All for You

by Christi Barth

  Casey stood and paced the small strip of stone. “I don’t care about the world. I care about myself. About Dawn. The Sunshine Seekers are gone, disbanded. What they did doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Of course it matters.” Arguing while still half-naked felt odd. He pulled his shirt over his head. Casey had it all wrong. “I’ll lay bare every inch of the cult. Explain how they lured in members, how they bilked them for their money. By exposing what they did, by informing people, I can help prevent it from happening to someone else.”

  “So this is all about saving people?”

  It’d be easy to take the high ground and lie. But he wouldn’t. Not to Casey. “Not entirely. I’m not going to turn my nose up at the personal satisfaction or the royalties. But knowledge, truth—it’s the light that banishes ignorance and fear and evil. That’s why I write the books that I do, why I teach.”

  “Fine. But this time, you could hurt people.” She stopped pacing and began to yank on her clothes with jerky motions. “Heck, you’ve already hurt people with your writing. Take that man who is suing you, for example.”

  “Diggle? I didn’t ruin his life. He’s blaming me because it’s easier than suing the press.” The defense—words supplied by his agent—flew automatically from his mouth. Although Zane no longer entirely believed them. It was why he’d agreed to meet with Diggle in a few days. Nobody else, including his lawyer, thought it a good idea. But Zane was sure once he explained, face-to-face, exactly what he’d just told Casey, that the man would realize the article was purely educational. That the honesty he so regretted sharing with Zane was helping people. The lawsuit would undoubtedly disappear after that.

  “Your article was the root of his problems, though. Should he be trying to get money out of you? Probably not. But the fact is that his unhappiness stems directly from your grand addiction to airing out the truth.” Casey wagged her finger at him as though trying to drive her point into his chest.

  That was a low blow. The fuse she’d lit finally ignited the powder keg of his anger. Zane slapped his flattened palm against the wall. It bounced off the back of the rocks and echoed hollowly. “Don’t. Don’t throw around the same accusation my ex-wife used to justify cheating on me. You being unhappy with my choices doesn’t turn them into an addiction. And for God’s sake, I won’t hurt you. How could you think that for a second? I’ll do everything possible to protect you and Dawn.”

  “The only way to completely protect us is for you to not write the book.”

  Everything became crystal clear. Why Casey hadn’t wanted him to write a letter of commendation for saving him that first night. Why she’d never had a serious boyfriend before. She’d never been willing to reveal her true self. “And you’ll spend the rest of your life hiding? Under a fake name? Always waiting for the other shoe to drop? That’s no way to live. Get it over with. Talk to the California authorities so you can move on. I’ll hook you up with my lawyer, if you want.”

  “No.”

  Frustration bubbled up in him. Zane stabbed his fingers through his hair. “Why the hell did you bother to tell me, then?”

  Her arms fell limply to her sides. “Because I want you to know who I really am. I didn’t want to hide from you any longer. I told you because I love you, and love is supposed to be worth risking everything.”

  Zane wanted to believe her. God, how he wanted to believe that was the only reason. Just gather her up in his arms, bury his face in that fall of silky hair, and revel in their love, ignoring everything else about the last half hour. But he’d stopped accepting things at face value a long time ago. “Or did you also tell me to shut down my publishing the book?”

  She took a short, sharp breath. “How can you... I’m not playing an angle.” A single tear glittered in the corner of each eye. “I could’ve let you keep running in circles. Watched you hit dead end after dead end and never said anything. The town wouldn’t give me up. You never would’ve been the wiser.”

  It was clear he’d hurt her with that accusation. But she’d hurt him, too. The plea to not write the book had come out before her declaration of love. Zane had no choice but to be skeptical. On top of that, now she was insulting his skill as a researcher. “You’re so sure about that?”

  “Enough to prove it had nothing to do with why I chose to tell you the truth. Do I want you to kill the book? Of course.” Her chin jerked up again. Casey crossed her arms. “But it would’ve fizzled to a stop in a few months anyway, once you failed to find the Lone Survivor.”

