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  Betsy had stocked lots of romances, but nothing modern. There was a nice stack of vintage Harlequins she might be able to sell online to a collector. She needed far more new names. Romance ran bookstores. She’d have to get an updated selection and figure out how to buy from self-published authors who made up so many of the new writers these days. It was something she’d pushed for at Bay City, but the owners were complete snobs about self-publishing.

  The shop had a good mystery section, but it leaned toward cozies. Her grandmother hadn’t cared for thrillers or any dark psychology.

  Hardly any literary fiction or poetry, but in Metlin that was probably a safe call.

  Nonfiction was in dire need of updating. Judging from the traffic at Ethan’s store, gardening manuals and idea books would probably sell well, as would interior design and home-improvement stuff.

  With growing tourist traffic from the national park, local history and outdoor guides could be a winner.

  Emmie wandered across the shop and looked out the windows just as a trio of motorcycles revved their engines at the intersection of 7th and Main. Emmie watched two guys in an animated discussion in front of the custom-car-upholstery shop and listened to the buzz of music and voices from Ice House Brews that sat catty-corner to Metlin Books at the intersection. Directly across from her on Main was Bombshell Tattoos. Beyond it, a specialty cigar and smoking club. A couple with vividly dyed hair and heavy ink left the tattoo shop hand in hand and walked past the T-shirt shop on Main headed toward Top Shelf Comics and Games.

  What books would that couple read? How about the guys in front of the car shop? Graphic novels? Steampunk? Auto history?

  Emmie watched from behind her windows as a trio of women dragged a giant mirror from one of the antique shops farther down 7th, laughing as they tried to fit it in the back of a battered pickup truck. Decorating books. DIY manuals.

  Across the street, a graffiti-style mural decorated the front of an art-supply store next to an auto-body shop. Art history books? Political science?

  Ethan was right. Metlin was changing. The industrial and the traditional were colliding and creating something odd and new and more than a little cool. And Emmie realized the bookshop—her bookshop—was sitting right in the middle of it all.

  Maybe she hadn’t belonged in the old Metlin, but times changed. Towns changed. People changed.

  This was not in the plan, her logical side said.

  Maybe the plan needs to change.

  Emmie pulled out her phone. Her finger shook as she touched Tayla’s number and waited for her best friend to pick up.

  “Hey!” she answered. “Did you get everything signed? How’s Daisy?”

  Emmie took a deep breath, stirring the dust again. “I have an idea. And it might be crazy or it might be amazing.”

  “If it’s a really good idea, it’ll be both. And it might also involve handcuffs or Silly String.”

  She blinked. “Silly String?”

  “Do you really want to know? You sound weird.”

  “I didn’t sign any papers to sell the shop.”

  “Okay…?”

  “I think you should quit your job, move down to Metlin with me, and help me reopen the bookshop.”

  Tayla didn’t say a word.

  Emmie squeezed her eyes shut. “I know it sounds nuts, but you can have free rent.”

  Her best friend remained silent.

  “Tayla, please say something.”

  “Maybe it’s because I caught one of the senior partners staring at my boobs again today, but I am actually considering this.”

  Emmie tried not to jump up and down with excitement.

  “That’s not a yes. Or a no,” Tayla said. “But… maybe?”

  “I’ll take maybe.”

  “Tell you what, it’s Friday. I’ll catch the train tomorrow morning,” Tayla said. “I can’t guarantee anything, but I want to see this hick town you claim to hate but now suddenly want me to move to.”

  “I’ll meet you at the station.”

  “Is this a result of valley fever?” Tayla asked. “I’ve read about that, you know.”

  “I don’t have valley fever.”

  “Isn’t that something someone with valley fever would say?”

  Emmie squeezed her eyes shut. “Tayla, I can’t explain it. I just think it might be awesome. Or nuts. But you know how you were getting on my case last month for always being cautious and never taking chances?”

  “Yep.”

  “This…” Emmie turned around in the empty shop. “This is a chance.”

