K-E-S!” Judy gleefully spelled, apropos of nothing. “You’re thinking the animal at first, and then—”

“Request denied.” The literal Caryn banged her gavel against the wave of murmurs in the room, spearing him with a perfectly lined glare of antipathy. “While we thank you for your service, the council doesn’t recognize you as having a stake in this issue or a claim on the building in question.”

Finally gaining the intestinal fortitude, he turned to where Cady sat in the front row and let himself drink in the sight of her face—vibrant eyes muted, a little sunken and bruised from lack of sleep, lashes heavy with unshed tears, lids puffy from the ones already wept in anticipation of today going badly. Her cheeks glowed crimson with emotion, the skin below ghostly pale from shock.

And still…she was flawlessly beautiful, even beneath the harsh tube lights installed by the energy-conscious.

How many tears had fallen on his behalf? Every single one was like acid to his skin. And the only thing he could do was this.

“I have nothing to lose,” he admitted to her. “Everything’s at stake for Cady Bloomquist, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked the room. “Doesn’t she deserve to have all witnesses heard?”

“Sit down, Mr. Fawkes,” Mayor Stewart ordered him, waving his hands as if that’d do anything to restore the silent expectancy of before.

Fox knew what to do, but still he fought what he yearned to do—stomp and snarl. Threaten and throw things. Break stuff with his bare hands. Bones sounded fun.

But if he could spend four hours talking a caliphate warlord into selling him illegally gained U.S. munitions at a loss, he could keep his cool against the rat-fink mayor for a few minutes.

“I will stand, and I will be heard, Mr. Mayor. But, with all due respect, it is correct to refer to me as Major Fawkes—”

“Yeah, it is.” All eyes turned for a second to Myrtle, who wiped (what he hoped was) pretend drool from her deeply grooved lips.

Vee put a hand on her—girlfriend? common-law spouse?—and whispered something unintelligible in Myrtle’s ear.

“Oh, come on,” she said to the assembly at large gesturing toward him with gnarled fingers. “That one set itself up. I mean, look at him. A major fox.”

“Myrtle, enough.” Ethan kicked his hip away from the wall against which he’d been leaning, fair hair kept in place by the exactly measured teeth of a basic black comb and the favored gel of Boy Scouts everywhere. “This isn’t a court of law, major. If the chairperson tells you to sit down, you do it, or we have a problem.”

If Superman-punching a cop wouldn’t ultimately hurt Cady, Fox would have cheerfully gone down for it.

“Oh, we have a problem, you and I,” he said evenly, not completely masking the violence in his stance. “And we’re about to find out just how big it is and what I’m going to have to do about it.”

Ethan stomped closer, stopping in front of the first church-pew-style bench, and its seven occupants were all that separated the two. His ice-blue eyes glinted with aggression. “That a threat?”

Uh-oh, someone had their enormous feathers ruffled.

Buckle up, big boy, Fox thought. Your day is about to go to ripe shit.

“Fox?” His name finally escaped from Cady’s mouth, melting some of the malice from his blood.

He took a pause from eye-fucking-up the sheriff to glance in her direction.

A whole month.

Four quiet, bleak Thursday nights. Forty-three-thousand-eight-hundred eternal minutes since he’d last heard her voice. Two-point-seven million seconds since he’d bathed in the glow of her smile.

And counting, as her generous mouth currently trended downward into a perplexed grimace pinched with concern.

He forced himself to look away, or he’d never accomplish what he’d come here to do.

Drawing strength from his purpose, he faced the raised dais on which he found only one friendly—if skeptical—face. “You are aware Judy is not only the night dispatch for the county, but also one of the only notaries public for probably twenty miles.”

“That is correct,” Judy announced, with the importance of a star witness on a primetime court drama. “I know every divorce, affidavit, mortgage, and et cetera filed in Townsend Harbor and the surrounding communities.”

Dangerous job for the town gossip to have.

