Chapter Six
A Bookstore Meet Cute
Cheyenne
Wildflower Acres Book Shoppe smells exactly like its name implies—of soft, fragrant blooms to press your nose to, and of creased, inky pages to lose yourself in.
I step through the pale pink front door, hitching my tote higher on my shoulder, and a delicate bell chimes over my head. Sunshine bathes white shelves filled with novels in buttery golden light. Near the front windows, three bistro tables have pink cushioned chairs tucked underneath them with vases of wildflowers on top. Display tables feature authors of the month and book club invitations. Behind the counter, Ember Bryant lays the novel in her hands aside to greet me.
“Hi,” she says brightly. “And welcome to the Wildflower Acres Book Shoppe. You’re Cheyenne, right?”
Whether she remembers that from when she and Graham came to the ranch last summer or because she knows my history with Colton, I’m not sure.
“That’s me,” I say with a nod, my thumb twisting the hem of my sweatshirt. “I haven’t been here before, but it’s beautiful. I love the chandelier.”
Ember glances at the glass fixture shaped like ornate stacks of books with fondness. “Oh, thank you. My parents surprised me with it before my grand opening last year. It’s my favorite—along with all the books, of course.” She laughs self-deprecatingly. “Sorry. I tend to ramble around new people. Not that you’re new, but—Never mind.” Her slender shoulders lower and she lifts her chin. “Are you looking for anything specific?”
I smile, already feeling more welcome here than most places in Chicago. “Not really. Just something to read over the weekend. I read romances, I like mysteries, and I’ll never say no to a good book of poetry.”
I decide not to mention I haven’t read a romance novel since the divorce.
“Well, we have plenty of all three genres—especially romance, since that’s my favorite.” She comes around the counter, and even though she’s notably shorter than me, she carries herself confidently in pink jeans, a lace edged camisole, and a pale-yellow blazer. Floral perfume hangs in the air as she leads me toward the front of the shop. “As far as romance goes, I have to mention my own novel because otherwise Graham and my whole family will scold me. It’s—”
“Darn right we will.” Graham appears from the back with a large brown box in his hands. Dirt smears his navy slacks/white polo combination, and he dips his chin when he sees me. “Cheyenne.”
My fingers itch to touch the wave necklace at my collarbone, but I don’t. Stephen called it a weird nervous tic and insisted I break the habit— it’s like when people bite their nails, he’d said. I learned quickly not to do it around him if I didn’t want unfavorable consequences. Here, though, the instinct flares back to life.
“Hey,” I say with a halfhearted smile. I don’t know how much Colt told anyone about us, but either way, I ran the risk of running into a Del Ray by coming here. Just like I do by working at Hazel’s flower shop.
For a fresh start, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
“Ember tends to forget how amazing her book is,” Graham continues, his gaze shifting to his fiancée, “so we have to remind her.” He lifts the box in his hands. “Where do you want this? I think it’s books.”
“Books? For a bookstore ?” Ember feigns shock, but she’s smiling as she crosses to take the box from Graham. “Oh, wow, you made this look way lighter than it is.” Her mouth curves higher. “Would you be willing to take it back to my office? Pretty please?”
Graham sighs dramatically, but he takes it from her hands. “Yes. But only for a kiss.”
With a grin, Ember bounces onto her toes, one hand resting on Graham’s forearm for balance, and presses a kiss to his stubbled cheek. I shift my attention to the display of romance novels in front of me. I don’t mind their affection, but a lump is forming in my throat, something like sadness stinging my eyes.
When I finally scrounged up enough emotional strength to consult my lawyer brother on a good divorce attorney last year, I thought I’d feel free. Free of the control Stephen had over me and free of the emotional abuse I’d endured while trying to save my marriage. And to an extent, I guess I did, but it didn’t come without a healthy dose of guilt.
All I’d ever known were healthy, thriving marriages. My grandparents, my parents, Uncle Ty and Aunt Rosie, Beau and Kaia. I knew unhealthy ones existed, but I didn’t think I would be the one to fall into one. Didn’t think the successful, charming man I met at The Art Institute of Chicago would destroy my confidence and strip me of my identity.