  Chapter Two

  She stared at the pictures of shiny espresso machines. “The cheap ones are over three thousand dollars. Forget it. This is a crazy idea.”

  Tayla flipped the catalog shut. “You’re not buying a commercial espresso machine. You’ll get a nice pot or a single-serve thing and a suggested donation box. Otherwise you need a food-service license, and you don’t want to get into that mess. You don’t want to sell coffee, you want to sell books.”

  Daisy was measuring the tape they’d put on the floor and making notes on a Post-it. “I think my aunt has a couch this size she’s trying to get rid of. It’ll need to be re-covered, but I can help with that. You might even want to do a slipcover so you can change it out seasonally.”

  Tayla pointed at Daisy. “Great idea.”

  Emmie nodded. “Presentation is everything. Getting people in the door is the first step.”

  “I’ve seen the windows you did at Bay City.” Tayla McKinnon spun in the middle of the room, her pink-striped skirt flaring as she turned. She’d dyed her brown hair platinum blond and had a very “Marilyn” look going at the moment with her fair complexion and bright red lips. “And this is a much cooler space with better foot traffic. You have a talent for windows. If you translate that to the displays here, you’re going to attract a lot of customers.”

  “I’d need to build some kind of platform to elevate the display area.”

  Daisy said, “Ethan and his dad could help with that. They offered, remember?”

  Emmie took deep breaths and tried to calm her racing heart.

  This wasn’t insane. This was good business. This wasn’t a lark, this was a solid plan.

  Tayla had spent all morning at the shop, looking over the accounts with Daisy. Then she and Emmie had roughed out a budget that increased the rent a reasonable amount for both Café Maya and the hardware store, giving Emmie an increased operating budget for reopening the bookstore. If Emmie sold her car and some of her furniture in San Francisco, she’d have a chunk of money for some initial start-up costs to freshen up the store and buy some new inventory. Since Emmie would be living over the shop, she wouldn’t need her car to commute.

  Of course, that left her stranded in Metlin.

  Completely.

  Utterly.

  Stranded.

  “There’s always the train,” Emmie said under her breath.

  “What?” Tayla looked away from the windows.

  “Nothing!” Emmie walked over to Daisy and held down the end of the tape measure. “What about here?”

  “Big floor pillows would work until you can find some chairs that don’t break the bank. I could help you make some bean bags. Weren’t you talking about doing a children’s story hour?”

  “One of the best ways to get new people in,” Emmie said. “Story hour at Bay City is always a hit. You sell kids’ books and a lot of paperbacks to the parents.”

  “Got it.”

  Emmie perched on the desk her grandmother had used as a sales counter and watched the foot traffic on Main Street. “I think the key in Metlin is creating a community. This town has a ton of young families. Story hour might rope the kids in, but if we give parents a cool place to hang out, they’ll come back.”

  “Would you restart the book club?”

  “She only had one?” Emmie asked. “Bay City has three. There’s a YA club, a romance club, and a literary fiction club. They also d
id a special book-to-film thing every time there was a big movie opening that was based on a book.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Tayla said. “Looking at online retailers, the highest-ranked books definitely seem to be the ones that get film or TV adaptations.”

  “A YA club would be fun,” Daisy said. “You’re pretty close to the high school. If you did something after school, I bet you’d get a lot of kids looking for a place to hang out.”

  “One thing you definitely have is space.” Daisy cast her eyes at the mostly empty 7th Avenue side of the store. “What’s the plan for over there?”

  “Grandma always talked about putting tables over there, doing homework clubs or craft days or something, but she never followed through.”

  “What about another renter?”

  Tayla had taken out her yellow legal pad. “Another renter means more income. You could definitely use that.”

  “I don’t know.” Emmie took a deep breath and blew it out. “I hate the idea of putting up a wall here, but there is a separate entrance on 7th Avenue, so I guess—”

  “Not a wall. Just do a divider of some kind,” Daisy said. “Or a combination business where you share space. You could cross-promote that way. Maybe a craft store. The yarn shop went out of business. You could do Yarn and Yarns, crafting and bookshop.” Daisy giggled. “Okay, that’s pretty bad.”