Caryn’s gavel became more insistent. Sharper. Her voice inched from authoritarian to shrill. “Judy, might I remind you of confidentiality and your duty to your community. You will wait to address this council until you’re invited by the—”

“I submit to you, et cetera.” Judy open-palm-slapped a piece of paper on the long oak table reserved for people making their case to the council. “If it please the court, I would like to enter into the record this irrefutable evidence of Cady Bloomquist’s innocence of the charges brought against her.”

Ethan strode toward Judy’s table to examine the document. “Again, Judy, this isn’t a court of law. This is a city council meeting. No one is on tri—”

Wide brows knitted together as he looked down to read the document, scanning it again and again as red crept from beneath his collar. When he looked up, he turned to where Cady was frozen in place. “Cady. I’m sorry for all of this.”

She went impossibly paler. “What is it?” she asked, looking from Fox to Judy to Ethan and back. “What’s going on?”

“That there is a copy of my notary record book from five years ago,” Judy answered before the question was finished. “From the night Ethan Townsend III signed a Deed on Death, granting Fern Bloomquist ownership of the Townsend Building and enough cash to cover the inheritance taxes upon his demise.”

Her pause for dramatic effect was surprisingly effective, as the entire room erupted into chaos at the politest possible decibel level.

Caryn’s gavel did nothing to quiet the room, and she had to turn the volume on her mic up to be heard. If she wasn’t Satan’s own secretary, Fox would feel kind of bad that her husband’s affair had been so publicly revealed.

Even though his own marriage had disintegrated, it could have been worse. They could have stayed together.

“Wait.” Cady raised her hand like a kid at school, though she didn’t wait to be called on. “Are you saying that’s the document that proves Nevermore and the Townsend Building belonged to Aunt Fern?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Judy replied.

“Outrageous!” Caryn shrieked as she thrust her hand out to her son. “Give that here.”

Ethan strode over, handing the paper up to her. “It’s right there,” he said, face a mask of regret. “In black and white.”

Caryn’s hand trembled as she looked at the document, but her features didn’t crack.

She had a big old set of lady balls—Fox had to give her that.

“This is a copy of your handwritten documentation, not the document itself. I’ll see proof of that before I believe a word of this farce,” Caryn said coldly.

“I don’t keep the docs, I just watch people sign ’em,” Judy announced. “But I did pass the paperwork on to be filed with the court.”

“I requested all such documents!” Cady insisted. “Who did the filing?”

“The Townsends’ lawyer, of course.” Judy turned her pointed condemnation toward the dais. “Mayor Stewart.”

A theatrical gasp echoed through the congregation, and the mayor surged to his feet, though his response was lost to the din.

Caryn Townsend lifted her gavel, but Gemma snatched it away before it could come down.

“Give that back!” Caryn barked, abandoning her self-containment altogether. “Everyone clear out! I’m declaring a close to this council meeting until further investigation can be—”

“I gave the Deed on Death to you!” Mayor Stewart hollered, pointing an accusing finger at none other than Caryn. “You were the one who told me to forget it ever existed.”

“Libel!” Caryn was the last to gain her feet. “You have no proof! You will find no documents. Get ready for a lawsuit to end all, Stewart, you toad!”

“Strange way to word that, Madam Chairperson.”

As often happened, when Fox spoke, the room quieted.

All eyes turned to him, but he’d lasered away everything but the fire covering the fear in Caryn’s eyes.

“You deny that the documents would be found,” he repeated. “Not that they exist.”

Caryn affected an obviously practiced imperious look down her literal nose at him. “My husband would never have taken the Townsend Building away from our son’s legacy.”

“Except he did.” Fox fought the urge to straighten his jacket and tug on his collar. It was infinitely easier than not snatching Cady and dragging her back to his Neanderthal cave.

Just don’t look at her, he reminded himself. Focus. You are no stranger to suffering. This moment will be over. Do your worst to it.

