Page 1
One
Kitchi Falls, Pennsylvania
Was there any better smell than paper and rain?
I turned the page of my current read, a paranormal romance novel with a vampire hero. With a thousand things to do, from inventory to ordering, reading should be low on the list. But it was raining, my favorite time to crack open a book, so I gave myself permission to take some time off.
Outside, thunder rumbled. The lights flickered once, twice. The storm was getting closer. Something in my chest tightened … anticipation or unease, I couldn't tell. I shook it off and kept reading.
Less than a full sentence in, the door of my shop swung open, the tinkling bell that alerted me to new customers drowned out by the sound of driving rain.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Nolan immediately took off his jacket, shaking it and giving my terrified cat his own shower. Putting my book on the counter, I laughed as James ran through Nolan’s legs and into the stacks.
“You know he hates getting wet,” I said.
Hanging up his soaking rain jacket, Nolan headed straight for the coffee counter, putting a new pod into the machine.
“Pretty sure he hates his name more.”
As if sensing we were talking about him, James sauntered back through Nolan's legs with regal indifference. Nolan bent to scratch behind the cat's ears, and I caught myself watching the way his shoulders moved under his damp shirt. I looked away quickly, busying myself with straightening already-straight bookmarks.
“What do you think James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser?” I asked my cat, now underfoot. “Do you like your name?”
Nolan, coffee in hand, pulled up a stool, the deep familiar sound of his laugh as comforting as the aroma of the delicious dark liquid he’d poured. “Tell her it’s ridiculous.”
At the sound of his voice, James turned away from me and headed around the counter straight to his favorite person, jumping up to his lap. Traitor.
I watched the two of them. The man who was as steady a presence in my life as my parents. The cat who alternatively liked and hated me, sometimes in the same sixty-second span. A bookshop that, while it might not be paying for an oceanfront vacation home soon, thrived enough to bring me a steady income … life was good. So what if I didn’t have a date for my cousin's wedding ? Or if my mother wouldn’t stop asking if I was seeing anyone.
I wasn’t. Pushing thirty. No prospects in the love department. But I had plenty to be grateful for.
“You still lost in,” he nodded to my book. “There?”
Nolan picked up my latest read. “The Vampire’s Temptation. What’s tempting him?”
“Maybe the vampire is a girl.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
He put the book back, taking a sip of coffee as James bounded off the counter.
“My little contrarian.”
I was Nolan’s little everything. That was his favorite expression, and one that got him into trouble recently. His latest ex—and Nolan had a lot of them—wasn’t a fan of our close friendship. But I didn’t feel too bad since she wasn’t really for him, anyway.
“So what exactly are you doing out in,” I waved my hand toward the window of my shop where ‘Between the Pages’ was written in big, bold letters. “This.”
“Lucas’ tattoo chair’s hydraulic lift was jammed, and he had an appointment tonight.”
Although the owner of Grunt Ink, just down the street, went to high school with Nolan and me, we’d gotten closer to him and his wife more recently.
“Were you able to fix it?”
Nolan looked at me with those brown eyes of his, waiting until I took it back.
