No, it just…wasn’t her choice to make. Not when danger could come calling and have real consequences.
“Everything okay?” Zach asked when she said nothing.
Lia fidgeted in her seat. “Sorry. This is…awkward.”
Zach merely raised an eyebrow. Lia had to inwardly give herself a shake to focus and just…deal. She wanted a real life. She wanted her friends safe. So she was going to have to wade into some awkward areas.
“It’s just… I know being a part of Hope Town comes with certain rules. About keeping our pasts secret. That’s always been pretty easy because most of the people I associate with have pasts they’re keeping a secret too.”
Zach nodded along. “And that’s…changed?”
“I’m…seeing someone.” God, that sounded lame. “He’s a cop. You probably know him. That’s not the point.”Focus, Lia.“The point is, I feel like I can’t keep my whole past this big secret. It’s getting in the way of living my life, but I certainly don’t want to… I don’t want to jeopardize anything in Hope Town just because I want to tell someone about what led me here.”
“So you want…my permission?” Zach asked carefully. “To tell this cop you’re seeing about what landed you in Hope Town?”
Lia inhaled against shaky nerves. “You run this program, Zach. It’s your town. It’s your rules. It’s…yours. With everything that happened to Albennie this summer, how can I just…” She sucked in a breath. This wasn’t the planned speech. She needed to focus on the planned speech. “Yes, I want to tell him about my past and how I ended up here. I know that isn’t part of the Hope Town deal, so I wanted to talk it through with you first. I can’t quit the bakery, so—”
“No one is going to ask you to quit the bakery just because you want to tell someone about yourself,” Zach said firmly. “But…” Zach was quiet for a long time, but it was a soft kind of a quiet.A thinking quiet. He breathed deeply before speaking, and when he did speak, his voice was gentle.
“You didn’t sign a contract or a vow of secrecy. You just came here to be safe. I can tell you that the Corbins are all still in jail. I’ll be notified if that even has a chance of changing, and of course, I’d let you know right away.”
It was why traditional WitSec wouldn’t take her—the people she’d testified against were in jail. But the FBI agent she’d helped to bring down the Corbin family had been worried about retribution from some lower-level parts of the trafficking ring Lia had unwittingly been a part of. None of the other federal agencies had been concerned about that.
And Lia hadn’t had anywhere to go anyway.
So Agent Wood had connected her with Zach Simmons, and Lia’s future had been changed from a giant question mark ofnothing, to a life. And her life in Hope Town waseverything. She didn’t want to mess it up.
But she hadn’t realized it was still only half a life until Sammy had swept into the bakery and stolen from her. Gard and Sammy were becoming everything too, and she didn’t know how tochoose.
“Furthermore,” Zach continued. “What happened to Albennie happened because her situation is a little more…dangerous. And tenuous. You don’t have to compare yourself to her. You’re not an active target. She was.”
“I just want everyone to be safe.”
Zach nodded. “I built Hope Town for…hope. Or I would have called it Survival Town, Lia. You get to be a person and have a life. That comes with making choices about how you share your past and to who. This isn’t traditional WitSec. It was never supposed to be. The goal is to keep the people who come here safe. I don’t see how…someone knowing your involvement in bringing down a trafficking ring seven years ago, particularlywhen that someone is a cop…is putting anyone at risk. It goes without saying you can’t share anyone else’s story, or explain how many of you are here, but your story is your own. If you’re looking for permission or approval to share it, you have it.”
Lia sat there staring at Zach. The words didn’t quite…make sense. Or they did, but she couldn’t quite absorb them.
“Did you really come here for permission?” Zach asked gently. “Or were you hoping I’d tell you that you have to keep your secrets?”
She blinked at Zach. He was a friend, kind of. But, at the end of the day, he knew more about her life than anyone. He knew every part of what had brought her here.
And he wasn’t exactly wrong to ask that question. He wasn’t exactly right either. It wasn’t that shewantedto keep her secrets. It was just that she’d held on to them so long, she didn’t really knowhowto let them go.
“I just…have to tell him. That’s what I know.”
“I appreciate you coming to me. This conversation. It’s a reminder that I need to be a little…flexible. Lives and situations change, especially the deeper we get into this, the longer some of you are here. There aren’t going to be one-size-fits-all rules for anyone who lives here. You might have all come here to be safe, but everyone’s situation is different and needs a different touch.”
Lia thought about Albennie being an active target. Which meant other people probably were too. But no one else here was involved inherpast.Herstory.
“Your life in Hope Town doesn’t change, Lia, if you open it up beyond that. That’s not what we’re about.”
Open it up beyond Hope Town. When she hadn’t even realized she’d shrunk it downtoHope Town. But she had, and that wasn’t on Hope Town or Zach or rules. It was on her.
And she didn’t want that anymore. She wanted more. She got to her feet and managed to smile at Zach. “I just hope you know, if this place didn’t exist, I would have been lost a long time ago.”
He smiled back. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing it exists, then.”
Chapter Thirteen