  Tayla walked over to stand next to them as they looked at the space. “A café is the obvious choice, but besides Café Maya, there’s more than a few already open on Main Street. Opening another wouldn’t fill a current gap in the neighborhood.”

  “Yeah, don’t cut into my business,” Daisy growled. “I don’t want to have to get rough.”

  “Ha ha.” Emmie tapped her foot. “I don’t want food service here. Coffee is one thing—that’s pretty low labor—but a café is a lot more work. What about a boutique?”

  “What kind of boutique?” Tayla asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “A bar?” Daisy said. “Books and bars kind of go together, right?”

  “I researched liquor licenses in Metlin when I was coming down on the train,” Tayla said. “It’s not the easiest process.”

  “And then you have the food-service thing again,” Emmie said. “No, if I’m going to have another business, it should be retail. What goes with books?”

  “Wine.”

  “Knitting.”

  “Chocolate.”

  “Cats!”

  Emmie turned to both of them. “You’re not helpful.”

  Just then a voice drew Emmie’s attention from outside. Someone on the street was shouting loud enough to make it through the thick windows of the bookshop.

  “It’s drama girl,” Emmie said.

  Daisy glanced outside. “Not again.”

  Tayla and Emmie walked over to the windows and stared at the scene unfolding on the other side of Main Street. A muscular Caucasian man with intricate black tattoos had his arms crossed over his chest while a petite white woman with flame-red hair and a figure-hugging dress wagged her finger at him. Every now and then, Emmie could hear the man’s low voice, but she couldn’t make it out. The redhead, on the other hand, was clear.

  “Every time, Ox. Those bitches come in and you—”

  He cut her off with a waved hand and an inaudible comeback.

  “I don’t care!”

  Daisy stood beside them. “I swear this happens every week. Every. Single. Week it’s something new. She just needs to break up with him. Or he does with her.”

  Emmie had noticed them both before. She didn’t recognize either from high school, but the town had grown, and lots of new people had moved in. Some people her age were familiar from high school, but an equal number were transplants or had grown up in smaller farming towns around the growing city.

  The woman was hard to miss. She was beautiful and glamorous and usually dressed in skinny jeans and halter tops that made her look like a rock star. The guy… Well, he was equally hard to miss. A strong jaw and a killer smile. She’d noticed the smile because it was rare but made his piercing expression more human. She’d seen him walking across the street to Daisy's place more than once. He held doors and talked to old ladies. She didn’t know who he was, but in the week she’d been working at the shop, he’d become Emmie’s favorite scenery on Main Street.

  “Who are they?” Tayla asked. Her eyes were wide and she was smiling. “Give me all the dirt.”

  “Ginger and Ox. Miles Oxford,” Daisy said. “I went to school with his sister, and his mom was friends with Betsy, Em. He grew up outside town. Ranching family. Ginger owns Bombshell and he’s a tattoo artist at her shop. They’ve been on and off for a year and a half or so? But look at him. He’s a good-looking guy, right? The girls love coming to him for ink, and it drives Ginger nuts. Which is stupid, you know? I mean, if I got crazy every time Spider put a butterfly on a college girl’s butt, they’d have to lock me up.”

  “And we wouldn’t be friends,” Emmie said. “Which would be tragic.”

  Daisy laughed. “Your butterflies aren’t on your butt.”

  Emmie felt her face heat up.

  “Wait,” Tayla said. “You have a tattoo? When did you get a tattoo? How did I not know this?”

  Daisy said, “You’ve never seen her tattoo? It’s huge.”

  “Little Miss Cardigan over there?” Tayla asked. “I don’t think I’ve even seen her bare arms. She’s notoriously modest.”

  “You act like it’s a bad thing,” Emmie said.

  “Her tattoo is beautiful,” Daisy said. “Spider’s been working—”

  “Not important right now.” Emmie leaned closer to the glass. Whatever heat had been flaring between Ginger and Ox had morphed into heat of a different kind because she was leaning into his chest and their lips were locked together. Emmie felt a spike of jealousy.

