Chapter One
"Lex, come to Cade Creek. You'll love it here. I promise."
Lexter Mathis smiled as he reached for his drink of whiskey then took a long sip before setting it down on the table again. He slowly glanced around the bar he was in. "I'm not sure Cade Creek is a town for me, sir."
He was a big city boy. Small towns gave him hives.
"Drop the 'sir' crap, Lex," former Senator Wilson Khor II said. "You don't work for me anymore."
Lex chuckled. "Yes, sir."
"Seriously, Lex, come to Cade Creek. I could really use your help. This damn committee has great ideas, but very little organization. We need someone with your know-how, your connections." Wilson chuckled. "Hell, we need someone who can spell correctly."
"I don't know."
"If the committee gets too boring for you, you can always work with Jayden down at the newspaper."
"Not a chance in hell."
Wilson laughed, but Lex knew the man understood him. He might have been Wilson's assistant, but the guy had never treated him as help. He'd been treated as a friend, which was one of the reasons he was so loyal to Wilson.
He just didn't know if he was ready to move to Cade Creek.
"Just think about it, Lex. I know you've been searching for something new since I retired, and I really think this committee thing is something you could sink your teeth into. The guys who serve on it are all good men. They are just not sure how to accomplish the things they hope to accomplish. They could use some help."
"I'll think about it." That was all he could promise at the moment. He wasn't sure what direction his life was headed in, but he was almost positive it wasn't Cade Creek. "Hey, look, I need to go. I'll call you next week."
"All right, Lex. Stay in touch."
"Say hey to Jayden." He still couldn't believe Wilson had married another man. The former senator was a handsome man. If he'd known Wilson was gay, he might have made a play for him himself.
Or not.
He had a few rules he tried to live by. Close to the top of that list was the one that said he didn't date his boss unless he wanted to look like an idiot. It was mixed right in there with his rule about not dating a straight man.
Lex’s shoulders slumped a little as he slid his phone back into his pocket then picked up his drink again. He felt as if he was at the beginning of something, but unable to take the next step to get there. He just kept waiting for some sign of where he was supposed to go from here.
Although he'd had several offers, he knew he didn't want to work for anyone in politics again. Wilson Khor had been the last great politician as far as he was concerned. The rest of them could all go rot.
He'd even had a few offers from corporate CEOs, but he really didn't want to work for them either. None of them had been right. It wasn't the money. He had plenty of that. Wilson had paid him very well to keep his life in order. It was the job descriptions he'd been given.
Lex considered himself less of an executive assistant and more of a life coordinator. When he worked for Wilson, he kept the man's life in order, doing everything from making sure his suits were picked up from the dry cleaners to assisting him with research into impending senate votes.
He basically kept Wilson's life organized, and he was good at it.
Damn good.
It was his own life that he sucked at. Well, not the organized part. He had been told more than once he should have been diagnosed with OCD. He could get a bit obsessive with some things, like his clothes. He hated his clothes not being clean and neat. He was almost fanatical about it. He had reasons, but he tried not to think about them too often.
He sucked at figuring out where his life was headed. He had his dreams and then he had reality. They didn't often mix together. He long ago learned to lock his dreams away and only bring them out every now and then, look them over, play with them a bit, then pack them away again and face reality.
And reality was a real bitch.
Lex looked up when a glass of amber liquid was placed on the table in front of him. "I didn't order this."
"The guy at the bar did."
Lex glanced toward the bar. The place wasn't jumping yet, but there were at least five guys sitting at the bar. "Which one?"
