Page 80 of The Banned Books Club

She frowned. “Don’t you?”

Gia wished Margot would call again. She wanted to warn her sister that the school had alerted Sheldon to the fact that the boys weren’t in class and that his parents were now involved and had probably notified him about what the neighbor had said. But she didn’t hear from Margot that evening. It was nearly eleven before she gave up pacing and monitoring her phone, just in case, and went to the pool.

It was cold outside, but she was too agitated to sleep and preoccupied with checking Cormac’s house, as she’d been doing for hours, to see if he might be at his window, possibly looking for her.

Was he even around?

She’d seen a light on at his place earlier, but it’d been dark for the past couple of hours. He was probably asleep. She didn’t know his schedule, but she guessed he’d had to work today and would most likely have to work tomorrow.

She sat on the chaise and called Eric to check on their business.

“How’s it going out there?” he asked after reassuring her that all was well.

Did she tell him her sister had run away with her nephews? That her gun-loving braggart of a brother-in-law would probably be showing up on her parents’ doorstep mad as hell in the next day or two? Or that she’d gone to bed with the son of the man who’d caused so much trauma in her life seventeen years ago? Those things were certainly noteworthy. She’d had no idea that coming back to face what her mother was going through would mean getting embroiled in so many other complicated situations.

Still, she was glad she’d come home. She understood now that Margot had been hanging on by a very thin thread and her parents had desperately needed her. But she had a funny feeling that what was happening here would affect the rest of her life, which certainly wasn’t something she’d anticipated when she caught her flight out of Idaho.

Actually, she’d realized she’d lose her mother, which would affect her life. But what was happening here went beyond that. It was changing a lot of her relationships—with her sister, her friends, even Cormac. They were no longer enemies. That dramatic of a change, along with everything else, made her uneasy.

She’d finally felt settled and at peace in her life, which was why she decided to keep everything that was happening in Wakefield to herself. These were her problems, not Eric’s. He had enough to deal with running the business so she could take care of her mom.

“Everything’s...great,” she said but shook her head as she stared up at the stars.

They talked about Ingrid losing another tooth and Coty screwing up as the Tooth Fairy and forgetting to put money under her pillow. They’d had to fake their daughter out by acting as though she hadn’t searched hard enough, at which point they’d planted a twenty—guilt money—while helping her look.

Gia laughed in all the right places, said all the right things and acted as if all was well. But after she hung up, the fact that she missed the simplicity of her life in Coeur d’Alene didn’t stop her from looking at Cormac’s house, wishing she could at least talk to him. That didn’t entirely make sense since she’d just counted him as a complication she didn’t need, but she couldn’t help feeling a jolt of excitement when she saw movement at his bedroom window.

Seconds later, her phone pinged with a text.

You look lonely.

She smiled at his message.

I am lonely.

Regardless of anything else, that much was true. She’d been lonely for years, and yet, despite all the men she’d dated, no one had been able to fill that void.

I can fix that.

Knowing he was there looking out at her, she glanced up at his window.

I think you might be part of the problem, she wrote but added a smiley emoji to take the harshness from that statement.

Me? I’m harmless.

It’s late. Why aren’t you asleep?

Honest answer? I can’t quit thinking about you.

Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, you’d probably be smart to keep your distance. I have a lot of crazy things going on in my life right now. I’m like...radioactive. LOL

What if that doesn’t scare me?

Falling into Cormac’s arms sounded far more appealing than it should have, so appealing she found herself writing,I admire a risk-taker. Front or back door?

He directed her to the back door, where he met her and pressed her up against the wall to kiss her as soon as she came in.

The feeling that swept through Gia in that moment was charged with excitement. She liked Cormac—his manner, his voice, his smile, the way he touched her—more than anyone she’d ever been with.

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