Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
AUbrEY
The roar in the library’s back room sounded garbled to my slightly inebriated ears. In the middle of a workday? Nice, Aubrey.
I chugged a second hard lemonade and sat back while my book-club friends all talked about my life like I wasn’t even there. Nobody else had touched the stuff, so not only was I drinking before noon, but I was also doing it alone.
“If she needs a break,” Carly said, “I could work part time at the shop, as long as I can bring baby Donnie with me and Buckey doesn’t mind watchin’ our older kids.”
Right, like hiring an employee would solve my financial woes. Pretty sure that was the opposite of saving money.
“And,” our local librarian, Sam, added, “if they really liked a book, I could push library patrons to Your Local Bookie to buy the pretty editions. I mean, I guess I kind of do that already.” She winced.
I rolled my eyes. “Guys.”
“I don’t know why she didn’t ask me to make her an online store,” Billie chimed in. “She does know that’s like cake for me, right? E-commerce is my bitch. And I can hack all the good plug-ins. She wouldn’t even have to pay.”
What the hell’s a plug-in?
I tried again. “Guys.”
“Let’s get a meal train goin’,” Philomena Beasley said. As the mother hen of our group, Phil looked determined to solve my problems. “I call Saturdays and Tuesdays. Then at least we’ll know she’s not existin’ on oatmeal.”
Shit . I shouldn’t have mentioned how tired I was of oatmeal.
I stood up. “Ladies! I love you but shut up !”
The room went silent, and ten heads turned in my direction.
I sat slowly and set my almost empty can on the floor by my feet. “Thank you. I know you’re all tryin’ to help, but I was just bitchin’ to bitch. There’s nothin’ any of you can do. Billie, I’ve already thought about an online shop. If and when I’m ready, you’ll be my only call. But it wouldn’t do me any good right now, and right now is the problem. I will figure it out. And Phil, I’ll never say no to your pies, but y’all don’t have to feed me. I was bein’ dramatic. I have food.”
“You know,” Daisy said, smirking, “I’ve heard that if you’re stuck in life, it’s good to get out of your comfort zone. It opens up unused parts of your brain and then ideas flow like waterfalls.” She was grinning now, but I knew exactly where she was headed with the bohemian life advice.
I knew what every single woman in the room was thinking. No one had mentioned him yet, but it was only a matter of time before someone said the name of the man-child they all wanted me to ask on a date. All because he’d smiled at me at the town dance last fall. They all swooned and giggled and demanded that I hook up with the guy. Probably so they could live vicariously through my sexual exploits.
I had neglected to mention how Rye had come into the store a week before that and asked me to coffee. Telling them that juicy little nugget of information would’ve been like dressing myself inside a bloody elk carcass in the middle of a hungry pack of wolves and then standing there while they devoured it, hoping not to get bitten or clawed.
Finally, none other than the deputy sheriff of Wisper, Abey Lee, spoke up. “Devo says Rye asks about you all the time. They talk on the phone like two teenage girls before prom.”
And there it was.
Forget “protect and serve.” Abey was just as big a gossip as the rest of them. Her style was understated, but she could gab with the best of them.
“Don’t,” I warned and glared at her.
“Oh my God,” Roxi squealed. “Did y’all see him in town today? That ass.” With her hands up in front of her chest, she flexed her fingers like she was getting ready to grab two handfuls of said ass or maybe testing the density of a couple oversized dinner rolls. “I swear to all that’s holy, the man must need Crisco to get his jeans up those thick thighs.” She purred like a horny cheetah, and I clasped my hands and locked my fingers together so I wouldn’t smack her.
“He does have a nice butt,” Cal said.
Great. Even Miss Priss herself was trying to push me into something I had no intention of getting into. Or under. Whatever!
“How exactly would screwin’ that cowboy solve my immediate problems?”
“Um,” Billie’s best friend, Aislinn, hedged, “no one said anything about sex, Aubrey.”
Eyebrows popped all around the room; I could almost hear them pinging like in a cartoon.
“Mm-hm,” Juneau, our resident romance author, hummed. “This is the start to a romance book. You need something, and he’s got something. Pretty soon he’ll corner you somewhere discreet and offer himself up for the taking.”