  Fat freaking chance. “I’ve cracked every single damn cult I’ve ever set my sights on, but this tiny town is special enough to hold me off?”

  “Seneca Lake is special. They took me in, protected me. I’d do anything for this town. I won’t let you bring the world’s media to their doorstep. I won’t have my friends badgered, or worse, judged.”

  She was all over the place. Throwing up reason after reason why he shouldn’t do his job. Not a single one of them held water, as far as Zane was concerned. They were just desperate attempts to let Casey stay turtled in her shell. She’d lived so many years in fear that she couldn’t shut it down. And didn’t trust him to help her to do so. That was a punch to his gut.

  “Look. I love you. I don’t want to hurt you more than you’ve already been hurt by this whole ordeal.”

  “Then drop it.” Rather than pleading, Casey dashed away the tears with the back of her hand and bit out an icy order. “Pretend you never read the journal.”

  “I won’t lie. I can’t believe you’d ask me to repudiate the beliefs I’ve spent my entire career championing.” Zane had to make her see reason. And the bigger picture. “Do you have any idea what it would do to my reputation to walk away from the biggest contract of my life? My publisher could tank the book coming out next month out of spite. It could affect my negotiations with whatever college I land at. This is about more than just your ingrained paranoia.”

  Something flew by overhead. Low. Owl, bat—Zane didn’t know. He was just proud of not flinching. Anger had a way of making a person stand their ground, no matter what. “We can’t have any sort of a relationship built on the foundation of a lie. I can’t be with someone who keeps their true self hidden. If you want that kind of life, then go marry Pierce.”

  “It would be easier than fighting with you,” she shot back.

  She really was a newbie at serious relationships. Zane barked out a humorless laugh. “Who told you this is supposed to be easy? Love amplifies everything because it matters more. The fights and the fun. But it all starts with trust and truth. Honesty. Respect. Right now, it sounds like you’re too caught up in your own head to see clearly the worth of what I do. It’s a basic lack of respect for who I am.”

  “You don’t respect me enough to bend on this one thing.”

  “You’re not asking me to bend. You’re telling me to roll over. I’m not your stepmother’s dog, obeying the every snap of your fingers.”

  “I risked everything to open up to you, and this is how you’re repaying me?” Casey dropped the blanket and started pulling on her clothes. “We’re done here. No, I take that back. We’re done. Period.”

  For fuck’s sake. How could he reason with her when she refused to listen? Their whole lives couldn’t be determined by this one fact. He wouldn’t share the lie with her. Talk about an unstable foundation for a relationship. “That’s your call. If you walk away, just remember it was your choice. That I stood here, trying to fight for you. Fighting to get you to not take the easy way out, but to dig deep and figure out what matters most to you.”

  “I know what matters, Zane.” She jammed her feet in her boots.

  “Happiness? Or preserving the almighty status quo?”

  “The status quo has worked just fine for me.”

  It made him so sad that she’d want to settle for that. “Don’t you
want to shoot for better than fine?”

  Her beautiful mouth twisted into a pained grimace. God, one that he’d put there. “I tried. And discovered that when you over-shoot, you fall flat on your face.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Zane’s deck shoes slid on the morning-damp grass on the path to the lakeside mailbox. It reminded him of the slickness of the stones last night as he’d blown out the candles and folded the blankets. By himself. Because Casey had stormed off. Without him. And without so much as a flashlight to hold back the thick, unmitigated darkness of the Gorge. Not that he worried. She could probably walk that trail blindfolded. If anything, she should’ve been worried about him making his way back to the parking lot.

  But Casey had made it crystal fucking clear last night that he wasn’t on the top rung of her priorities. He could’ve been attacked by God knows what nocturnal creature. She didn’t care. Could’ve slipped and plummeted head-first into the falls. Not her concern. Or at least, not as concerning as putting distance between the two of them.

