Chapter 5 #2
"Oh, he looked." She pulled out of the parking space with enough speed to press me back into the leather seat. "He noticed everything about you in the first ten seconds, then spent the rest of the meeting pretending he hadn't."
"That's ridiculous."
"That's military training. Assess, catalog, compartmentalize." She took a corner too fast, tires squealing slightly. "Plus, did you see how he shut down Jase? Our Code doesn't like people knowing his business."
"You don't even know him that well, do you?"
"I know enough." She glanced at me sideways. "The Drakos men are all cut from the same cloth. Protective, loyal, and absolutely terrible at expressing emotions until the right woman comes along."
"I'm not looking for a man. I'm looking for someone to save my career."
"Por que n?o os dois?" She waggled her eyebrows.
“What the hell does that even mean?”
“Why not both?” Her laugh sounded like sunshine.
The salon stood a block off the town square, a neat brick building with Trinity painted in gold script across the window. Through the glass, I could see styling chairs and women laughing.
"Angelica!" A blonde woman appeared in the doorway as we parked. "Perfect timing. I have forty minutes before my next client."
This had to be Bonnie. She looked exactly like I pictured Jase's wife would look—put together but approachable, wearing designer jeans that she probably bought on sale and a silk blouse that managed to look both professional and comfortable.
"Bonnie, this is Kit." Angelica made the introduction. "Kit, Bonnie. She keeps half the women in Jasper Creek looking fabulous."
"Nice to meet you." Bonnie's handshake was firm, her smile genuine. "Jase mentioned you were in town. I'm sorry about what you're dealing with."
"Thanks."
"Coffee?" She grabbed her purse. "Java Jolt is just around the corner, and I need caffeine if I'm going to handle Mrs. Forrest's color this afternoon. That woman changes her mind about what she wants every five minutes."
We walked around the corner to Java Jolt. The coffee shop buzzed with the lunch crowd grabbing pastries and iced drinks. But nobody stared. A few people nodded at Bonnie and Angelica, smiled politely at me, then went back to their conversations.
"See?" Bonnie led us to a corner table that had just opened up. "The beauty of small towns. Everyone knows who you are, but they're too polite to bother you."
"It's weird." I sat facing the room, old habit from years of avoiding paparazzi. "In LA, I'd have three phones in my face already."
"Oh, they're curious." Bonnie waved at the girl behind the counter. "Is Ruby working today?” she asked the girl.
“She’s on break. She’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Bonnie turned to us and said that anything we ordered would be excellent.
Angelica and I both ordered the special with cranberries.
Bonnie got an iced vanilla latte with an extra shot in hers.
She turned back to us. "But here in Jasper Creek, celebrity watching isn't a sport.
It's more like bird watching. You observe from a respectful distance. "
"Unless you're a local, and you’re in the middle of a romance," Angelica said as she grabbed her drink. "Then all bets are off."
I picked up my drink and took a sip. It was heaven in a cup. “I’m coming here every single day,” I sighed.
“Good choice.” Bonnie grinned as we followed her to an empty table.
"How are the twins handling having Uncle Code around?" Angelica asked Bonnie
"They’ve adopted him completely." Bonnie smiled. "Amber made him help with their science fair project. He didn’t do the work, he taught them. He was really impressive."
"He's good with them?" I tried to sound casual.
Bonnie and Angelica exchanged looks.
"He's patient." Bonnie chose her words carefully. "Not really a kid person, but he treats them like small adults. Amber respects that."
"And Lachlan?" Angelica asked.
"Thinks Uncle Code is the coolest person ever because he helped them win third place at the science fair."
A beautiful redhead appeared with a plate of what looked like homemade cookies. "On the house. Pattie from the diner sent these over. She's trying a new recipe."
We each took one. Lemon with lavender, delicate and perfect. Nothing like the protein bars that passed for treats in LA.
“Ruby, do you know Jase’s sister Angelica?” Bonnie asked.
Ruby shook her head and held out her hand. “I’m Ruby Miller,” she smiled. “I manage this place.”
“I’m going to come here every day,” I said.
Ruby’s smile got wider. “Another convert. I love it.”
I held out my hand. “I’m Kit. Angelica drug me along on her road trip.”
