Chapter 3 Rosemarie
THREE
ROSEMARIE
I woke to silence.
Not the peaceful kind, either. The aftermath kind. The kind that settles over a room like a damp sheet, thick and still, where everything feels just slightly wrong and off-kilter. It was the silence that follows chaos—when you’re too scared to move because something might break further.
The morning light was dull through the curtains, gray with overcast. The air smelled faintly of wet wood and scorched wiring. Below me, my bookstore sat in quiet ruin, its shelves soaked, its heart gutted. I hadn’t gone down yet. I couldn’t.
But that’s not what kept me curled under the covers, my heart stuttering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
It was Gavin.
More specifically, the way he’d looked at me last night.
No one had ever looked at me like that. Like I was something … fragile, but burning. Like I was something a man like him had no business wanting—but did anyway.
The memory of it made my breath catch. My face heated and I rolled onto my side, gripping the pillow like it might anchor me.
And then there was that name.
Rose.
He’d said it like a secret. Like he’d seen something in me no one else ever had and wanted to claim it for himself. Like he liked the thorns, not just the petals.
I didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t know what to do with him.
Gavin had always been in the background. Safe. A permanent fixture in my life. Tall and steady and gruff in a way that made you feel protected. My dad’s best friend. A widower. A man I’d grown up calling Mr. Miller before he finally told me to knock it off.
Now?
Now, he was the man who’d held me while I cried. The man who’d made me grilled cheese and hot chocolate and told me my bookstore mattered. The man who’d called me Rose like he was daring me to bloom. The man whose hands I kept imagining on me.
I groaned into the pillow, letting out a muffled whimper, and kicked the covers off like they were to blame. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t me.
I was the responsible one. The planner. The rule-follower. The kind of woman who read smutty books in secret but never acted on any of the fantasies. The kind who blushed when characters said filthy things, then reread the passage three more times before dog-earing the page.
I was not the kind of woman who wanted to crawl into her dad’s best friend’s lap and whisper Daddy like she meant it.
God, what’s wrong with me?
Maybe it was the stress. The grief. The sheer mass destruction downstairs bleeding into everything else. Or maybe it was something deeper. Something I’d never dared to name out loud.
That quiet, aching part of me that had always wanted someone to take care of me. Not in a sweet way. Not in the flowers-and-dinner-dates kind of way, either. Not with words or gifts or even soft affection—but with presence. With hands. With control.
The way that steadied you with strong hands and didn’t ask for permission to take the weight off your shoulders.
Someone who could see past the sundresses and polite smiles and know that, underneath it all, I wanted to be unraveled.
I’d never told anyone that. I barely admitted it to myself. But Gavin … He was suddenly making it hard to ignore.
When he looked at me last night, I didn’t feel like a kid or someone in need of rescuing … minus yesterday—that didn’t count. I felt like a woman.
A woman who wanted things. Big, scary, adult things.
I sat up abruptly, heart still racing, the covers tangled around my legs and my heart in my throat.
I reached for my phone out of habit and blinked against the bright screen. Two texts stared back at me.
MOM
Hi, hun. Just checking in. Your dad and I are going to be out of the office the next few days. Heading a few towns over to look at some properties for a client. We’ll keep you posted. Love you.
ELODIE
Hey babe. Girls night still happening this weekend? I’ve got wine, snacks, and two new face masks. Tell Morgan to hold down the fort. XO
Despite everything, a small smile tugged at my lips at the thought of girls’ night.
The one night, every few weeks, where I let myself be more than the tired shop owner with stress on her shoulders.
Elodie was the one friend I had who never let me flake.
And Morgan, bless her weekend shifts, made it possible to pretend like I still had some version of a social life—family brunches, the occasional night out, breathing room.
I stared at their texts for a minute longer, sending a quick update to Elodie about the shop and my need to reschedule, just so I could get the shop cleaned up.
I needed a shower. I needed coffee. I certainly needed to remember how to function before Gavin came back.
Because he was coming back. With fans. With tools. With those forearms I kept picturing braced on either side of my head.
I was so screwed.
But a secret part of me, beneath all the panic and guilt and confusion—the one that liked my books with bodice ripper covers and possessive men—taunted:
Maybe it’s time you stopped playing it so safe.
I dressed like it mattered. Which was stupid. But I did it anyway.
Nothing too dramatic—just a simple sundress with tiny blue flowers and a neckline that dipped just enough to make me blush at myself in the mirror. The skirt hit mid-thigh and fluttered when I walked.
I told myself it was because I was behind on laundry. But deep down, I knew better. The dress was a little nicer than some of my usual picks and definitely not what I should be wearing to clean the mess downstairs.
I left my hair down, a little damp from the shower, loose around my shoulders. No makeup, just lip balm. Casual. Effortless. Like I hadn’t stood in front of the mirror for fifteen minutes wondering if Gavin would notice the curve of my neckline or the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra underneath.
I was losing it.
Totally, completely losing it.
Downstairs, the air hit me in the face—wet, stale, and thick with the smell of drowned pages. I cracked open the front and back doors, letting the morning air filter in and carry away the worst of it.
The front display was a soggy mess. Pages had warped into limp, swollen curls. Nothing looked salvageable since water had come from above from what I can now process visually was what looks like multiple points where pipes had burst, landing on any surface it could find.
It hurt. Like a betrayal. From my own shop. The very place that had always comforted me.
These books were my world—my friends, my company, my livelihood. And now they were ruined. Drenched in a storm I hadn’t seen coming.
Just like me. But my storm seemed to come in the form of a tall, older contractor …
Before I could spiral too deep into that thought, a low rumble outside made me freeze. A truck.
I turned toward the sound, heart thudding. He parked right out front in a no-parking zone like he owned the damn street, engine cutting off before the door slammed shut. And then there he was—tall, broad, the kind of man who didn’t just enter a room. He filled it.
He wore a black T-shirt that stretched just right across his chest, with sleeves that hugged his biceps without even trying. Faded jeans worn in all the right places. Work boots. Sunglasses pushed onto his head. Toolbelt slung low on his hips like it was part of his body.
I swallowed hard.
“Morning, Rose.”
His voice scraped across my skin like velvet and smoke. Low. Rough around the edges. Like he’d smoked too many cigars in a past life and his lungs still hadn’t forgiven him for it.
“Hi,” I said, too breathless, too quick. I hated how obvious it sounded.
He looked at me, then around the store. His gaze moved slowly, steady, assessing. “Did you sleep at all?”
“A little.”
He stepped farther inside, boots heavy on the soaked wood, eyes narrowing at the worst of the damage. “I brought a Shop-Vac, two fans, and a big dehumidifier. It won’t save the books, but some of the flooring might pull through.”
“Thanks for coming back.”
His eyes met mine, steady and sure. “I said I would.”
But there was something else in his gaze now—something that lingered a beat too long on the line of my collarbone, on the slope of my mostly bare shoulder.
He noticed. I knew he would notice.
And it thrilled me in a way I hadn’t expected. Like I had a secret. Like I’d finally stepped into one of those dog-eared paperbacks I kept hidden in my nightstand drawer when I was younger.
And suddenly, I didn’t want to be good. Or sweet. Or careful.
I wanted to be wanted.