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  Edmund sniffed the air. “I stand corrected.”

  The bookstore was small and the rows were cramped. It was just like it should have been. Jada started to walk down one of the little aisles leisurely, and the floor creaked under her steps. Edmund followed, taking the time to look at the titles and authors. Finally, some common ground, she thought.

  “So, what’s your favorite genre? I won’t ask for a favorite book, because if you’re anything like me, it is way too hard to choose.” Jada pulled out an ancient sci-fi novel and started reading the back cover.

  “I like a little bit of everything. I don’t get much time to read, but when I do I love it. It’s an escape. I can go on adventures right from my home.”

  Jada set the book back and clapped Edmund on the shoulder. “Exactly!”

  The woman at the front desk looked over at her with a furrowed brow, and she smiled back.

  “This isn’t a library, lady, and there’s no one in here,” Jada whispered. Edmund sheepishly laughed in return.

  Jada walked to the back of the store and meandered around the shelves to the authors with last names at the end of the alphabet. For a second, Jada let her fingers drag across the different-sized books and enjoyed the feeling of her rippling fingers. Edmund followed but stopped near the back of the section.

  When she turned back, Jada saw him pull out a book from the center of the top shelf. She walked back over and peered at it. It was Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. She admired his choice.

  “Like it?” Jada looked up at him. They were standing dangerously close, all of a sudden.

  “Yes. I read it a long time ago and would like to reread it.” He was staring down at the pages intently.

  As he looked up from the book, he met her stare. Their faces were closer than they’d ever been before, and strangely, Jada felt flush with him so near to her. Stranger still, the blue of his eyes stood out even in the dim light inside the shop. It was like the light gravitated to them and hung around because it liked it there. Jada couldn’t blame the sunlight for waiting to be near Edmund’s baby blues.

  Edmund swallowed hard and then took a step back.

  It felt colder somehow, so Jada continued walking backward through the alphabet till she reached the letter M. She had known what she was going to show Edmund before she’d even entered the store. It was her book, the book she slept next to, the one she hastily grabbed whenever she was discussing it. It was the book that had changed her life at eleven years old.

  Jada searched the shelves with her eyes till they rested on the familiar title. She waited until she had Edmund’s attention and then pulled down the small novel. It wasn’t in the best condition; it had been thoroughly loved by its previous owner, and Jada cradled the pages gently.

  “Wow, that’s a bit worse for wear.” Edmund looked down at the paperback with a frown.

  “It was loved well in its previous life, and the owner probably only parted with it because they had to. No one would give away such a book lightly.”

  Jada didn’t mean to get preachy, but books were her thing, beaten only by painting. She loved them with a love reserved for things that could truly save the soul.

  “What is it?” Edmund asked.

  “This, Edmund Hays, is the book that changed my life.” Jada held up the cover to face him. “This is the Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley.”

  Edmund shook his head at her but took the novel gently from her hands. He was tender with the item and turned it over to read the description.

  “It’s so much more than they could put on the back, but that’s the basic storyline.”

  Edmund looked up at her. “Oh yeah?”

  “The story’s plot is all there, but a short synopsis can’t contain all the juicy goodness the text can. This book really showed me what it meant to be an adult, to do the right thing, not the easy thing. It taught me to be strong and jump head-first into the dragon’s lair, knowing full well that the odds are against me. I love it.”

  Jada had gone off on her typical rant, and she’d taken the book out of Edmund’s hands without realizing it.

  “Sorry. I tend to do that when I’m talking about this book.” She handed it back. “But anyway, I highly recommend it.”

  Edmund took the novel back.

  “Well, I guess I know what I’m getting.”

  “You don’t have to just because I like it.” Jada made an apologetic face. “I just got excited. Get something you actually want.”

  She reached to take the book back, but Edmund pulled it playfully away.

  “I am getting something I really want. Your recommendation was solid, and I would love to read the story. I can report back when I’m finished, but that might be in a year. I really do get busy.”

