Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
TYLER
Maple Falls had always shown up for Halloween, and tonight, Oak Way felt even more enchanted than usual.
Lanterns lined the street in warm, flickering rows.
Storefront windows glowed with orange lights and paper silhouettes of cats, bats, and bare-branched trees cut from black card and pressed to the windows.
Emily had set up a pop-up outside her shop selling gingerbread skulls, pumpkin cookies, and double chocolate cupcakes.
Tyler could tell it was a hit by the length of the line alone.
Out front of the bookstore, the book club had outdone themselves getting the place ready for the Midnight in Maple Falls event. It wasn’t just the decorations, but the feeling that something big was about to happen. The town had been building toward it for weeks without even realizing it.
Two lanterns hung on either side of the bookshop’s door, and a black cauldron sat on a small table beside the steps, dry ice churning inside it so mist spilled out in slow, hazy waves.
The smoke curled around boots and hems as people stepped through it, grinning like they’d just crossed into another world.
And they had. Paper bats hung from the ceiling, their wings swaying every time someone brushed past. Warm candlelight flickered in the windows beside strings of soft fairy lights tucked along the shelves. The smell of coffee, pumpkin pie, paper, and ink mixed in the air.
A line had formed at the entrance—an actual line—stretching down the sidewalk, winding past the Cinnamon Spice Inn, and Tyler couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the bookstore this crowded.
The air inside was warm and bright and alive, the kind of warmth that came from bodies pressed close and voices overlapping and the shared thrill of being part of something.
Everyone was in costume.
Everyone.
Mrs. C., Mrs. Bishop, and Edith had gone full 1920s flapper with knee-length beaded dresses, long strings of pearls, feathers pinned into their hair at jaunty angles. Mrs. Bishop kept swishing her fringe every time she turned, unable to resist testing it out.
Kit was a scullery maid, complete with a black dress, a white apron, and her hair wrapped in a kerchief. Madison had leaned hard into a mermaid theme, shimmering green skirt and pearls everywhere, her flowing red hair making the whole thing look unfairly stunning.
Zach had “played along,” which in Zach terms meant he wore his contractor vest and carpenter belt and called it a costume. Tyler had to admit, it worked. Mostly because Madison looked delighted enough for both of them.
Normally, Tyler would match Emma—they’d had quite a few daddy-daughter costumes over the years, Woody and Jessie from Toy Story being one of his favorites.
But when Robyn had suggested they dress together in period costume, Wuthering Heights inspired, with a look in her eyes that made it less of a suggestion and more of a spell, Tyler hadn’t stood a chance.
Besides, Emma had already coordinated with two friends and made it abundantly clear that her friends had it all under control, thank you very much.
Which was why Tyler was dressed in an outfit of black pants and a loose-fitting white shirt, the collar skimming his jawline; the black sweeping overcoat made him fit to wander the Yorkshire moors, rather than Maple Falls.
He stepped back from the door and scanned the store, letting his gaze find her the way it always did now, as instinctive as breathing.
Robyn stood near the front display, half turned as she spoke to someone. She wore a black corset fitted snug to her waist and a flowing red skirt that moved like flame when she walked. Her hair was pinned up with loose curls framing her face, and her lipstick was darker than usual.
At that moment, he would’ve worn anything she asked him to. A cape. A top hat. A Speedo while walking down Oak Way and singing a tune.
He’d already taken Emma trick-or-treating around the neighborhood earlier, weaving through porch lights, jack-o’-lanterns, and bowls of candy left on front steps.
Now she was running wild with her best friends, racing up and down Oak Way with pillowcases and shrieks of laughter.
Every so often, Tyler caught a glimpse of her wide-brimmed witch’s hat darting past the window—full Winifred Sanderson, right down to the dramatic black cape she’d refused to take off since yesterday.
The street outside was packed with locals. Some were congregating around the town’s gas fireplaces, the flames leaping into the clear night sky while people warmed their hands. A fiddler played across the street closer to The Kettle. The notes floated down the street. A chill was in the air.
Elsie was there, too. She’d been moving through the crowd for the last hour with her phone raised, capturing everything.
Tyler had watched her pivot from filming a heartfelt interview with Mrs. C.
about the history of Halloween to zooming in on a jack-o’-lantern with an expression of genuine artistic intensity, all within the space of about ninety seconds.
Whatever Elsie posted tonight was going to make Maple Falls look like the most charming place on earth.
It was, he had to admit, a social media manager’s dream come true.
Tyler’s gaze moved and landed on the table near the center of the store where Mrs. C.
and Edith were selling copies of Isabel’s story.
It had been a whirlwind production, with Tyler editing the chapters, and Mrs. C.
and Mrs. Bishop working with the local printer to produce the copies.
The entire book club pitching in time and money to make sure the copies would be ready in time.
Stacks of the “event edition” sat neatly arranged with a little sign propped up in front: All Proceeds Support Maple Falls’s Reading Program
And the stacks were already shrinking.
Tyler blinked at the pace of it, watching Edith stamp pre-order forms while Mrs. C. scribbled names and email addresses with the determined intensity of a woman who had been waiting her whole life for a moment exactly like this.
People crowded around them, smiling, laughing, holding up copies for photos.
Phones were everywhere: recording, livestreaming, snapping pictures of the misty cauldron by the door, the lantern glow, the overflowing shelves.
Tyler spotted at least two local bloggers he recognized, plus a woman with a ring light clipped to her phone acting like her personal spotlight.
The bookstore was trending. In real time.
Tyler should’ve been soaking it in. And he was—sort of.
But his eyes kept sweeping the crowd, again and again, searching for one face he hadn’t seen yet. He had taken a chance, reaching out to an old friend, and he thought they’d be here by now, but so far… nothing.
Instead, his eyes locked on the one person he hadn’t been eager to see: Estevez Rodriguez.
Tyler caught the flash of him near the entrance, half-hidden behind a couple dressed as vampires.
Estevez stood just outside the warm circle of the lights like he didn’t belong in them, eyes cold as he watched the room.
His gaze moved over the shelves, the people, the laughter—assessing, calculating.
Tyler felt Robyn’s earlier words echo in his head: Thirty days. Vacate the premises.
His hands curled at his sides.
Not tonight, he told himself. Don’t let that man steal tonight.
He forced his attention back to the crowd, searching harder now, because if the right person didn’t show up…
No. He couldn’t let himself finish that thought.
Across the store, Mrs. C. lifted her hand high and gave the signal. It was the subtle, librarian version of a gavel.
Conversations began to taper off, and laughter died down.
People shifted, turning toward the small reading nook the book club had transformed for the night with a velvet chaise, gauzy black fabric draped over a side table, and a candelabra of flickering “wax” candles perched on a stack of old hardcovers like a gothic altar.
Even the floorboards seemed to hush as the crowd gathered closer.
Outside, the crowd quieted as they surrounded the oversized screen Elsie had set up in the town square, livestreaming the event.
Someone whispered, “It’s starting,” and the words rippled outward like a wave.
And then Robyn stepped forward, and everything else fell away.
Her red velvet dress skimmed her figure, deep and rich as mulled wine. A dark corset cinched her waist, and a velvet choker sat at her throat. She looked like a woman who knew exactly what kind of story she was standing in the middle of.
Mesmerizing, he thought. Absolutely mesmerizing.