Then Owen Bancroft entered the store carrying a box, and she felt sixteen.
Damn. That thick brown hair that stuck out as if he’d rumpled it when he arose and hadn’t touched it since—men in magazines paid a lot of money to have their hair look like that. She hadn’t noticed last night how broad his shoulders were. Could they have been that wide in high school?
And he was still limping, like he had been last night. As he moved forward, his motions were smooth, but there was a distinct hitch to his gait. So she hadn’t imagined it, then.
And his eyes . . .
When they landed on her in the corner, his dark blue gaze burned into her.
Chapter Three
When you start a project, have respect for the fact that it may turn out to be something completely different than the item you originally intended it to be. It may be prettier, longer, shorter, or stranger altogether. It will certainly be better.
—E. C.
The Book Spire smelled like books and paper and something sweeter. Owen’s eyes scanned the room as he struggled to hold the heavy box while still retaining his balance. It didn’t help that the three people sitting at the central table turned and stared as he opened the door. But the staring had been happening all over town, and he supposed it would get worse before it got better. He hadn’t been a local in a long time, and even when he had been, this town hadn’t trusted him.
Owen knew the moment he stepped inside the store that there was a person hiding in the corner, felt it with a vestige of his old profession, but he reminded himself that he wasn’t a cop anymore. A female, from the size of the person. Crouched low. Armed? His hand moved to his side, where he still carried his gun.
Shit. He was off duty. For good. Goddamn, that still hurt like a punch to the gut.
He had to remember that a girl staring at him from behind those magazines wasn’t the enemy. Owen didn’t need to worry. Except possibly about her well-being.
Maybe she was a special-needs resident of town; maybe the people at the table took care of her.
On second glance, he revised his opinion. He recognized her with a jolt—she was the woman from last night, the one who had helped him pop the seat back just before the car was engulfed.
Holy hell, she was a looker, with long dark hair that fell forward over her shoulder, and dark brown startled-looking eyes. All he’d really noticed about her last night was that she was small, just the right size for forcing her way into the car where he couldn’t.
Crazy that he hadn’t noticed how pretty she was. Even in that weird outfit—ratty yellow sweater over overalls, with purple and blue sneakers—she was a knockout. He should ask her about last night, see how the woman was . . .
But the old man who sat at the big wooden table in the middle of the room pushed back his chair and teetered to the front of the store to stand in front of him.
“Elbert Romo. You’re Irene’s boy, ain’t you?”
“Owen Bancroft. Yes.” He had to put this box down, soon. His hip was killing him and his knee kept locking.
“You played football for two years.”
Owen winced. Just because he’d had wide shoulders, even back in high school, didn’t mean that he was a great athlete.
Elbert said, “I do seem to remember hearing you spent more time under the bleachers smoking than on the field.”
“Hey, I gotta put this box down. The counter?”
“Come over here and meet the ladies. Mildred, Greta, this is Owen Bancroft, Irene’s boy.”
The woman named Greta gave him a half smile and looked into her coffee cup as if she were reading tea leaves.
But the one Elbert had called Mildred also stood. She met him, lifted the box out of his hands like it was full of tissue paper and set it on the table. Then she pumped his hand so firmly that he reached out to balance himself against the table.
“I’m sorry about your mother. How is she doing?”
Whoomp. The suddenness of the question rocked him. He knew his mom was bad, but to hear this, to see the concern written all over this perfect stranger’s face . . .
“She’s okay.”
“At Willow Rock now, isn’t she?” She was the type of woman who knew everything in town. He’d never liked this particular type, and he was remembering why.
Owen nodded. “Yep.”
“It’s a good care facility. Sometimes we carol there at the holidays, some women from the church and I.”
He smiled thinly. “Very kind.”
She fluttered her hands, “Oh, we just do what we can. Your mother and Eliza Carpenter and I used to knit together. That is, when your mother wasn’t in a mood. But that was a long time ago now. Don’t worry, they take good care there. So what brings you here? Something we can do for you?”
Good, she must be the owner. Owen pointed to the box. “Books. I think. You buy them?”
More fluttering. “Oh, you need Lucy.” Mildred pointed to the woman in the yellow sweater who had come up out of her crouch and was now skittering out of sight, crab-like, through a back doorway, dragging a dolly full of magazines. “Lucy! Over here! Come meet Owen Bancroft!”
At that moment, there was a loud crash from the back room. Owen looked at the three people at the table. None of them were young enough to move as quickly as he’d be able to, even if he was a gimp.
In the back room, he found the woman on the floor. It looked like she’d slipped and had taken down a tall stack of magazines with her when she fell. She looked up at him with wide eyes.
“Are you okay?”
Mildred came up behind him. “What happened?”
Owen said, “She slipped.” Then he turned back to the woman and said, “Don’t move.”
From the floor, the woman winced. “I’m fine. Just had the wind knocked out of me.” She stood, brushing off her overalls, looking at him expectantly.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Positive,” Lucy said. “Is there something I can help you with?”
He cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah. Books? I have some.”
