had actually connected with that tree.
Aiden and his two older brothers, along with their adoptive mom, Sunni Mason, ran Castle Falls Outfitters a few miles outside town. When Aiden wasn’t testing the canoes the family built and sold, he hired out his services as an instructor and guide. From what Maddie heard, the man spent more time on the river than he did on land.
And it showed.
He was healthy and outgoing and strong...and, to be honest, more than a little intimidating to a girl who would have happily laid claim to even one of those three things.
Aiden reached up to bat at a swatch of black hair that had slipped over his eye, and Maddie heard an audible thunk when the cast connected with his forehead. For some reason that small but sweetly vulnerable gesture, coupled with Aiden’s quiet huff of frustration, made Maddie forget her own insecurities.
She straightened the collar of her black-and-white houndstooth dress and stepped out from behind the bookcase.
“Good morning.”
Aiden pivoted toward her, and the tip of his crutch caught the edge of the rug that divided the aisle from the children’s area. Maddie had never regarded it as a potential hazard until Aiden began to teeter. He tried to steady himself, and Maddie automatically reached out to do the same.
The muscles in Aiden’s biceps, sculpted from hours spent paddling canoes and doing other outdoorsy things, contracted beneath her fingertips.
Suddenly, he didn’t look so vulnerable anymore. He didn’t look like the Aiden whom Maddie saw at New Life Fellowship on Sunday mornings, either. The one with the mischievous blue eyes and a smile that charmed every female between the ages of one and one hundred as he sauntered into the sanctuary.
Maybe because he wasn’t smiling at all.
Maddie let go.
“Can I help you find something?” She tried not to stare at the jagged red scratches that fanned out from the gauze bandage over Aiden’s left eye like cracks on a windowpane.
“No. I’m...waiting for someone.”
Well, that explained a lot. His presence, for starters. In the five years since Maddie had taken Mrs. Whitman’s place as head librarian, she couldn’t remember Aiden ever once setting foot through the door of the library.
“The chairs by the window are pretty comfortable.” Maddie pointed to the reading nook in the corner. “And it happens to be prime real estate because it’s located right next to the coffeepot.”
Maddie had purposely set up the area to resemble a living room. Leather chairs with wide arms and generous laps circled the glass-topped coffee table. An oak buffet that had once belonged to Maddie’s maternal grandmother had been converted into a beverage station, the drawers containing everything from packages of tea to colorful, hand-stamped bookmarks.
All the regular patrons gravitated there, and the tourists who popped in during the summer months seemed impressed that a small-town library offered a quiet retreat as well as a wide variety of books.
Aiden didn’t look impressed.
“Do you work here...?” He stopped, clearly struggling, and his brows dipped together in a frown.
For a moment, Maddie wondered if Aiden had suffered a mild concussion in addition to the bruises and broken bones. And then she realized he was trying to remember her name.
“Maddie. Maddie Montgomery.” I was a year behind you in school. We see each other almost every Sunday at church.
Well, she saw him anyway. It was pretty clear Aiden hadn’t noticed her. But then, why would he? They shared the same zip code but were worlds apart when it came to everything else.
“Maddie.” There it was. A tiny glimmer of recognition. Very tiny. “I’ve seen your name on donation receipts for the animal shelter.”
While Maddie was trying to decide if she should be amused or offended that her signature was more memorable than her face, Aiden pivoted away from her and shuffled toward the reading nook without a backward glance.
He lowered himself into one of the leather chairs and then proceeded to ignore both the coffee and the magazines.
Okay, then.
Time to get back to work.
Fifteen minutes later, Maddie decided that was easier said than done. Aiden was proving more irresistible to the people who wandered into the library than the pot of freshly brewed pumpkin spice coffee.
Maddie, whose first order of business was straightening the shelves after Mr. Elliott’s sixth-graders had invaded the poetry section the day before, would hear the door open and start a countdown in her head. There would be five seconds of silence and then a cheerful, “Aiden! How are you doing?”
To which Aiden would respond with an equally cheerful, “Great.”
Maddie wondered if she was the only one who knew he was lying.
* * *
If one more person asked Aiden how he was doing, he was going to run screaming from the building.
Except...he couldn’t run. At the moment, the only thing he’d be able to manage was a fast limp. Maybe.
But that would also draw the kind of attention Aiden had been hoping to avoid while waiting for his ride to physical therapy. He’d figured the clinic’s central pick-up point—the local library—wouldn’t exactly be a hotbed of activity this time of day.
He’d figured wrong. Over the past half hour, a steady stream of people had invaded his space, clucking over his injuries, their eyes filled with sympathy.
Aiden hated being the focus of anyone’s sympathy. So he’d scraped up a smile, even though the med van driver was twenty minutes late and the thought of another round of PT was making his leg throb more than usual. Not to mention the itch he couldn’t scratch without ripping off the cast on his arm first.
Six. Weeks. That’s how long he had to wear the stupid thing. With good behavior, Aiden hoped he could talk the doctor into reducing his sentence to three.
You really caught a break, the surgeon who’d pinned Aiden’s wrist back together had told him.
Yeah, well, Aiden didn’t feel as if he’d caught a break. He felt, as a matter of fact, broken.
Scratch that. He was broken.
He was angry, too, although the anger wasn’t visible, like the rest of the cuts and bruises. It wasn’t healing as quickly, either.
The telephone began to ring, and the librarian emerged from behind a wall of bookcases. She didn’t so much as glance in Aiden’s direction as she glided toward the desk, the soles of her ballet-style slippers barely making a sound against the gleaming hardwood floor.
Guilt, not pain, had Aiden shifting in his chair.
He’d gotten into a lot of trouble when he was growing up, but quickly learned there was something about his smile that always got him out of it. That he
