Chapter 14
“Any chance I can interrupt you with dinner?”
The two women at my counter both turned toward Nolan’s voice at the same time. The smell of a KC’s chicken cheesesteak made me glad I’d only eaten a salad for lunch, knowing he was bringing over an early dinner.
Both of their heads followed my boyfriend as he came behind the counter and planted a kiss on my head.
“Running in the back for a soda. Want one?”
I lifted my water bottle. “Trying to quit.”
He made a sound that told me Nolan knew better. I’d been quitting soda, and trying to drink more water, for the better part of ten years.
“Sorry,” the young woman who’d just bought Dead Guy Next Door, one of my favorite Lucy Score books. “I didn’t mean to stare at your boyfriend. But he really looks like he might have stepped out of the pages of this,” she held up the bag I just handed her.
“Trust me, you’re going to love Nick.” I said, having read that book more than once. “But yeah, my boyfriend really is romance book material.”
In more ways than one.
He could be Riven one night, and Rowan the next. But my favorite version of him was somewhere in between the “headboard” hero and the swoony “Rowan” for another time.
“Now this one is interesting,” I said, picking up the book her friend was buying. “I actually met the author at a book event in St. Pete, Florida.”
“Get out?” she said as I rang her up. “I’m a sucker for thrillers, although I can’t say I’ve read a coastal thriller before. The cover caught my eye.”
“Yep,” I also rang up her bookmark. I loved these old-school girlies with paperbacks and bookmarks.
My out-of-control book collection was one reason I wanted to open a bookstore with a combination of new and used books.
“He’s a pilot himself. Super cool guy.” She looked impressed.
I was about to blow her friend out of the water.
“Met Lucy too. Actually, I had dinner with her.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “No way?”
For book lovers, these were our celebrities.
“Yep. Same convention. Long story, but she’s as funny in real life as her romcoms.” I handed both women my card. “Keep in touch and let me know what you think.”
“Thanks,” they said simultaneously just as Nolan emerged from the back room, two sodas in hand. When the bell above my door rang, he pulled me into his arms.
“Thought they’d never leave.”
Kissing him never got old. Real-life romance might look a little different than it did in the books, but there were bits of truth in those relationships too. Nolan was living proof.
“I love when you do that,” I said, knowing how much he liked me to tell him exactly what I wanted.
“Do what. Kiss you?”
“That too. But I meant grabbing the back of my neck and pulling me into you.”
His fingers massaged my scalp, Nolan’s hand still tangled in my hair. “Good to know,” he said with a grin. “Hungry?”
“For,” I teased.
“Mmm, don’t tempt me to drag you into that back room again. I told Freddie I’d be back by five.”
Reluctantly, I let him go, but only because Freddie was the owner of one of my favorite restaurants, and The Dock was currently closed for renovations. We ate at the counter, interrupted only once by a local looking for a gift for his girlfriend.
“Oh yeah,” I jumped up, remembering. “I have something for you.”
“I have something for you too,” he quipped with a wink. Swatting him on the shoulders, I jumped up and said, “Be right back.”
Heading into the back room, I navigated toward the fridge where a single piece of carrot cake waited.
I’d noticed one of our favorite restaurants down the street had carrot cake as one of their specials today.
Personally, I couldn’t imagine eating a vegetable in a cake, but Nolan loved it.
Taking it out, I headed back when one particular isle caught my eye.
As if by gravitational pull, my legs moved, propelling me in that direction. I’d been tempted to this spot before, but since the following morning, after Nolan and I got together, I hadn’t touched Father Simon’s chronicle. Putting it back on the shelf, I’d only looked at it, remembering.
Someday, I would tell Nolan. When the time was right. But for now, that chapter of my life was closed.
I stared at the spine, remembering Dr. Hensley's words about blood memory and souls seeking their mirrors.
The book hadn't just shown me other versions of Nolan.
It had shown me the truth I'd been too afraid to see in my own time.