I trace my fingertips over the velvety soft cover of Ember’s book, taking in the pastel colors and the gentle way the hero embraces the heroine. Not unlike Graham’s tenderness with Ember, from the few interactions I’ve witnessed.
Quietly, Ember sidles up next to me again. “Don’t feel at all like you have to buy—”
“Lou Lou,” Graham hollers, “don’t sell yourself short!”
Pink stains her cheeks and she lowers her voice. “He’s a bit protective sometimes, but he means well.”
She’s not talking about Stephen , I remind myself silently, because Stephen didn’t mean well.
“As he should be,” I tell her, keeping my tone light. “Your book sounds really good.”
Like the wildflowers turned toward the sun, Ember perks up. “You think so?”
“Of course, I do. And between us, as someone who’s known Graham since he was in diapers,” I say, “he only acts that protective if he really, truly cares about someone. But you probably already know that.”
Ember laughs. “I absolutely do. I think that’s probably partially why I fell for him.” Wistfulness softens her features as she glances toward the back, then straightens. “Anyway. If you have any questions, let me know, but otherwise I’ll just let you look around. Oh, and the poetry is right across from the checkout counter.”
The subtle acceptance of my hesitance multiplies my respect for Ember. I assure her I’ll be fine, and even though I don’t know when I’ll read it, I tuck her novel into my elbow before venturing across the store. Graham pops his head around the corner to tell Ember the computer froze up, so she hurries back to help him, leaving me alone in the front.
Well. Only as alone as one can be while surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of fictional friends waiting to be brought to life in the vivid mind of a reader.
I’m not looking for anything specific, but as I pull books from the shelves, flip through their pages, and let the words penetrate my soul, I feel a little more at peace than before I came in. So much so that, when the bells above the door jingle, I don’t even bother looking up from the Josephine Kennedy book in my hands.
Which is, I discover seconds later, a big mistake.
With three new books in my arm, I turn to head up to the counter. I still need to get to Falls Market before I go home because my fridge is mostly empty. And then the next ten seconds go like this:
I pull my phone out while I turn.
My eyes are therefore downcast.
The patron who walked in has the unfortunate experience of me colliding directly with his broad chest.
I look up, mumble a sorry , and realize with a start that the patron is Colton.
Because, you know, of course it is.
Colton’s hands steady me on my shoulders, but instead of easy amusement in his lake water blue eyes, they’re cloudy. He blinks before I can study it deeper, and I wonder if I only imagined it. Seriousness and Colton rarely belong in the same category.
“Careful,” Colton murmurs. For a moment I think it’s because of our collision, until his mouth curls. “If Ember sees us, she might think we’re in the middle of a classic bookstore meet cute.”
“A classic bookstore meet cute?”
“Yeah,” he says, and I resist a shiver when his thumb brushes the inside of my elbow. “It’s indubitable.”
“Indubitable?” I repeat, because apparently, I’m incapable of my own words.
“Yes,” he says. He leans slightly to the left. “It’s indubitable that two souls who meet in a bookstore will go on to live a romance-novel-worthy love story.”
Frowning, I glance over my shoulder. And then, despite myself, I laugh as I turn back to Colton. “You big weirdo. You were reading that off the sign on the wall.”
Colton’s eyes widen and he presses a dramatic hand to his heart. “Me? No. I’d have to know how to read.”
“Yeah, well, I think you just learned.”
He winks at me, and inadvisably, my heart skips. I know I shouldn’t, but I wish this truly was that—a meet cute. Instead of Colton and Cheyenne, best friends turned lovers turned strangers, we could be Man and Woman with no history, bumping into one another in the aisle of a quaint bookstore.
The perfect, idyllic meet cute. I would tuck my hair behind my ear, touch my necklace, and notice the dimple hidden beneath his dark beard. He would ask me to go to dinner, and I’d tell him yes, but only if we went right then. One date would turn into two, two into twenty, and twenty into a lifetime of recalling that one moment when the stars aligned for us. How, if one of us had left a moment sooner or walked in a moment later, we might have only came the closest to this fateful meeting.
