Chapter 3
— · —
Lina
I should have listened to the weather report.
Should have closed early with every other sensible business owner in Pine Valley.
But no, I had to be the overachiever who sent Mika and Vivi home at five with a breezy “I’ll just finish inventory real quick” while storm clouds gathered overhead with all the subtlety of a disaster movie opening.
Now it was eight PM, and Mother Nature had apparently decided my shop had personally offended her ancestors.
The rain wasn’t falling so much as launching a full military assault on my windows.
Each drop hit with enough force to make me wonder if my insurance covered acts of vengeful weather gods.
The wind howled through every gap in the old building, turning my cozy bookstore into a symphony of creaks and groans that would make a haunted house jealous.
And my front door, the temperamental beast I’d been meaning to fix for three months, had chosen tonight to reveal its true calling as an interpretive dancer.
“Come on, you absolute bastard,” I grunted, throwing my full body weight against it for the fifth time. The door laughed at my efforts and flew open again, sending another cascade of water across my previously clean floors.
Terrible day to wear a dress. I’d put it on this morning thinking I looked cute, professional, maybe even a little attractive if the lighting was right.
Now it clung to every inch of my body with the determination of cling wrap, leaving absolutely nothing to imagination.
My hair had gone from “casual messy bun” to “drowned rat chic,” and my mascara was probably making me look ready for a metal concert.
I braced myself for another wrestling match with the door, already composing the creative insults I’d unleash on whoever installed it, when a hand appeared on the other side.
I definitely didn’t shriek. It was a very dignified yelp. Professional business owners don’t shriek when mysterious hands appear during horror movie storms.
The door opened fully to reveal Matthias, water streaming down his face, leather jacket dark with rain. He looked irritated about being wet, which was fair, but also somehow managed to make “drowned in a parking lot” look good. Because of course he did.
“What are you doing here?” I had to yell over the storm trying to relocate my shop to another dimension.
“Driving past. Saw you fighting the door.” His voice carried despite the chaos around us, probably because it had that quality that made you lean in to listen even when the world was ending. “Thought you might need help.”
“Driving past? In this?” I gestured wildly at the biblical flood happening outside. “At eight PM? Through the abandoned part of town where my shop is?”
“I take the scenic route.”
Before I could point out that the scenic route in this weather was also known as the “death wish route,” he stepped inside.
Water cascaded off him, and he shrugged out of his jacket, hanging it on the coat hook by the door.
The movement revealed a dark shirt underneath that was almost as soaked, clinging to his chest in ways that made me notice things I shouldn’t be noticing during natural disasters.
Then he did the most remarkable thing. He pulled out an actual toolkit from his back pocket. Not a Swiss Army knife or some random screwdriver, but a compact toolkit with different sizes and everything.
“You just... carry tools around?”
He was already examining the door with the focus of a surgeon. “Useful to have.”
“For all those emergency door repairs you do in thunderstorms?”
“Exactly.”
I stood there dripping while he did mysterious things with the hinges and latch. His hands moved with practiced efficiency, and within minutes, my demon door actually closed. And stayed closed.
We stood there, both creating small lakes on my floor, and I became extremely aware of how my dress had basically become body paint at this point. Nothing about this screamed “professional business owner.” Everything about it screamed “contestant in a wet t-shirt contest she didn’t sign up for.”
“Towels,” I squeaked, my voice hitting notes usually reserved for dog whistles. “I have towels. In the back. For... drying.”
Smooth, Lina. Real smooth.
I led the way to the back room, trying not to think about how I probably looked from behind.
Or how he looked from behind, with his shirt plastered to his back in ways that made me notice muscle groups I didn’t know existed.
This was fine. Everything was fine. Just a normal evening of being saved from a murderous door by a man who made wet cotton look sophisticated.
The back room was marginally warmer than the main shop, though the overhead light kept doing an ominous flicker that suggested it might give up at any moment. I grabbed towels from the supply closet, handing him one while trying very hard not to stare.
“Thanks,” he said, running it over his hair, which only made it stick up in ways that should have looked ridiculous but instead made me want to run my fingers through it.
