Chapter 9
Wesley
I didn’t want to leave, but I had to, and then it had taken ages to get to sleep, and my dreams had been a confusing mess of Hunter and Nordic goats—dark eyes, steady hands, heated kissing, that was the fun part.
Nordic goats with mittens, antlers strung with fairy lights, dancing across frozen lakes that made no sense and left me waking up hot, flustered, and unsettled? Not quite so much.
I’d gotten myself off twice in the night trying to quieten the storm. My body knew what my heart wanted, even if my head screamed at me to be sensible.
And now, in the weak morning light, I lay staring at the ceiling, telling myself to move, to get up, to do anything other than replay every second of last night.
But replay it I did: the way he’d tugged my hair free, how he’d cradled my head as if I was something precious, the heat of his breath, the way my chest had ached when I pulled away first.
A sharp knock rattled the bookstore door as I was about to flip the sign for lunch.
When I opened it, a man in a navy jacket stood there, the bold lettering on his chest declaring Ironwood Logistics.
He held a clipboard in one hand and a slim packet in the other, the kind of official envelope that made my stomach sink.
“Delivery for Wesley Fairfax-Fitzalan,” he said.
The sound of my old name sliced right through me, sharp as broken glass. My grin was automatic, brittle around the edges, concealing how my chest tightened.
“It’s signed-for,” the courier continued. “Can I see some ID?”
“No.” The word came out sharper than I intended. “My ID has my new last name.”
He blinked, thrown, but then shrugged. Glancing at the bookstore sign and the address. “Whatever. I’ll wait for you to sign the paperwork to courier it back to the source.”
“Yeah, me signing papers without reading them isn’t happening.” I forced lightness into my tone. “My lawyer needs to check it first.”
The courier was confused and checked his notes. “I need to take it back.”
“And I need to call law enforcement to explain how I’m being harassed into signing legal paperwork without a lawyer present.”
His brows shot up, surprise flickering across his face, then he gave a small shake of his head. “Sorry. Out of my pay grade. Sign here.”
I scrawled my name—my name, Wesley Darkwood—on the line, took the envelope, and shut the door before he could say anything else. My hand shook just a little, so I shoved the packet on my desk in my tiny apartment kitchen, right beneath the tottering stack of fantasy novels waiting to be read.
I couldn’t deal with my family’s shit right now.
I figured I could fill the new day with busy work.
The bookstore always needed something. Displays, invoices, maybe a new order.
Anything that would keep me from drifting to my window and staring left at the door to The Real McCoy, wondering if Hunter was awake, if he was thinking about me, or if he was packing boxes already, leaving me behind.
I threw myself into the bookstore. I rearranged the front display twice, first with the new releases, then again with the Christmas stock, until I finally settled on decorating with snowflake garlands.
I crouched beside a box of fairy lights, trying to untangle the mess without strangling myself. “If I ever meet the sadist who invented Christmas light storage, I’m hexing them.”
Brooke laughed from the children’s table, where she was pinning up sign-up sheets.
“Put me down for Saturday story time,” she called.
Willow perched happily beside her with a crayon clutched in her fist. “And I’ll cover the craft corner during the parade prep.
The kids want glitter? They’ll get glitter. ”
“You’re a menace,” I said, grinning despite myself.
“Better a glitter menace than no menace at all.” She clipped the sheets straight and gave me a satisfied nod. “There. Organized chaos. Just how you like it.”
I opened boxes I’d been ignoring, stacked fresh deliveries, and lost myself in the comfort of new paper and ink.
Later that day, a delivery arrived—two cartons of holiday romances and a surprise box of cookbooks I hadn’t ordered.
Typical. I sighed, checked the invoice, and decided to keep them anyway.
Customers in Wishing Tree loved a happy accident, and chances were I’d sell out by next week.
I spent hours alphabetizing shelves that didn’t need it, updating invoices, and half-listening to the bell over the door ring as people drifted in and out. Every time it did, my heart jumped, hoping it was Hunter. But it never was.
“Everything okay, Wes?” Mrs. Donnelly, one of my regulars, asked as she tucked a paperback under her arm. “You seem distracted today.”
I forced a smile, waving a hand at the piles of books around me. “Just a lot on my mind. Too many deliveries, not enough space.”
She gave me a knowing look, the kind that said she didn’t believe a word, but she let it slide, heading for the register.
I needed people to be buying books before I ended up broke.
I gave myself a stern talking-to and went back to stacking shelves, wishing Hunter would walk in, but no, every bell that rang was for a different customer.
