“Fluff?”

“A girl has to keep some secrets,” she said.

Xander glanced around the diner and then turned back to her. “Speaking of which...” he began, and Rose’s heart stuttered nervously in her chest. “I know we had a lot of other things to talk about the other night, but why didn’t you tell me about Billy?”

Rose gritted her teeth and turned her head to look out the window to the street. She couldn’t face him while she talked about this. It was embarrassing enough. “I thought I was throwing enough crap at you already. You asked me out to a nice dinner to reminisce about old times. I didn’t want to burden you with my sob story. On a good day, I can convince myself that my father was killed rescuing drowning orphans or something. Then he writes me a letter and I’m forced to realize he’s just a sleazy criminal.” Rose sighed. “So who told you?”

“Your brother said something that didn’t make sense, so I asked Ken about it.”

Stupid small towns. Nothing could happen without everyone knowing about it. Rose rested her elbow on the counter and cupped her chin in her palm. “No wonder you didn’t come rushing to see me again. Your illegitimate son’s grandfather is a felon serving fifteen to life for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and felony murder. There’s a headline you don’t want to see going into your campaign.”

“That’s not why I haven’t been to see you,” Xander said. “First, I didn’t want to come by so soon and draw attention to us. We agreed we weren’t going to tell anyone I was Joey’s father. Having me hanging around all the time will eventually give us away. I decided to focus on some different things instead to kill some time until I could come in. My book is coming out tomorrow, so I was doing a lot of phone interviews with radio stations and such. Now that all that’s done, I came straight over.”

“Really?” Rose asked with a coy smile. She knew she shouldn’t be pleased, but knowing he was just waiting to see her again gave her a little thrill.

Xander’s green-gold eyes focused on her with nothing but sincerity showing in them. “Really. I’d like to take you out again.”

“The diner is closed this weekend for the festival. Daisy’s owner usually pays for me to enter the bake-off because it’s good advertising for the restaurant if I do well. When I’m not doing that, I’ll have Joey with me. I promised him that we’d go to the fair and watch the parade. With his arm, I’m not sure he can ride anything, but I’ll load him up with funnel cake and cotton candy.”

“That sounds great. I’ve got to spend a couple hours Friday judging the bake-off, but do you mind if I join you at the fair? Maybe the parade, too, on Saturday?”

Rose sputtered for a moment, surprised that he was interested. It was one thing to take her to a clandestine dinner in another county. Going to the big town event together was another matter altogether. “Well, of course, I mean, yeah, if you want to. I guess I thought...”

“Thought what?”

“I thought that you might not want to be seen in public with Joey. Just in case someone noticed the resemblance.”

Rose could tell that Xander hadn’t thought of that. He got that distant look in his eye as he considered it.

“I think it will be okay,” he said. “I instantly recognized the younger version of myself in Joey but others, especially the people that didn’t know Heath and I as children, might not see it. Some folks might’ve forgotten that we even dated. They’d have no reason to think anything of it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I want to spend time with you and Joey. I don’t intend the process of getting to know my son to be a covert affair. Or spending time with you. There are some things that have to be kept secret for now, but that’s not one of them.”

Rose was stunned nearly speechless. He had taken the news of his parenthood well, but she’d been certain he would want to maintain his distance. It was her idea to keep the story quiet and she had been counting on it to hold her hormones in check. This was a complicated situation with an expiration date. The distance would help her keep that in perspective, since none of that mattered to her when he was close. Or touching her. But if he wanted to spend time with her and their son, she would be a fool to tell him no.

“Then you’re welcome to join us. I’m sure Joey will get a kick out of it. Maybe you can win him one of those stuffed animals. I’m no good at those midway games and with his arm, you’re our only hope.”

Xander smiled wide. “I’ve still got a pretty good pitching arm. I’ll see what I can do. Anyway, what I lack in skill, I can make up for in cash.”

* * *

Xander flipped off the television as he did each night after the news. Another day had gone by without the damning facial re-creation hitting the airwaves. He was beginning to think that maybe Brody was wrong. Brody could’ve gotten information about them planning to do one, but then they changed their minds or it got delayed. Xander didn’t want it to come out, but he was here to deal with the aftermath. This was his longest break of the year—his summer vacation of sorts.

When Congress went back into session, it would be solid work through to Christmas. If something hit then, there was very little he could do about it.

He decided to log into his computer and send Brody an email. Maybe he had an update on what was happening. He sat patiently as hundreds of emails loaded into his inbox. Xander had kept up on his phone, but he hadn’t been on his laptop in a couple of days.

He’d been spending time working on the farm with Ken. It had been years since he’d done that kind of thing. It felt good to get out there on the riding mower, trim and shape the trees, and check for any infestations. After spending a good part of the past eleven years at a desk studying or at a desk working, it was a welcome change. Pine trees weren’t nearly as frustrating as the bipartisan committees he worked on.

The last of his email was loading when an icon popped up on his screen with a video-chat invitation from his younger brother, Heath. Xander accepted and the window opened, connecting them and activating his webcam. At last his screen refreshed and the ever-unflattering image of his brother popped up. How people dated online with these things, he’d never know. Everyone looked ridiculous on a webcam.

“Evening, little brother,” Xander said.

“Hey,” Heath replied. He appeared to be using his laptop in bed. Xander could see the padded leather headboard behind him. “I’m glad I caught you online. I haven’t seen you active very often lately.”

“Well, you know how things are up here. Dad’s got me mowing the fields.”

Heath laughed. “And they wonder why we moved away and don’t visit often. Most kids outgrow chores, but not farm kids.”

“It’s just as well. Mom’s feeding me like I’m seventeen again. If I don’t do some manual labor, I’ll have to drop a couple grand to get my suits let out. So what’s going on?”

Heath’s face grew slightly more serious, which was not its normal state. His brother was the funny, easygoing one. He was always quick to make a joke in a tense moment, but there wasn’t much joking to be done when the topic of Tommy Wilder came up. “I was wondering if anything had come out about the sketch.”

His younger brother had the most to lose if the truth came out. It was justified, one hundred percent, but when it came down to it, Heath had killed Tommy. How a scrawny thirteen-year-old boy had gotten the best of a hulking nearly eighteen-year-old menace, Xander would never know. Heath was scrappy, but Tommy was a dangerous physical presence. Only Heath and Julianne had been witnesses to Tommy’s death and neither of them had ever wanted to talk about how it had happened. He didn’t blame them. Everything the other kids had done was to protect them both from what they’d had to face.