Chapter 20
TWENTY
TYLER
The pumpkin pie book nook was crowded and full of voices, but Robyn had gone strangely still beside him.
Tyler noticed it immediately. By now, he knew the difference between her usual stress, all quick words and nervous energy, and this quieter kind of strain that seemed to pull her inward whenever the book club read another piece of Isabel’s story.
This was deeper, quieter, like something was tugging at her from underneath the surface.
Isabel’s manuscript had hit a nerve. Tyler wasn’t sure if it was because it was her great-grandmother’s words, or because of the upcoming event, Midnight in Maple Falls. Whatever it was, it made Robyn uncomfortable.
Elsie, of course, was selling the personal, family connection angle with the kind of bravado that made Tyler suspect she could market a pothole as a tourist attraction.
But every time the conversation circled back to Robyn’s family, Robyn’s body language gave her away.
Her fingers tightened around her pen. Her smile thinned. Her shoulders held too still. He thought she was bracing for something. What, he had no idea.
He didn’t mean to study her. But couldn’t help it. He was tuned to her.
It took a while for her to relax. But eventually, as the conversation dove deeper into the story, and then on to planning how to discover the final missing section of the manuscript, Robyn was calmer and back in charge.
Tyler hovered at the edge of the conversation so Robyn could come into the center.
He’d always preferred quieter roles anyway, like editing behind the scenes, making sure the details held so the rest of the story could shine.
Watching Robyn take charge was a different kind of satisfying.
She didn’t boss people around; she simply organized the room with the calm authority of someone who had chaired academic panels and managed fifty-question Q&As without breaking a sweat.
By the time she finished, everyone had a direction to search for the best pumpkin pie in Maple Falls back in Isabel’s day, as if they were a team of seasoned detectives rather than a group of book lovers who had just eaten their combined body weight in fall-themed comfort food.
And then, inevitably, the debate began again. Robyn had tried to hold it off once, but that only lasted for so long.
Mrs. C. started it, just as everyone was packing up. “If you recall,” she announced, lifting her chin, “I won the Fall Festival pie contest three years in a row.”
“That’s only because I didn’t enter,” Mrs. Bishop shot back, offended on principle.
Edith waved a dismissive hand, as if she couldn’t believe they were even arguing. “Nonsense. Everyone knows my pumpkin pie is the best this side of the Atlantic,” she declared. “It was my Scottish grandmother’s recipe, after all, and she was the finest baker in six generations.”
Tyler watched it the same way he watched a tennis match—head turning back and forth. Robyn didn’t even blink. She stepped forward, between the ladies, interrupting.
“Could your grandmother’s recipe be the one we’re looking for?” she asked Edith.
Edith’s expression softened into something almost apologetic. “Oh, I wish. But we didn’t move to Maple Falls until I was in my teens. I’m afraid we’re a generation off for Isabel’s time.”
Robyn nodded once, already filing it away, and then she turned and made her way back to Tyler, who had retreated behind the front counter, watching the scene unfold from afar.
“Well, that was productive,” Tyler said when she joined him.
Robyn nodded her head in an amused sort of way.
Tyler hesitated for a beat, then shifted the conversation in a direction that had been sitting on his tongue since the second he saw her in that green sweater tonight. “Hey. Would you want to do dinner Friday?”
Robyn’s brows lifted, interested.
“Emma has a friend’s birthday party,” Tyler explained. “Pizza at the roller rink followed by a sleepover, so that means… we could have some time to ourselves.
“Maybe we could start with dinner?” Tyler was thinking ahead, trying to see if they needed reservations. The Cinnamon Spice Inn had Kit’s delicious food, but he was thinking about maybe getting out of downtown if Robyn was open to it.
Robyn’s smile turned slow, a little mischievous. “Actually… why don’t you come here? Upstairs.” She tipped her head, and Tyler felt the shift in his body like a door opening. “I know my way around a kitchen, and I make a hell of a carbonara if that could tempt you.”
“You had me at upstairs,” Tyler said, then caught himself. “I mean—yeah. Carbonara sounds great.”
Robyn bit her lip, clearly enjoying watching him fumble. “I’ve also been thinking about doing a mushroom pappardelle. Maybe with short ribs and fresh zucchini. That is if I have the right ingredients…”
Tyler grinned. “Well, you’re in luck. My gourds are at peak performance right now.”
“Don’t I know it.” Her voice dropped, her eyes holding his. “I’ve been thinking about them a lot, actually.”
Tyler’s mouth went dry. The air between them thickened, and he was suddenly very aware of the counter between them and how little it would take to walk around it. His body was responding in ways that were about to become extremely obvious if they stayed in this conversation much longer.
Robyn’s gaze flickered downward for just a second, then back up. A slow smile spread across her face.
