2. Norah
Chapter two
Norah
The first time I see Silas Coulter, my stomach does this annoying little clench. I blame the cold brew I had on an empty stomach this morning, as the alternative requires acknowledging things I’m not prepared to dig into on a beautiful July afternoon.
At least, that’s my story.
It starts like any other day. The bell above the door chimes—soft, a little worn.
I don’t look up because it’s five-forty-five in the afternoon, fifteen minutes from closing time, and my perpetually last daily customer, Mr. Clancy, runs on a schedule that would make a Swiss watch feel approximate.
I’m already reaching under the counter for his Grisham hold.
“Hey, Mr. Clancy,” I call, fingers closing around the spine. “I told you I’d save it. It’s the last copy, so I grabbed it for you. I even thought about putting your name on it in permanent marker, but that seems like tempting fate.”
I look up, and the sentence evaporates.
Not Mr. Clancy.
My brain attempts to reconcile this. It pulls up the image of the older man—stooped shoulders, canvas jacket, faint peppermint smell—and tries to map it against the man in my shop doorway. This attempt fails completely and immediately. Embarrassing for everyone involved, but mostly for my brain.
He steps inside the threshold and stops. His stillness feels deliberate—as though he’s already picked his spot, read the room, committed to the chair before the meeting even starts.
Wolf.
It hits without drama or negotiation, from the part of my brain that is older than manners and much less polite. I know wolves. Growing up next to pack territory, I sold books to them my entire career, and I know the focused attention they bring to a space they’ve entered.
There are three packs in this city. I know all of them by name.
He scans the shop, the shelves, the back wall, the ceiling, and when his gaze lands on me, it stays there.
His eyes are emerald-green. Not the gold, amber or hazel-leaning color humans erroneously believe most wolves have. But a proper, unreasonable green, layered and lit from somewhere behind the iris. Long black lashes that have absolutely no business existing on a man’s face frame them.
I set the Grisham down because suddenly it’s too heavy in my hand.
The rest of him is tall enough that the room rearranges itself around him.
Broad through the shoulders, with a broken-in denim jacket doing nothing to minimize them.
The white tee underneath confirms everything the jacket is suggesting.
It fits closely enough across his chest that my eyes linger there before I catch myself, and the little clench in my stomach drops lower. Apparently, the cold brew is innocent.
I arrange my expression into one that communicates none of this. This takes more effort than it should.
“Sorry.” It comes out louder than intended. I clear my throat. “You’re not Mr. Clancy.”
“I’m not.” His voice is low and even, the kind that people listen to. “Never been much of a Grisham fan.”
A little literary humor falling flat. I give it the smile it earns—professional, noncommittal, and he stays where he is, reading the room, in no hurry about any of it.
“There’s more on this side. If you’re interested.”
That moves him. He steps in fully.
When the door swings shut behind him, it brings in the July humidity, leaving the city noise behind. The bell above the door tinkles when it closes behind him.
He crosses to the counter without looking at anything except me. His directness isn’t rude but doesn’t waste motion, either. He stops a few feet out and looks at me like I’m his next assignment.
I find this both intriguing and annoying.
I put the counter between us, folding my arms, aiming for the posture of someone entirely unaffected. “Can I help you find something?”
“Depends,” he says. “What’s included with the ambiance?”
I gesture around The Last Chapter with more sweep than the question strictly requires, because this old shop deserves a grand gesture.
The sweat equity building it up—the handwritten shelf signs, the mismatched armchairs I reupholstered myself, a place that wants you to feel you discovered it all by yourself.
Three years ago, my good friend and business partner, Abigail, put up half the money and all the legal scaffolding, then handed me the keys and never once tried to run it.
“Dust,” I say. “The memory of every conversation that’s happened here. And an owner who was described in her last professional review as having an excess of opinions.”
“Excess by whose standard?”
“Large corporate bookseller. Fluorescent lighting. Motivational signage.” I pause. “I skedaddled.”
“Fast?”
“Faster than was strictly professional. Slower than I wanted to.” I look at him. “What brings you in?”
It’s a fair question. For most people, it’s books. But with this wolf, I don’t think it’s the latest Ludlum.
