A sharp knock rattled the bookstore door as I was about to flip the sign for lunch. When I opened it, a man in a navy jacket stood there, the bold lettering on his chest declaringIronwood Logistics.He held a clipboard in one hand and a slim packet in the other, the kind of official envelope that made my stomach sink.
“Delivery for Wesley Fairfax-Fitzalan,” he said.
The sound of my old name sliced right through me, sharp as broken glass. My grin was automatic, brittle around the edges, concealing how my chest tightened.
“It’s signed-for,” the courier continued. “Can I see some ID?”
“No.” The word came out sharper than I intended. “My ID has my new last name.”
He blinked, thrown, but then shrugged. Glancing at the bookstore sign and the address. “Whatever. I’ll wait for you to sign the paperwork to courier it back to the source.”
“Yeah, me signing papers without reading them isn’t happening.” I forced lightness into my tone. “My lawyer needs to check it first.”
The courier was confused and checked his notes. “I need to take it back.”
“And Ineedto call law enforcement to explain howI’m being harassed into signing legal paperwork without a lawyer present.”
His brows shot up, surprise flickering across his face, then he gave a small shake of his head. “Sorry. Out of my pay grade. Sign here.”
I scrawled my name—myname, Wesley Darkwood—on the line, took the envelope, and shut the door before he could say anything else. My hand shook just a little, so I shoved the packet on my desk in my tiny apartment kitchen, right beneath the tottering stack of fantasy novels waiting to be read.
I couldn’t deal with my family’s shit right now.
I figured I could fill the new day with busy work. The bookstore always needed something. Displays, invoices, maybe a new order. Anything that would keep me from drifting to my window and staring left at the door to The Real McCoy, wondering if Hunter was awake, if he was thinking about me, or if he was packing boxes already, leaving me behind.
I threw myself into the bookstore. I rearranged the front display twice, first with the new releases, then again with the Christmas stock, until I finally settled on decorating with snowflake garlands.
I crouched beside a box of fairy lights, trying to untangle the mess without strangling myself. “If I ever meet the sadist who invented Christmas light storage, I’m hexing them.”
Brooke laughed from the children’s table, where she was pinning up sign-up sheets. “Put me down for Saturday story time,” she called. Willow perched happily beside her with a crayon clutched in her fist. “And I’ll cover the craft corner during the parade prep. The kids want glitter? They’ll get glitter.”
“You’re a menace,” I said, grinning despite myself.
“Better a glitter menace than no menace at all.” She clipped the sheets straight and gave me a satisfied nod. “There. Organized chaos. Just how you like it.”
I opened boxes I’d been ignoring, stacked fresh deliveries, and lost myself in the comfort of new paper and ink. Later that day, a delivery arrived—two cartons of holiday romances and a surprise box of cookbooks I hadn’t ordered. Typical. I sighed, checked the invoice, and decided to keep them anyway. Customers in Wishing Tree loved a happy accident, and chances were I’d sell out by next week.
I spent hours alphabetizing shelves that didn’t need it, updating invoices, and half-listening to the bell over the door ring as people drifted in and out. Every time it did, my heart jumped, hoping it was Hunter. But it never was.
“Everything okay, Wes?” Mrs. Donnelly, one of my regulars, asked as she tucked a paperback under her arm. “You seem distracted today.”
I forced a smile, waving a hand at the piles of booksaround me. “Just a lot on my mind. Too many deliveries, not enough space.”
She gave me a knowing look, the kind that said she didn’t believe a word, but she let it slide, heading for the register. I needed people to be buying books before I ended up broke. I gave myself a stern talking-to and went back to stacking shelves, wishing Hunter would walk in, but no, every bell that rang was for a different customer.
The phone rang, and I answered automatically, still half in my head about invoices. “This is Wes.”
“Hey, it’s Adrian Evans,” came the voice on the other end. He was talking as if I’d know the name, and I stayed polite.
“How can I help, Mr. Evans?”
“Uhm it’s about the… shi—sorry—it’s me. I mean. Trevelyan, Adrian Trevelyan. Evans is myrealname. I’m the author that you… yeah…”
For a second, I froze. Adrian Trevelyan.TheAdrian Trevelyan. My brain short-circuited so hard I nearly dropped the handset. “Oh—wow—hi! Sorry, I just—hi!”
A soft laugh. “Hey, don’t worry. I messed that up big time. I just wanted to check in about the signing. I’m not expecting a huge turnout, honestly, but I’ve got about four hundred author copies here. Would it beokay if I sent them ahead to you? You’ve got somewhere to stash them?”
I turned to look at the storeroom door, which hung slightly ajar, revealing the mountain of empty boxes and a half-collapsed display rack that I’d never gotten around to mending. Totally fine. Everything was fine. “Of course,” I said, way too quickly. “Plenty of room.”
