Love on the Shelf

Chapter 1

“Good grief, Alice, you’ve got to stop hiding in books. Wake up and see what’s going on around you.”

Alice Willoughby frowned at her older sister. Scarlet had always been a little bossy. Which was hardly surprising, since bossing

was what older sisters did, even when they were only two years older. But this was . . . bossy plus. Not nice.

“It’s bad enough that beast king is turning men into lemmings with his stupid radio show and podcast, but now he’s trying

to take down your business. You should be going after him,” Scarlet informed her.

“My business?” Alice repeated. “He’s said stuff about the store?”

“He might as well have.”

Scarlet was heated, Alice got that. Parker Black, radio personality and host of the popular radio talk show Jock Talk, had evolved into Parker Black, woman hater.

He’d been using his platform to encourage men to quit being, as he put it, doormats.

She’d heard some of their customers complaining about him.

They were becoming upset as their boyfriends and husbands began following him for more than his sports commentary.

He was the new champion of American males.

Scarlet’s husband, Mark, was turning into a Parker Black lemming, going out with the guys after work whenever the spirit moved . . .

or the spirits called, and spending what he referred to as his money, money he was goaded to spend because he worked hard and deserved it. All talk of starting a family had been put on

hold because their love life was paused, and their marriage of three years was circling the drain.

“You’ve got to do something,” Scarlet repeated as if Alice hadn’t heard her when she first blew into the bookstore. “Now he’s

dissing romance novels.”

“I didn’t know anything about that,” Alice said.

Scarlet did the eye roll of disgust she’d perfected by the time she was eleven. “Of course, you didn’t, because you hide in

here all day and talk about living happily ever after with dukes and dragon trainers.”

Alice could feel embarrassment draping itself over her face like a red flag.

But she rallied. “It seems to me you’ve been showing up for a lot of those happily-ever-after conversations when your book

club meets here.”

“Those are historical and we’re learning about history,” Scarlet said, sounding like a total snob. She was a regular at the

Back in Time book club, one of four that met at the store.

“You’ve been known to be seen hanging out with the Chili Peppers a few times, too,” said Alice.

That group liked their books smutty and their heroes smexy. In addition to author signings, the book clubs kept Alice busy

most nights. The Closed-Door Club preferred sweet romances and Darkness and Dragons was all about dark fantasy. Alice sat

in on all the club meetings, selling them books and passing out home-baked treats.

She didn’t read much of what the Chili Peppers read.

When she wanted to escape it was usually into another time, where women wore beautiful gowns and lived on large estates.

Where men fought duels, and words of love rolled off their tongues like poetry.

But she also enjoyed a good contemporary story, especially if the hero was a millionaire.

With a yacht. And a little getaway place in Italy.

She was a closed-door girl, preferring love scenes that faded to black like a classic movie.

Although she’d been known to give in to the temptation to peek through a keyhole or two .

. . and wish. Like she did with every book she read.

Sighs and yearnings. Happily-ever-afters.

Sighs and yearning, that summed up her love life. Actually, nonexistent summed it up much better.

“Okay, so I like spice,” Scarlet said. “So, sue me. But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about what this man is

doing to you. To all of us.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to do. I’m trying to run a business,” Alice protested. Even though she was only half owner,

HEA Books took up all her time and energy. “Anyway, one angry man isn’t going to affect the bookstore. Almost all our customers

are women.”

“Well, Parker Black is affecting men and they’re affecting your customers. Like me! That’s why you need to take this guy on,

to fight on behalf of women,” said Scarlet. “This man is a two-legged virus. He needs to be eradicated.”

“Why don’t you take him on?” Alice argued.

“Because I don’t have the clout you do. You’re the expert on romance.”

On books about romance. There was a big difference.

“Mom should do it,” said Alice. “She’s the one with the real clout.”

“You both should. Where is Mom?”

“She’s home baking brownies for the Back in Time meeting tonight. Are you coming?”