That’s not reality, though. Reality is knowing Colton’s worn that faded Dairy Dock t-shirt for a decade, he started trimming his beard until he stopped because he nicked himself just under his chin, and…and he lost his temper on a live podcast.
Because of my dad.
I take a step back, and his hand falls away. “I, uh, need to check out.”
Sadness laces his own half-hearted smile. “If this were a meet cute, I’d say you’re more than welcome to check me out.”
“That would be more ideal at a library.”
“No,” he says with a soft shake of his head. “If it were a library meet cute, I’d say our meeting was long overdue , but that you look quite fine in that pretty blue sundress . ”
I’m wearing linen shorts and a sweatshirt. “Are those lines on the wall behind me too?”
“Nah.” He taps his temple with his knuckles. The movement tugs his tee tightly across his shoulders. “I have a shelf reserved for them up here.”
I shake my head. “You’re impossible.”
Colton opens his mouth to respond, undoubtedly with another wisecrack, but Graham interrupts.
“Here to get a break from the guardianship thing? We all know it isn’t for books.”
Guardianship thing?
My eyes meet Colton’s eyes in silent question, and his are troubled again. It looks so out of place on his face that I swallow. I’d heard about the appearance of a Del Ray sister last fall, but I thought she was eighteen.
Unless .
My lungs deflate.
Unless Colton has a child.
The notion makes it difficult to breathe. It’s not like it’s impossible given his reputation, but still. It makes it seem final, this chasm between us. Like the embers of hope I didn’t realize I’ve been sheltering are about to be snuffed out. Like our banter from moments ago was one last hoorah before it’s all over.
Graham looks between us when Colton says nothing. “Uh, never…mind?”
“Hey, Graham, can you help me figure out how this label printer—” Ember stops a half step behind her fiancé with a long sheet of blank labels in her hand. “Oh. Hi, Colton.”
“Hey, Em,” Colton says easily, but his gaze never leaves mine. “I’m here because I saw Cheyenne’s car. Cheyenne, can I have a word?”
He wants to talk to me? I fumble for an out, and then I remember the books in my hands. God bless words that speak for themselves. “I still have to pay for these, and—”
“Add them to my tab,” Colton says briskly to Ember. He pivots toward the door without looking at me. “I have donuts in the truck, Cheyenne.”
Frick.
Lips parted, I look from Colton’s retreating back to Ember. I don’t want to be indebted to Colton or any other man, but…he said he has donuts . Presumably from Sunny Glaze. He knows my weakness is a chocolate glazed donut, light frosting, with sprinkles.
It’s just further proof of why we’ll never be those bookstore meet cute strangers.
“Wait.” A foggy breeze presses at my cheeks and my once-white boat shoe Vans dig into the soft sand of the beach. “Let me get this straight: your late, absent mother named you as the guardian for a four-year-old half brother you didn’t know about?”
Colton keeps his gaze focused on the lake, knees bent, and arms folded on top of them. If not for the lines around his eyes and the way he favors his previously injured left hip, he’d look just like the boy I once knew. “If you know the answer, why are you asking the question?”
“Colton.”
“Yes. Sure. Yeah.” He shakes his head, the movement rife with frustration. “I don’t get it, Cheyenne. I haven’t spoken to or seen my mother in almost twenty years, she kept our full sister a secret from us, and now this ? I can’t be someone’s guardian, and especially not a child.”
Because I can’t—or won’t—stay in one place for long enough.
He doesn’t say it because he doesn’t have to. We both know it. Everyone who witnessed our breakup on this very beach five years ago, amicable as it was, probably knew it.
“Do you have a choice?” I ask. “I mean, is there someone else stated in the will?”
Discussing Kathleen’s will feels wrong. The woman was out of Colton’s life more than she was in it, but she was still his mother . He’s talking about this—her passing and this guardianship thing—transactionally. Like it isn’t personal.
Like the woman who gave him life is as disposable as the Coke bottle poking out of the overfilled trash can up on the boardwalk.
He laughs mirthlessly. “We always have a choice.”
I had been looking at him, but I glance away. That’s the same thing he told me a week before my wedding, when he tried to tell me not to go through with it and I told him I had no choice. I’d said yes to Stephen’s proposal. I’d made my decision. Stephen was supposed to be it for me.
