Chapter 3
Avery
I don’t know how I’d survived an entire day working alongside Flint Campbell yesterday, but somehow I had.
He’d asked me a thousand questions. What our busiest hours were. Whether we tracked inventory digitally or by hand. How often we restocked. Why we took returns.
And underneath every question, I could feel him judging everything. There was a quiet conclusion forming behind those hazel eyes that we weren’t doing things the right way.
Which meant we weren’t doing them his way.
Today I tried to plant him behind the register where he could actually be useful. We had customers to serve, after all, and I figured if he was busy ringing up sales he’d have less time tearing apart everything Marlene and I had built.
But Flint refused.
“I need to understand how this place runs before I can run it,” he’d said, as if that were perfectly reasonable.
So for the past two hours, I’d trailed behind him while he examined every corner of the store, questioning each system that made Bookish what it was.
And now he was standing in front of the reading nook with his massive arms crossed over his chest, looking at my favorite spot in the store as if it personally offended him.
“This isn’t very inviting,” he growled in that deep, sexy voice of his.
I felt my spine stiffen. “What?”
It was perfect. Cozy. Homey. Warm. Our regulars loved it, camping out for hours while they read.
The reading nook was the heart and soul of Bookish.
He gestured toward the mismatched armchairs arranged near the romance section, pointing out the worn upholstery I’d never noticed before. “That chair on the left is ratty. The cushion’s shot. Nobody’s going to want to sit in it for more than five minutes.”
“People sit in it all the time,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Mrs. Patterson sits there every Thursday afternoon while she decides which mystery to take home.”
“And the lighting,” he shook his head, his shaggy dark hair brushing against his shoulders with the movement. “It’s fine during the day because of the light from the front windows, but what about in the evenings? That floor lamp’s too dim for actual reading.”
“It’s not usually an issue,” I muttered, even while I realized he might have a point. I had noticed that the reading nook usually cleared out by six p.m.
“And this coffee table,” he nudged it with the toe of his boot, a heavy work boot that looked like it had seen years of mountain trails. “It’s too low. If someone wants to read without holding the book up they can’t. You need something at reading height, like the library has.”
I stared at him, hating the broad set of his shoulders beneath his flannel shirt. He filled up the whole bookstore with his presence.
Flint had to be at least six-two, maybe six-three, and everything about him radiated a kind of rugged authority that made my body do things I refused to acknowledge.
He was older than me, the creases around his eyes suggesting Flint was a man who’d lived hard and didn’t apologize for it.
Just like Sawyer, I thought bitterly.
“The space isn’t inviting for tourists,” Flint continued, apparently unaware that I was mentally cataloging all the reasons I should not find him attractive. “If we want to draw in the out-of-towners, we need to make them want to stay and browse. Get them to spend their money.”
“We don’t cater to tourists,” I informed him as an edge crept into my voice despite my best efforts. “We cater to locals.”
He turned to look at me then, and I felt the weight of his attention on me. “Tourists have money, hon. Locals don’t.”
“Tourists buy books once and leave.” I lifted my chin, refusing to back down even though every instinct in me was screaming to fold and agree, the way I always did.
But something about Flint made me want to stand up to him.
“Locals are forever. They come back week after week, month after month. They tell their friends. They bring their kids. They’re the reason this store has survived for thirty years.
Not a few tourists dropping a couple dollars. ”
Something flickered in his expression. Not quite respect, but something close to it. “Fair point. But it doesn’t have to be one or the other. We should cater to both.”
“It won’t help if changing things for tourists means alienating the people who actually keep us in business. Besides, why are you trying to change everything?” I hated the whine in my voice. “You’re only here for a month.”
His expression became guarded.
Then he leveled with me, “I poured over Marlene’s books yesterday. The accounting books, not the books for sale. I hate to say it, but Bookish is struggling. If things don’t change fast, these doors probably won’t be open six months from now.”
“What?”
My entire world spun on its axis. Marlene had never even hinted at that.
Sure, she’d turned down my idea of redecorating the place last year, telling me it would cost too much.
And she had said she was thinking about shortening the hours since sales dropped off in the evenings.
