“First off, she hired me. And second, even if I was stupid enough to do something like that, don’t you think I would have targeted the jewelry store owner or a banker?”

“Addie’s better looking than any of them.”

Jack unzipped his coat and threw it angrily on a chair. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Addie kissed me.”

“She . . . she did?”

“Is it so hard to believe?”

The old man stood up, a smile playing over his face as he started back toward his bedroom. “Actually,” he mused, “it is.”

Jordan strolled through the doors of the Carroll County Superior Court, his eyes falling into the familiar routine of scanning rooms to see which ones were involved in hearings and skimming over the sorry souls awaiting their fifteen minutes of testimonial fame. He felt naked in his Oxford cloth shirt and pullover sweater-he who used to wear Armani to try cases.

It was not that he’d ever planned on leaving the law permanently; he had just wanted to get away from it for a little while, and Salem Falls was as good a place as any to lose oneself. He had the money to rest on his laurels for a year or two, after those last few cases he’d tried down near Bainbridge, which had been particularly enervating. Each direct examination and cross-examination grew harder and harder to force from his throat, until Jordan realized that his job had become a noose, notching tighter with each client he defended.

Maybe it hadn’t been his job, though. Maybe it had been his relationship with his private investigator.

If anyone had told Jordan ten years ago that he’d want to get married again, he would have chuckled. If anyone had told him that the woman he chose would turn him down, he’d have laughed himself into a hernia. Yet that was exactly what Selena had done. Turned out her best investigative work had targeted Jordan himself-revealing human weaknesses he would rather never have learned.

He made his way to Bernie Davidson’s office. The clerk of the court was always a useful person to know. He was responsible for scheduling cases, and access to that came in handy when you really wanted to take a trip to Bermuda in March. But more than that, he had the ear of every district judge, which meant that things could get done much more quickly than through the normal channels-a motion slipped right into a judge’s hands, an emergency bail hearing stuffed into a jammed calendar. Jordan knocked once, then let himself inside, grinning widely when Bernie nearly fell out of his chair.

“Holy Christ-if it isn’t the ghost of Jordan McAfee!”

Jordan shook the other man’s hand. “How you doing, Bernie?”

“Better than you,” he said, taking in Jordan’s worn clothes and ragged haircut. “I heard a rumor you moved to Hawaii.”

Jordan slipped into a chair across from Bernie’s desk. “How come those are the ones that are never true?”

“Where are you living now?”

“Salem Falls.”

“Quiet there, huh?”

He shrugged. “Guess that’s what I was looking for.”

Bernie was too sharp to miss the hollowness of Jordan’s voice. “And now?”

Jordan concentrated on scraping a piece of lint off his sweater. After a moment, he lifted his head. “Now?” he said. “I think I’m starting to crave a little bit of noise.”

Addie stuck her head in through the back door of the kitchen. “Hey, Jack, can you give me a hand?”

He looked up through a haze of steam from the open dishwasher door. “Sure.”

It was cold outside, and the mud sucked at the soles of his sneakers. Addie disappeared behind a high fence that enclosed the garbage bins. “I’m having a little trouble with the latch,” she said. Once Jack had followed her inside to check the mechanism, she snaked her arms around him. “Hi,” she said into the weave of his shirt.

He smiled. “Hi.”

“How are you?”

“Great. You?”

Addie smiled wider. “Greater.”

“Well, see you,” Jack teased, grinning as Addie hung onto him for all she was worth. Bubbles rose inside him, the carbonation of happiness. When was the last time someone had so badly wanted him to stay put? “Is there really a problem with the latch?”

“Absolutely,” Addie confessed. “I’m unhinged.”

She kissed him, then, pulling his arms around her waist to hold her. They were wrapped tight as a monkey’s paw, secluded from public view by the walls of the fence. The stench of refuse rose around them like a dank jungle, but all Jack could smell was the vanilla that seemed to come from the curve of Addie’s neck. He closed his eyes and thought if he could hold onto one moment for the next fifty years, this might be it.

Addie burrowed closer, and the movement set her off balance. They went tumbling backward, knocking over a row of metal garbage cans. The racket scattered the few birds who were whispering like old gossips about the two of them. They swooped over Jack and Addie, picking at spilled chicken bones and vegetable peels curled into tiny tornadoes, cawing disapproval.

Jack took the brunt of the fall. “This gives a whole new meaning to the term trashy romance.”

Addie was laughing, but at his words, she stopped. “Is that what this is?” she asked, a child standing in the presence of a rainbow and afraid to blink even once, for fear that it might be gone when she opened her eyes. “Are you my romance?”

Before Jack could answer, the door to the fence-unlatched-burst open, and he found himself staring into the single black eye of a revolver.

“Jesus, Wes, put that thing away!” Addie pushed herself off Jack and got to her feet, dusting off her uniform.

“I was walking by for a cup of coffee, and I heard the bins fall. I figured it might be a robber.”

“A robber? In the trash bins? Honestly, Wes. This is Salem Falls, not the set of Law and Order.”

Wes scowled, annoyed because Addie didn’t appreciate his daring rescue attempt. “You sure you’re all right?”

“Nothing deodorant soap won’t cure. I knocked over the trash can, that’s all. Last time I checked, that wasn’t even a misdemeanor.”

But Wes wasn’t listening. He was staring at Jack, who’d been pulled upright by Addie and was still grasping her hand. Neither one seemed inclined to let go, and even more strange, neither one seemed to realize they were holding onto each other.

“Oh,” Wes said, his voice very soft. “It’s like that.”

“He works in a diner,” Whitney said, drawing on her straw until it made a slurping noise. “What would your father think if he knew you were hot for a guy nearly his own age who washes glasses for a living?”

Gillian drew a fat J in the grease on her plate. “Money isn’t everything, Whit.”

“Easy to say when you’ve got it.”

Gilly did not hear her. She scowled, wondering why Addie had been the only employee to come into the restaurant part of the diner. If she didn’t even see Jack, her spell would never work. Gillian lifted her elbow and deliberately knocked over a milkshake. “We need some napkins over here!”

Addie sighed at the mess but hurried over with a packet of napkins and a Wet-Wipe. “Let me get someone to mop the floor.”

Jack came out then, all six-foot-two inches of him. When he bent to swab beneath the table, Gilly saw the crooked part in his golden hair, a spot she had a sudden, urgent desire to kiss. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can clean it up.”

“It’s my job.”

“Well, at least let me help.” Gilly reached for the napkins and this time knocked over Meg’s Coke. Jack jumped backward, the crotch of his pants soaked.

“Oh my gosh.” Gilly pressed the wad of napkins high against Jack’s thigh, until he stiffly removed her hand.

“I’ve got it,” he said, and left for the men’s room.

The minute he was gone, the girls began to whisper: “Jesus, Gilly, did you have to give him a hand job right in the middle of the diner?”

“You knocked my drink over on purpose . . . You’d better pay for a new one!”