“Let me ask you something, Madam Chairperson.” He drifted closer, drawn in for the kill by the flash of apprehension in her dark eyes. “Do you have your husband’s keys to the Townsend Building?” He turned to Ethan. “Or do you?”

“I haven’t touched anything of my dad’s since his…loss.” Ethan looked up to Caryn for verification from her.

“I wouldn’t know where he kept the keys.” She shrugged airily. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand why this is relevant.”

Fox lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s relevant because someone broke into Nevermore Bookstore on Thursday before Halloween and ransacked the place. Nothing valuable went missing, but the content of the front end of the store and paperwork was not only disturbed but strewn all over the floor.”

“And?” she asked impatiently.

“And no one could figure out why. No windows broken. No sign of lock tampering. No helpful fingerprints.” Fox leveled an assessing look on Ethan. “Fruitless investigation done by your son, who not only has an interest in Cady, but also in the building.”

“Don’t you dare bring Ethan into this,” Caryn hissed. “I don’t care who you are—”

“This Ethan?” Fox jabbed a finger toward the scowling sheriff. “The one who replaced the locks after the break-in? The one who installed security cameras on the exterior of the building?”

“Oh, that is sus.” Gemma skewered her dark hair into a bun with a knitting needle, as if preparing for battle as she pointed at Ethan. “Sheriff, you’d be the first person to preach that officers need to be accountable for what they do. Especially while operating in the capacity of their job. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Sheriff Ethan Townsend IV wasn’t a complicated or conflicted man. He knew right from wrong, and he enforced it. He opened his mouth to address Fox. Closed it. Turned to Cady as if to speak to her. Changed his mind, then spun to look at his mother for a full three breaths.

As Fox’s own mom used to say, it was so quiet in the crowded room, he could have heard a tick fart.

“In the hook cupboard by the garage.” Ethan’s admission astonished everyone, but only Gemma said the one word everyone was thinking.

“What?”

Ethan’s gaze never wavered from his mother’s. “All Dad’s keys. To any of his properties, his cars, storage—even the gun locker—are kept in the key cabinet by the garage. Labeled. Alphabetized. Has been that way for the thirty-five years I’ve been alive.”

“Ethan.” His name escaped his mother’s expertly glossed lips on a plea. “Ethan, we’ll talk about this—”

“What did you do?” he asked his mom.

“Look,” Vee stage-whispered. “His dad used to have that same vein in his forehead when he was cross and trying not to hit people.”

“She didn’t do anything.” Roy stood with all the alacrity of tree Ent. “It was me.”

With eerie syncopation, the entire room turned to watch him knock the knees of the other people on the bench as he scootched past on his way toward the middle aisle.

“Why am I not surprised?” Cady spat at him. “You want Nevermore so much, you broke into my home and went through my things? Were you trying to hurt me when you caved in my roof?”

“Not your roof—Mrs. Townsend’s roof,” he said through his Duck Dynasty beard, then cast Caryn a sheepish look. “But no. That was an accident.” Crossing beefy sailor arms over his barrel chest, Roy finally allowed his condemnation to rest on Fox. “Besides, if this idiot carpenter didn’t fu—er, foul up the ceiling joists so bad, it wouldn’t have collapsed by me just poking around.”

“I didn’t touch the joists.” Fox’s arms tensed, his short nails making indents on his palms as he grabbed his temper with both hands. “They’d clearly been ‘fouled’ up by the shoddy carpenter the Townsends approved to do the initial restoration work through this very Historical Preservation Society.”

A contingent of Q-tip heads lost their shit, the core of the Historical Preservation Society quite obviously feeling more bereaved about the building damage than anything else going on in the room.

Like cat people, but for architecture.

“The pertinent question is why you were poking around the roof without permission in the first place,” Cady admonished Roy.

“I had the permission I needed,” he said, approaching her. “Your Aunt Fern, God rest her, usurped what was rightfully Mrs. Townsend’s by way of her questionable conduct with a married man. Now, I’m not here to speak ill of the dead, though we both had little good to say about each other when Fern was alive, but that wasn’t right.”