I turned away to give him privacy and also to give myself a stern mental lecture. This was Matthias. My regular customer. Who just happened to be driving by in a Category 5 storm and happened to have tools and happened to know how to fix doors and happened to look really good wet.
The lights flickered more dramatically, and I had just enough time to think “please no” before the power died completely.
Darkness swallowed the room for three seconds before the emergency lighting kicked in, bathing everything in that specific shade of green that horror movies used right before someone got murdered.
“Perfect,” I muttered. “Just perfect. Would you like some green-tinted coffee with your power outage?”
“I’ll pass.” I could hear amusement in his voice even if I couldn’t quite see his expression in the zombie apocalypse lighting.
“Great. Because the espresso machine is electric and currently as useful as my weather app that promised ‘light showers’ today.”
“You have a camping stove in the camping supplies,” he said, and I definitely didn’t jump at how he knew that. Normal. Everything was normal.
“How did you...”
“Saw it when you got the towels. The door was open.”
Right. The door. Not creepy at all. Just observant.
We ended up behind the counter with my ancient battery-powered space heater between us, sitting on the floor because the chairs were all in the main shop area and neither of us wanted to venture into the green-lit nightmare out there.
I made coffee on the camping stove, proud that my hands only shook a little bit.
“For emergencies,” I explained as I handed him a mug.
“Like being trapped with strangers during apocalyptic storms?”
“Exactly. Though I’d argue you’re not really a stranger anymore. You’re more of a... regular stranger.”
“Regular stranger. I’ll take it.”
The wind screamed against the windows, and I tried not to think about how cozy this actually was. Just me and my mysterious regular, sharing battery-powered heat while the world ended outside. Normal Tuesday night activities.
“So,” I said, desperate for conversation that didn’t involve me thinking about how good he smelled even soaked in rain, “finish that book?”
“The butler did it.”
“I told you! The inheritance angle was too obvious. When authors spend that much time on financial troubles, it’s always misdirection.”
“You’ve figured out the formula.”
I took a sip of camping stove coffee, which tasted exactly as romantic as it sounded.
“Please. After selling five hundred thrillers, I could write one in my sleep. Chapter one: someone dies mysteriously. Chapter two: everyone has secrets. Chapter three through twenty: red herrings everywhere. The end: it’s always the person you suspected in chapter five but talked yourself out of. ”
“Cynical.”
“Experienced. There’s a difference.” I gestured with my mug, warming to my subject. “The real twist is that there are no twists anymore. Readers are too smart. We’ve all seen every possible configuration of murder suspect.”
“So why keep reading them?”
“Because we’re all masochists who enjoy being one step behind fictional detectives?”
Lightning illuminated the room in stark white, and in that split second of clarity, I caught him staring at me. Not at the shop, not at the storm, but at me. His expression made my stomach do gymnastics that would score tens across the board.
“What?” I asked softly, the word barely audible over the rain hammering the roof.
“You have foam on your lip.”
I automatically went to wipe it with my hand, but he leaned forward slightly. “Other side.”
My tongue darted out to lick it away, and his eyes tracked the movement with an intensity that made me forget about the storm entirely.
He leaned closer, more than just a fraction this time, and suddenly the space between us shrank to inches.
His breath fanned across my face, carrying the scent of coffee and rain and danger.
I could see the exact shade of gray in his eyes, darker now, pupils dilated in the dim light.
My lips parted slightly, and his gaze dropped to them.
The air between us crackled with tension that had nothing to do with the storm outside.
He leaned in another inch. I tilted my face up, drawn by invisible strings.
Our mouths were so close I could feel the warmth radiating from him, could almost taste the coffee on his breath. Just one more inch and...
Thunder crashed directly overhead with enough force to shake the building. He jerked back so fast I wondered if I’d imagined the whole moment.
“Storm’s letting up,” he said roughly, but his hands weren’t quite steady as he set down his mug.
I looked at the windows currently being assaulted by rain with enough force to qualify as water torture. “That was literally the loudest thunder we’ve had all night.”
“Right. Letting up.”