The first shot pulled perfectly, because of course it did. The machine only acted possessed when I was the one operating it. I breathed in the smell of fresh espresso mixed with old books and felt my shoulders relax. This was my world. Four walls of carefully organized chaos that smelled better than any perfume.
Winters’ Books & Brews had been my parents’ dream before it became my inheritance. They’d thought running a bookstore in a small town surrounded by forest would be the perfect life. Quiet mornings, eager readers, maybe the occasional bear sighting to keep things interesting. They weren’t wrong, until that camping trip to the woods eight years ago that left me an orphan at fifteen.
I pushed the thought away and started on the next order. Some wounds you learned to work around, not through.
“Incoming,” Vivi called out, emerging from the kitchen with a tray balanced on one hand. She’d outdone herself today. Tiny pumpkins made of orange frosting sat on top of chocolate cupcakes, each one decorated with delicate vines and leaves.
“Those are almost too pretty to eat,” I said.
“Almost,” Vivi grinned. “Sarah called, by the way. She’s bringing her book club by later and wants to know if we have that new romance with the shirtless Viking.”
“Which one? That describes half our romance section.”
“The one where he apparently does very creative things with his battle axe.”
I snorted and made a mental note to check our inventory. At seventy-eight, my adoptive grandmother slash neighbor had a more active love life than I did. Granted, hers was entirely fictional and involved men with names like Thor Magnusson, but still.
The morning rush started right on schedule. Mr. Garrett shuffled in at nine-thirty, complaining about “kids these days” while bee-lining for the young adult fantasy section. He’d buy three paperbacks and claim they were for his granddaughter. We all knew he didn’t have a granddaughter.
Mrs. Callahan arrived at ten, voice carrying across the shop before the bell finished chiming. “Lina, sweetheart! You look tired. Are you sleeping enough? My son David just broke up with that awful girl from the city. I should give him your number, you two could rest together, if you know what I mean.”
She wiggled her eyebrows and I heard a not-so-subtle snort coming from Mika’s direction. Kicking her under the counter, I turned to Mrs. Callahan.
“I’m good, Mrs. C,” I said, handing her the usual large vanilla latte with an extra shot. “Still working on myself, you know?”
She patted my hand with one of those looks that said she thought “working on myself” was code for “dying alone with cats”, which sounded like a damn good plan, actually. Though I’d inherited that particular look from half the town’s population of concerned mothers.
The construction crew rolled in around ten thirty, boots tracking dirt across my freshly mopped floors. They’d been “almost done”with the road work outside for three months. I was starting to think they just liked Vivi’s muffins.
“Morning, boys,” Mika drawled, already pulling shots for their usual orders. “How’s that road coming? Still finding reasons to tear it up?”
“Job security,” one of them winked.
By the time the lunch crowd thinned out, I’d made sixty-three drinks, sold twenty-two books, and stopped Mika from strangling a customer who’d asked if we had “that book with the blue cover about the thing.”
This was my life. Predictable, safe, exactly how I’d built it after Sarah took me in. Every book had its place, every customer had their drink, and if I occasionally found myself staring too long at the tree line visible through the back windows, well. That was between me and the therapist I kept meaning to call.
“You’re humming,” Mika observed around two o’clock. “You only hum when you’re stress-organizing.”
I looked down at the thriller section I’d been rearranging for the past twenty minutes. “I’m not stress-organizing, I’m regular organizing.”
“Sure. And I’m a natural blonde.”
“Maybe I just like alphabetical order.”
“You’ve moved that same book three times.”
I put the book down with more force than necessary. Fine, maybe I was a little wound up. The anniversary was comingup next month, and October always made me twitchy. All those local legends about beasts in the woods hit different when your parents had been mauled by what the police report called a “large predator, species unknown.”
***
The afternoon lull settled over the shop. Vivi was in the back kitchen working on tomorrow’s pastries, Mika had claimed the window seat with a gothic romance novel, and I had the thriller section to reorganize properly this time. No stress involved. Just me, my books, and the careful meditation of putting everything exactly where it belonged.
The bell chimed at exactly four o’clock.
I turned with my standard greeting ready and forgot every word of the English language.
He had to duck slightly to get through my doorway, which was saying a lot since I’d had it raised two years ago during renovations. Broad shoulders filled out a leather jacket that looked butter-soft and probably cost more than I spent on coffee beans in a month. Dark hair that had that artfully messy look men paid stupid money for, except his seemed natural. His jaw could cut glass, and I immediately hated myself for even thinking that cliché.