Scoffing, I said, “My life is not one of your books. What’s Rye Graves got that I need?”
“Well,” she said, trying to hold in a laugh. “A big dick. You need some stress release, and those jeans leave nothin’ to the imagination.”
“Ooo, girl,” Carly squawked, “go on!”
They high fived, and I rolled my eyes. Again.
Stomping my foot, I growled, “ No. I don’t need some man tellin’ me what to do or how to run my life. I’ve already been there and done that.”
“You shouldn’t talk ill of the dead,” Cal said, disapproval ringing in her tone.
“Cal, Tommy was my husband and the father of my children. I will never talk badly about his service to his country or his sacrifice, but you weren’t there in our marriage. You don’t know the sacrifices I made or the pain my boys and I have gone through since Tommy’s death. Respectfully, back off.”
“O-o-okay,” she said, palms and pristinely painted fingernails raised in front of her.
None of them knew. I’d given Tommy my whole heart, and when the boys were born, I thought we were happy. But things changed.
When my body morphed back into fighting shape, Tommy became more and more possessive. The other moms used to gush over the fact that he bought my clothes. “How thoughtful,” they’d said. Except I hadn’t told them that the reason Tommy shopped for my clothes was because he didn’t trust me. I would rather have died than cheat on my husband, but my bigger breasts and wider hips had him convinced otherwise.
Now, I knew it was Tommy’s own insecurities that made him act that way, and because he was gone, I tried to have some grace about it. It used to be a daily exercise, trying to make myself forgive him for treating me like a hunk of ham instead of his wife and for showing the boys that women weren’t useful for much besides making dinner and cleaning up after it.
But the last thing I needed now in the middle of my life was another man with any power over me, real or perceived.
No thank you.
My buzz had mostly worn off by the time Roxi dropped me back at the shop.
The coffee she’d forced down my throat from Coffee Shot down the street helped. And really, it wasn’t like I was operating a two-ton forklift. Drunk bookselling could totally be the new thing.
Unfortunately, the weak-ass hard lemonade hadn’t helped me forget about all the stuff I’d been worrying about before drunk book club, which could also be a thing. In fact, maybe I should put it to a vote.
I flipped the sign on the front door back to “Come on in, it’s nice in here,” and then my phone rang. My mom’s face popped onto my screen.
“Hey, Mama. How are you?”
“Hi, sweetheart. Dad and I are okay. How are you and the boys?”
“Oh, well, we’re… Yeah, we’re okay.”
“Aubrey Louise, don’t you lie to your mama. What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
The fact that I had survived stage one uterine cancer three years ago still made her freak out anytime she heard hesitation in my voice.
Luckily, I had zero plans to procreate again, and the cancer had been contained inside my uterus, so the surgery to remove it was the cure. But I still had two ovaries, a cervix, and lots of lymph nodes left, so the now-bi-yearly doctor appointments to check for other cancers had her in a tizzy every time her phone rang.
The thought had crossed my mind that maybe the surgery or menopause, or both, was the cause of my often disappointing and ineffectual “sexy me time” sessions, but I was way too embarrassed to ask my male gynecologist.
“No, Mama. I’m not sick. Promise. And the boys are the same as they always are, aimless and blissfully unaware of the world around them.”
“Good. That settles my nerves a bit, but don’t talk about my grandsons like that. Micah and Benji are just young. They’ll come around. You’ll see.”
“Sure,” I agreed, just to change the subject, but I still had my doubts. Nightmares of the two of them lounging on my couch when they were my age, watching anime reruns, woke me up in sweats at night.
“Have you seen your aunties or your cousin lately?”
“Uh, I haven’t seen auntie Mabel in a few weeks, but I saw Maxie earlier today. He picked Juneau up after book club. He said auntie Darla’s fine. She’s still datin’ the butcher.”
“My sister, the hussy.”
“Mama! Aunt Darla is not a hussy just because she’s datin’ someone. You know Jerry Fletcher is a nice man. You don’t want her to be lonely, do you?”
“Well, now, of course I don’t. It’s just a little soon, don’t you think?”
“Uncle Lou’s been gone seven years.”