“Maybe,” she said quietly, leaning closer, “we should take this upstairs before your gourds steal the show.”
Tyler’s mind raced with the idea of being alone with her behind a locked door, no one interrupting them, making them snap apart every five seconds. He was about to say something, anything, to let her know how much he liked that idea, but Robyn’s phone suddenly lit up with notifications.
One after another after another.
Tyler watched the color drain from her face. The playful warmth vanished in an instant, replaced by something sharp and panicked, like someone had yanked the floor out from under her.
“No,” Robyn whispered, eyes scanning frantically. “No, no, no. This cannot be happening.”
Tyler stepped closer, instinctively. “Robyn—what’s wrong?”
Robyn backed up, gaze flicking around the mostly deserted bookstore as if she suddenly believed she was being watched. Her breathing went shallow, her fingers tightening around her phone hard enough that Tyler wondered if the screen might crack.
“I’m sorry,” she said, words tumbling out too fast. “I can’t—I have to go.”
“Wait,” Tyler said, reaching for her hand, but she was already moving.
She turned and rushed toward the back hallway that led to the staircase up to her apartment, her steps quick and unsteady, fear written all over her face.
“What was that about?” Edith asked, drifting closer with narrowed eyes.
Tyler stared after Robyn, completely thrown. “I… I don’t know,” he admitted, because he didn’t. One second, they’d been planning carbonara and wine, and the next, she looked like she’d seen a ghost.
He didn’t know whether to run after her or stay put and give her space. He was halfway through deciding when Madison looked up from her phone, her expression changing. The color had drained slightly beneath her freckles, her green eyes narrowing the way they did when she was working something out.
“Um…” she said slowly, “I think I might know what’s going on.”
Tyler turned. “What?”
Madison reluctantly held up her phone. Her red hair was pulled back in a loose braid tonight, but a few strands had come free, making her look slightly wild. “I don’t know how to say this without it sounding insane,” she said, and then she winced. “But… check your Instagram.”
Tyler pulled out his phone, fingers suddenly clumsy. He clicked on the app and waited impatiently for the three seconds it took to load.
He clicked the first thing that loaded.
And felt his brain go very, very still.
There it was, in bold letters over a screenshot that had already been shared and reshared:
AfterHoursAuthor Identity Revealed: Robyn Valente!
Tyler’s throat went dry.
Robyn was… AfterHoursAuthor?
For a moment, it didn’t make any sense at all. His mind simply couldn’t process it.
“Wait,” Kit said, leaning over Madison’s shoulder to get a better look, her dark bob swinging forward. “Robyn is AfterHoursAuthor?”
“Who now?” Mrs. Bishop asked immediately, offended by the fact that anyone had information she didn’t.
Edith’s eyes widened with delighted recognition. “Oh, I know,” she said, sounding absurdly pleased to be the one delivering this news. “She writes those romances online.” Then she lowered her voice—far too late for discretion—and added, “And they’re good too.” She fanned her face with one hand.
Mrs. C. didn’t even blink. “Well, of course she does,” she said briskly, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Her books are fire. Is it cliché if I do a chef’s kiss? Because… damn,” Kit said, kissing her fingertips.
“Right?” Cassidy said in agreement, her blue eyes sparkling. “I read chapters aloud to Liam all the time. So good.”
The group started talking over one another, revealing their usernames and their favorite stories of Robyn’s.
“Wait… you can read books online?” Mrs. Bishop interrupted the group.
Edith turned to her, already energized by the opportunity to educate. “There’s an entire catalog, Myrtle. A whole world. I’ll have to show you.”
“In that case, please do. It sounds like I’ve been missing out,” Mrs. Bishop said solemnly.
“But do you think she’s okay?” Emily asked, looking upstairs to where Robyn had sprinted off to.
“I’ll go up,” Tyler said before he even realized he’d spoken.
But he didn’t move yet.
Because Tyler’s world had just shifted on its axis, and he was still trying to stand upright inside it.
AfterHoursAuthor—the writer he’d followed for years, the one whose stories had been his private indulgence on late nights when the house was quiet and his life felt too heavy—was Robyn.
The real, living woman he was already falling for.
The woman who kissed him with everything she had in the bookstore aisle.
The woman who had just looked at her phone and gone white with panic.
It was a revelation so big it should have felt impossible. But instead, it landed with a strange, dawning inevitability.
Of course it was her.
The voice that had made him laugh and ache and burn on a screen belonged to the same woman who did the same thing to him in real life.
And now, the only thing Tyler could think, standing there in the pumpkin pie book nook with crumbs still on the tables and the book club buzzing around him, was that Robyn was upstairs right now in distress…
when all Tyler could feel was awe, and a sudden, fierce need to get to her before she disappeared into that fear alone.