35. Nothing You Expected
Nothing You Expected
Piper
The bell above the door jingles for the fourteenth time in twenty minutes, and I plaster on my best customer-service smile while the woman in the coral fleece asks if I have anything spicier than the books on the display table.
“Romance section is in the back corner,” I tell her.
She brightens and heads for the stacks, trailing the scents of sunscreen and expensive perfume. Business has never been better. The shelves are half-empty because I can’t restock fast enough.
The Fairchild legend turned Port Haven into a destination.
And my shit is not together.
The front window still bears the ghost of where the treasure hunter’s rock went through the glass.
The replacement pane is slightly too small for the frame, leaving a quarter-inch gap along the bottom that I’ve stuffed with weather stripping.
The roof leaked during the storm. Three ceiling tiles collapsed onto the biography section, which Colter helped me replace last weekend while Hazel sat cross-legged on the floor naming each tile after people she knows.
The floor creaks in new places. The register drawer sticks. The scent of fresh paint and sawdust hangs over everything, fighting a losing battle against the older, warmer smell of paper and binding glue that makes this place feel like mine.
I straighten a stack of books on the front table.
My grand reopening display: “Happily Ever Afters: Because Sometimes the Treasure Is Love.” Shea made the sign.
I picked the books. It’s cheesy as hell and selling like mad, because tourists who come to Port Haven for buried gold apparently also want to believe in true love, and who am I to deny them both?
The bell jingles again. I don’t look up. “Welcome to The Next Chapter. Romance is in the back, local history is by the window, and if you’re looking for treasure maps, I’m afraid we’re fresh out.”
“Fresh out of maps, or fresh out of patience?”
The voice stops me cold. Not a tourist voice. A Port Haven voice—warm, unhurried, laced with amusement.
I look up.
Crew Morrison fills my doorway like he’s been air-dropped from a surfer magazine.
Sun-bleached hair falling across his forehead.
That grin—the one that makes waitresses forget orders and tourists forget they have husbands.
He’s wearing board shorts and a faded Coast Guard t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and he’s carrying a toolbox that looks like it’s seen more action than most of the tools inside it.
“Zade said you needed help repairing a shelf.” He steps inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. The bell jingles one more time for good measure. “Something about structural integrity and your brother’s ‘disturbing lack of follow-through.’ His words, not mine.”
I push my glasses up my nose. They slide right back down. “Colter tried. He’s better at search and rescue than carpentry.”
“That’s because search and rescue doesn’t require measuring twice.” Crew sets the toolbox on the counter with a solid thunk. “Which shelf?”
“Back left. The tall one that holds the historical romances.”
“On it.”
He heads for the back of the store without waiting for further instruction.
I watch him go. Crew Morrison moves the way he talks—easy, unhurried, taking up exactly as much space as he needs and not a centimeter more.
His shoulders are broad from swimming, his skin tanned year-round, and the puka shell necklace his dad gave him catches the light every time he turns his head.
I should be annoyed that Zade volunteered him. Zade knows exactly what Crew is—charming, unreliable, the kind of man who leaves a trail of wistful women in his wake without ever looking back. The last person I need in my freshly repaired bookstore is a man who treats flirting like breathing.
Except Crew doesn’t flirt. Not right away. He studies the shelf—the one Colter installed at a three-degree angle because he was distracted by a text from Hazel’s teacher—and he makes a low, considering sound in the back of his throat. Then he opens the toolbox, selects a wrench, and gets to work.
No commentary. No performative flexing. Just a man fixing a bookshelf.
The coral-fleece woman emerges from the romance section with three books clutched to her chest. She spots Crew bent over the shelf, his t-shirt riding up to expose a strip of tanned lower back, and her step falters.
I see the calculation happen behind her eyes—the brief, universal moment where a woman decides whether to acknowledge the attractive man in the room or pretend she hasn’t noticed.
She pretends. Badly. Pays for her books with unnecessary chatter about the weather while Crew’s wrench taps a steady rhythm against the shelf bracket behind us.
After she leaves, the store goes quiet. Just the tick of the ancient radiator, the occasional creak of floorboards, and the soft scrape of Crew’s tools against wood.
I reshelve a stack of returns and try not to watch him work.
It’s difficult. There’s something hypnotic about competence, and Crew is nothing if not competent.
His hands know what they’re doing. Each adjustment is small, deliberate.
