Page 5 of After You

“My therapist says it’s because my ability to see the goodness in life is tarnished.”

“No, your ex-girlfriend said that. She just happened to be a therapist. She was not yourtherapist.”

“She certainly psychoanalyzed me a lot,” Kade said, turning his attention back to the screen in front of him, clearly disinterested in the topic of hisex.

“Well, the psycho part of that is true,” Hannah agreed. She studied her best friend as he clicked away on the keyboard, writing his next bestseller. That just happened to be set in a small Nebraska town named Aquamarine Ridge. He thought that was hilarious. Hannah did not. Nor would the rest of Sapphire Falls. He’d promised to change it before the book went to his publisher, but Hannah knew she was going to have to read it before then because she didn't trust him a bit not to leave that in there.

He was a little grumpy about coming to Sapphire Falls with her. For six weeks. That could be a very long time. But she had to do this. She hadn’t been home in three years. And this wasn’t just a visit. This wasn’t just coming home because she’d been gone so long. This had nothing to do with her family’s aversion to flying and visiting the big city. This was the only way for her grandma to avoid a long and potentially costly stay at a nursing home for her rehab.

The guilt was already weighing on Hannah. Alice had put the surgery off for several months because she’d been waiting for her superstar physical therapist granddaughter to come home. Forgood.

Too bad Hannah had screwed everything up, from the superstar part to the physical therapist part to the coming home part. And hadn’t been able to face her family.

Yeah, six weeks was going to be a really longtime.

“How’s everything overhere?”

Hannah looked up to find Derek Wright standing next to the table. She smiled. “Good. The food was great.”

He gave her a smile but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and Hannah felt a twinge in her heart. It wasn’t like she would have picked the Come Again for dinner, given a choice. But they hadn’t gotten to town until after ten, and she wasn’t going to show up on her family’s doorstep expecting to be fed at that time of night, and nothing else in Sapphire Falls was open. So, the one and only bar in town was it. But it also happened to be the place that Derek Wright now managed. She and Derek had been friends. Good friends. She’d spent a lot of time with him. They had a lot of private jokes and great memories. Of course, pretty much every one of those also involvedKyle.

The twinge in her chest turned into an outright stabbing, and Hannah fought to not visibly grimace. Yeah, she and Derek were not friends anymore. Of that she was certain. Because ofKyle.

Kyle Ames. Her first…everything. Her ex. The man she’d practically left at the altar. Okay, she’d left him at the gazebo, but it was kind of the same thing. She’d known he’d been planning to propose. She’d been very aware of every step of his life plan, infact.

And now the man who would, very likely and quite understandably, never want to speak to her again was her grandmother’s physician and, as such, would have to talk to Hannah as Alice’s primary post-op caregiver.

Yeah, that was going to be awkward.

Actually, she’d love it if it was only awkward.

She was sure it would be downright painful.

“Can I get you anything else?” Derek asked.

Hannah looked at Kade. “Yougood?”

“Fine,” he said with a nod, not looking up from his screen.

That was pretty standard Michael Kade stuff, and Hannah kicked him under the table for it. Most of the time she told him after the fact that he’d been rude. But she’d instructed him very carefully in how things went around Sapphire Falls, and that he had to not act like the big-time, too-busy, head-in-his-story bestselling author that he was, and had to be tuned-in, polite and charming.

She was also paying for his room and all the coffee he could drink while in Sapphire Falls in exchange for his good behavior.

He frowned at her, then lifted his gaze to Derek. “I’m fine, thankyou.”

Derek nodded. “Okay then. Lastcall.”

Hannah glanced at the clock on the corner of her screen. It was ten to eleven. “You close at eleven?” she asked.

Kade was a night owl, typically writing from about ten p.m. until four or five in the morning. It allowed him to avoid, well, all other people. Even virtual ones. He got no phone calls, texts, or emails during that time. Exactly as he preferredit.

Hannah, on the other hand, was definitely not a night owl. She went to yoga at six every morning and was in her clinic by seven-thirty many mornings.

Kade had chosen the Come Again as his new office within five minutes of walking inside. The bar was the only place in town open past six p.m., it had tables and outlets and, unlike at the house where they were renting the only open room, it was socially acceptable to ignore the other people in the building.

“Yep,” Derek said simply about closingtime.

“I thought bars in Nebraska stayed open until one or two a.m.,” Kadesaid.

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