I take another drink of coffee to try to ease my coughing and press the back of my hand to my mouth. After my life has stopped flashing before my eyes, I look at Noah. “How else am I supposed to take that question?”
He doesn’t say anything, just smirks into his coffee. Not a threat, my ass. He knew what he was doing when he said it, and I won’t dare lie to him or try to convince him I didn’t spend the night with Annie. But I at least can be honestly innocent in front of him. A first for me.
“I didn’t sleep with her, just so you know.” I pause. “Well…we did fall asleep together, but I didn’t—”
Noah holds up his hand, cutting me off. “I don’t need to know details. It’s none of my business.”
I eye him skeptically. “It isn’t?”
From what I’ve seen, it seems like everything in this town is everyone’s business.
Noah smiles from under his beard—and I would damn well trade all of my tattoos for the ability to grow a beard like that man’s. It isn’t fair. I’m the former military man turned bodyguard—I should have the manly beard. The only facial hair I can grow excellently are eyelashes. They’re long and thick, and women always note them. A damn shame. Note my muscles, note my square jaw, note my ass for goodness’ sake—but please, for the love of God, do not comment on the length and volume of my lashes.
“Annie is a grown woman. I don’t need to keep tabs on her or monitor who she does or doesn’t date.” Noah turns his casual gaze to me and tips a shoulder. He takes a drink of his coffee, and then sets the mug down and stares into it. I’ve seen him and Amelia together and it’s hard not to root for them. To be wildly jealous of them. They’re good for each other.
Would I be good for Annie?
Instinctively, I know she would be good for me. But I worry that I would drag her down. I wouldn’t know how to communicate well, or I’d feel an itch to leave when things got tough—because I’m self-aware enough to know that I avoid all confrontation and discomfort like they’re diseases. It’s why I haven’t called my brother back. It’s why I haven’t been home to visit either of my parents in years. It’s why I chose a career that allows me to be a happy-go-lucky nomad, where I can float from woman to woman and place to place, and never get attached enough to have to deal with real life.
Jeanine glides through the swinging kitchen door and sets my eggs in front of me with a smile and a wink. Only after she crosses the diner to take another table’s order do I ask Noah, “How did you know? That I spent the night with Annie, I mean.”
“Saw your truck.”
“You live on the opposite side of town.”
“Didn’t say I saw your truck.” He looks at me and grins—reminding me that this town’s meddling goes deeper than I can even imagine. “James saw it on his way out for deliveries this morning. Considering the gossip around the town that y’all have started dating and then seeing your truck down the road from my sisters’ house…it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.”
I’m not sure whether this is good or bad. Annie confirmed she’s a virgin last night—and I’m not sure how many other people in her life know that or if it even matters to her at the end of the day. But I’m not the kind of guy you hear has been sleeping in a woman’s room and assume nothing happened. Then again, she did want to change her reputation around this town.
“Do you think James told anyone else?”
Noah stifles a laugh and gives me a face that says, you poor dipshit. “Don’t let the farmer look fool you. James is every bit the gossip that Mabel is.” He pauses and tips his head sideways and then back like he’s remembering something. “Plus there’s the fact that Tony—our sheriff—saw you climbing out of Annie’s bedroom window this morning.”
“Shit.”
“Yep.”
Speaking of James, a minute later he walks into the diner, whistling. James has the most open smile I’ve ever seen on anyone. There’s no ulterior motive to it—it’s like he’s just genuinely happy all the time. Strange.
“Morning, Jeanine!” he calls from the door. I notice he’s carrying a clipboard in his hand, but he goes to the far end of the bar and drops it off by the register before coming to take the stool next to Noah. He slaps Noah on the back. “Good morning, sunshine. Dream about me last night?”
“Uh-huh,” Noah says and then takes another sip of his coffee. “Dreamed I ran you over with my truck.”
“Well, this is a treat, James,” says Jeanine, coming over to take his order. “I never see you here in the mornings.”
“I had some business in town to tend to.”
Noah looks at him with a frown. “What business? You don’t deliver to my shop until tomorrow.”
“You’ll see,” he says with an unnerving grin. Maybe I’m thinking too much about it, but paired with the town’s unnaturally quiet disposition this morning, I feel a prickle of unease. “I’ll take the morning sampler, Jeanine, thank you.” James leans around Noah to look at me. “You two been having a stimulating conversation?”
“If you count Noah subtly threatening me, then, yeah, it’s been great.”
James laughs. Noah shakes his head, gazes forward. “It wasn’t a threat.”
“I bet it was,” says James. “If it was concerning Annie and your slumber party last night, it absolutely was a threat. And just wait until the sisters get wind of it.”
“Nothing happened!” I say, suddenly feeling like I need a lawyer present.
“Quit shaking.” Noah tips his mug up high, gulping down the last bit of coffee and then turning toward me on his stool. “I like you, Will. I always have. I know I’m supposed to be the protective older brother who warns the guy with the reputation to stay the hell away from his baby sister, but that’s just not how I work. I swear I’m not trying to threaten you—because like James said, my sisters will do that just fine without my interference. But more than that, I trust my sisters to know what they need better than I do. And the fact is, whatever is going on with you and Annie, I support it.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” Noah stands and faces me. “To be honest, I’m more worried about you than about Annie.”
“Why’s that?” I say, even though I agree wholeheartedly with him.
“Because I can guarantee you’ve never met anyone like her,” Noah says ominously and then turns to leave, pauses, and then goes to the side of the bar to look at whatever James dropped off. I hear his grunt of a laugh before he flashes me a look, shakes his head, and leaves without exchanging any other words.
“For what it’s worth,” James says around a bite of eggs, “I do plan on threatening you.” He aims his smile at me, and suddenly it doesn’t look quite so sunny anymore. It has the same glint a sword has. “Hurt her, and I’ll kill you and bury your body as fertilizer for my plants.”
I nod once, slowly. “Noted.”
I toss a ten-dollar bill onto the counter and finally go over to see what’s on that clipboard. I curse under my breath. “Did you make this?”
He laughs, not even looking at me as he continues to dig into his eggs. “Nope. That would be Harriet’s doing.”
“When did they all have time to do this?”
“About thirty minutes ago at their impromptu town business owners’ meeting. There’s one in each establishment.”
“Of course there is.” And this would explain why it was a ghost town out there today. They had all gathered to make a petition to keep me and Annie apart. Across the top in bold letters it reads:
We, the town’s people, demand that Annie Walker and Will Griffin hereby forfeit their new relationship on the grounds of Annie Walker being a sweet darling and Will Griffin being…not a sweet darling.
Below that, there’s a pretty nice little slander campaign that lists all the reasons I’m not to be trusted (see the grainy copy and pasted BuzzFeed article) followed by all of Annie’s superlatives. I’m impressed that she led the children’s literacy fundraising campaign at the library. But not surprised. And getting Harriet’s market to switch from plastic to bring-your-own reusable bags is cool too. At the bottom there’s a plug for Davie’s Print Shop.
Nice.