“Glad to have you here.”
“Can you sit down for a minute?” Bonnie asked.
Ruby looked over her shoulder at the line at the counter. “Not right now. I’ll take a raincheck. It was nice meeting you both.”
“Goody. She left the cookies,” Angelica clapped her hands.
Bonnie took another bite of cookie, then she turned to me. "So, are we talking about the thing or not talking about the thing?"
"The thing?" I asked.
"The reason you're here. The video." She kept her voice low. "Jase mentioned it, just the basics. I'm sorry you're dealing with this."
"It's..." I stopped. What was it? Terrifying? Humiliating? Career-ending? "It's a nightmare."
"But Code's on it now." Bonnie reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "If anyone can solve this, it's him. The man speaks computer like it's his native language."
"When he speaks at all." Angelica grinned. "Did you see how he shut down Jase? 'That's enough background.' I thought Jase was going to swallow his tongue."
"Code doesn't like attention." Bonnie glanced at her phone. "Speaking of attention, I should head back. Mrs. Forrest gets cranky if I'm late for her color."
We walked back to the salon together. Bonnie hugged us both before disappearing inside. Through the window, I could see her greeting an elderly woman with blue-tinted hair.
"Fair warning." Angelica unlocked the Corvette. "By tonight, everyone will know Kit Lord is in town and spent the morning at Onyx Security."
"I thought you said people here respect privacy?"
"They do." She started the engine. "But Florence Horton was having her roots done while we were at Java Jolt. She's the town's unofficial information network."
"Great."
"Don't worry. The gossip stays local. Florence might tell everyone you're here, but she'd die before she'd tell an outsider. It's like Vegas, but with more casseroles and less neon."
"What happens in Jasper Creek stays in Jasper Creek?"
"Unless you're caught flirting with someone at the Harvest Festival. Then it becomes town legend." She pulled into traffic. "Ask me how I know."
"Who were you flirting with?"
"The high school principal. Very married high school principal." She groaned. "I didn't know! He wasn't wearing a ring!"
"Angelica!"
"Florence made sure everyone knew exactly how that conversation ended. With his wife showing up and me hiding in the corn maze for an hour."
Despite everything, I laughed. Real laughter, not the polite society version I'd perfected for talk shows.
"See?" Angelica reached over, bumped my shoulder with hers. "This place is already working its magic. And who knows? Maybe Code will work some magic of his own."
"On the video investigation."
"Sure." Her grin turned wicked. "We'll call it that."
As we drove back toward Whispering Pines Inn, I thought about Code's hands on the keyboard, the absolute certainty in his voice when he said he knew it wasn’t me in that video. The way he'd looked at me, really looked, like he could see past every carefully constructed Hollywood facade.
Angelica started humming off-key to whatever was playing on the radio. But I barely heard her. My mind was back in that conference room, watching a man who barely spoke but somehow made me feel safer than I'd felt in weeks.
Maybe Angelica was right. Maybe Jasper Creek was already working its magic.
Or maybe I was just desperately looking for a hero in a situation that might not have one.
Either way, in an hour I'd hand over my digital life to a stranger with tired eyes and steady hands, trusting him with secrets that could destroy me if he chose to look close enough.
Angelica bumped my shoulder again. "Stop overthinking. Code's one of the good guys."
I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe someone could fix this mess. But in my experience, nobody was coming to save you. You saved yourself or you drowned.
Still, as we pulled into the inn's parking lot, I found myself wondering what Code was doing right now. If he was setting up his workspace, drinking his coffee, those careful fingers already diving into the digital web someone had woven to trap me.
"Earth to Kit." Angelica waved a hand in front of my face. "We're here."
"Sorry. Just thinking."
"About shoulders?"
"About the investigation."
"Right." She killed the engine. "The investigation. With the very attractive investigator and his very impressive shoulders."
"You're impossible."
"I'm right."
Maybe she was. But that was a problem for Future Kit. Present Kit had to hand over her phone, her laptop, her tablet, every device that held pieces of her life, to a man she'd known for exactly forty-three minutes.
A man whose eyes seemed to see too much and whose presence made me simultaneously want to run away and step closer.
This was going to be complicated.