“No,” I say now, “we don’t.”
“Yes,” he counters, “we do.”
“Colton, do you think I would have chosen for my dad to be in a near fatal accident at fifty-nine? Do you think I’d have chosen to walk away from my career or my marriage?”
Do you think I would have chosen to lose my baby?
The question is there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t say it. I can’t open that part of myself to Colton when I haven’t told anyone outside of my family.
His attention shifts from the frothy waves tumbling into the sandy shore to me. I feel the weight of his gaze on the side of my face, but I don’t look at him. Partly because I don’t want to, but mostly because I can’t.
Colton doesn’t know the truths behind my divorce. If he did, he’d lose it. I don’t like talking about it with anyone, let alone him . If he knew he was right about Stephen, he’d have leverage. And when I left Stephen, I promised myself I’d never let another man have leverage over me. Not even one who once knew me better than I knew myself.
“Of course, I don’t,” he finally answers. “But…” He pauses and shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“No. Tell me. But what?”
“Cheyenne—”
I look at him now, straightening my spine with all the resolve I can find.
He sighs. “But he had a choice. I don’t know why he did it—why he drove so fast, on Christmas of all nights, but he had a choice . And he chose what he chose. He knows those roads like the back of his hand, Cheyenne. He knows they get slick when it’s icy.”
Grief stings my eyes as I inhale sharply, and my lip quivers. I won’t cry, though. Not a single tear has fallen since the day Dad was moved into the long-term care facility. I think, maybe, if I keep the tears bottled up then I know I won’t forget him.
“I want to know why, Colt,” I whisper, almost too quietly to be heard over the whistle of wind through tree branches. Clouds are unfurling in the western hem of the sky, promising a thunderstorm to come. “Why he did it.”
He sucks in a breath. “I know.”
That’s all he says. No reassurance that Dad must’ve had a reason, no stab at explaining what the reason might be. He doesn’t know more than the rest of us, and he won’t pretend like he does. We both know the reality.
We might not ever know why Dad did what he did.
“What’s he look like?” I talk around the lump in my throat, hugging my knees into my chest. Once upon a time, Colton would have pulled his shirt off and insisted I wear it for warmth. “The boy.”
Reluctance slows his movements, but Colton shifts to pull his phone from his pocket. His shoulder brushes mine and I pretend not to shiver. He unlocks it, taps on a text conversation, opens a photo, and passes the device to me. A little boy in a black crewneck is sitting on a chair by the water in the picture. Pale blond curls, wide blue eyes fringed with thick lashes, full, slightly pouty lips between soft round cheeks.
An ache spears my heart. I’ve known my dad for twenty-nine years, and even though I’m not sure that’ll be enough if he doesn’t make it, I had it. This child will never have the chance to know, or likely remember, his mother.
“Milo.” Colton clears his throat. I don’t think he wants to feel any emotions, good or bad, about the boy. Maybe because he was that boy. “His name. It’s Milo.”
I’m still staring at the photo. I hold it down, and the live feature makes it just long enough for those big eyes to look directly at me. In the background, a seagull swoops over rippled water and someone, a woman, laughs. Maybe the Del Ray sister, if she was the one behind the camera.
When I pass the phone back to him, his fingertips brush against my knuckles, and I know I have to say something. Colton was that little boy. The one without a mother and whose father wasn’t around enough to count. A flat bicycle tire might’ve brought him to my family, but a safe haven was what kept him there.
Colton might not think he could be that same safe haven for Milo, but I do.
“Maybe…” I catch tendrils of hair that whip into my face and tuck them behind my ear. Colton turns his full attention to me, gaze following my movements. “I don’t know why she picked you, Colt, but maybe don’t do it for the mother you knew. Do it for the mother who knew you. Because she did. Know you.”
What I have never known, and will now never know, is how Kathleen looked her sons and husband in the eye and chose to walk away. Because I wasn’t given that choice, walking away, and it still haunts me that I’ll never know my child’s eye or hair color, their gender, their laugh.
I never got the chance to say hello, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to say goodbye.