Chapter 21
He’s waiting for you. He’s been waiting for you for seven years.
Jasmine’s words stuck in my brain like freshly chewed gum on the bottom of my shoe.
So much so that it paralyzed me.
I hadn’t told Adam about my conversation with Jasmine.
I hadn’t told him about Dr. O’Macklin’s referral.
I barely managed to show him the finished product of Pride and Prejudice… and even that was only because he came out of his office and caught me standing there in a daze, holding my copy of the book.
Now, it was Saturday morning, several days later and we wandered a flea market together. I was supposed to be looking for valuable, rare books to work on and add to my business. But I couldn’t focus.
I found myself flipping through the boxes of books at some guy’s table, barely registering what I was looking at.
“Hey,” Adam said, nudging me gently with his shoulder. “What about this one?” He held up a worn hardcover copy of The Hobbit.
I barely glanced at it. “Do you know how rare first editions of The Hobbit are?”
There was no way in frozen hell that copy he found at a flea market in New Hampshire was a first edition of The Hobbit.
Adam cleared his throat and slid a glance at the man running the table, who was currently busy chatting and laughing with the woman running the jewelry table beside him.
“I know,” Adam whispered. “But look. It’s the 1977 Harry Abrams deluxe illustrated edition. In rough shape, but still. I’ve seen this sell for a couple hundred on eBay.”
I leaned over and took the book from his hands.
Hot damn. He was right.
Not quite the same level of payout as Pride and Prejudice, but not everything could be that big of a gold mine. And for the $1 cover price, it was a good deal. And the rough shape? Was nothing that a couple hours alone couldn’t fix.
I tucked the book under my arm and leaned over to look deeper into Adam’s box. “Good job,” I whispered. “Anything else in this treasure trove?”
“Lots of mid-century books,” Adam said, picking up a few Stephen King books.
Two of which were nothing special… but the 1974 hardcover copy of Carrie with the dustjacket still intact could easily sell for $100. It wasn’t necessarily going to make me a millionaire, but it could keep the lights on a little longer.
Or keep me here in New Hampshire a little longer.
“Yes,” I hissed, dragging the sound of the ‘s’ out.
Pushing onto my toes, I kissed Adam’s cheek, then gently pushed him aside to dig further into the box.
Ten minutes later, I’d found three more books—A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle, the 1933 compilation of Poe’s works, titled Tales of Mystery and Imagination, and the jackpot discovery, a first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory complete with dust jacket…. A copy of which had sold on eBay a couple years ago for a whopping $1800.
I had a strong suspicion that the entire box was filled with books that were at least worth 50-100 bucks each. “Excuse me,” I asked the man running the table. “Do you know anything about the books in this box?”
He leaned over examining the box briefly before nodding. “Oh yeah. Picked that up at an estate sale. The guy’s wife just wanted ‘em out of the house. She gave me that box and this one.” He bent down, pulling out a second box chock full of books from somewhere below the table.
“Could I give you $200 for both boxes?”
He eyed me warily like I knew something he didn’t… which to be fair, I did. But that was the point of a flea market. I had no doubt he paid all of $50 for these books plus probably a van full of other stuff at that estate sale.
“Three hundred,” he haggled with me.
I opened my wallet, counting the cash I had on me. “Two hundred-thirty five.” I pulled out a wad of bills and held them up. “It’s literally all I have on me.”
With a nod, he smiled. “Sold.”
Isat on the floor of my apartment with nine valuable books fanned out in front of me. They’re not exactly enough for a down payment on a house. But a few of them were worth a thousand dollars or more.
For getting the whole box for two hundred and thirty five?
I was in good shape. Especially for one day at a flea market.
Adam peeked over his shoulder at me from the stovetop, where he was cooking something that smelled salty and delicious. “Well?”
“It’s a good haul,” I admitted. The rest of the books weren’t really worth anything, but I could donate them to the public library.
Verne lifted his head from where he was laying on the couch, curiously examining if his dad was planning to toss a baby carrot his way. But when no food catapulted across the room, he curled back up to snooze again.
I eyed Jules across the room where she sat on the windowsill, tail swishing as she glanced at the books in front of me. “Don’t even think about it,” I muttered to her, then carefully stacked the valuable books together and placed them in the closet where she couldn’t get to them.
I’d still have to reach out to O’Macklin’s contact tomorrow. As good a haul as these books were, they didn’t buy me a whole lot more time. Especially since this apartment was being supplemented by Dartmouth. As soon as I was finished with their library, I’d have to find another place to stay which stressed me out more than I cared to admit. Although it was nice to know I could always go stay with Dad and Addy for a couple of weeks.
Chewing on my thumbnail, I plopped down on the couch beside Verne, still lost in thought.
“Hello? Earth to Harper.”
“Huh?”
Adam tilted his head at me, pausing to slide the casserole dish into the oven. Then, tossing the oven mitts aside, he came over and sat down beside me. “What’s going on? You’ve been so stressed lately. I thought you’d relax a little when I realized you’d struck gold at the flea market.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “I wouldn’t exactly call this gold, but yeah. It does help.” A little.
“But?”
“But… I need to start thinking about what’s next for me,” I admitted. I looked up to catch my reflection in the TV and could tell that my cheeks had gone beet red.
Admitting that, finally, aloud to Adam lifted the weight that’d been crushing me off my shoulders. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
“What are your options?” Adam asked after a brief pause.
“Well, I should finish up at Dartmouth in the next week or so. And after that, I’m sure they’ll let me use this place for a little bit between gigs, but it’s faculty housing. So I’ll need to move… quickly. I mean, I could go stay with my Dad between jobs, but?—”
“Or me.”
I froze. “What?”
“You could stay with me.”
I gulped. Was he asking what I thought he was asking? “Like… stay with you a few days while I find a place? Stay with you a couple weeks until my next job?”
“Or… just stay with me. Use my apartment as a sort of home base you come back to between jobs.” His smile twitched higher. “Any of the above. Speaking of, do you have another job lined up?”
It was such a simple question. And yet, I could see the corded muscles of Adam’s throat go tight as he asked the question.
“I have a call scheduled with the head of the classics department at Brown tomorrow morning.”
“Brown,” Adam repeated. “Rhode Island.”
“There’s no guarantee I’ll even get the job!” I hurried to add.
Adam smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Oh, you’ll get it,” he said with a wink at me. Then, standing, he peeked into the oven to check the casserole despite the fact that he’d only just put it in a few minutes ago.
“You’re… you’re not mad?”
“Mad?” His brows furrowed as he swiveled to look at me. “I can’t be mad at you for pursuing your career. Not anymore than you could be mad at me for not hitting the road with you and traveling.”
It hadn’t even occurred to me that Adam might want to join me on these trips. “Would you want to join me?” I asked. “When I go to the different universities?”
Adam gave me a sad smile. “For a weekend here or there, yeah. But, I teach here year round. I don’t think I could spare a lot of time.”
Tears pricked at the edges of my eyes, burning, but I refused to let them fall yet. “So we’re just destined to live apart,” I whispered. “Even if I moved in with you, there’s just not enough business here in the Northeast for me to be able to stay here as a book restorer.” Unless I took a job as a librarian. Which was an amazing career… it just wasn’t what I wanted to do.
Not right now at least.
I clamped my eyes shut, willing the tears to stay away.
“Hey.” I felt Adam’s arms fold around me and then the press of my cheek against the slab of hard muscles of his chest. “We have time to figure it out,” he said. “And Brown is only three hours from here. We can make that work…”
…For a little longer. Those were the words he didn’t finish his sentence with.
We could make it a little longer.
But not forever.