Their mother, Nola Willoughby, was the other owner of HEA Books. Dedicated to Happily-Ever-After for All was their motto. And, like Alice, she was busy and perfectly happy focusing on the store as well as their weekly podcast,

where they discussed the latest book releases and chatted with authors. That was their world. For Alice, the only things that

intruded on it were Costco runs and occasionally getting dragged out for a girls’ night with her sister or her loyal customers

who had become friends. She was content to let the chaos and quarrels of the world roll on past her, and she saw no need to

start a squabble with someone she’d never even met.

“Yes, I’m coming, but don’t change the subject. Seriously, Alice, something has to be done about this man.”

“What do you propose we do?” Alice countered.

Unlike her sister, who tended to be larger-than-life, Alice was small and quiet.

She preferred her life pared down. She’d grown up living her best life in books and had dated very little in high school.

Unlike Scarlet, the social queen, who, with her eye-catching red hair and striking green eyes, had been born to be a princess, Alice had been born to read about princesses.

She was a shadow compared to her sister.

Half the curves, half the hair glamour (brown hair wasn’t as sexy as red, no matter what her mother said) and half the personality.

If they were characters in a novel, Scarlet would be the one slaying dragons, and Alice would be her armor-bearer, probably struggling under the weight of carrying all that armor.

Her eyes were brown, not green, and her freckles had always been an embarrassment.

So, in a way, had her smarts. Nicknames like Show-off and Big Head had curbed her desire to be the first to raise her hand in class, and the timidity only got worse as she entered adolescence.

She’d found it impossible to master the art of flirting and so had decided that book boyfriends beat the real thing.

Her one serious real boyfriend in college—well, she’d been serious—had gone to France on a summer study program and come back

engaged to a French girl. Who probably knew how to toss her hair just so and understood exactly what to do with her tongue

when she kissed someone. French girl, French kissing—of course, she knew. So, no happy ending for Alice there.

A couple of false starts after losing to the French kiss queen had proved to Alice that the best place to find love was on

the shelf. You found the most romantic adventures between the covers, not under them.

It had been the best day of her life when, after she graduated from college, her mother had offered her the chance to continue

working at the bookstore, no longer as an employee but as a partner.

A bookworm, happily embedded in a bookstore—that was who she was.

Scarlet threw up her hands. “I don’t know what you should do. Something. It’s bad enough he’s gone after every woman in America who expects her man to grow up and act like a man. Now he’s making

fun of the books we read, and you sell! He’s finding the worst writers and reading the cringiest passages of their novels

as his happy little program wrap-up. What kind of sports show is that, anyway?”

Alice shrugged. “People have always dissed romance novels.” Which really wasn’t fair, considering how many other people loved

to read them.

“He’s not only dissing romance novels. He’s saying they feed discontent and it’s not fair for women to expect men to act like

the men they make up.”

“I don’t think Lina’s smexy books make her discontented,” Alice mused. Lina Flores, who had started the Chili Peppers book club, loved her spicy reads. And her husband loved how they inspired her in the bedroom.

“You don’t get it. Godzilla is at your door, ready to crush you, and you’re baking brownies.”

Scarlet was exaggerating. “Mom’s baking brownies,” Alice corrected her. Scarlet was not amused. “I don’t think he’s Godzilla,”

Alice continued. “I think he’s a sleeping dog and we should let him lie.”

“He’s already lying about women,” Scarlet grumbled. “But fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m going to go home and shower.

I’m a mess.”

Yes, one hair was out of place. Even in jeans, Uggs and a parka, with the vibrant red hair Alice had always envied pulled

up in a messy bun, Scarlet looked perfect.

“You don’t look like a mess,” Alice said.

“I’m a giant sweat ball. Barnes called in sick today and Lisa and I had to move a ton of furniture around all by ourselves.

It was a pain in the butt.”

“Couldn’t you have called Mark to come after work to help?”

“The only thing I’m calling Mark right now is names,” Scarlet said, the corners of her mouth dipping down. “Anyway, it wasn’t

anything we couldn’t handle. So, who needs him?”

Alice searched for something positive to say that would take them away from the subject of Scarlet’s misbehaving husband.

“I bet the house looks great.” When it came to staging houses, her sister was one of the best in Seattle and she had a client

list of Realtors who kept her busy. When she wasn’t doing that, she was working her side hustle, trying to become a social