“Do tell,” I could imagine her leaning into the call.
“Small liberal arts place with a decent history program. The dean cornered me at an event here, so I threw in an application. Not tenure-track, though, and it’s only an hour away, so I worry I’d just end up staying in Wishing Tree.”
“Still,” she said, “sounds like he’s interested. Could be a good fallback.”
“Yeah.” And if I ever ran into someone from my oldcollege, I could always embellish where I’d ended up, make it sound more impressive than it really was.
Yeah, because how it looks to others is what’s important right now.
A knock sounded on the office door, sharp enough to yank me from my thoughts, and I braced for Jamie to have a question for me. I froze when the only thing that appeared was what looked like a thigh bone waving in the open space.
I swallowed a sigh. Wesley. It had to be Wesley.
“I have to go,” I said to Lydia, and she sent me a “later” and ended the call.
“What do you want, Wes?” I tried not to sound too tired of life.
“I comebearing gifts,” he announced, stepping in fully and holding the fake bone aloft like some kind of medieval offering. “See what I did there?Bearing gifts? Tibia gift?” He grinned as if he’d delivered the best pun in history, and then added, “And I brought you the cookie I offered you, in case you get hungry later.” He placed the cookie on my desk, a pumpkin-shaped one that had crumbled on one side, wrapped in a cellophane packet with the sticker of a lantern on it.
“I make cookies here,” I reminded him.
“As I said, you don’t make Halloween Cookies,” Wesley said, and frowned as if that was the end of theworld. “Or Christmas cookies. Or Thanksgiving cookies. Or?—”
“I make perfectlynormalcookies.”
He pouted at that. Yep, full-on pouted. And god, he had dimples, and these lips I wanted to tug and taste and?—
“These are special.”
“How are they ‘special’?” I crossed my arms over my chest—pure defense mechanism.
“I made them with the magic of midnight,” he said, and waggled an eyebrow, then winked.
My stomach did that unwelcome twist again. His damn hair was a riot of waves and curls, damp still and not tied back as usual. Jesus Christ.
I never knew what to say to him when he was teasing me. He disarmed me every damn time—with his weirdness, his humor, that smile. I didn’t get it, and it left me floundering. He often talked about the magic of midnight, and I swear I had no idea what he was talking about, but I would never ask because he’d probably ramble on for hours.
Before I could gather my wits, Wesley came further into the office, eyes wide with excitement. “But that’s not only why I’m here. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but okay, listen, there’s aman in a green suitout there, lurking, watching the town. I swear he’s spying on us all.”
Oh, Jesus, not another conspiracy theory. “Huh?”
“A man lurking by the Gift Emporium, green parka, hood up, all shifty, staring at our stores.”
“It’s raining,” I said, and pointed at the small window to the side. It would soon be snowing, but for now, we had early November sleet, when the clouds couldn’t decide whether to drop rain or snow. “It’s just a man with his hood upbecause it’s raining.”
“Then why was he staring? Look!”
“No.”
“I swear he’s spying, and he’s taking notes.” He pointed out the window, and God help me, I stood to check on whatever he was pointing at, ending up too close to him for comfort, inhaling the scent of books, cookies, and Wesley. And hell, was that apples? Was that his shampoo?
I found out who he was looking at. “Him?”
He elbowed me. “There’s no one else out there in a green parka.”
“I can see that.”
“He’s part of something bigger, you know,” Wesley added quickly, his voice dropping as if he were sharing state secrets. “I read this whole thread about government field agents planted in small towns to monitor community patterns. They hide in plain sight, dressed normally, but they’re always watching, always taking notes.” He leaned closer, eyes alive withexcitement. “It fits, right? He’s casing us, checking where we go, who we talk to.”
