style="font-size:15px;"> For some reason, Xander had wanted her. Rose hadn’t even wanted to date him at first. He was handsome, but they were on different paths. He was the high school senior-class president. He played varsity baseball. He was popular, likable and overflowing with what they called “leadership potential.” He had a full ride to Georgetown and a bright future ahead of him. Rose had none of those things, then or now. And yet once he’d decided they should date, there’d been no turning him away.
She pushed the ticket across the stainless-steel countertop to Oscar, the night cook. “I need a Texan with extra barbecue sauce.”
Oscar grunted and turned to the grill. Normally, Rose would take the tea out before she made his milkshake, but she wasn’t ready to face him again. Instead she busied herself scooping ice cream into the milkshake machine. It was easier than figuring out what she was going to do.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said aloud, dumping the thick shake into the tall fountain glass. And it wasn’t. He was going to come and go, just as he always did. He hadn’t spent more than a handful of days in Cornwall since he’d left. Usually it was for the annual Eden gathering at Christmas when the diner was closed. And then he was back to D.C. and his work at the Capitol Building. Neither his attraction to her nor the secrets she kept from him would change that fact.
She didn’t know why he was here in the middle of the summer. Or why he’d come to the diner tonight looking for her. He hadn’t sought her out in all this time. She’d left Cornwall for several years but had been back for quite a while. She’d received no calls, no letters, no Facebook friend requests. He’d forgotten all about her, as best she could tell. Hopefully, he would be gone again before he could cause her any grief.
And at the same time...God, it was good to see him again. She felt almost like an addict who had been given a small hit of her favorite drug. It wasn’t enough to scratch the itch, but just a touch of Xander in her bloodstream would start the cravings again. If she wasn’t careful, when he left town, she would go through more painful withdrawal symptoms than ever before.
She topped the milkshake with whipped cream and stopped short of putting the cherry on top. Xander never ate the cherry. He always fed it to her.
Why did she still remember all these insignificant things? She wished she could forget all about Xander—from his smile to his preferences to the way he could make her feel with just the simplest touch. But under the circumstances, it was pretty hard to do. Xander would always be a part of her life, whether he knew it or not.
To avoid the temptation of him dangling the cherry for her to eat, she put it back in the jar. She poured his tea, dropped in the lemon and took both the drinks out to his table. She glanced at her other customers on her way there. The family had left. The two older men were nursing their coffees, but it wasn’t time to warm their cups yet. They still had half a piece of pie each.
Rose had no excuses to avoid Xander any longer. As she approached, she noticed he was poring intently over a newspaper someone had left on the counter earlier. He didn’t even notice her approach. Apparently, he was more firmly embedded in her thoughts than she was in his. Sadly, that didn’t surprise her at all.
She set his milkshake and tea on the table and he looked up, startled. “Here’s your milkshake. It will be about ten more minutes on your food.”
“Thank you.” He looked down at the milkshake with an amused expression on his face. “No cherry?”
He remembered, too. “I didn’t think you liked them.”
“I do. I always did. I just knew you liked them more.”
It was a small thing, trivial, really, and yet the realization was enough to soften her knees beneath her. Those were the kind of things he did that made her succumb to him. His thoughtfulness and giving nature far surpassed his good looks or bright future. She braced her arm on the back of the booth to steady herself. “Would you like me to bring you one?” she asked.
“No, I’d rather you chat with me for a little bit.”
Rose sank into the seat, giving her knees a much-needed break. She tried not to fidget nervously while she sat there, but she couldn’t help smoothing out her uniform and picking off stray bits of lint. It was easier than looking him in the eye. “So...” she began. “How’ve you been?”
Xander shrugged. “Busy. I pretty much haven’t stopped running since the day I moved away. School was brutal. Law school was worse.” He took a heavy draw of his milkshake and smiled. “This is great. You always made the best chocolate shakes. I ended up working for Congressman Kimball,” he continued, “and before I knew it, I was taking his place. But that’s all boring stuff. What about you?”
Rose arched an eyebrow at him. “I assure you that whatever you’ve done in the last few years is far more exciting than what I’ve been up to.”
“What happened to school? I thought you wanted to be a teacher.”
“And give up this glamorous life?” Rose laughed. “I finished a semester and had to stop. Life got complicated and I never went back. Mom died that spring and I took that pretty hard. I stayed in Danbury for a couple of years and then moved back home when my dad was having some...issues...and helped him run his shop. When my brother, Craig, took over the garage and Daisy’s owner offered me my job back with benefits, I couldn’t turn it down. So here I am.”
“Have you married? I was certain someone would’ve snatched you up by now.”
“Uh, no. Not much happening on the love front, but that’s nothing new. You were the only man in this whole town to ever notice I existed. Once you left, I went back to being invisible.”
That wasn’t entirely true. There was one male in town that noticed her. One that loved and adored her. Unfortunately, he looked at her over the kitchen table every morning with the same hazel eyes that were watching her now. He was one of several complications to her love life, none of which she had any interest in mentioning to Xander.
“You could never be invisible. The men in this town are just blind if they don’t see something great right in front of them.”
Xander knew just what to say and just how to say it, but it didn’t help. She’d pushed him away to avoid more heartbreak. Going with him to D.C. never would’ve worked, as much as he’d insisted. He’d had a big life ahead of him that she wasn’t a part of and she’d understood that. She’d needed to stay with her mother and forge a new life without Xander. Finding out she was pregnant a week after he left hadn’t changed anything. It had just made it harder to cope.
“That’s sweet,” she said, “but a girl can’t believe a word you say. You’re one of those slick politicians.”
“Not entirely,” Xander said with a smile. “I’m also an author.” He reached down beside him on the booth and placed a book on the table. “I brought this for you.”
Rose reached out and picked up the book. A grinning, handsome Xander stared back at her from the glossy cover. “Fostering Faith,” she read aloud. “This is great, Xander. Congratulations.”
“It’s about my childhood and the path that brought me to Washington. It ties in with my work at the Fostering Families Center. The center provides support, training and social activities for foster parents and children in the system.”
She cracked open the book and flipped
