“Coffee.Black.”
Even his voice was sexy. Deep, rumbling, the kind that Tara imagined when reading a steamy romance. To hear the voice in real life gave her pleasantshivers.
He paid for his drink and stood off to the side to wait. Tara was dumbstruck by the face that briefly turned in her direction. She quickly swiveled back around and tried to act like she hadn’t just been staring. Yet, she couldn’t get his piercing blue eyes or scruffy, handsome features out ofhermind.
Slowly, she flipped over the cover on her book and saw that same face looking back at her with such hungry, lustful intent. Her heart hammered in her throat. There was no way this guy was the model for the book cover. It was published twenty-five years ago and this guy looked to be just about as old as her. If the style of the cover wasn’t so dated, she might have suspected that this was a newer edition with a newcover.
It had to be a coincidence. Either way, Tara lowered her book a little closer to the tabletop so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of his cowboy lookalike. The only thing this stranger was missing was the lasso, the brand, and the sexy female with a horse in thebackground.
Tara went back to reading, though every fiber of her being wanted to turn around and ogle at him a little more before he left with his coffee. A few paragraphs further, though, she noticed a few morecoincidences.
In the scene where Trish meets her intended lover, the cowboy’s pant legs were also muddied, and he ordered black coffee. Not only that, but Trish, the heroine, was doing exactly what Tara was doing, right down to hiding the cover and eating a turkey bacon sandwich. What wasgoingon?
Her hands began to tremble and she placed her half-eaten sandwich on the plate to risk flipping a few pagesahead.
They wereblank.
Tara had seen printing accidents where a page or two were left completely empty, but this wasn’t the same thing. The rest of the chapter was just gone. In fact, the further she skimmed, she found the rest of the book to be completely blank too. But this wasn’t a printing mistake. The author’s name, page number, and page title were still featured on the top page. It was as if the rest of the story just wasn’t there for hertoread.
If it weren’t so quiet and peaceful in the café, she would have let out a loud expletive that would certainly get everyone’sattention.
Tara closed the book and sat back in her chair, staring at the back cover with her brows pinched together. Something wasn’t right here, but once again, the same curiosity that got her to pull the book down from the shelf in the first place, prompted her to open it up once more. The story was too good to pass up, no matter how eerily similar it was to what was going on in this verymoment.
She found where she had left off and turned the page to continue. This time, the page wasn’t blank. It was filled with text and from what she briefly saw, there was a ton of dialogue. The two characters were about to meet for sure, but Tara was more interested in testing the book again. She flipped a few more pages, but they were blank just as before. The text was filling itself in the moresheread.
It was like the book knew what she had read so far. Or maybe, it wasn’t following her as much as it was following the natural flow of time. Tara swallowed hard and looked back to the guy waiting at the counter. He wasn’t talking with Rachel, or anyone else for that matter. Instead of his eyes being glued to a smart phone, they wandered around the café and bookstore, as if memorizing every detail, just as the book saidhewas.
This was crazy. A book couldn’t predict the future and neither could Tara. This guy couldn’t be the cowboy on the front cover and there was no way she was Trish from the story. It wasn’t possible. But she kept reading and watching, looking over her shoulder until the man’s eyes fell on her table and lingered there a littletoolong.
Tara slunk in her chair and uncrossed her legs to squeeze her knees together, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible. She turned her attention solely on the book. In the story, the main hero walked up to the heroine’s table and she accidentally spilled her drink all over his jeans. Tara wasn’t clumsy, another strike against the possibility that she wasTrish.
“Hey,” the deep voice rumbledbesideher.
Tara jerked and just like in the story, her arm knocked straight into her chai latte and it went tumbling over the edge of the table. The lid popped off as it crashed to the floor. Hot tea poured onto the tile and a good portion of it darkened the fabric on the stranger’sjeans.
She gasped and grabbed for the stack of napkins Rachel had given with the sandwich. The book dropped closed and she lost her spot, but that was the farthest thing fromTara’smind.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” she cried. Rachel and the few other people who were in the café turned to watch her begin frantically patting up the hot tea that had spilled on the surface of thetable.
The stranger only laughed and took a few napkins to help mop up the mess on the floor. “It’s all right,” he said. “These are my work jeans anyway. They’ve gottendirtier.”
That was exactly what the cowboy in the story said, right down to the laugh andeverything.
Tara’s cheeks blushed a deep red. “I’m normally not a klutz, Iswear.”
Her gaze finally lifted and she wondered if she would ever breathe again. Up close, this guy wasn’t just a hottie. He might have been the sexiest man she had ever seen, and that was saying something since she had stared at tons of romance novel covers in her time. None of them could compare to him. Even the guy on the mysterious fortune-telling book in front of her couldn't do the real-life thingjustice.
He gave her a gorgeous smile and she took a breath. “It’s fine, really,” he assured, then pointed to something on her table. Oh god, what if he saw the book cover and was about to ask her questions that she couldn’t answer? “I was just looking at that little table tent and wanted to get abetterlook.”
Tara looked and saw the tiny, folded advertisement. She remembered when Rachel set them out almost a week ago to help promote the carnival that was coming to town. Tonight was the opening night according to the information onthecard.
She quickly reached out and handed the table tent to the stranger as she wiped up the rest of thespilledtea.
“The carnival’s pretty fun,” she said as she set her to-go cup upright. “I used to go a lot as a kid when my parentstookme.”
She looked up and saw the guy nod in approval. “I’m looking for something for me and my niece to do. Her dad’s going to be busy with work so I’m takingherout.”
Tara wanted to swoon. Sexy and a family man. “Does she like to go to the carnival?” she asked, feeling a bit silly for the question. What kid didn’t love to go on rides, pet the goats, and get sick off of cottoncandy?
