Chapter 3
Aiden
My first impression of the newest woman in New Hopewell is that she’s loud.
Wincing, I cover my ears.
She’s terrified, I realize.
Terrified, pale-faced and looking like she’s just seen a ghost, but…
My second impression of her is that she’s beautiful.
Stunning, even. Golden blonde hair falls in loose waves down her shoulders, a cobweb clinging to her hair like she’s wearing it for fun. Lean, graceful legs stick out from denim shorts, and I can’t help noticing how smooth they are. How soft they look.
She’s still just staring at me, her blue eyes wide and frozen on me.
“I’m Aiden, I didn’t mean to scare you, shit. I came over here to drop off supplies, food, you know, from the town, to welcome you here, and the back door was wide open, so I just came on up.” I point to the brown bags lining her counters for proof.
“Oh.” She inhales, closing her eyes.
Which lets me drink in the sight of her. We get a good tourist business here in New Hopewell, one of the things that helps keep my brewery business alive and well, so it’s not like I don’t see new women.
But this one… there’s something about her.
She’s pale, a weird thing coming out of a Texas summer, but it works for her, makes her skin practically glow against the dark of the bookstore behind her.
“You should close that door. The bookstore isn’t climate-controlled, we don’t want to let the air out.”
“Huh? Of course it is,” she says, her tone matter-of-fact and annoyed all at once.
Slowly, so as not to startle her, I reach around and grab hold of the doorknob.
“Shit,” I curse, startling at both the ice-cold metal and the blur of black fur that races inside the apartment.
“See? It’s freezing in there. Kitty must have been shivering.”
“Your cat is named Kitty?” I ask her. She’s still just staring at me, holding a book in her hands like her life depends on it. “I didn’t pick up any pet food...” I trail off. Surely she has cat food for her own cat. “I have today off, though. I can show you around and help you pick some things up.”
I didn’t mean to offer that.
I mean, yeah, I do have the day off, but I planned on spending it at the inn’s stocked lake fishing and eating crap food before rolling into bed.
“Oh,” she says again.
She’s freaked out.
I let out a long breath, running a hand over my face.
“I’m sorry. Can we start over? Here, I’ll just—” I paste on my most dazzling smile, the one that usually earns me plenty of admiring looks, and motion to the stairs that lead to the back-alley entrance. “I’ll walk down there and ring the bell, and you can let me in, and we can start all over.”
I frown as I remember the grocery bags. “Although, I didn’t plan on hauling all those back down and back up.”
She lets out a laugh then, louder than I would have thought from someone who looks so… meek, I decide. That’s the word for it. Scared.
Like she needs someone to take her under their wing.
I puff my chest out, then make my way to the paper bags.
“Don’t, you don’t have to do that,” she finally says, moving towards me, a grin on her face. “I’m so sorry, I’m… not myself today. This has all been a lot?”
She says it like she’s asking permission to be out of sorts, and I smile at her because she’s fucking adorable, like a newborn deer, all spindly legs and big doe eyes.
Nothing about this woman is my usual type—I like a woman who is as loud and wild as I am. I might be attracted to Sylvie, but there wouldn’t be anything there.
“The drive was a lot,” she continues, blue eyes watching me intensely. “And then, going into the bookstore. You know.” Her sheepish expression says she’s not comfortable with small talk, another reason nothing romantic would ever work with us.
Not that I’m in the market for a relationship. Nope.
It’s the single life for me.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her, and mean it. Not thinking of her as a potential sexual conquest immediately helps me relax. Who gives a fuck about any of this?
My job here is to help her get settled into New Hopewell, and that’s it.
The fact she’s nice to look at is just a perk.
“Well, I’m at your disposal, one of the joys of small-town living. I’m your assigned chaperone for the day.” That’s not quite the truth, and chaperone sounds a lot weirder than I planned it to, but oh well.
I give myself a mental pat on the back for my display of neighborly virtue.
“I don’t need a chaperone,” she says. The cat jumps up on the counter and yowls.
I blink.
“I didn’t mean to imply you needed one—”
“I have GPS on my phone.” She sets the massive, weird book she was holding on a wobbly paint-stained folding table, the only stick of furniture in the place. “I can get around fine by myself.”
“Of course you can.” I don’t know quite what to do with my hands, so I settle for putting them on my hips.
“Don’t you have something better to do than babysit me?
I’m sure you do. Like, I don’t know, clean your bathroom or something.
” She shrugs a shoulder, her cheeks red.
“That’s what I do on my day off. Clean my bathroom, I mean.
Not that it’s like, my idea of fun. Just something that needs to be done. Day off things.”
I snort a laugh, eyebrows rocketing up.
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like Sylvie.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like doing it. I’d rather not. But I need to clean the bathroom here, in the bookstore, you know? The whole place needs a scrubbing. What’s the deal with that, anyway?”
She takes a deep breath, and all I can do is stand by and listen, thrown for a complete loop by her.
“The bookstore, I mean. I don’t know much about any of this.
” She waves a hand around. “Is there something weird about it? It feels like there’s something weird about it.
Who just randomly inherits a bookstore from someone they didn’t even know existed?
Then I walk in and it’s so gorgeous, right, but weird.
Not updated. That reminds me, I need to call an electrician or a contractor or whatever.
I’m new to owning a business, and the to-do list already feels massive.
I was a librarian, and that was hard too, but this is like…
this is all on me. All on my shoulders. I want it to work so badly. ”
Her hand covers her mouth, her blue eyes widening even more, and I swear I can hear her mouth snap shut.
“Sorry, I talk too much when I’m nervous. I have anxiety. Like, diagnosed. And right now, because of this whole move thing.” She cringes, and I laugh again.
Her face falls slightly and she tilts her head.
Guilt punches me because she thinks I’m laughing at her. I’m not laughing at her at all, not like she thinks I am, anyway.
There’s something joyous about the way she’s just babbling to me, something sweet and earnest and refreshing about being deemed worthy of hearing it.
“Well, I can’t say I blame you. For being nervous about moving here. I’m new-ish here too. I own part of the brewery down the way.” I gesture vaguely in the direction of The Salt Circle. “So you see, I’m the perfect choice to help you acclimate to life in New Hopewell.”
Damn it. Why am I pressing the issue?
The fish in the stocked lake are calling to me, hoping to be reeled in.
Yet here I am, more chivalrous to this woman who clearly wants nothing to do with me than I have been in my entire life.
Not that I’m some kind of asshole or anything, but I don’t usually go out of my way to escort women around town when I could be fishing.
“Oh.” She blinks, her lashes so long and thick I can’t help staring at them. “Well, I mean, if you don’t have anything better to do, sure. I didn’t think small-town life was that boring, though. That you’d be willing to give up your precious toilet-cleaning time for a stranger, I mean.”
I press a hand against my heart. “I do take my toilet-cleaning time very seriously.”
We both laugh, and her eyes light up with humor, crinkling at the corners.
Small talk might not be her strength, but I like her laughter just fine.