Chapter Twenty-Eight
“YOUR TRIUMPHANT HERO HAS returned,” Hattie announced, shouldering open the door to the Cozy Nook Bookshop’s back room. She heaved a cut-open liquor box onto the table near the door, sending the scents of delicious, delicious takeout pervading the space.
Emma managed to keep a straight face, but barely. “Your victory will be sung by our descendants.”
She, Hunter, and Abby were sitting on the floor, sorting through the crates of books she and Hunter had picked up earlier that day. Thanks to traffic, they’d gotten back awfully late, but her friends had rallied anyway, showing up and deciding to order Chinese.
Her heart squeezed with gratitude. How would she have managed this on her own?
Harvest Fest opened in one day, fifteen hours, and…
thirty-six minutes. She should be having a panic attack right now.
But instead? She had everything in motion, every box ticked.
Every confidence that she, her employees, and her friends could pull this off.
She was still feeling a little verklempt as Hattie handed over her order of spicy eggplant with garlic sauce and steamed white rice.
Abby caught her eye. “I’ve never seen anybody else order that before.”
“Seriously? It’s a family favorite.”
“With my folks, too,” Abby agreed, opening a packet of chopsticks and tucking into her own container of homestyle bean curd and vegetables.
“Ugh,” Hattie said in mock disparagement. “Authenticity. I’ll stick to my General Tso’s, thank you very much.”
Hunter extended his hand, and they did a little fist bump. “Solidarity.”
Laughing, Emma glanced at Abby again and felt a bit of solidarity of her own. She’d never felt particularly tapped into the Chinese American community, but it was nice to have a friend who understood that part of her life.
“And the best, most traditional, authentic part of the Chinese take-out experience, naturally…” With a flourish, Hattie pulled a two-liter bottle of orange soda out of the box. She started to pour some for each of them, but before she could finish, Emma shook her head.
“None for me, thanks.”
“What? Sacrilege.”
“First off, orange soda is not an integral part of Chinese cuisine.”
“It is in this town,” Abby said, sighing but accepting her cup of the sickly-sweet beverage all the same.
Emma held up a hand. “Secondly, I don’t like it.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Hattie urged her.
A part of her wanted to just go along with it, but Hunter raised a brow at her. Exhaling, she held her ground. “Trust me. Sweet drinks just aren’t my thing.” Conciliatory, she added, “Thanks, though.”
Hattie gazed at her appraisingly for a second, and Emma suppressed a squirm of discomfort. “No sweet drinks at all?”
“Not really.”
“No pumpkin spice lattes? Or hot apple pie punch?”
“Unsweetened pumpkin spice lattes are okay. And I like cider,” Emma allowed, because she wasn’t a pumpkin-spice-Scrooge or anything. “But any sweeter than that, and…” She tipped her hand back and forth in the air. “Not really for me.”
But Hattie wasn’t letting this go. “So you don’t even like inappropriately named cocktails?”
Emma winced. She had pretended to like the Porn Star martini that Hattie had offered her the first time they’d hung out together. But she wasn’t going to let that doom her to a lifetime of pretending to enjoy things she didn’t. “Sorry, no.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Finally, Hattie shrugged. “Oh well, more for me.”
With that, she downed the extra cup of orange soda.
Emma let out a little laugh, relief sweeping her—and maybe just a bit of revulsion.
Chugging that much high-fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring couldn’t be good for a person, but Hattie was a responsible adult, and she could do as she pleased.
Clearly all starving, they focused on their meals for a while, but once they were more or less done, Emma was ready to get down to work. She pushed her takeout containers aside, nodding at Abby in thanks when she grabbed them to take them to the sink.
“Hunter, can you start sorting boxes by author?”
He flexed his arms. “Sure thing.”
“Hattie, I’ll have you count and unpack. Abby, here’s the list of pre-orders.”
“On it,” Abby agreed.
“Look at you,” Hattie said, laughing as she got to work. “Stating preferences, giving orders.”
Emma fought down another squirm of discomfort. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Which it definitely is not,” Hunter said with a grunt as he picked up two cases of books at once.
“Of course it’s not,” Hattie agreed. “I’m saying it in astonishment and respect.”
“Thanks? I think?”
“Just, you’ve only been here a month, and look how much you’ve grown.” Hattie pretended to dab at her eye. “I’m so proud.”
Emma glanced at Hunter, who’d expressed a similar—if less melodramatic—sort of pride himself.
