The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen Page A

seeing a mentor. It was Willa Jackson, perpetrator of pranks so epic that on the rare occasion when he got together with his old classmates, it was still one of the first things they talked about. The care and detail and time that went into some of them was amazing—like her last one, pulling the fire alarm and then, when all the students were outside, unrolling a giant banner from the roof of the school, on which was written WILLA JACKSON IS THE WALLS OF WATER HIGH SCHOOL JOKER . “I watched you that day the police took you from the school, and you didn’t look embarrassed. You looked relieved. As if, finally, you could stop pretending. I thought you were going to leave here and never look back.”
    She gave him an exasperated look. He didn’t blame her. He should just shut up. This was none of his business.
    No, there was one more thing he needed to say. “You’re the reason I decided to follow my own path instead of coming back here and doing what everyone wanted me to do,” he said, which made her brows rise. “No one thought you were capable of all that mayhem, and you showed them not to underestimate you. If you could be that brave, then I thought I could be, too. I owe that to you. To the Joker.”
    She shook her head. “That bravery, as you call it, resulted in a class-two misdemeanor when I pulled that fire alarm. I was charged, nearly expelled, and wasn’t allowed to go to graduation. And my dad was fired because of me, because I took his keys and his computer passwords to pull my pranks. Don’t glamorize it, Colin. I’m glad you found your path, and I’m happy it had something to do with me. But I found my path, too, even if it wasn’t what you expected.”
    She thought her dad was fired? Colin knew for a fact that he’d quit. Colin had been there when it had happened. Why wouldn’t her father have told her?
    Willa took advantage of his silence and stood. “I have to get to work,” she said. “Thanks for returning the invitation last night.”
    “Still not going?” he asked as he, too, stood.
    “No. And before you ask again, I’m not planning some big prank.”
    “Too bad. That group could use some shaking up.”
    She avoided his eyes and walked past him. “I’m not the girl to do it.”
    He watched her walk away. She carried the scent of something fresh and sweet with her, like lemons. “Do you want to go out sometime?” he found himself calling after her, because somehow he knew he would regret it if he didn’t.
    She stopped abruptly. The girl clerk looked up from the café counter with a smile. Willa turned and walked back to him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said in a low voice.
    “I asked if you wanted to, not if it was a good idea.”
    “You think they’re two different things?”
    “With you, Willa, I think they are definitely two different things,” he said, taking a sip of his cappuccino, not taking his eyes off her.
    “You’re only going to be here one month. I think it’s high-handed, not to mention completely ridiculous, to think you can make me see the error of my ways in that short period of time.” She had good instincts. She knew exactly what he was trying to do.
    “Is that a challenge?”
    “No.”
    He walked to the door with a smile. “I’ll be seeing you, Willa.”
    “Not if I see you first, Colin.”
    Oh, yes, that was definitely a challenge.
    Ha. The old Willa was somewhere in there, after all.

    “Where were you last night? Mama had a hissy fit,” Paxton said when Colin got home that evening. She was coming in from work at the outreach center, where she had an office and oversaw the Osgood family’s charity ventures. They just happened to meet in the driveway at the same time, a synchronicity they’d always had, a twin thing that he sometimes missed.
    “Sorry,” he said, putting his arm around Paxton as they walked inside. “I didn’t mean to worry everyone. I fell asleep on someone’s couch.”
    “Someone? How very