  Why couldn’t she find a guy who kissed her like that?

  “They are hot,” Tayla said. “Smoking. I’d let him ink my butt too.”

  And the tattoo artist would probably thank her. Tayla was a full-figured knockout who drew men like magnets. She wasn’t only a bookkeeper but a minor celebrity on social media where she ran a plus-sized-fashion blog. She had confidence that Emmie couldn’t match and way better fashion sense. Emmie only dressed decently when Tayla picked her clothes.

  Daisy nodded knowingly. “You can tell he’s a good kisser.”

  The man knows how to take his time. Emmie couldn’t stop the small sigh.

  Just then his head lifted and turned toward the bookshop, locking eyes on the three faces in the window. Daisy waved. Tayla blew a kiss. Emmie whirled away and walked back to the counter.

  “Can we keep talking about the shop instead of my hot neighbors?”

  Tayla pursed her lips. “You think he’s hot?”

  “Of course I do. I’m not blind.” Emmie flipped open the coffee supply catalog again and browsed through pages of machines she couldn’t afford.

  “What do you mean, of course? He is so not your type.”

  Daisy said, “I’d have to agree. You usually go for the scruffy hipster-type with tweed jackets and bow ties.”

  “Bow ties are cool,” Emmie said. “And Metlin is too hot for tweed most of the year. And isn’t having a type narrow-minded? Can we talk about coffee please?”

  Daisy planted herself on the bar stool by the register. “We are returning to this conversation at a later date. For now, let’s decide what other business you can put on the other side. I vote craft shop. The yarn selection at Tompkins is abysmal since Trudy took over. She’s clearly not a knitter.”

  Tayla said, “You really are the retro homebody, Donna Reed–type you present yourself as, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll have you know my vegetable garden kicks ass,” Daisy said. “And I will make you weep with my baked goods.”

  Emmie added, “Ask her about her skimpy-apron collection sometime.”

  Daisy glared, but she was too
tiny and adorable to be threatening. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you and Spider drink together.”

  “Bad girl, Emmie,” Tayla said with a smile. “This hometown version I’m getting to know is fun. City Emmie is all business and sweatpants and early nights in. Metlin Emmie owns a pair of jeans.”

  Emmie shot her a rueful smile. “If I’m going to be in Metlin, I can wear jeans.”

  “Now we just need to get you a pair that fits,” Tayla said.

  Emmie tapped her notepad. “I think the craft shop is a good idea, but I want to keep an open mind. We shouldn’t rush into anything. For now I think I’ll put a play area over there for kids at story time. A children’s boutique might be a good idea too. Does downtown have one of those yet?”

  Daisy shook her head. “No, and it’s not a bad idea, but you’d have to find someone—”

  The bell over the door cut her off and a tall, lanky black man with a goatee and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses walked in. His wide smile brought a wave of recognition to Emmie.

  “Jeremy?”

  “I heard you were back,” he said, opening his arms. “I could hardly believe it when Daisy told me.”

  Emmie ran over and hugged him. Jeremy Allen was one of the few boys who hadn’t made her hide in high school. He’d been gawky, shy, and extraordinarily kind. She pulled back and looked up at the much taller man in front of her. “You got taller.”

  He smiled wider. “Just a little.”

  “And way handsome.” She tapped the tightly curled hair on his chin. “This looks cool.”

  A hint of pink touched the top of Jeremy’s cheeks. “I think I remember you teasing me about the beard a few times.”

  “Did I? I was a fool. Clearly you were ahead of the curve.” Emmie pulled back and waved Tayla over. “Tayla, this is one of the few people I liked in high school. I was under the impression that he’d fled town like me, so this is a surprise. Jeremy, this is my best friend from San Francisco, Tayla McKinnon.”

  “Miss Tayla.” Jeremy held out his hand and his eyes lit up as they swept over her. “I am charmed.”