His gaze moves past me to the shelves. That same quick, thorough sweep, and when it comes back, I have the clear impression that everything behind me has been assessed and filed, and I’m currently the more interesting subject.
The attention should make me uncomfortable. Instead, warmth creeps up the back of my neck, and I wonder what exactly he’s seeing when he looks at me that way.
I tuck that thought away immediately.
“Books,” he says.
“Bold. You’ve come to the right place.”
The re-shelving stack is under the counter where I left it at noon. I collect it, tuck it against my hip, and come around to the floor, because standing behind the counter with him on the other side isn’t helping as much as I’d like it to.
He falls into step beside me without being invited.
I notice this immediately because I’m out of practice having a man walking next to me. I’m apparently not out of practice noticing one.
“What kind of book are you looking for?” I ask, sliding a return into its spot with the satisfaction of putting a book where it belongs.
“Something practical.”
“Practical.” I straighten a spine leaning against its neighbor.
“That is genuinely the most loaded word in this shop. Practical for what purpose? Self-help is practical if you need to understand why you keep making the same mistake. A thesaurus is practical if you’ve run out of ways to say the thing you mean. ”
“Do you do this with everyone?” he asks.
“Only with those who use vague words to avoid answering the actual question.” I say it pleasantly. “What are you interested in reading?”
His pause is the selecting kind, not the uncertain kind. “Automotive,” he says. “Engines.”
“Stimulating choice.” I turn into a side aisle. “The section’s a little thin. My silent partner, Abby, caved to her boyfriend on the last order, but it kept him occupied, so mission accomplished, I guess. “ I gesture at the shelf. “Here you go.”
He moves past me to reach the upper shelf, and this is where the afternoon takes a turn I wasn’t adequately prepared for.
Because the side aisles of The Last Chapter consider two people a crowd, and this wolf is not helping.
He stops behind me, close enough that the air changes—warm and present, the heat of him coming through the thin cotton of my skirt.
Every nerve along my back seems to notice him at once. My nipples tighten beneath my tank top, an absurdly intimate response to a man who hasn’t actually touched me, and heat gathers between my thighs before I can tell my body that we’re standing in Automotive Repair at five-fifty in the afternoon.
My body notes this with an enthusiasm I find completely disproportionate to the situation.
He pulls an engine manual free and flips it open.
I take a half-step to the side, a practical repositioning rather than a tactical retreat, although my body is considerably less interested in retreating than my common sense thinks it should be.
I end up putting myself at the end of the unit where I can see his face.
“In my experience,” I say, with a steadiness I’m awarding myself full credit for, “we’ve never sold a single book on engines. Now we do have a pretty decent DIY section if you’re interested in decoupaging old lamps.”
He glances up from the manual he’s not reading.
“You’re skimming that,” I say.
“I don’t skim. I’m considering it.”
“You haven’t absorbed a single line. You’re checking out the room.” I push off the shelving unit. “Are you stalking someone, or are you actually here for a book?”
He closes the manual carefully and shelves it with the attention of someone who notices how things are kept. He gives me a sorta smile. The suggestion of one, offered briefly and then reconsidered.
That is somehow worse than an actual smile because I can’t read this guy yet. I want to, which might be the more interesting problem.
“Books,” he says.
“You keep saying that,” I say, “and yet.” I turn and look over my shoulder at him. “Come on. There’s a kettle in the back, and you can tell me what you actually came in for while I pretend tea and a chat is a normal thing I offer.”
He looks at me for a beat. His composure slips just enough for surprise to show before he reins it back in. “All right.”
And as much as I’m shocked that I invited a strange man—a wolf no less—into my back room, I’m even more surprised at him agreeing.
That’s how Silas Coulter ends up in the back room of my bookshop on an afternoon in July, right before closing time, sitting on my stool with his large hands around a mug of tea he didn’t ask for.
The back of the shop is mine, built entirely to my taste.
Hot plate, kettle, a shelf of mugs with slogans I’ve collected that can only be described as a political, philosophical, and emotional statement piece.
Across from the electric kettle is a long, low shelf running the length of the wall, holding what I’m reading, what I’m planning to read, and what I keep meaning to return to the floor and never do.