“Check this out!” Holly pulled up several articles about Jesse’s legal troubles. Gail had to admit the woman who made the charges was easy on the eyes. She looked elegant. She looked believable. But when Holly read aloud some of the ugly details, Gail felt nauseous.

The woman’s claims made Jesse sound like a monster. Granted, Gail had known him only for nine days, but never once had she seen any of the traits his accuser described. Gail had seen only generosity, tenderness and passion. Until last night, that is, when he dropped the “full disclosure” bomb on her.

“I don’t like spying on him like this,” Gail suddenly announced, rising from her seat near the computer. “I’ve seen enough to know that Jesse told me the truth about who he is and what happened with that woman. I don’t need to know anymore.”

“Ah, c’mon, Ms. Chapman!” Hannah said, smiling. “If you’re getting back into the dating scene, you’re definitely going to need to know how to do this!”

That sure buoyed her spirits. “I’ll be over by the window. Let me know if anything really bad comes up.”

Holly looked at her as if she was crazy. “This isn’t bad enough for you?”

Gail took a deep breath. How was she going to explain this to her daughter? She never wanted Holly to think it was all right for a man to deceive a woman, because it never was. That had been the central lesson in Gail’s catastrophic marriage to Curtis.

But Gail knew that the older a person got—and the more complicated their history became—the less black and white the world was. Jesse hadn’t told her the truth about his career. Fine. But if she’d been in his position, would she have done things any differently? Perhaps not. And he’d shared everything else with her, hadn’t he—his home, his city…his heart?

“Look,” she told the girls. “Jesse fell for that woman there on the computer. She trapped him, blackmailed him and tried her best to destroy his career.” Gail shrugged and turned toward the window table, speaking more to herself now than Holly and Hannah. “The whole thing made him wary. So when I showed up, he did what he had to do to protect himself. Unfortunately I got hurt in the process. But unlike the woman who set out to destroy him, Jesse didn’t hurt me intentionally. He just didn’t think of the consequences of his actions.”

“Thanks for that teachable moment, Mom,” Holly said.

Gail collapsed into a chair in the sunshine. She stared out the window of the café, remembering the talk she and Jesse had their first day together, when he’d arranged for their private luncheon. She’d asked him how he could afford his lifestyle, her worst fears being drug smuggling, embezzlement and the mafia. She’d never even thought to ask him about popular fiction.

She sat quietly, drinking her coffee, while Holly and Hannah continued their cyberinvestigation. When they believed they were sufficiently informed, Gail said she was going to take a walk to the bookstore. Curiosity had gotten the better of her. “Do you want to come with?”

“Sure,” Holly said, smiling. “Nestor and Luis are working today. We were going to stop in anyway.”

“MAY I HELP YOU?”

A short, round man with a friendly face wandered over to Gail as she perused the aisles. It seemed odd to her that the books were spaced so far apart on the shelves, as if the bookstore owner had depleted his inventory or was preparing to go out of business.

“Yes, hi,” Gail said. “I was looking for J. D. Batista’s novels, and I assumed that you’d carry them, since he’s a local author. Do you know if the other bookstore in town has them in stock?”

The man’s eyes bugged out, but he said nothing, which Gail found odder still. Just then, Luis and Nestor spotted the girls and strolled over, trying to look cool when they were clearly thrilled that they had visitors.

“Hey,” Hannah said, playfully grabbing at Nestor’s arm. “Why didn’t you guys tell us who Jesse was?”

Nestor shrugged. “Because Dad told us he’d kick our asses to Cuba if we—”

“That’s enough.” Obviously, the man was the boys’ father and Jesse’s friend. It was all starting to make sense to Gail.

“Get outta here. Take the day,” he said to his sons, and they were happy to oblige.

“Bye, Mom, we’ll check in later!” Holly said, heading for the front door of the bookstore. Suddenly, she stopped and turned. “You’ll be okay?”

“Absolutely,” Gail answered her.

Once the group had gone outside, the man sighed deeply and extended his hand to Gail. “My name is Santiago, but my friends call me Chago,” he said, smiling. He motioned for Gail to walk with him. “This is my store.”

“I’m Gail,” she said.

“Yep, I figured as much,” he said with a chuckle. “Jesse said you were beautiful, and he was right.”