Fox grabbed the gorilla-sized man’s shirtfront, nerves stretched to the limit. “Were you the one who disabled the register surveillance camera the night of the break-in? And I’m begging you to lie to me, old man. To give me a motherfucking reason.”

“Hands off, Fawkes.” Ethan immediately turned from son to cop in the space of a blink. “I’ll warn you once.”

Cady stepped forward, putting her hand on the forearm of Fox’s jacket. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ve never had a surveillance camera inside the store.”

Fox scowled down at her, keeping one eye on Roy. “The one in the raven.”

She shook her head. “No. That’s just a googly eye I put on it because it only had a filmy glass—” Stiffening as if struck by a thought, she turned to Ethan. “You gave me the raven. When you asked me on our first date, you told me you wanted to bring something more meaningful than flowers. Something relevant to my interests.”

“I did.” Ethan nodded, his back to the dais, arms stiffly folded as his jaw twitched in time to the vein pulsing in his forehead.

“What else did you do, sheriff?” Myrtle demanded. “What the hell is going on here?”

Ethan’s inhalation lasted longer than should be physically possible as he looked from Fox, to Cady, to Roy, to survey the gathered crowd with something bordering on contempt.

His proud shoulders and jaw dropped a notch as he did an abrupt about-face and mounted the five stairs of the dais in two swift strides.

Gemma jumped out of his way, as did another councilman, clearing a path to his furious mother.

In a flat voice, Ethan said, “Caryn Townsend, you’re under arrest for illegal surveillance, unlawful trespass, and fraud. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be held against you…”

Caryn’s infuriated protests drowned out her son’s monotone recitation of her Miranda rights, but didn’t make him pause in the least. “Ethan? Ethan! What the hell are you—? I can put up cameras in my own building. I don’t care what— Ethan, put those handcuffs away this minute! I am your mother.”

The only deference he showed was to cuff her wrists in front of her rather than behind her back. “You bought the cameras, Mother. You had the raven ‘restructured’ before I gave it to her. And when the”—he broke off, as if he couldn’t pry his teeth apart enough to bring himself to say the next words—“the googly eye covered your hidden camera, you sent me with a houseplant. You made me complicit in a crime.”

Fox remembered the weight of the plant landing on his head, wondering what was sharp enough to have cut his head when the insubstantial plastic holding the roots together crumpled when you looked at it too hard. The mess of wires he’d chucked into the dumpster. A camera, perhaps?

“All we’d have to do is search the construction dumpster for what was hidden in that plant,” he said.

Caryn gasped. “You threw the plant away?”

“Immediately,” Cady said coldly.

Roy lunged for Ethan, but had forgotten about Fox’s unyielding grip. “You can’t arrest your own mother.”

“You shut your mouth, Roy,” Ethan snarled. “You and Mayor Stewart are next.”

“Just take me in for everything,” the older man demanded. “Caryn doesn’t belong in jail.”

“Wait!” Cady held out both arms in a T as if refereeing an MMA match. “Wait. Everyone wait.” She addressed Caryn, specifically. “I know you could be in huge trouble for not filing that deed. Let alone for what you commissioned Roy to do after you knew the building should be legally mine.”

“It isn’t right.” Caryn’s face crumpled, and she lifted her cuffed hands to cover it. “It isn’t fair that she took him from me, and then he humiliates me further by making it obvious that he gifted it to his mistress.”

“You should have brought it to me,” Cady said. “Because I agree—it isn’t fair, and it isn’t right. But neither of them are here now, so let’s do this. You find that paperwork and file it, handing the deed to me free and clear, and…” She looked at Ethan. “And I press no charges.”

Caryn opened her mouth, but Ethan spoke first. “Done.”

“How about you settle for what’s rightfully yours, and let these criminals rot in jail for a bit before you file a lawsuit against them for using their political offices to cheat you?” Fox said, offering Cady his favorite alternative. “All I ask is you give me five minutes alone with the asshole who made you fear for your life.”