  Jada rolled her eyes and shrugged. She was happy he’d chosen it but really didn’t know if it was his type of book. I guess I’ll find out, she thought.

  They walked to the counter and Edmund set down the book with care. The woman who’d scowled at Jada sat with her mouth hanging open when she saw Edmund. Sometimes Jada forgot how handsome he was when they were just talking together. Like that, he seemed to be solely interested in her, and it made Jada feel a little, well, something she didn’t know how to say. Or maybe she did and just didn’t want to.

  “Will that be all, sir?” The woman’s voice was huskier than it should have been, and Jada had to fight back a laugh.

  Edmund wasn’t going to fall for that come-hither nonsense. She also felt a little territorial about him as the woman continued to gawk at him. Jesus, lady. Pull yourself together. I know he’s handsome, but come on. We’re in public.

  “Yes, thank you.” Edmund held out his credit card, which was black and ominous, and turned down the bag she offered. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine carrying it.”

  With his transaction complete, Edmund turned back to Jada and they walked out into the street. He was smiling like an idiot, and Jada was thoroughly confused.

  “What’s up with your face?” she teased.

  “I haven’t gone out and bought myself something in forever. I normally just have it sent to me. It was nice to actually buy the thing myself.”

  “Ah, the lifestyle of the rich and famous.”

  “I’m not famous.”

  “Tell that to Forbes.”

  They both laughed, and drunk on the fun of the day, Jada didn’t see the bike messenger zoom by.

  He struck her hard, and Edmund moved like lightning to catch her before she fell to the street. He broke her fall, but they both ended up on the sidewalk. Jada’s calf positively burned, like it was being eaten by hundreds of fire ants.

  “Are you all right? He didn’t even look or say anything! What a jerk!” Edmund was holding her arms, and she was sort of sitting in his lap.

  “I’m all right, and really, it’s my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  Jada tried to brush off her pants and felt the pain in her left calf increase when she patted it. With a grimace, she looked down at her leg. Her favorite pants had a brand-new rip, and there was blood all over her calf.

  “Oh shit.”

  Edmund looked down and gasped. “Your leg! We’ve got to get you cleaned up. Can you stand?”

  “Yeah, I can stand. Ouch! Okay, not liking the putting pressure on my leg. Ugh, this sucks.”

  She leaned on Edmund as he put her arm over his shoulder to take the weight. “Better?”

  “Yeah. Thanks. So, cab?”

  “Agreed”

  With Jada draped all over him, Edmund hailed a cab and gingerly helped her inside. When he was seated, Edmund gave the driver directions to the office, and Jada was in too much pain to complain. She wanted her couch now, but the office would have to do.

  Edmund used a handkerchief to stop the bleeding. Jada assumed the thing had cost more than her car and felt a bit bad for ruining the silk fabric.

  “Sorry about that.” She pointed to what was now definitely a rag. “Was it expensi
ve?”

  “Extremely.”

  Jada looked at him with wide eyes and an open mouth.

  “It’s fine. I have a zillion more. It’s just a handkerchief.” He smiled at her as he kept the pressure on her wound.

  The taxi pulled up to the back parking lot of the office building and let them out. They still had to walk over to the elevator and to his office.

  “Umm…” Jada barely managed to get herself out of the taxi and wasn’t sure she could make it to the office door in under an hour.

  Edmund looked over and saw Jada struggling to stand. Without a word, he scooped her up in his arms and started walking toward the door. Jada was shocked, but her attempts to tell him to put her down fell on deaf ears.

  “Save it. You’re not the speediest thing alive right now, and I’d rather just carry you. It’s easier, and besides, you weigh, like, nothing.”

  Jada didn’t know what to say. She was up in the air, pressed against the CEO’s chest, and he was carrying her to his private office. This didn’t feel very business-like. She didn’t argue, though.

  Edmund carried her to the elevator like it was no big deal and continued to hold her as they sped up to the top floor. Jada couldn’t tell if it was her heart beating so hard or if it was his.

