When Scarlett finally reached the cabin in Puffin Ridge, she crept straight to her room and shut herself inside, incapable of discussing the events of that day with her best friends even though she knew she would need to soon. She wanted to scream into her pillow or pretend it was Vanessa Price and give it a few good punches, but neither of those would help to solve the actual problems she faced.
The biggest of all these was that she could no longer trust herself. She’d been wrong about Mrs. Caputo’s motives and—even more painfully—about Henry’s heart. How could she have messed up so badly? One moment she thought she was on the verge of maybe, actually, impossibly placing in the Iditarod and finding love all in one go. The next, she found out it was all a lie.
Henry had probably only flirted with her to work some kind of story angle because, sure enough, footage of them dancing at the Miners and Trappers Ball and then them exchanging a few quick words at the Hozier Track starting line were already being pasted together to tell a tale of love turned hate.
Local bookworm hooks a hottie!
From sweet nothings to angry barbs!
Lovers turned rivals in the dog-sledding world!
The headlines went on and on. Why did any of them care about her, especially when there was so little to tell? How could such sensational bullcrap flourish when actual books were left to languish at the hands of an under-sized staff?
What would be next?
Would they convert the children’s section of her beloved library into a fast food playland? Would they undermine everything else the library did for the community and shut it down in favor of a more budget-conscious online eBook lending system?
And was it just the politicians who were to blame, or had the larger society changed when she wasn’t paying close enough attention to notice? Did the world really need half a dozen articles about the non-news of Scarlett and Henry? Was this what people chose to read instead of literature?
The thought made her stomach churn and her heart roil.
Outside, a car pulled up to the cabin, and she peeked through the window, wishing she’d have had just a little more time to sort out her thoughts before Shane and Lauren arrived back home.
But the person she saw approaching her window now wasn’t Shane or Lauren. It was Henry.
And he saw her, too. His mismatched eyes caught hers, and he quickened his pace.
Scarlett slammed the blinds down, but he came to the window anyway and tapped gently on the glass. “I know you’re there. Please talk to me.”
Scarlett crossed her arms over her chest and fell back on her bed, unwilling to make a peep.
His voice came out strained and soft. Had he been crying, too?
“I didn’t know you lost your job. I didn’t even know you had a job other than handling. I didn’t know the library was on the chopping block, and I didn’t know it was so important to you.”
At last she could hold her anger back no more. She had to speak up. “It doesn’t matter that it’s important to me,” she thundered. “It’s important, period. How could you not understand that?”
“Will you come out, or let me in?” he begged. His pleading only made her angrier.
“I have nothing more to say to you! I should’ve listened to what everyone said about you. I shouldn’t have let you trick me just to get a little extra news coverage.”
“Is that really what you think of me?” His voice cracked, but she didn’t care.
He tapped a slow sad tune on the window pane, then whispered through the glass, “I was trying to help do something good. I wanted to help people appreciate this great state and this sport which I’d started to love for myself, not just because of that dumb bucket list. I didn’t know the fine details about the budgeting decisions. I’m just the face of the campaign, Scarlett. I thought I was helping to—”
She thrust the blinds up, stopping him midsentence. “You’re wasting your breath. I won’t change my mind, and Lauren and Shane won’t be happy to see you here. You need to leave. Now.”
His eyes glistened with tears. Oh, he could put on a good show, but she refused to be tricked again.
“But, Scarlett, please,” he whispered. “I’ll do anything. When I get the money from the estate, I’ll fund the library myself. I’ll have them hire you back. I’ll—”
“No!” she shouted as she slammed the blinds down again and fell onto the bed in a heap of tears. “You think money is the solution to all of life’s problems, but…”
She cried freely and he waited for her to deliver the final blow to their budding relationship. “Deny it all you want, but you’re just like him, Henry. You’re exactly like your granddad.”
As enraged as she was, the words stung even her on their way out, but they had to be said. They had to be. She was nobody’s fool, least of all some spoiled rich boy with a blackened heart.
Her visitor said nothing more, and a few minutes later, she heard his Mercedes reverse back out of the driveway. This time for good.