He gave Roy’s collar a shake, and the man at least had the decency to look abashed, if not afraid. “I didn’t hurt a hair on Cady’s head.”

“She was in a sling because of you,” Fox reminded him. “Want to know what that feels like?”

“Ummmm…” Cady’s drawn-out word was several octaves too high. “To be fair…I pulled that bookshelf over on myself.”

Roy put his hands up as if Fox’s glare contained live rounds. “Cady was supposed to be at Myrtle’s party—I was going to be in and out before anyone came back. How was I supposed to know she was chatting on the phone in the dark?”

“By not breaking in there in the first place?” Gemma suggested.

Roy closed his eyes and let out an eternal sigh. “The day of the festival, I couldn’t use the key Caryn gave me due to the lock change, so I was trying to get in through the hole in the ceiling, is all. Seeing as how there was one no one in a hurry to fix the damage.”

“Don’t press charges against Roy,” Caryn had the audacity to ask of Cady.

Ethan had her upper arms shackled in his bear-paw hands as he marched her down the aisle, but he allowed her to pause to entreat her nemesis.

“I’ll give you back your copy of the deed and file it properly,” Caryn said, frigid eyes pooling with panic and emotion. “I’ll do whatever else you ask. But Roy didn’t know what I asked him to do could get him in trouble.”

“Ignorance isn’t innocence,” Fox spat. “Anyone should know not to break into a woman’s home.”

Roy nodded, coloring as he looked at his feet like a chastised child. “I knew it was wrong,” he muttered into his overgrown mustache. “Just…couldn’t say no.”

“What’s that?” someone asked from the peanut gallery, apparently perturbed at not being able to hear the entire drama as it unfolded, which started a new set of complaints.

“Yeah, speak up!”

“I can’t hear what’s going on.”

“Who’s the hottie in uniform?”

What Fox recognized in Roy’s eyes as he looked at Caryn made him disengage his fingers from the man’s collar.

“I believe him.” A presence at his elbow caused his skin to prickle in awareness. Fox smoothed the fine hairs on the back of his neck before looking down at Cady. “What’s the move?”

She searched his face for a moment too long, and apparently did not find what she was looking for. Her smile deflated incrementally before she turned away. “I don’t want anyone to go to jail. I just want my bookstore and to be a part of that building’s story. Just like Aunt Fern was. Just like the Townsends were before it.”

This time, no one—not even Caryn—objected to a thing.

The gavel fell once again, startling everyone and pulling the attention back to the front of the room, where Gemma held it like a battle ax. “Regardless of criminal status,” she said, “I move to relieve Mayor Stewart and Chairwoman Townsend from all public service immediately and furthermore…”

Fox used the absolute attention commanded by Gemma to slowly melt backward by allowing others to step in front of him. The retreat was slow and painful, and for a man lauded for his dexterity, he was weak-kneed as a two-legged tripod by the time he was able to tumble out the door and into the daylight.

Immediately, he loosened his tie so his trachea stopped closing off, and dabbed at his drenched forehead with a handkerchief as he ate up the concrete in long strides.

The crisp autumn wind caressed him like a lover, and he truly breathed for the first time since he’d descended into the city.

He’d done it.

If he was nothing else, he was the architect of Cady’s happiness, and that was what mattered. There were many stains upon his soul, and many times he’d made the wrong call.

But sometimes seeing the good side win was better than any drug. It happened too seldom these days, and too many people were starting to realize the good guys weren’t whom they’d initially assumed.

Cady, though…

If the world fostered more people with hearts like hers, men like him wouldn’t have to exist.

Aiming toward the Uptown steps, he figured he could calm himself in his old clearing and wait for night to descend to comfortably travel.

He’d been stretched to the limits of his masking capabilities, and the veneer of humanity was beginning to crack, uncovering the beast beneath.

If he was lucky, he’d be able to watch Cady enter her building, secure in the knowledge that no one could take it from her for the first time since her aunt died.

