“Am I allowed to walk over to Shayla’s place for a latte?” he asked as he followed her out of his office.
“Only if you make it decaf. Caffeine is the last thing you need right now.”
She shot him another nasty look as she sat back at her desk.
“Matt?” Carmen called just as he grabbed the door handle. He turned. “You don’t have anything to be nervous about,” she said, her voice void of its previous bite. “Patrick Carter might be a lifelong politician, but you’re a lifelong Gauthier. The people in this town already know who the best candidate is.”
“Thanks,” he said. Carmen always knew just what to say to settle him down. He would probably have driven this law firm into the ground a long time ago if she wasn’t here to keep it running. “You want me to bring you something back from Shayla’s?”
She waved off his offer. “That place is dangerous. You go in there for an innocent cup of coffee and come out with a muffin the size of your head and a thousand-calorie extra-large mocha chai latte something or other.”
“With extra whipped cream,” Matt added with a wink, closing the door behind him.
He headed right on Main Street, looking up into the cloudless, picture-perfect blue sky. Maybe he should look at the beautiful weather as a sign of things to come. How could he bomb at his rally on such a gorgeous day?
A smile drew across his face as he came upon the round iron tables and chairs set up in front of The Jazzy Bean, the new coffee shop that had just opened in the Main Street storefront once occupied by Armant’s Antique Shop.
“We meet again,” Matt said in greeting.
Tamryn looked up from the yellow legal pad she’d been scribbling on. Matt took full ownership of the immense rush of pleasure he experienced at the sight of her broad, surprised smile.
“Well, good morning,” she said.
He nodded toward the table’s other empty chair. “Do you mind?”
She gestured for him to take a seat. “Be my guest.”
As he sat, Matt eyed the collection of items spread across the table. There were two legal pads, several blocks of colorful sticky notes, and an iPad.
“This looks intense,” he remarked.
She expelled a sigh and tossed her pen on the table. “Intense is one way to describe it. Frustrating, nerve-racking. Take your pick of adjectives.”
“You mean all of my wonderful answers to your questions at lunch last week didn’t help?”
“You did,” she said with a grin. “Unfortunately, there are still huge holes in my grandmother’s past, and I just can’t find what I’m looking for.” She huffed out a humorless laugh. “It would help if I knew exactlywhatI was looking for, and if it actually exists. Is it the diary my grandfather talked about? Is there something else?” She ran a frustrated hand through her wavy hair. “Maybe it all really is the stuff of legends.”
She looked at him, her eyes teeming with raw anguish. “If I have to return to Brimley without evidence of the slave school’s beginnings, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to face my colleagues. So many of them told me I was wasting my time chasing this.”
The jolt of guilt that sliced through Matt was powerful enough to cause a physical ache in his chest. The story she was chasing wasn’t just the stuff of legends. He’d held the proof in his hands.
Last night, he’d gone into his family’s library and pulled out the worn leather-bound diary that had resided in the confines of the hidden wall safe for generations. Within its yellowed, brittle pages were the words of his great-great-aunt, Nicolette Gauthier. It contained a detailed account of the school she and a woman by the name of Adeline Marchand had created. Matt had no doubts that Adeline Marchand was Adeline West.
If only the diary wasn’t also filled with page after page of the horrible acts his family had committed against this town during its earliest days. If only the Gauthier family had not gone on to commit so manymoretransgressions against the town—transgressions that, if ever brought to light, would be used by his opponent to tear him apart in a political campaign.
For the briefest moment last night, he’d considered setting the diary on fire so that he could finally be free of the secrets it held, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. One of the promises he’d made to his mother was that he would preserve the Gauthier family’s historical artifacts. Why she wanted to do anything for a family that had caused her such grief was beyond him, but Matt could not bring himself to go against one of his mother’s dying wishes.
He stared at the exasperation on Tamryn’s face and his guilt tripled. At the moment he hated himself, knowing he possessed the information she needed, yet being unable to share it with her. The risk to his future plans was just too great.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be much help,” he said. “To make up for it, how about I give you the official tour of downtown Gauthier? I can point out the structures and share what I know about their history. Although I should warn you that I don’t know nearly as much as I probably should, seeing as I’ve lived here my entire life. Like I said before, history isn’t my thing.”
She lifted the insulated paper cup to her lips and sipped from it. “You actually have time in your busy schedule to spend the afternoon showing me around Gauthier?”
“When you’re the boss, you can get away with just about anything.” He winked, then a wry grin curled up the corners of his lips. “And Carmen threatened to kill me if I hung around the office a second longer. I have my official campaign kickoff rally tonight, and it turns out that I’m a bit more nervous than I thought I would be. I figure if I want to keep her as my office manager, it’s best that I get out of her hair for a few hours.”
A knowing glint entered Tamryn’s eyes. “So this date is really more about saving your hide than sharing the history of downtown Gauthier.” Her eyes widened with a look of horror. “I didn’t mean date as in adatedate.”
God, she was beautiful when she was flustered. Matt leaned across the table and whispered, “But I want you to mean date as in adatedate. My offer to take you out to dinner still stands.”
