Avery
I leaned forward in my chair, searching his face in the fading light. “Well? How’s Marlene doing?”
Something felt different about tonight. Special. Flint hadn’t brought me out here just for stargazing.
A man who wanted a fling didn’t introduce a woman to his home.
Flint had shown me the life he’d built with his own hands.
He was acting like he was serious about me, and the realization made my heart beat faster.
I loved what I saw here. His cabin was simple but solid, filled with warmth and the evidence of a life lived deliberately. It was so much nicer than my cramped apartment, mainly because it included him. It didn’t hurt that his property included fifty acres of gorgeous woodland that stretched out in every direction, wild and beautiful and free.
Flint’s expression shifted into something I couldn’t quite read. “Marlene’s fallen in love with her windsurfing instructor. And she plans to stay in the Bahamas after her leg heals.”
I stared at him, certain I’d misheard. “What?”
The words didn’t make sense. Marlene had lived in Red Oak Mountain herentirelife. Bookish was her dream, her legacy, her entire world.
“But what about Bookish?” I asked, my voice rising. “And her life here? Everything she’s built?”
And then fear spread through my chest. Would Bookish close for good? Was my life about to change forever?
A Cheshire cat smile spread across Flint’s face, slow and knowing. “That’s not even the biggest news. You know Marlene. She’s always been eccentric and impulsive. Evidently, the windsurfing instructor is a fifty-nine-year-old Frenchman, and she’s completely crazy for him. Or his abs. Honestly, I couldn’t quite tell which from the conversation.”
I let out a shocked laugh, trying to picture practical, book-loving Marlene swooning over some French athlete in the Caribbean sun. And not only that, but describing him in full detail to her manly-man nephew!
I didn’t know the impulsive version of Marlene that Flint was talking about. I knew her to be steady as a clock and driven by routine.
But he obviously knew her better than I did.
“She wants to sell Bookish,” Flint continued, and my laughter died in my throat.
“What? No.”
“It’s okay. Don’t freak out. She wants to sell it to either me or you. Just for the cost of the inventory. She doesn’t own the building, so I’d just have to talk to Mick Harrington and have the lease transferred over.”
The world tilted sideways.
I’d dreamed of this.
For six years I’d imagined what it would be like to own Bookish someday, to make it truly mine. But that day had alwaysfelt impossibly far away, something that might happen when Marlene retired in another decade.
The timing was all wrong. I didn’t have any savings. Not a penny. Every paycheck went to rent and groceries and the occasional splurge on a new release I couldn’t resist.
My heart sunk. And besides that, surely Flint would want the business. He’d already proven he knew how to run it better than I could.
Or worse, maybe he wouldn’t want it at all. Maybe he’d sell off the inventory for his aunt and disappear back into the mountains.
Back to a life withoutme.
“What are you thinking?” I asked, and I hated how tremulous my voice sounded. “About Marlene’s offer?”
Flint reached over and took my hand, his calloused palm warm and steady against mine. His eyes stayed fixed on the sunset while an owl hooted its first call of the night somewhere in the distance.
“I was thinking,” he said slowly, “that you and I might make great partners.”
My breath caught. “Partners?”