He could allow himself that, at least. One last look at—

Fox crested the top of the staircase and had to grab on to the railing to keep from taking a dive down all six flights of stairs because of what had changed. Weak knees became jelly. Sweat dried in the breeze and locked shivers into his guts, amplified by the quaking of his own bones.

The roof of the Townsend Building was not only being restored and remodeled, but rebuilt.

As a conservatory.

Iron and steel secured panels of reflective glass storm windows in place to form a Victorian-style dome that Covent Garden would envy.

It took his breath away. Not just the beauty of it. Not the incomprehensible cost. Not just because it improved upon the already unparalleled skyline of the Townsend Harbor Downtown, but because…

Because he’d told her they might never see each other again…

And she’d still built him the perfect home.

Why?

“Because I know you, Major Roman G. Fawkes,” Cady said from behind him. “Even though I was today years old when I learned your actual name, I realized I knew you well enough to be certain you wouldn’t stay away forever. And I could think of no greater idea then for you to have a place to shelter from the storm, but also not feel trapped.”

Swallowing profusely, Fox didn’t allow himself to turn around. If he saw her, he’d have to touch her. To hold her.

If he did that… Well.

He’d never let go.

Instead, he’d bury his face into her fragrant hair and wash it in tears he’d never allowed himself to shed.

“Nothing’s changed,” he lied, his voice tight with barely leashed emotion and the agony of the past five torturous years threatening to break his resolve.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, her voice measured but firm, underscored by a note of something he didn’t dare analyze. “You seem…different. Something has changed, other than the obvious.” She made as if to reach for his newly shaved face, but pulled back at the last moment.

If disappointment could do bodily damage, he’d be a corpse.

“I’m ah—taking advantage of some of my military benefits. You know, meds and”—he cleared his throat—“therapy and whatnot.” Fighting the urge to kick at loose gravel like a child, he remained perfectly still. “Figured I needed to give it another shot.”

She made an impressed noise. “You spent so long in the council chambers today. I, alone, know what that cost you. And I know you wouldn’t have done it for me if you didn’t…if you didn’t care. If there wasn’t hope.”

Finally he spun to face her, prepared, at least, for the sucker punch in the gut at the sight.

She glowed with an ethereal luminosity that had to be divine.

“Cady…I came back to finish the job. That’s it. I had to do the right thing.” His eyes already skittered away, and he forced them back to her face to suffer the punishment of her displeasure.

What he found was a teasing sort of smugness dimpling her cheeks. “You’re saying you came out of the mountains right before Christmas, retrieved your dress uniform, colluded with Judy freaking Miller, and this-is-Sparta-kicked open the door to the council meeting to Mr. Darcy-style save the day, because you don’t have feelings for me?”

“Don’t have—” His jaw unhinged as he struggled to process the absurdity of what she’d just said. “Let me make something perfectly clear. I went into those mountains to eventually die, Cady. I’d gotten used to the darkness. I’d given over to it. And then you picked up the phone, and I felt my heart beat for the first time in ages.”

Her lip disappeared between her teeth as if she had to bite it to stay quiet.

“That’s when I’d vowed never to call again. And I made that same promise every time I couldn’t help myself. I should have cut all sense of attachment earlier. Before I could want you so much.”

He clamped his mouth shut, feeling his heart pounding like a jackhammer, ready to shatter into a million unrepairable pieces at his next revelation.

“When I say nothing has changed, I mean it.” He snatched the hand she pressed to his chest, meaning to thrust it away, but found himself clutching it instead. “I’m still…me. I can’t do what other men can. Can’t provide the simplest pleasures in life. I wouldn’t be able to share with you. And this isn’t me being some altruistic martyr, here. Because, dammit, my worst fear is watching the love you think you feel for me drain from you as the reality of life with me replaces this intensity between us. Do you understand? I can’t put myself through that. But don’t you ever believe I don’t have feelings for you, Cadence Bloomquist, because you’re the love of my fucking life.”