Christy-Lynn savored every word, but as the day wore on, the excitement began to take its toll. She was parched, ravenous, and could feel herself starting to fray around the edges. She glanced at her watch and then at the register. If she hurried, she might be able to swing a deli run.

She had just slipped behind the counter to ask Aileen if she wanted anything when the words died in her throat.

It can’t be. Not here. Not now.

But there was no mistaking the telltale prickle along the nape of her neck, a kind of antennae she had learned to pay attention to during her street years. There was only one reason for that prickling sensation—danger.

Slipping away unseen was going to be impossible. Instead, she did her best to shrink from sight while keeping an eye on the man at the back of the line. He’d been wearing a dinner jacket the last time she saw him, quite different from the jeans and rumpled Oxford he wore now. But there was no forgetting that profile or the sharply chiseled jaw. Wade Pierce, star reporter for Week in Review—in Sweetwater, of all places.

He was holding a cup of coffee, staring down at the cover of Stephen’s latest novel as if he’d just unearthed something rancid. She had debated whether or not to carry Stephen’s books but decided their absence might seem odd, even conspicuous. And here, by some horrible twist of fate, stood her dead husband’s personal Moriarty waiting to purchase a copy of A Fatal Franchise.

The line moved, and Wade shuffled closer. Christy-Lynn felt as if she were caught in the path of an oncoming train. He and Stephen had been roommates in college, both creative writing majors until Wade had abruptly switched to journalism. According to Stephen, their friendship had ended just as abruptly, though he’d never said why. Not even after the scene at the Omni.

It had been three years ago—no four. A dinner honoring the recent achievements of several UVA alumni. Stephen was fresh off his fourth bestseller, Wade the recipient of some coveted journalism award. There was a cocktail reception scheduled the first night, and they’d both been drinking. Stephen was in rare form, laying it on so thick even she had to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. He got like that sometimes, dropping names and casually referencing his current position on the New York Times bestseller list. But she’d never seen him go out of his way to make someone else feel small—until that night.

And he’d accomplished it in signature style, delivering one of the barbed compliments he loved so well. A sharp smile and a slap on the back, so that no one was quite sure if he was being snarky or magnanimous. Something about Wade being the most talented guy in the class—the second goddamn coming of Ernest Hemingway—and clearly wiser than the rest of them since he’d chosen to use his talents to bang out magazine articles instead of wading into the deep end of the literary pool.

Wade seemed to take it in stride at first, laughing as he set down his drink. Things went downhill from there when he proclaimed in a voice loud enough for the whole bar to hear that he’d take writing articles any day if the alternative was becoming an overhyped hack churning out four hundred pages of crap every year.

She had never seen Stephen’s face go so red or been afraid he might actually take a swing at someone. She had stepped between them before things could escalate, informing Wade curtly that a bar full of colleagues was hardly the place to air petty jealousies and that if he couldn’t handle a colleague’s success he should have stayed home. His jaw had clenched tight, a vessel at his temple throbbing furiously as she stood waiting for him to respond. Instead, he turned and stalked out of the bar. She had scowled as she watched him go, but there was a part of her, even then, that knew he had a point, even if he’d made it badly—and with stunningly poor timing.

“There she is! My favorite bookseller!”

Christy-Lynn jerked her head around, startled to find Missy standing at the end of the counter with a to-go container in one hand and a plastic utensil packet in the other.

“I wasn’t sure you’d have time to grab lunch so I popped by with a salad. How’s it been going? Are you—”

“Christine Ludlow?”

Wade’s voice seemed to slam into her, like an object hurtling at high speed, knocking her off balance. Before she could check herself, she turned, coming face-to-face with a disconcerting pair of amber eyes. He was taller than she remembered and scruffier, his hair messily combed and grazing his collar in back.

“Wade,” she said evenly because it was too late for anything else.

“Well, I’ll be damned . . . it is you. I wasn’t sure with the short hair. Don’t tell me the great Stephen Ludlow has decided to grace Sweetwater with his presence.”

“Of course he isn’t here. He’s—” Christy-Lynn stopped short, suddenly remembering Missy.

Wade, on the other hand, seemed oblivious, carrying on his half of the conversation as if they were the only two people in the store. “I’ve got to say, you’re the last person I expected to see today. I came into town for some supplies and saw that the place was under new management. Good thing too, or I might have missed the hubby’s new novel. And another bestseller. What does that make now—ten, eleven?”

He was being droll and purposely malicious, but at the moment, Christy-Lynn was too busy registering the fact that virtually every eye in the place had just shifted in her direction. The irony was almost too much to wrap her head around. She had been outed on the opening day of her lovely new store—by an award-winning reporter who had despised her husband.