She smiled tightly. “How sweet of him.”

“So, he finally told you everything, huh?”

Gail nodded. “What a dipshit,” she mumbled.

Chago laughed so hard she feared the few remaining books would come tumbling off the shelves. “Yeah, my friend wasn’t thinking straight, unfortunately. He was determined to wait a few days until he told you who he was.”

She nodded. “So it seems.”

He led her to the stockroom, warning her to stand back. The room was packed floor to ceiling with books. Chago cleared his throat before he spoke again. “If it helps at all, Jesse told me that you were really special, that he could see something happening with the two of you, something long-term.”

She nodded, acknowledging Chago’s loyalty to his friend. It was sweet. Then she looked around the stockroom and laughed out loud. “Let me see if I get the picture here,” she said. “Jesse actually told you to hide all his books? So I wouldn’t see them on display?”

Chago chuckled again then pointed behind Gail’s back. She turned to see a huge poster-sized version of his publicity photo propped against the wall.

“That ugly mug would’ve been pretty hard to miss,” Chago said with a shrug. “Be careful where you step, Miss Gail. Maybe you should tell me which book you want and I’ll get it for you. Probably safer that way.”

“I have no idea what I want,” Gail said, immediately aware of the appropriateness of that statement.

“Ever read any of his stuff before?” Chago asked.

“Nope.”

“You should probably give him a chance, you know,” Chago said.

“I’m here to buy his books, aren’t I?”

A frown marred Chago’s pleasant face as he looked up at Gail. “I meant him as a person, not his books. There are plenty of assholes out there who write good books. Trust me on that.”

Gail laughed.

“Jesse is a real decent guy, though,” he said. “He always has been. He has his eccentricities and all that, sure, and he locks himself away like a monk when he’s on deadline, which takes some getting used to, but he treats everyone in his life real good. If he doesn’t deserve another shot, I don’t know who does.”

Gail swallowed hard. Suddenly, it was all she could do not to cry. How could something so wonderful have gotten so messed up, so fast? “All right, then,” she said, trying to sound sprightly. “Which book do you recommend?”

Chago smiled. “Start with his first one so you can familiarize yourself with the characters.” He reached over and grabbed a hardcover book with a dramatic dust jacket, the image of a menacing storm bearing down on a small boat.

Gail held it in her hand then flipped it over, finding the same publicity photo. She couldn’t help but smile seeing his face. “How many books are there in the series?” she asked.

“Eight, and number nine is set for release later this summer. He’s writing number ten now.”

Chago nodded toward a dozen cartons stacked near the back fire exit. “I’m not allowed to put the new one out yet.”

“I’ll take all eight,” Gail said.

Chago’s eyes went big again. “You sure? You need some help getting them home?”

Gail shook her head, showing him her large straw bag. “Fill ’er up,” she said.

BY 4:00 P.M., HE’D LEFT six messages on her cell phone and sent flowers and chocolates to the house, but she wasn’t ready to talk to him. She wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed.

Would tomorrow be the end of something fun but foolish, or the start of something with potential?

Gail did what she always did in times of indecision. She called Kim and laid out the whole story for her, edited for modesty’s sake, of course.

“Holy shit,” Kim said after hearing everything that had happened in the last few days. “I love that guy’s books!”

Gail rolled her eyes.

“And you said you wouldn’t let anything happen to you down there,” Kim added. “Boy, were you wrong!”

She laughed softly. “Kind of looks that way.”

Kim had some logical advice, as always. She told Gail that giving Jesse an opportunity to redeem himself wasn’t a sign of her own weakness or gullibility. “The man made a bad call, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a Curtis Chapman clone,” Kim said. “He’s already apologized, right? He knows he screwed up. So whatever you do, don’t get on that plane without talking to him. Hear him out.”

“All right,” Gail said.

“What kind of chocolates? What kind of flowers? You didn’t say.”

Gail laughed at her friend again. “Three dozen yellow tulips and a dozen truffles from a local chocolatier.”

Kim didn’t say anything. Gail couldn’t even hear her breathe. For a moment, she thought she’d lost cell phone reception. “Kim?” she asked. “Are you there?”

“Not Curtis Chapman, not Curtis Chapman…” Kim said in monotone. “Just keep repeating that phrase over and over to yourself.”