Lucy nodded but didn’t say anything. He followed her back out into the main room of the store and pointed to the box he’d brought in. “Probably just junk.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. What’s on top of it? It’s covered with . . .”
“Cat hair. I’m sorry,” said Owen. “I tried to clean off most of it, but a lot of it seems to have embedded itself into the cardboard. Cats have been sleeping in my mother’s storage unit.”
Lucy raised her eyebrows. “It looks like a felted rug.”
“But as far as I can tell, no cats have peed on the boxes.”
“Small mercies.”
“Two more of them in the car. Just as fuzzy.”
She barely glanced at him, just pulled her sweater tighter. There were holes at the hem of the sleeves, Owen noticed. “Go get them, then,” she said.
When Owen finished carrying in the third box, she was leaning against the counter, laughing at what sounded like a stupid joke about two peanuts and a bar, told by the old man, Elbert.
She had a great laugh. But when Owen leaned against the counter and smiled, Lucy’s laugh trailed off, and she moved the last box to the left.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think that—”
Owen interrupted her. “How is the woman from last night?”
“Abigail?”
“Yes.”
Lucy’s face softened. “I called when I woke up this morning. She’s got a few bruised ribs and a couple of lacerations, but she’s fine and the baby’s fine.”
“You did a great job.”
She looked down at the box and then back up at him. “Yeah.”
“You’re just a natural, I guess. You were the perfect person to have right there. You couldn’t have come out of the bar at a better time. You helped save her life.” Owen smiled, and hoped for a similar response. Her brown eyes were more familiar than they should be from just seeing them last night. Owen kn
ew her, and he could almost place her. God, had he dated her? He couldn’t remember having a girlfriend named Lucy, but the name rang a bell in his head. If he could just remember . . .
Lucy was still looking at him, her head tilted to the side, a surprised look on her face.
“What?” he asked.
She jumped. “I’m sorry. Nothing. Okay, your boxes. I’ve only poked through them a little bit, but they look like they’re just full of old romances. Let me look at this one.” She leaned forward, her hair falling in front of her face. She smelled sweet, the hint of incense that remained in the old converted church mingling with whatever she was wearing.
Lucy looked up at him. Those lips . . . Damn. Had it been that long that he was this easily distracted? Owen forced himself to listen to what she was saying.
“I’m sorry.” She held up a ripped Barbara Cartland. “I don’t buy old romances. I have too many already.”
“Hell. Don’t you buy books? Isn’t this a used bookstore? Those are used books.”
“Too old. And too used. Look, these are losing their pages. Even I have my book principles.”
“What do you suggest I do with them, then? A library?”
She snorted. “I’m sorry, but no library wants these.”
“A Dumpster, then? You got one out back? If you have a Dumpster I could borrow, I’ll bring the rest of my mother’s junk and chuck it all in, once and for all. I just don’t know—” Owen cut himself off. She didn’t need to know what he was going through, dealing with the stuff Irene had just crammed in that storage unit with no regard to what he was going to have to deal with to get through it. He picked up the first box he’d brought in. “Thanks anyway.”
“Wait,” she said, and her voice was softer now.
“What?”
“Fine, I’ll take them. But I can only give you . . . five bucks a box.”
Owen turned, slamming the box back on the counter with more force than he’d intended. “Deal.”
Lucy turned to open the register and Owen took a deep breath. They were only books. Goddammit.
“How long are you staying, Owen?” Mildred called out from the table. Nosy broad.
But he turned and gave what he hoped passed for a smile, and then deliberately didn’t answer the question. “Over at the Starlite Motel, on South Street.”
Mildred gasped and pressed a beringed hand to her ample bosom. “I knew a man who caught something at that fleabag place that we don’t like to talk about in polite company. Why don’t you rent a place? A nice place?”
“I’m not staying long.”
The register slammed shut with a loud jangle.
Mildred smiled, showing all her teeth. “Still, you should at least rent something better while you’re here. Good thing the parsonage is rented, Lucy, or you’d have to show it to him, wouldn’t you?”
From behind him, Lucy said in too loud a voice, “Fifteen dollars! Here you go! Thanks for stopping by, please come see us again.”
She slid the cash across the counter instead of placing it in his hand.
“What’s the parsonage?”
Mildred was up and moving over toward him. She was a force of nature, he could tell.
“It’s in the back, here, past the little cemetery. Lucy rents it out, fully furnished, but she has a tenant now, don’t you, Lucy?”
Mildred’s voice set Owen’s teeth on edge. It was as if she were rubbing it in—that Owen didn’t deserve to stay in a nice place in town. Yeah, he understood that. He always did.
Lucy looked up at the high beamed rafters as if the answer were hanging there. “Well, she moved out last week,” she said, finally.
Mildred’s look turned to one of concern. “Well, now, that wouldn’t mean that . . .”
“So it’s available?” Owen asked.
Lucy said, “I just usually don’t rent it to grown-ups.”
This conversation was difficult for him to follow. “Excuse me? I’m thirty-five, but . . .”