It felt like my foundation was shaking, a tiny earthquake opening up beneath my feet.
Bookish was everything to me. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else. I’d always thought I’d be like Noreen, working here until I was seventy years old.
God, I missed Noreen.
“Are you telling me the truth right now?” I asked quietly, meeting his hazel eyes with my own for the first time today.
The granite-hard expression on his face softened, and I could see a hint of kindness peeking out.
“Yeah, hon. Sorry to be the one to tell you. Haven’t you noticed Marlene acting a little rattled lately?
She is sixty-nine. It’s probably time for her to retire soon.
This place has been good, but unless something big changes, I think Bookish has run its course. ”
I stood there for a moment, unable to speak, my heart shattering as the afternoon light caught dust motes floating between us.
Then, as my emotions rode so high they almost drowned me, I became acutely aware of how close he was standing.
Close enough that I caught his masculine scent again. Earthy and grounded, and entirely too appealing.
I took a step back, unable to process all this change at once, and bumped into a display table with my butt. I was always doing that.
Books tumbled, and we both stooped to pick them up.
“The resumes,” I said, grasping for something practical to focus on while I tried to absorb the bombshell he’d dropped into my life. “I printed all the applications from Indeed and organized them for you.”
I walked to the counter and retrieved the stack I’d prepared. The papers were sorted into three neat piles, with colored sticky tabs marking each section. Green for top picks. Yellow for maybes. Red for the least likely to work out.
I’d spent two hours on this last night, reading through every application, cross-referencing experience with our needs, making notes about scheduling availability and relevant skills, even checking their social media profiles.
Flint took the stack from my hands, and his fingers brushed mine in the transfer. Just a whisper of contact, rough calluses against my smooth skin, shooting tingles through me.
And then he started flipping through them, completely ignoring my careful organization. He shuffled the green tabs in with the red, mixing everything together.
“You’re messing up my system,” I huffed.
He laughed, a low rumble that I felt in my chest. “I’m running the interviews, not you. I need to see them my way.”
“I should sit in. I know how Bookish runs. You don’t. And it’s going to be hard to replace Gwen and Noreen. They knew everything.”
I thought about Gwen, my friend who’d worked here briefly before deciding to chase her dream of opening a hair salon. She was finally doing it, and I was happy for her, but I missed having her here even though I still got to see her on weekends.
And Noreen. Sweet Noreen, who’d been the expert in our history section. She could recommend exactly the right book for any customer’s obscure interest.
She’d retired after she hit seventy, and the store had felt emptier ever since.
I missed them both. I wished things could have stayed the same forever.
Flint studied me for a moment. “I’ll let you sit in. But if a customer needs you, you step away to take care of them.”
“Obviously.”
“And the final decision’s mine,” he nodded, apparently satisfied with himself. Then he went back to shuffling through the resumes.
I watched his hands as he worked, his knuckles scarred and weathered from years of outdoor work. These were hands that had built things, fixed things, survived things.
But they weren’t hands that fit in a bookstore.
What would it feel like to have those hands on me?
The thought ambushed me, vivid and unwelcome, and suddenly I was back in last night’s dream. The one I’d woken from gasping with my sheets twisted around my legs.
In the dream, those rough hands had been sliding up my thighs, pushing my skirt higher while his mouth traced a path down my neck. He’d whispered something I couldn’t quite remember, his voice that low growl that made my knees weak, and then he’d—
Stop it.
I blinked hard, forcing myself back to the present. To the stack of resumes and the morning light, and the fact that this man was exactly the kind of man I’d sworn to stay away from.
Too old. Too hot. Too much of everything I craved.
Not that he’d even given me a second glance. Which stung more than it should have. I was used to being overlooked by men. Why would this mountain hottie be any different?
The bell over the front door jingled, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
A young woman stepped through, early twenties, younger than me, with bright red hair and a chipper smile.
“Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m here for the interview. I’m Madison Morley.”
The first applicant.
I smoothed my hands down my skirt and forced a welcoming smile onto my face.
“Welcome to Bookish, where worlds await.”