Jeez. What would she say if I dated someone? And if that someone was the little brother of my dead husband’s best friend? Even after ten years without Tommy, my mother would have a conniption fit.
Subject change number two: “How’s Dad’s arthritis treatin’ him?”
“Oh, you know him.” She sighed. “He’s in pain, but he won’t take so much as an aspirin, and he never complains. God bless him.”
“Tell him I said hi. I miss you guys. Maybe I can come for supper soon.”
“Well, that’s why I’m callin’, honey. Daddy went and booked us a Caribbean cruise. We’re headed to the Cayman Islands in two weeks! Isn’t that romantic? I can’t wait.”
I tried to hold back a groan, but damn. Even my seventy-year-old parents were getting some?
“So romantic,” I said as the jingle bell on the front door tinkled. “You can tell me all about it over your famous meatloaf soon, but I gotta go, Mama. Someone just popped into the store.”
“Okay. Call before you come, though. I’ve been wearin’ my bathin’ suit around the house to get used to it. Don’t wanna walk in on that, do ya?”
“No, ma’am.” I laughed. “I sure don’t. I’ll call. Love you.”
“Love you too. Talk later.”
When I hung up, I gave my usual greeting and spiel. “Welcome to Your Local Bookie. What kinda fictional trouble can I help you get into today?”
A low, gravelly male voice answered, “The dirty kind.”
I whipped around like my pants had caught fire, and there, standing not ten feet away, was Ryder Graves, looking devilishly handsome.
Roxi was right. His strong thighs in his jeans were downright sinful, and I could count his abs underneath his thin, gray T-shirt. Jesus.
Lack of sex in combination with those thighs, abs, and his ass made my mouth water.
I swallowed my drool and demanded, maybe a little too forcefully, “What’re you doin’ here?”
The ladies’ voices still lingered in my head, urging me to bag this cowboy, and I knew if I did, they’d be supportive, but they were the only people in my life I could count on not to judge me for sleeping with a man thirteen years my junior. I pictured Micah and Benji’s faces and the disgust and disapproval it would cause. And I could already hear my mother screaming from Jamaica or wherever she’d said they were going on their cruise. I’d already forgotten, because when Rye walked through my door, all coherent thought went out the window.
Removing his hat, he held it in one hand next to one of his extremely solid thighs, and he clicked his tongue, which of course made me imagine that tongue in places only my GYNO had seen in a very long time.
“I was hopin’ to talk to you.”
“About?”
“Um, you know. How you doin’?”
“I’m fine, Ryder. How are you?”
“Good, yeah.” He pursed his lips. “I’m good.” The motion had my eyes zeroing in on his mustache.
I didn’t love a mustache on every man, but on Rye Graves, damn, it looked fine , and now I couldn’t help but imagine how those bristled hairs might feel against my skin in areas I definitely should not have been imagining them touching. And his beard was the perfect length—just long enough for a woman to drag her fingers through.
Not me, obviously, so why were my damn hands twitching?
“How’s your family?” God, how awkward was that? Next I’d be asking him about the weather. Wait, wasn’t this the exact conversation he and I’d had eight months ago, when he told me I’d be sorry for denying him.
I would never admit to him that he’d been right, and that I thought long and hard about him every night in my bed for months.
“Everybody’s fine,” he said. “Junior’s up in Seattle, still workin’ at that brokerage firm, and Shelby and his wife, Sorelle, are over in Wisconsin. Parents are fine. Your parents?”
I laughed under my breath. See? Roxi was wrong. This was not a conversation between two people who wanted to dirty up some sheets.
“My parents are fine,” I said. “They’re goin’ on a cruise. Was there somethin’ else you needed? I’ve gotta get back to work.” Right. Like there’s any “work” to do besides count all the books I’m not selling.
He took a couple steps forward, his electric blue eyes flashing and freezing me in place. “Yeah, actually. I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“Excuse me?”
He smirked. “A proposition… or an offer.”
Juneau was right! Here was the “offer” of whatever it was he thought I needed. Although, I really had no clue what it could be.
“Ryder Graves, there’s nothin’ you got that I need.”
“You sure about that?” he asked, his voice lowering to a feral kind of hum, but I was already turning, preparing to walk away. “I heard you need money.”