The phone rang, and I answered automatically, still half in my head about invoices. “This is Wes.”
“Hey, it’s Adrian Evans,” came the voice on the other end. He was talking as if I’d know the name, and I stayed polite.
“How can I help, Mr. Evans?”
“Uhm it’s about the… shi—sorry—it’s me. I mean. Trevelyan, Adrian Trevelyan. Evans is my real name. I’m the author that you… yeah…”
For a second, I froze. Adrian Trevelyan. The Adrian Trevelyan. My brain short-circuited so hard I nearly dropped the handset. “Oh—wow—hi! Sorry, I just—hi!”
A soft laugh. “Hey, don’t worry. I messed that up big time. I just wanted to check in about the signing. I’m not expecting a huge turnout, honestly, but I’ve got about four hundred author copies here. Would it be okay if I sent them ahead to you? You’ve got somewhere to stash them?”
I turned to look at the storeroom door, which hung slightly ajar, revealing the mountain of empty boxes and a half-collapsed display rack that I’d never gotten around to mending. Totally fine. Everything was fine. “Of course,” I said, way too quickly. “Plenty of room.”
“Perfect,” Adrian said, relief in his voice. “Didn’t want to swamp you.”
“Not at all.”
“Okay then. Well, I’ll get them sent.” He paused. “I look forward to meeting you on the twenty-first.” Another pause. “Goodbye, Mr. Darkwood.”
“Wes!” I said. “Call me Wes, please.”
“Call me Adrian.”
“Hi, Adrian.” God, I sounded so lame.
“Hi back, Wes.” He chuckled, and there was another pause, and I wanted to fill it with all the fan-boying that was trapped inside me.
“I’m a huge fan, by the way,” I blurted. “That scene at the end of Winter Lines—when the prince finally confesses—god, it wrecked me.”
Adrian chuckled, the sound quiet and genuine. “I always think I could’ve written it better.”
“Are you kidding? It was perfect.”
“Impostor syndrome’s a hell of a thing,” he admitted.
“The way you build worlds,” I said, trying not to sound like an idiot, “it’s like stepping into somewhere real. Every town, every street—you can smell the rain, feel the air. I get lost in them, honestly. There’ve been nights I’ve stayed up until two just because I couldn’t leave.”
Adrian made a soft sound, embarrassed. “That’s... really nice of you to say.”
“I mean it,” I rushed on, heart pounding, nerves buzzing under my skin. “The characters—god, they stay with me. I’ve reread whole chapters just to feel that ache again.”
He laughed quietly, the sound low and disbelieving. “You’re going to make me blush.”
“I’m serious,” I said, and I could hear how earnest I sounded, but I didn’t care. “It’s like you write with heart first, story second. That’s rare.”
For a moment, he didn’t say anything, and I could hear him exhale on the other end of the line. “That’s... kind of you. I never really believe I get it right.”
“That’s the impostor syndrome talking,” I told him, grinning because I felt as if I was talking to an old friend instead of one of my favorite authors.
He laughed again, modest as ever, but I could tell he was smiling now. And I meant every damn word.
We talked a bit longer about his books, about favorite characters and endings that broke us both. By the time we said goodbye, my face hurt from smiling.
When I hung up, I was still grinning at the receiver like an idiot. I'd forgotten all about how desperate I was to see Hunter.
When the bell over the door rang again, with a sigh, I pasted on my brightest smile before turning to face the newcomer.
And then my heart stopped—Hunter. Looking good, put-together in dark jeans and a coat that made his shoulders seem broader.
But beneath the surface polish, there was something else—nerves, tension tightening the corners of his mouth.
“I brought you a coffee,” he said, holding out a to-go cup.
“One of your froufrou ones, extra cream. You haven’t come in today, and I was thinking…
is everything okay?” His voice was low, careful, as if he wasn’t sure if he should even be here.
His fingers tapped the cardboard sleeve, and the way he avoided my eyes told me how nervous he really was.
”And, hell, the coffee is to apologize for last night—” Hunter began.
“I don’t need you to apologize,” I blurted, flustered, shaking my head too fast. The last thing I wanted was to erase what had happened between us.
“Ah, okay then. Well, here’s a non-apology coffee.
” Hunter set the drink on the counter, his gaze drifting away from me and sweeping the store instead.
It lingered on the half-finished Christmas display by the front.
“What happened to the Thanksgiving turkeys?” he asked, his brow furrowing as if he’d caught me red-handed in some seasonal crime.