Rowan's devotion, Riven's intensity ... they weren't fantasies I needed to escape into.
They were reflections of what already existed, waiting for me to stop hiding in stories and start living my own.
Father Simon had been right. The heart knows its mirrors across time.
Mine had been standing beside me all along.
There are places where devotion bends time itself. When two hearts echo the same vow, the veil thins, and one may walk where another once wept.
Rowan’s recitation of Father Simon’s words came back to me periodically.
He had uncovered something, a phenomenon that needed to be studied.
One I would eventually, possibly, explore with Dr. Hensley.
But for now, I’d told him the bookshop kept me busy, and then if I freed up some time I would come by with the book.
But not today.
Scurrying back out to the front room, I caught Nolan mid-bite. “Guess what’s in here?” I asked, lifting the takeout container up for his inspection.
He finished chewing.
“Not the surprise I was hoping for,” he teased.
Laughing, I put the cake in front of him. “This will have to do.”
He opened it. “Thought you’d never give it to me.”
That was the very last response I expected. About to ask what he meant, I stopped when Nolan leaned down, as if to inspect the cake. “Strange. Looks like there’s something in there.”
“What?” I pulled it toward me, not seeing anything.
“Look closer.”
Nolan was right. There was a piece of … what the heck was that? I put the cake onto the counter, maneuvered the plastic fork into it, and…
No way.
My head whipped up to Nolan which is when everything happened at once. I noticed the baby wipe in his hand and a gathering crowd, including my parents, and Charlee, outside the shop’s picture window.
Nolan took the engagement ring from me, wiped off the cake and frosting, and bent down to one knee. “Lena, my little vixen, I’ve loved you my whole life. Will you spend the rest of yours loving me back?”
For someone usually terrible at making decisions, this one was easy. My body felt as if it were floating as I allowed Nolan to take my hand. “Yes. One thousand percent, yes.”
The cheers from outside Between the Pages and Nolan’s bear hug, followed by a kiss that lingered probably too long for my parents’ comfort, enveloped me like a warm, weighted blanket. Engaged to my best friend. Every version of him better than the one before it.
I was a lucky girl.
“But how?” I asked, the logistics of his proposal baffling me.
“My mother was there for lunch with her friends. She texted to ask if I wanted a piece of cake. My first thought was, yes. My second was you mentioning you grabbed a salad at Casa Bella for lunch. I’ve had this,” he lifted my hand, “for a week, trying to find the perfect way to ask.”
And that was the end of our quiet moment. Suddenly the shop was filled with more people than most probably had at their engagement. Hugs and congratulations followed, but only before Charlee and Mazzie popped open bottles of Prosecco.
“I never did tell you,” Charlee said at one point. “Our idea for your wedding date, did I?”
She looked at Nolan.
“No way?” I asked.
“Yes way.” She lifted her class. “Cheers to your good taste.”
Mazzie joined us. “You guys did all this since lunch?”
“The benefit,” Mazzie lifted the bottle in her hands. “Of owning a bar just down the street.”
Ten minutes later, when I found myself with Nolan again, I realized he was late. “Freddie—”
“Expects me in the morning.”
“How did you know I’d give it to you now and not wait to bring it home?”
“I didn’t. If you hadn’t offered it up soon, I planned to drop a big ol’ ‘wish I had a little sweet treat’ hint.’”
Hugging him, holding Nolan tight, I marveled how well he knew me. Well enough to pull something like this off.
“And even the baby wipe?” I murmured into his chest, looking up into those warm, hazel eyes.
“Your mom’s idea.”
“They knew?”
“I asked them for their permission before I bought the ring. When I called earlier to tell them it was happening tonight, she got all practical on me. But it was a good idea.”
He’d asked my parents.
Of course he did.
I laid my head back onto his chest, listening to the sounds of chatter in my shop, filled with stories like the one I was living now. But this happily ever after was mine.