But he wasn’t looking at her at the moment.
Honestly, he hadn’t been making a lot of eye contact all evening, which she’d mostly chalked up to his being rightfully exhausted from the drive, but it was starting to worry her.
“It’s really not a big deal.” But then she heard herself downplaying something she’d worked pretty hard at, actually. “I guess I do feel more confident, though.”
“You’re a whole new person,” Hattie said, beaming.
Hunter set down a box of books with a loud thud, and Emma frowned. That wasn’t like him, but he moved to the next box without commenting.
Abby rolled her eyes at Hattie’s tendency toward exaggeration. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
Emma shot her a look of appreciation, happy to have a calmer voice of reason here. But at the same time, Hattie wasn’t entirely wrong. “What can I say? The change of scenery’s been good for me.”
And there was another loud thud as Hunter set down another box of books too hard.
“Whoa!” Hattie shot him an unimpressed look. “Careful with the merchandise, dude.”
He didn’t apologize, but he did swab at his brow. Had Emma pushed him too far tonight? All the driving, and now this heavy lifting.
The squirming from before returned, but it was different now.
She really had asked a lot of him recently, between her injury and her panic about Harvest Fest. Once this weekend was over, she’d have to make it up to him.
“It’s just hot in here,” he groused.
“Sure thing, muscles,” Hattie teased, but he didn’t react.
“I’m just going to go get some air for a second.” He grabbed his water bottle and made for the door.
“You sure you’re okay?” Emma asked, moving to get to her feet, but he waved her off.
“I’m fine.” He still wasn’t looking right at her, though, and something inside her sank.
Maybe he just needed some space again.
But she wasn’t the only one who noticed he was acting weird. Hattie waited until they heard the door swing shut behind him before asking, “What bug crawled up his butt today?”
“I’m not sure,” Emma said stiffly. “I think he’s just tired from the drive.”
“That’s fair.” Abby smiled. “I haven’t hung out with him in a long time, but we used to know each other better back in high school. He always hated having to go anywhere with more people than trees.”
That made Emma feel better. She got them back to work, but after a few minutes had passed and Hunter hadn’t reappeared, the uneasy feeling in her gut became impossible to ignore.
With things more or less in hand, she rose to her feet, shaking out her ankle as she did. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”
“Take your time,” Abby said, entirely too knowingly.
Emma managed a quick smile.
She went out the same way Hunter had, through the back door that led onto the loading dock. The cold air outside made her stiffen. She should go back inside and grab a jacket, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around.
With every footstep, her pulse quickened. Was Hunter even still here anymore? Or had he left?
A dark laugh scraped the back of her throat. Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time a guy had randomly run off on her. At least maybe Hunter had stayed in the country.
It was a relief when she spotted him leaning against the side of his truck, his thick arms crossed over his chest and his face tilted up. It was a clear night—perfect for stargazing.
But when she called his name, he turned his head to look at her.
And there were thunderclouds in his eyes.
Keep your shit together. Hunter had been muttering the same phrase in his head over and over for hours now, and he’d been doing an okay job, all things considered.
But sitting in that back storage room, listening to Hattie declaring that Emma was a “whole new person”… hearing Emma call her move to Heart’s Hope Crossing a “change of scenery”…
He was all in favor of her gaining some new confidence.
He liked the backbone she’d been showing.
But the reminder of how much she’d changed in such a brief period left him unsettled.
Was her time here just a blip? Was she just passing through, having a life-changing experience, and building character on her way to bigger and better things?
A couple of months ago, he’d been perfectly, completely content with his life as a misanthropic hermit. He lived alone, mostly worked alone. Went into town when he needed to but otherwise stuck to the woods. He had one friend who he saw a couple of times a month, and it was great.
But now? The idea that Emma’s life here was some sort of a passing phase made his chest hurt. And yeah—that was hypocritical as hell. An outside observer would probably say he was a whole new person since Emma had moved here, too.
But she could move on. She could take her friend up on that job opportunity that was actually in her field. Go back to her life in the city or go forge some new life somewhere else entirely. She’d keep the confidence she’d gained here.
While he’d just…
Rot.
He clenched his hands into fists. This was why he’d avoided attachments in the first place. Letting people in just left you open to them punching holes in your chest when they left. Hadn’t he lost enough? Hadn’t he learned?
He swallowed, and his throat threatened to close.
Apparently not.