Not that he did a thing to make her want to. He wouldn’t even let her give them to him for free. Instead, he stalked over to the cash register, and hit some of the ancient buttons vigorously until it opened, and shoved some cash in there. Then he tipped an imaginary hat, and took his leave.
After which she discovered, in something of a daze, that he hadn’t given her the fifty bucks he should have done. The register was overflowing. Bills spilled out when she opened it.
He’d left her a thousand dollars.
CHAPTER SIX
She didn’t intend to lay up all night thinking about everything that had happened. But it was kind of difficult not to, when everything that had happened seemed so wild and impossible. Not to mention mildly mortifying, in about ten different ways. She had seen Jack Jackson half naked, after almost ten years of only ever seeing him fully clothed, from a distance. Then crashed her car, gotten all weird about him kneeling at her feet and wrapping her ankle, and finally wound up giving him a bunch of books she liked.
The latter of which seemed like the least of her troubles.
But maybe slightly more so when she started thinking about what wasinthose books. The exact contents of them flashed behind her eyes at somewhere around three in the morning. All the quivering and the caressing and the heaving—oh god, there was so much heaving.
Her face scrunched up into a wince, just going over it all.
And she couldn’t help putting her hands over her eyes.
He probably won’t read them.Plus, even if he does, it’s unlikely you’ll see much of him ever again, she tried to tell herself, as she reassured Popcorn that there was nobody at the window the way he always seemed to think, then closed the blinds just in case there was something there, entirely irrationally. Before finishing the thought,while making her way down the narrow staircase to the store,After all, it’s not as if hewantsto be buddies.
But unfortunately for her, her friend Cassie didn’t seem to agree when she explained it all to her a few minutes later. “Honestly, I think it sounds like he’s just about desperate to be your buddy,” she said, midway through an unusually early phone call that Nancy was more than a little suspicious of. They’d only kindled this friendship a month ago, when Cassie had moved back to Hollow Brook after a decade away. But she already seemed to have an almost sixth sense for when Nancy was distressed.
It was the reason she kept overpaying for books, despite Nancy’s best efforts at making her stop. And why she kept hinting at remedies she could make for various problems, in the apothecary she was apparently planning on opening.A few of my special muffins could really help you find that certain someone you’re hoping to, she’d said the other day.
Even though Nancy hadn’t told her a thing about the state of her love life.
The most she’d mentioned was about feeling a little lonely lately. But nothing close to the truth—that she’d grown so weary of waiting for her prince to come along, she was actually starting to think she should settle for Murray Walker. Because, sure, he talked endlessly about himself. Yes, on their last date he’d called her Susie. And he always smelled like mushrooms for some reason.
But he had a job.
In accounting.
And he onlysort ofthought she should be grateful for his attention.
Surely, she thought, if she said something about it, Cassie would agree. Even though she never agreed about stuff like this. She was still not agreeing about Jack Jackson. “I mean, he cameinto your store. He asked you for your recommendations. And he took them, even though they were romance novels. Do you know how many dudes like him would accept romance novels? From a woman? That sounds like, bare minimum, he likes and respects you.”
“Or he just wanted to get the hell away from me and my yammering.”
“I’ve told you, you don’t yammer half as much as you think. And even when you do it’s adorable. As soon as I knew you were sincere and earnest and this is just how you are, I was all in. Remember?”
She thought of it then. The invite over to Cassie’s house, like she had always dreamt of as a kid. That hallowed place Cassie’s grandmother had owned, where rumor had it there were cookies as big as your head and milk from a real cow. And there had been no cows, but there was the cottagecore kitchen of her dreams, and mugs the size of her head, and tea that made her feel so warm and welcomed. The way friendship was supposed to feel. The way she had always hoped it would with a dozen different vague semi-friends over the years.
The way it had sort of seemed with Jack Jackson.
Or at least the way it could have if she weren’t probably hallucinating half the things that had happened the day before. “But he’s not like you, Cass,” she said, as she shook her head at herself. Cassie wasn’t having it, however.
“Hey, I can be pretty ornery.”
“Not the way he can. And especially after I gave him so many reasons to be mad. I crashed my car on the road he probably owns. It’s probably still there, overturned, in a ditch. Then after that, he had to drive me home, while I sat there babbling at him about stuff.”
She bustled around the store as she spoke, not thinking muchabout what she’d revealed. The counter needed tidying, and she still hadn’t put away the first aid kit from yesterday. Plus she had some books to unpack—a cute series of spooky novellas, a selection of new romance novels, a few more items for her Try Me section, which was basically a witchy cauldron in the center of a table, full of different spooky ornate keys that correlated to a mystery book.
Fun, in a way she knew Cassie appreciated.
She almost mentioned it to her, in fact.
But then came Cassie’s sharp tone through the phone she’d cocked between her ear and her shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t think the babbling is the important part there.”
“Well, I don’t see what else could be, really.”