  She could have all the distance she wanted. There was a difference between fighting for what mattered and banging your head against a brick wall. Zane’s head felt like he’d spent the whole night banging it. Unless that had something to do with the three scotches he’d pounded back in the hotel bar once he got back last night. As he rounded the bend, a ray of sunshine glinted—no, stabbed, was more like it—off the lake in a straight and painful line through his pupils to amplify the throbbing parts of his brain. Zane squinted behind his sunglasses. That didn’t work, so he threw up both hands to shade himself.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” asked Joel. He was on the wrought iron bench across from the mailbox, with a thick leather book spread open across his legs and a pen in hand. “Are you waving hello or waving me off?”

  Zane looked around the small clearing. He’d read a ton of the old journals stored on the second floor of Cosgrove General. But this was the first time he’d visited the actual mailbox on the lakeshore where the whole thing began. The well-worn grassy path from the street had been trampled flat, attesting that people made the pilgrimage out here on a constant basis. The curlicued black bench had an unobstructed view out over the water. Directly across the wide blue expanse were rows of bushy grapevines. Just beyond them he recognized the long white building with the glass-fronted tower that had to be Ward’s distillery.

  Sitting on the bench—and thereby facing the sun-dappled lake—was out of the question. So Zane leaned his back against a tree and slid to the ground. Wrapped his hands around the trunk above his head for a good stretch. “Neither. It’s a regrettably lame barrier between the sun and my hangover.”

  “You tied one on last night?”

  “Didn’t have anything better to do,” he said succinctly.

  Joel’s eyebrows shot up into thick arches. “The big plans fell through? After that kick-ass picnic I packed for you? I know the food didn’t screw things up. Casey loves my chicken tonnato.” Crossing his arms, which flashed the edge of a complex tattoo beneath his sleeve, Joel asked, “So what did you do wrong?”

  “Nothing.” What the hell? Casey was the prickly one. Casey was the one with the whole freaking secret life. Casey was the one rocking the casual love triangle. Why’d it have to automatically be his fault?

  Tongue between his lips, Joel made the sound of a game-show buzzer. “Not buying it. Do I have to go bribe the story out of Casey? ’Cause she’ll sing to me for the low, low price of a warm chocolate-peanut butter cookie.”

  That wasn’t a half-bad deal. As a fellow man, Joel would undoubtedly see his side of it. After what she’d put him through last night, Zane sure didn’t see why Casey deserved the cookie. “If I tell you, can I get a cookie?”

  “You do look pretty pathetic. Yeah, when I head back to the Manor I’ll whip up a batch.”

  Zane did want to tell someone the whole story. No, what he wanted was to tell lots of people, and have them all agree with him that she was being a stubborn brat. But the subject of their argument made that prospect unlikely. So he settled for saying, “We had a fight.”

  “You think that’s worth a cookie? Man, I figured that out from your hangover.”

  How could he explain without giving anything away? “Casey shared a secret with me. A big one. One that matters to me every damn bit as much as it matters to her. And then...it all fell to pieces.”

  “Ah.” Joel tucked the pen behind his ear. “Any chance this secret ties in to your new book deal?”

  He was going to write the book. Even if Zane changed her name, the citizens of Seneca Lake would definitely be aware of the truth. So it was pointless to tiptoe around. Wait. The double layer of meaning behind Joel’s words finally registered. Like a knee straight to the balls. “You know? About Casey’s past?”

  A pause, then an infinitesimal dip of his head. “Yeah.”

  Son of a bitch. Zane sat bolt upright. Scraped a long gash onto his forearm from the rough tree bark in the process. He was starting to wonder if everyone from the pimply kid who brought him room service to President Carrajo at Hobart knew all about Casey’s hush-hush cult ties.

  “She said she’d only told Ella, Piper and Ward. And I know you weren’t here seventeen years ago when a chunk of the town promised to keep their secret.”

  Joel extended a hand, palm out, in a gesture not unlike trying to coax a dog to sit. “Calm down. Casey didn’t tell me. Dawn did. Just a few months ago.”