The shelf straightens by degrees until it stands plumb against the wall, and Crew steps back to survey his work with the satisfied expression of a man who enjoys fixing things that are broken.
“Good as new.” He wipes his hands on his shorts. “Better, actually. Colter used drywall anchors. I replaced them with toggle bolts. That shelf isn’t going anywhere short of an earthquake.”
“Thank you.” I mean it. The shelf has been leaning since the storm, and every time a customer browsed the historical section, I held my breath waiting for eight hundred pages of Regency England to slide onto the floor. “Zade didn’t have to send you. I could have called Saltbox.”
“Zade didn’t send me. He volunteered me.” Crew packs the wrench back into the toolbox. “Big difference. One implies choice. The other implies I lost a bet.”
“What was the bet?”
“Whether I could eat an entire bag of Sour Patch Kids without making a face.” He grins. “I made a face.”
I laugh. The sound surprises me—bright, genuine, the kind of laugh I usually reserve for Colter’s terrible jokes or Piper’s book club when someone admits they’ve been skipping to the steamy parts.
Crew’s smile widens. He has laugh lines at the corners of his eyes that deepen when he’s genuinely amused, and right now they’re doing their thing, and I am absolutely not noticing.
“So.” He leans against the counter. “Business is good.”
“Business is insane. I sold out of Evangeline Fairchild’s diary—the fictionalized version, not the real one—in two days. Apparently tourists want to read about star-crossed lovers while they dig holes in people’s yards looking for treasure that may or may not exist.”
“The real one sank with the journal, right? Abel’s boat?”
The question lands between us. Abel’s name has become a quiet thing in Port Haven—spoken carefully, with the particular gentleness reserved for tragedies still too fresh to examine directly.
Three weeks since the storm. Three weeks since the Coast Guard helicopter lifted two bodies from the water and only one of them was breathing.
“Yeah.” I trace the edge of the counter with my fingertip. “Scarlett says it’s gone for good. Sunk, or washed up somewhere nobody will find it. Either way, the truth went down with Abel.”
“Not all of it.” Crew’s voice softens. “Scarlett remembers what she read. So does Dean. So does anyone who was paying attention. Truth doesn’t need paper to survive.”
I look at him. Really look. Crew Morrison, who I’ve categorized since approximately forever as the island’s designated heartbreaker, is standing in my bookstore talking about truth with the quiet conviction of a man who believes what he’s saying.
His hazel eyes hold mine, warm and steady, and for a disorienting second I forget that he’s Crew Morrison at all. He’s just a person. A kind one.
The moment stretches. The radiator ticks. Somewhere outside, a gull cries.
I break first. Look away. Push my glasses up. “Anyway. Thank you for the shelf. I owe you one.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” He closes the toolbox. “But if you’re feeling generous, you could tell me why you’ve checked the front window fourteen times in the last twenty minutes.”
Heat creeps up my neck. I have not checked the window fourteen times. I’ve checked it maybe six times. Tops.
“I haven’t been—”
“Piper.” He says my name the way everyone in my family says it—like it’s a small, precious thing they’re careful not to drop. “You’ve been staring at Hamilton’s Antiques like it’s about to burst into flames. If you’re waiting for a delivery, just say so. I’ll stop giving you shit.”
It’s the kindness that undoes me. Not the teasing—I can handle teasing. It’s the lack of judgment in his voice, the simple offer of an out that requires nothing from me but honesty.
“No delivery.” I straighten a stack of bookmarks that don’t need straightening. “I’m just... watching. For Montgomery.”
“Montgomery Hamilton? Antiques guy?”
“Yeah.”
“The one with the sweaters?”
“Yes.”
“The one who looks like he stepped out of a PBS documentary about polite British men?”
“That’s the one.”
Crew studies me. His head tilts slightly. The puka shell necklace shifts against his collarbone. “You have a crush on Montgomery Hamilton.”
It’s not a question. I consider denying it. Consider the various lies I could tell—I’m researching character inspiration, I’m considering a purchase, I’m conducting a sociological study on men who wear cardigans in maritime climates. None of them land.
“Yes.” The word comes out smaller than I intend. “I have a crush on Montgomery Hamilton.”
“Okay.” Crew nods. Once. Decisively. “Good to know. He seems like a solid dude. Bit serious for my taste, but solid.”