I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, feeling his gaze on me the whole way.
He only called me six times that night. There’d been no panic in his voice as he asked question after question about how the book club was supposed to work.
Evidently, those old cowboys gave him a serious razzing because at 7:30 p.m. when he’d finally managed to shuffle them out the door, he texted me to say my overtime would be approved going forward.
I snorted as I snuggled on the couch reading his text. Then I picked up the phone and called my friend Gwen.
I needed to bring her up to date on the whirlwind Flint Campbell was causing at Bookish.
Chapter 6
Flint
I got to the bookstore at seven in the morning, a full two hours before we opened.
The reading nook had been bothering me since I first walked into the store. Ratty armchairs that sagged in the middle, a coffee table so low you’d throw your back out trying to read at it, and lighting dim enough to give anyone eyestrain within twenty minutes.
It wasn’t inviting. It was a liability.
So I’d made a trade with my buddy, Austin, the night before. Half a wild hog I’d hunted last week in exchange for a solid oak table with a fancy-ass rock top, and four sturdy dining chairs from his grandmother’s estate sale.
Austin had been happy to get the meat, and I’d been happy to get furniture that wouldn’t fall apart if someone actually sat in it.
I hauled the table in first. The chairs came next. They were sturdy, and they’d last a decade if people treated them right.
Then I grabbed the old armchairs one by one and tossed them into the bed of my pickup. The coffee table followed, its wobblylegs finally giving up the ghost. Everything was headed for the town dump later today.
Back inside, I climbed my stepladder and installed the overhead light I’d picked up from Stone at the hardware store. It was a simple fixture, nothing fancy, but it threw clean, bright light across the whole reading nook.
I was tightening the last screw when the bell over the front door chimed.
“What are you doing?” Avery’s voice hit me before I could turn around, and when I did, my hands nearly slipped off the ladder.
She was wearing a peach skirt today, the material swishing around her calves as she walked toward me. She had on those same yellow ballet flats from the first day I’d seen her. And she had a white cardigan on, buttoned up the front, except the top button had come loose, leaving a gap that drew my eye straight to where her breasts pressed against the knit fabric.
It was such a small thing. Just one button.
But I couldn’t stop looking at it.
From my vantage point standing there on the ladder, I could see the soft swell of her chest and the way the cardigan pulled slightly with each breath she took. I went half-hard, grateful she wasn’t studying me too close.
“Flint?” She crossed her arms, which only made things worse because it pushed her breasts together. “What happened to the reading nook?”
Damn, I wanted to slowly tug every last button loose on her cardigan and find out what was hiding underneath it.
I climbed down and wiped my hands on my jeans, trying to get my head back in the game. “Fixed it.”
“Fixed it?” Her voice pitched higher. “You threw out the armchairs?”
“They were falling apart.”
“They werecomfortable.” She walked over to the new setup, her lips pressing into a thin line as she took in the oak table and wooden chairs. “No one is going to like these hard chairs. And this table, it’s so stuffy and formal. This isn’t a library, Flint. It’s abookstore.”
I let her vent while I grabbed the sign I’d made and set it in the center of the table. I was getting used to her quiet fire. Avery had big opinions. She didn’t scare easily… and I liked that.
Avery leaned forward to read my sign, her brow furrowing.
Be Kind To Our Books.
