Chapter One
Oswald
I made better time on the road than I expected. Running from the life I once had.
An expanse of highway stretched between me and my future. I tried to stay in the city but my mate, my partner, hadn’t diverted from his regular places.
I saw him at the market.
At the bodega.
At the bookstore, once my haven.
My favorite restaurant became a place where he and his new man hung out all the time.
I couldn’t escape him and his choices, and my pain ate at me until I couldn’t bear any more.
Oliver Creek became my destination when I found an online listing for a new head librarian.
Maxwell always called my job silly. Claimed I had no drive. No ambition to be more. Called librarians lazy folks who just sat and watched people read all day. He had no idea and didn’t want to understand. I’d explained my job to him more times than reasonable before I shut down and stopped trying.
Troy, my contact at the Oliver Creek city administration, said the library had been closed for some time. Funding. The librarian retired and was never replaced. No interest in the activities.
It needed a total revamp, and the building was only part of it.
I would have a meager budget, but over the years, I’d found ways to procure books. Other necessities.
Another hour on the road and one empty pretzel bag later, I saw a sign up ahead.
Welcome to Oliver Creek.
I looked in the rearview and said a silent goodbye, once and for all, to Maxwell and the life I’d left behind. The betrayal. The deceit.
It took me a while to trust myself again. How had I not seen the signs? Not acknowledged the heaviness in my chest when he began hiding his phone and going into other rooms to take calls.
Refusing my affection.
Coming home later and later.
I’d never understood cheating. If I were with someone and began to desire another, then I’d set the first one free. Not that it ever happened, but it seemed simple enough.
Past the sign, I recognized some of the buildings and houses from the town website and other sites as well. Oliver Creek had doubled in size and population over the past few years. Online, there were virtual tours of the small town, along with pictures and recommendations on places to eat and drink and, most importantly, find coffee.
It felt like I already knew the place by heart, and I had a long list of places to visit once I was settled.
The houses were painted in bright colors with complementary shutters and gardens that brought everything together. Some had people piddling and working the soil in beds probably meant for flowers to bloom in the spring.
I put the window down on the old car I hardly ever drove in the city and took a deep breath. The town smelled like home somehow. People and food and life. The sounds of neighbors visiting and children laughing floated in the air.
Like stepping, or driving, into a simpler, more loving time and place.
Someone was standing on a porch up ahead. My fox yipped inside my head, encouraging me to pay attention.
To someone on a porch?
I pulled over at the curb and took in the Victorian home that must have once been stunning. The paint peeled in every direction. Shutters were broken or missing. The whole thing needed a new lease on life.
The tall alpha had his hands on his hips. With my window down, cedar and rum reached my nose. His scent?