  The elevator dinged, and Edmund walked to his office door, Jada still in his arms. He asked for her to open it, and she obliged. Still not having set her down, Edmund carried her to a part of his office she’d never seen before. There was apparently a bathroom hiding behind a portion of the wall, and it was all black and chrome and ridiculously manly.

  Edmund set her down on the toilet and said, “I’ll get my first aid kit. Do you think you can roll up your pant leg?”

  Jada scooted farther back onto the toilet and looked at her injured leg.

  “No. The end is tapered. Got any scissors?”

  Edmund returned to her side with the first aid kit. He looked down at her leg and lifted her heel to rest on his lap. Gripping the material firmly in both hands, he tore the rest of her pant leg open. The two halves of fabric hung around her knee.

  “Well, that works.” Jada was silently impressed by Edmund’s strength and determined that she really shouldn’t have been surprised considering how muscular his arms were.

  “This might sting a little.”

  Edmund cleaned off the wound as gently as he could, but the antiseptic burned like a mother, and Jada hissed in pain as it killed any germs present.

  With the gash cleaned off, it wasn’t nearly as serious looking. The biker had managed to give Jada what was essentially a tire rash, having rubbed off the top layers of her skin. It would heal up just fine, and she probably wouldn’t even scar, which she appreciated.

  Jada looked at the pile of discarded cleaning supplies in the trash and had to laugh.

  “Something funny?” Edmund, with gloved hands, rubbed a thin layer of antibiotic ointment onto the scrape.

  Jada grunted a little as the pressure from his fingers ran over the freshly torn skin.

  “Just that this is not what I had planned for today, and I’m guessing you feel the same.” Jada smiled down at her nurse.

  “Well, no. I was hoping dinner somewhere was going to be the end of the day. But I’m glad I was able to help.”

  Edmund unwrapped a long strip of gauze and began to layer it around her leg. Once the dressing was in place, he used white medical tape to fasten it.

  “When you get home, you should take this off and let it get some air.” Edmund finished up with her leg and snapped off the gloves, shooting them into the trash like a goof.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  They smiled at each other, and then the bathroom got really quiet.

  They stared at each other for a while. Jada’s heart hit the inside of her sternum with such force that she was sure it was trying to launch itself at Edmund. With all her might, Jada tried to focus on anything but the forearms resting near her leg, still propped up in Edmund’s lap. He’d rolled up his sleeves, exposing the tan flesh beneath, and that made Jada’s very stupid, primitive brain send worrying signals down south. There was just something about a guy rolling up his sleeves.

  “How’s it feeling?” Edmund’s voice shook Jada out of her thoughts.

  “Crappy, but better. Thank you. It was really nice of you.”

  “I wasn’t just going to drop you somewhere and make you deal with it alone.”

  Jada nodded her head; thinking was still proving difficult.

  “So, now that you’re patched up”—Edmund moved her foot to the ground—“how about some Chinese?”

  “That sounds amazing.”

  Twenty minutes later, the Chinese was delivered, and there was more food than the two of them could ever possibly eat.

  “You ordered too much.”

  “So? I’ll have leftovers.”

  Jada laughed and grabbed one of the crab dumplings out of the box. “Pass me my Kung Pao, would ya?”

  Edmund walked the dish over to Jada’s spot on the office couch. He’d sat down at his desk, giving the two of them plenty of room.

  “Here you go. Spicy fan, huh?” He gave her the box and walked back to his desk.

  “Yup. The hotter the better.”

  “Me too.”

  Jada gaped at him, a piece of shrimp held precariously in her chopsticks. As Edmund looked up from his garlic chicken, he stopped mid-bite and raised his eyebrows at her expression.

  “What?”

  “Good God, have we found something we have in common?”

  Edmund considered the comment for a moment and then let out a chuckle. When he’d swallowed his bite of food, he laughed again and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin.

  “I think we have.”