  You didn’t keep something like that from a friend and then just turn on a dime and reveal it after all that time. There had to be more to the story. The more was always Zane’s favorite part. “Why’d she break her silence?”

  “It was right after all the town’s money disappeared. Police came. FBI. She got questioned for days. It didn’t take them long to decide Dawn had nothing to do with the theft. But they still grilled her to try and put together any clues as to where the idiots who did steal it all ran off to.”

  Now that Zane knew Dawn’s backstory, it added a whole other level to an ordeal that would be terrifying to a person who didn’t have anything to hide. “She must’ve been scared to death.”

  “Yeah. On top of a big dose of guilt about not noticing them acting squirrely in the days right before they left. With hindsight, she identified all sorts of weird behavior. It helped the cops. Didn’t help her sleep more than an hour at a stretch.”

  The motivation, or lack thereof, still stumped him. “So Dawn just decided to unburden herself on you? What—did you offer her a cookie, too?”

  “We’re tight. She’d be there the same for me if I hit the end of my rope.”

  That sort of a statement had thrilled Zane when he first got here. A close-knit community had appealed to him. It was an attractive contrast to the faceless and enormous metropolis from where he’d just finished interviewing. Zane thought it was exactly what he wanted for this reboot on his life and his career. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  In a big city, he could just go switch to one of a dozen other coffee shops within a ten-mile radius and escape the threat of running into an ex. Here, he’d be surrounded by daily reminders of Casey. Of the time they’d spent together.

  Everyone would know what split them up. Would the town turn against him for hurting her, even though he’d bent over backward trying not to? Would they close ranks on her behalf? Zane clenched his teeth. Would he be able to write the book here at all? Kiss the job at Hobart goodbye? He could devote the next semester solely to the book. Get his agent looking for another quirky college town where he could land in the spring. Would that prove to Casey how much he loved her—by clearing out and leaving her alone? Did that matter, if it didn’t get her back?

  He was making himself dizzy. And depressed. So Zane focused back on Joel’s story. Wondered how you went from chatting over morning coffee to suddenly a
dmitting to lying to a person for years. Hey, maybe you want to help me keep this illegal, life-changing secret? At least Casey had softened him up with the world’s greatest orgasm first. Dawn’s coffee was good, but it wasn’t that good.

  “I’ll bite. How’d that undoubtedly weird and awkward conversation start?”

  Joel took off his sunglasses and hooked them in the neck of his black polo. “I stopped by one night to fix a loose porch step she’d told me about. Didn’t call first. We both do the drop-by thing sometimes. Share a beer, share a couple of laughs.”

  Was he supposed to just ignore an opening as wide as an aqueduct? Fat chance. Zane shook off an errant ladybug that plopped onto him from the yellow wild rose touching his shoulder. “You mean you do stuff like a real couple who actually dates instead of writing anonymous love letters to each other. But without the perks of actually dating.”

  “Shut up,” Joel ordered mildly. “I found her curled up on a glider bawling her eyes out. Dawn couldn’t talk to Casey—didn’t want to scare her or make her feel bad. She’d been carrying the weight of it all by herself for so long. Something finally snapped that night.”

  “Good thing you were there to pick up the pieces.”

  “Well, she’s a strong woman. Would’ve been fine either way. I just helped smooth over the worst of it.”

  “Amazing you didn’t think to comfort her with hot monkey sex. That could’ve been your shot.”

  Joel bent almost in half to glare closely at Zane. His hands fisted around the edge of the bench. “Weren’t you listening when I said I wouldn’t push her? Ever? Especially not into anything she wasn’t ready for? Sex sure as hell tops that list.”

  Whoa. Joel’s voice had devolved into a near-growl there at the end. “I was just kidding,” said Zane in the least-aggressive tone he could muster.

  Joel scrubbed his hands over his face. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to take your head off. I’m...well, I’m...I guess I’m nervous.”