“I rent it to girls who are at the local junior college, usually. There’s a high turnover, but they’re nice. I’ve never . . .” She cocked her head to the side for a moment and surveyed him. “You’re a cop, right?”
How did she know that? “Retired.”
“You’re not old enough to be retired.”
“Medically retired.” The next question would be whether he’d ever shot anyone. He fucking hated that question.
“Huh.” She studied him some more. She didn’t ask the question. And then, just like that, he remembered.
“You were Lucy Harrison.”
“It’s the darndest thing.” A smile broke like sunrise across her face. “I still am.”
“Well, women’s last names change all the time.”
“Mine tends to remain stubbornly the same.”
“Mine, too,” said Owen. “You were my tutor.”
“You were really terrible in math.”
“I was.”
And then a blush slid across her cheeks, staining them a dusty pink. Owen had to curl his fingers around the lip of the wooden counter—the urge to reach out to touch the soft skin of her face was astounding. And it would have scared the crap out of her, rightly so, had he done it.
Owen wondered if she even remembered that one kiss.
Probably not. What teenage girl remembers some stupid guy who bails and never comes back? She probably didn’t remember that night at all. He did, though. Now he remembered Lucy Harrison.
Elbert Romo cleared his throat from behind them. “It’s more of a cottage, really. Way more house than someone like you needs.”
Owen nodded, using an amazing feat of will to look away from Lucy’s mouth. “It sounds perfect, actually.”
Greta, who had been very quiet until now, said, “I know a very nice bed-and-breakfast run by a friend of mine who’s always looking for a man around the house to help her with things. I bet she’d even give you a discount. Lucy’s right, her little place is better suited to younger people.”
Mildred’s voice cut Greta off. “Lucy won’t rent to Owen. That’s enough of that.”
Owen raised his shoulders. “Well, considering I haven’t even seen it yet, maybe I could just do that.”
“Out of the question,” said Mildred, pushing her chair in to the table with a thud. “You’re just not what she’s looking for.”
Mildred’s voice buzzed like an insect, but Owen kept his eyes on Lucy. God, she was pretty. Had Lucy been this hot in high school? Maybe he’d missed her because she was short—still was—but damn, those perfect curves made up for whatever she lacked in height. How had he only kissed her that one time?
Owen backed up and stuck his hands in his pockets. Mildred was right. He didn’t need pretty right now. He didn’t need a complication. He just needed a place to figure out what the hell his next move was going to be. The Starlite Motel was as good a place as any, close enough to his mother, and quiet enough when the desk clerk wasn’t singing lousy opera at the top of her extremely loud lungs.
Without meeting his eyes, Lucy said, “You can come look at it. Can you come back at five, when I close?”
Chapter Four
We can’t help but feel sorry, can we, for those who don’t knit? What do they do when they’re nervous? When they don’t know where to look? What is knitting if not directed fidgeting?
—E. C.
Lucy flipped the Open sign to Closed. Although he was still a block away, she could see Owen approaching on foot. Punctual.
What was she doing, anyway? Thinking about renting to him? After he’d graduated a year before her, she’d spent her senior year of high school—not to mention the first couple of years of college—trying to recover from him. Trying not to remember the kiss he’d given her, the one that had changed her completely. He’d disappeared without even saying good-bye.
And he was even better looking now. How was that fair?
Lucy held the door open for him.
His eyes were m
uch bluer today. She’d remembered that they were dark blue, but not how very deep, very dark they were—practically the color of the deep water out over the breakers. She’d never seen that particular shade on anyone else. And those lashes! She had to wear mascara every day to have any lashes at all.
His mouth twitched.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re staring.”
“Oh, sorry.” God, how embarrassing. She had to pull it together. “I’m just tired. I was just . . . um . . .” Lucy would be professional. This was business.
Why had she decided to show him the parsonage?
He nodded and stepped into the store, the slight limp marking his gait. Lucy turned her back to lead him and was conscious of what a rat’s nest her hair always looked like by the end of the workday.
“Just through here.” She led him out through the middle of the store and turned left at the side door leading out of the transept.
Owen paused behind her and looked up at the high ceiling vaults. “It doesn’t look like a bookstore. More like a . . . I don’t know.” He put a hand on the lintel. “I think I remember coming in here as a kid sometimes. It hasn’t changed much, huh?”
Lucy smiled. “This is just the way my Grandma Ruby had it.” She loved her store at this time of day, when the sun was setting, the red-and-orange light streaming into the nave through the clerestory windows. It felt sanctified, like her own cathedral to books. But that was a bit much. She wouldn’t tell him that.
“The old bones of the church make it feel like a temple.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. She cleared her throat and led him out. “Here, through the garden.” The heavy door slammed behind them.
“Would I always have to walk through the bookstore?”
She should have led him through the outside gate. She wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Of course not. Sorry. There’s a walkway there, see?”
“Nice roses,” he said, and he actually sounded like he meant it.
“I pay a kid a few bucks to prune and water and weed. I don’t have a green thumb.”
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