  Jada laughed and slapped her good leg. “So, Indian food?”

  “Yes, I like it, and?”

  “What number do you do?”

  The spicy meter on Indian food was often set to a number system, but each restaurant’s range could be different. There were some that went from one to five, while others went all the way up to 10. The important thing here was what number Mr. Thought-He-Liked-Spicy-Food chose.

  “Well, I still like to taste it, so I typically do an eight or nine, or a four if the scale goes to five.”

  Jada grinned. “I approve.”

  “Oh thank God.” Edmund exaggerated a sigh of relief and went right back to devouring his food.

  He could really put it away. The leftovers he’d spoken of would be few and far between. Edmund managed to eat all of his chicken, the rest of the crab rangoon, the container of egg drop soup, a bunch of rice with soy sauce, and of course his fortune cookie.

  Once he’d finished the cookie, Edmund said, “So my fortune reads, ‘When you work for the future, it carries you forward.’”

  “In bed.”

  Edmund looked up at her with the strangest look on his face, and Jada couldn’t help but laugh at him hysterically.

  “What?! Please, don’t tell me you’ve never done that before? You always add ‘in bed’ to the end of a fortune! You just do!”

  With that, Edmund began to laugh himself. “No! I’ve never heard of that before. What does yours say?”

  Jada cracked open the flaky cookie puzzle and pulled out the tiny piece of paper. In her best fortune voice, she read aloud, “When moving through life, always check the back door.”

  The both screamed out “in bed!” and burst into laughter that lasted a good two or three minutes. By the time they were slowing down, Jada could barely breathe.

  “Oh man, that was too good. I’ve never had one that good before.” Jada sounded exhausted and wiped tears from her face.

  “That was pretty amazing.”

  As the energy in the room settled down, they both seemed to realize how late it was getting. The time had flown by like the bike messenger.

  “Wow, it's late. I should probably be getting back home. After all, I have a Sunday filled with nothing to rest u
p for.” Jada smiled and slowly creaked her way off the sofa.

  “Are you going to be all right? I can escort you home, if you need me to.” Edmund stood up from his desk and came around to stand in front of her.

  “I’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt as badly anymore, and I really just think I need to sleep.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll have Jacques take you home.”

  Jada held her hands out to shake him off. “No, no. That’s not necessary. I’ll just grab a cab.”

  “I insist. I don’t want you getting attacked by another crazed biker on your way home.”

  He smiled and turned away to call for the driver on his phone.

  “Thank you. It’s not necessary, but thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  Edmund rode down with her to the limo, and between him and Jacques, Jada barely needed to do anything to get herself into the car.

  “I’ll see you Monday, then.” Edmund’s voice was low and quiet.

  “Yup. Back to ye olde mill.”

  He chuckled and closed the door for her. A pat on the roof told Jacques to take off, and Jada was home in no time.

  Her apartment seemed so small and empty for some reason, and changing with her leg was no easy feat. The destroyed pants were difficult to get off, but they eventually flung free from her, and she tossed them right in the garbage. The rest was much simpler, and when Jada had finally gotten comfortable with an old ratty T-shirt on, she settled down on her bed and grabbed the book that was lying there.

  “Hero” spoke to her soul, and her heart expanded as she reread the words she’d read so many time before.

  Putting the book to her chest, Jada imagined Edmund reading the same words at the same time.

  Chapter Eleven

  The night was heavy with dreams.

  It was so black, and so cold. Jada’s skin prickled against the freezing wind, and her hands shook. In the distance, she could see the outline of some large shape. She walked closer, her red heels clicking on the linoleum under her feet. Jada looked down and realized the floor looked like the floor of the office. Black and white tiles were neatly laid out like a checkerboard. The clicking sound rang in her ears and echoed in the overwhelming quiet around her. The shape slowly became clear. A house, small and white, poked out from the black. The dark gave way as she walked closer and closer to the building. This dream town was always so dark, especially on nights of the new moon.