29. Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Ryan
I t had been a couple of weeks since we found out about the church concert, and things weren’t looking great for our book festival. This morning, however, I opened my emails to find an author from our list had emailed. Addison March had originally declined our invitation, but after an issue with the venue for an event she had planned to attend on the east coast, her availability opened up.
Tonight was going to be a celebration. Not only did we land another popular author, but Emily had finished the self-edits of her book and sent it over to Meghan for editing.
While the book was in editing, Emily was working on planning out her next series to write. She claimed moving to the next project like this was a good way to keep her mind from spinning on whether the last book was good or not. However, tonight she was mine.
I made plans for dinner at a Fairwood restaurant, and afterward, I booked a hotel room for the night. In the last couple of weeks we hadn’t been able to spend a lot of time together and I was looking forward to getting this time with her, away from Maple Creek.
Pulling up outside of Emily’s building, I exited my car and walked toward the door. Unfortunately, Margo Hill, the mayor’s wife, was walking down the sidewalk at the same time. Keeping my eyes turned away from her, I hoped to avoid a confrontation.
“Oh Ryan!” Margo called, and I winced.
Slowly I turned to her and forced a smile to my face. “Hello Mrs. Hill, how are you?”
“I’m doing well. Listen, it seems there is a bit of a scheduling mishap with events. Do you think you could postpone your little book thing for a week or two? The church had a concert scheduled and now people are complaining they are having a hard time booking accommodations.”
Tilting my head, I worked up as much kindness as I could before replying, “That’s a shame, but unfortunately for the church, I cannot push off the event. Maybe the church should have planned their event for a later date.”
Margo gave me a blank stare like she couldn’t believe I hadn’t simply agreed to her suggestion. But why the hell should I push off an event I scheduled first, for a library that needed funds due to her husband’s desire to move the funding into programs the church was trying to take over? I’d love to know where the Hill family seemed to find so much audacity.
The corner of her mouth lifted and she turned her head to the building and said, “I hear you and Emily have been spending a lot of time together. Are you visiting her now? So late in the evening?”
“My sister lives in this building.”
Her eyes snapped back to me. I’d taken a cue from Emily and refused to give any details into my life that weren’t already public knowledge. What I wanted to say was, “Yes, Emily and I are dating, and it’s none of your damn business,” but I didn’t.
“It’s a shame we have two competing events in the town, it’ll be hard on residents having so many tourists in.” Margo pushed a stray strand of hair back into the twist she kept it in.
“Good luck to you in convincing your family to switch their event to another weekend.”
Stepping past her, I strolled up to the building. Letting myself in with my sister’s key, I let the door close, but I paused at the first level of stairs to watch Margo walk away. Somebody needed to put the Hill family in their place.
Continuing to Emily’s door, I shook off the interaction and focused on the good news we’d gotten. In the end, no matter if this event succeeded or not, we would have tried our hardest to save the library. Releasing a heavy breath, I lifted my hand and knocked on Emily’s door.
There was a bit of shuffling behind her door, and a couple of seconds later, she opened it. Her eyes sparkled, and a radiant smile lit her face. My eyes traveled over her, and I was gobsmacked by how beautiful she was.
She wore a long sleeved forest green dress that ended an inch above her knees with black knee high boots. The front dipped down showing her ample cleavage, and she wore a simple silver necklace with a black stone pendant.
“Wow! You look amazing,” I said, not taking my eyes off her.
“Thank you, you look good too.”
I wore a simple gray button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark wash jeans. She grabbed her purse from her kitchen table before joining me outside of the apartment. After locking the door, Emily turned to me.
“I have some good news,” I stated, offering my arm to her.
She took it, and asked, “What’s that?”
“Addison March is attending.”
Her eyes widened. “No shit! That’s amazing!”
After Emily and I both got into my car, I drove us toward Fairwood. The entire trip, Emily was excitedly telling me about the new series she was working on, and how it was actually a spin off from the series she recently finished. It sounded interesting, and I planned on reading it, too.
I hadn’t told her I had already read every single last one of her books and was eagerly awaiting this next one. One day I might tell her, but for now I liked how she’d explain her backstories to me, and I’d ask questions. I enjoyed listening to how excited she would get about her series.
At the restaurant, after we placed our orders, I asked, “So are you going to write and release or rapid release this next series?”
“I think I might not do a rapid release with this series. I actually want to slow down a little bit, maybe do some volunteer work at the library we are about to save.”
“If we’re able to save it. I’d love to have you around. We could always use the extra help.”
“I was actually thinking, I’ve had so much fun planning this event. Maybe I could take on finding funding as my volunteer project. Put the event together, contact authors, everything, that way you can get back to your normal job duties.”
“We will see. As things sit right now, this event may not give us enough funding to make it the full year.”
“Oh,” Emily said, looking down at her hands. “What happens if we can’t get enough funding and the library has to close?”
“Then the books will likely be donated, sold, or possibly destroyed, and the building and property will be sold, likely back to the city.”
“Right, but what happens with you?”
Her eyebrows raised in concern, and I gave her a small smile, “I don’t know.”
“Will you have to leave?”
“I’m going to do my best to make sure I don’t have to. Outside of my friends and my sister, there is this wonderful and accomplished woman I think I’m falling for.”
“Oh yeah?” The corner of her mouth lifted as her eyes sparkled a bit.
“Yeah.” I nodded softly.
“That’s cool. I mean I think I’m falling for this amazing, hunky librarian.”
A deep laugh rose out of me as a bright smile spread across her face. There was no doubt in my mind, I wasn’t simply falling for Emily. I had already fallen. Hard.
After dinner, we drove to the hotel before deciding to take a walk through downtown Fairwood. The town was nice - more populated than Maple Creek, and it lacked the charm. We passed two major coffee chains on our walk and plenty of nightlife, but there were only a few small private businesses on the strip.
As we walked and talked, I was captivated by the woman next to me. It was getting harder and harder to resist the temptation to go public with my feelings for her. I wanted her, but with everything so up in the air, she didn’t want to go public yet. She needed more time.
I tried desperately not to let my brain go to any bad places with this arrangement. Sometimes I would feel like she was hiding me as she waited for something better to come along or because I wasn’t good enough for her. Those feelings were old insecurities rearing their ugly heads, but sometimes it was hard to silence them.
“Emily?” A male voice came from in front of us.
Before turning my head to the voice, Emily’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. Turning, what stood before me was a good looking man whose shirt seemed to cling to his muscles and he was staring at my woman.