Page 2 of Almost True
I couldn’t say why, but I couldn’t do that. So I nodded, and the next words slipped out. “Glad to hear it, though I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to say whatever you would’ve said.”
She waved a hand.Left hand. No ring.Dang, I was worse than my cousin right about now. He was always on the prowl on my behalf. I’d been on a half dozen bad dates in the last three months thanks to him.
“I wouldn’t have said anything—that’s not a great way to get a clean drink.”
“Fair point. He knows my name and where I live, so I have no hope,” I joked, like some alternate-world version of myself.
She tilted her head. “You’re a local?”
I stifled a grin and looked down at my beer, but nodded. She saida locallike being from Silverton was charming and idyllic. Not a surprise given she was most definitelynota local and therefore had likely chosen to come visit for vacation.
“And? What’s it like to live in Silverton full time?” She crossed her legs in my direction.
At some point in the last few years, in a stupid article John had probably foisted on me, I’d read that was a sign of interest.
“It’s nice.” But that didn’t even touch it. It was beautiful and stifling and freeing and difficult and heartbreaking and lonely as all get out. But maybe that wasn’t just Silverton.
“Wow. Don’t sell me too hard.” She laughed lightly and turned back to her drink.
My instinct to leave after the misstep, that brittle part of me I didn’t exercise or air out in public, didn’t chime in. It stayed strangely silent, and that left me with nothing to do or say but, “It’s not so bad. Just… small, sometimes.”
Her gaze climbed back up to mine. “Everybody knows all your secrets?”
Not exactly secrets, but I nodded.
“And? What are they?”
A rough laugh shot out of me, but it came sharper than I would’ve liked. Something in her demeanor shifted and she looked away.
A pulse of alarm shot through me. I hadn’t meant to shut her down. But I didn’t do this. I didn’t make small talk with beautiful women at bars on a Sunday night. I didn’t share mysecrets, but maybe that was because it didn’t feel like I had any around here. Everyone knew just about everything. When I walked into a room, it wasn’t just me showing up. It was me and the baggage of my story—what my life had become. I couldn’t just sit here and chat with this woman like I didn’t have that dark cloud of history hanging over me.
And why not?
The voice rang loud and clear and sounded a little bit too much like my meddling cousin. But the point hit—why not? Why couldn’t I be that guy, just for tonight?
The idea solidified so rapidly, I took a drink to buy time. But my pulse had kicked up, and I already knew what I’d do. This was my chance to be a man talking to a beautiful woman and nothing more. Not poor Aidan Wallace, single father and widower. Not pitiable Aidan, who hadn’t found another woman in the seven years since his wife had tragically perished in a car accident. Not broken Aidan Wallace, who just needed a good woman to fix him.
No. Tonight I could simply be… a man.
In a move I’d never know who to thank for, I stood and moved to the empty stool between us. I set down my beer and leaned an arm on the bar. She watched me do all this, studying my movements.
And then I did it. The most un-Aidan-like thing I’d done in memory.
I dipped my head down, eyes on hers, and said, “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
CHAPTERTWO
THEN
18 Months Ago
Maddie
Athrill spiraled through me, followed by a note of warning. Was he trying to get me to tell him who I was? Did he already know?
But in those brown eyes smoldering at me, now closer than ever, I didn’t see anything but genuine interest. Not that eagle-eyed searching, waiting for me to offer something, become a connection, do something newsworthy, whatever. Normally, that’s when my shields came down hard and I extricated myself as quickly as possible—unless that person had something to offer me, too.
I could easily shut this down right now. I could have Brandon charge my room and duck out. But the fluttering in my chest, the accelerated pulse, and the way this man was looking at me?
