Page 8 of Almost True
Even if I’d spent hours in every shop on the block, I wouldn’t have turned him down. I’d waited for this moment for a year and a half, through the hardest months of my life. Nothing would keep me from accepting an offer for time with him. “No, actually. This is the first chance I’ve gotten to wander around.”
And though he hadn’t known the whole truth last time, he’d known I’d spent my whole trip inside working and not enjoying the mountain town.
“It’s a perfect day for it,” he said, another small smile on his handsome face.
My stomach flipped for the first time in eighteen months. No, make that second, because it flipped when I saw him again just a few moments ago, alive and strong in front of me. “It is.”
His brow furrowed right as ringing burst through the air, and he pulled his phone out of the back pocket of his worn-in jeans. “Shoot, sorry. I actually have to run. But can we get coffee sometime soon? We’ll grab something to go and wander around, if you want.”
“That sounds perfect. I’d love it.”So much. It’s stupid how much.
“Good. Do you want my number? Or we can just meet at Rise and Shine on Saturday, if that’s easier?” He glanced down at his phone again. “Sorry. I have to take this. Would ten work?”
“Yes. I’ll see you there. Looking forward to it.” I waved as he moved away, and his gaze lingered even as his body retreated in the direction of wherever he needed to be. Finally, he turned completely and jogged ahead a bit, then slipped around a corner and went out of sight.
I smiled to myself, probably wider than I should’ve considering I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk. If the paparazzi could see me now, who knew what they’d write.
Madeline Reynolds has officially lost her mind.
Madeline Reynolds’ close call with her stalker has sent her into a mental spiral.
Madeline Reynolds has a crush on local Silverton tree farmer, Aidan, and don’t mind if we do, he looks great in those jeans.
I chuckled under my breath. Maybe not that last one. Hopefully, not any of them. The story of getting held at gunpoint by my stalker of over a year shouldn’t get out. My assistant and security team had everything on lockdown—at least in theory. But I’d been around long enough to know that didn’t always keep things from hitting the press. Thanks to the rise in public awareness of me these last few years after my book and some very public interviews, people wanted to know about me. Instead of being known just in the financial and tech world, I’d become something close to a household name.
Working Womanwasn’t a name I would’ve chosen, but the treatise at its heart was my own. Sometimes, it still struck me as crazy, but after years in the business and tech worlds, I’d felt the need to say it “out loud” and so everyone could hear slash read it. What complex, life-changing thing might I have penned a book about?
It’s okay for women to like work. That was the gist of it, honestly. The thesis that women who love to work are happiest working seemed so obvious to me, and yet how many times had people insisted on my taking breaks over the years? How many times had my ambition made others uncomfortable or seemed like an accusation or a suggestion of laziness when all it did was have me reaching for the things that made me most satisfied?
Somehow, I’d managed to do what the world expected of women in positions of power. I’d made it look easy. Or so I’d been told. So often, that was the praise that followed my bio. “How do you do it? How do you make it look so easy?”
Well, spoiler alert, it wasn’t easy. But even as often as I said that, people refused to accept it, as though my working hard and long hours and sacrificing my social life and any real relationships beyond my oldest friends and family was something that soured my success.
Maybe it did. I’d wondered if maybe that was true—and in my heart of hearts, I’d felt a resounding yes. Two years after I’d written the book, I found myself a Working Woman who was not, in fact, working. And I had to admit, I’d sacrificed so much, right up to and including my personal safety and nearly my sanity in the last year. I’d tried to hide it, to keep up this façade that any amount of fame or success required, but I wasn’t sure if I could go back into the spotlight and pick up where I’d left off.
I’d have to, though. I’d taken the sabbatical to get my head on straight, and especially now that the stalker wasn’t an issue, I would get back to managing things better. I would learn how to rest while I was here and soak up this time, and then I’d get back to work.
And in the meantime, I’d look forward to seeing the one man who’d held my attention and made me forget about pretending I had it all together to begin with.
CHAPTERFIVE
Aidan
My son squinted up at me. “Dad? Did you hear me?”
I shook myself from the whirlwind blowing through my brain. And let’s be honest, my body. I’d never been so surprised, excited, weirdly sad, relieved, and… just…wowas I had in the moment I’d registered Maddie’s gorgeous face a few minutes ago.
“Sorry, bud. What were you saying?” I’d let him stay at All Booked Up to browse while I ran an errand, and on my way back,bam, there she was. Unfortunately, the bam had been literally, but I couldn’t regret that too much because it’d let me touch her, just for a second, and know for certain she was real. I hadn’t dreamed her up.
Like I had so many nights since our first meeting.
“Isaid, am I staying at Grandma and Grandpa’s or Gig and Doodle’s tonight?”
He’d started thumbing his way toward the marked page in one of the books he’d gotten. We’djustbought the book, and he’d read a third of it. His reading speed never failed to startle me, but then Luca tended to be a constant source of amazement in these small ways.
“Grandma and Grandpa’s tonight. You’ll hang with Gig and Doodle soon, though,” I reassured him.
For some insane reason, my aunt and uncle were referred to as Gig and Doodle. Something to do with my cousin’s oldest child calling them that and them accepting the kid’s birthright to name them or something… who knew. What it meant was that I was a grown man left referring to my relatives as Gig and Doodle like it was a perfectly normal thing to say out loud.
