Wish I Might

by Kait Nolan

  All he’d done was prove to Cecily that he was small-minded, petty, and prejudiced against the wealthy. Why on earth should she think he’d accept her after that?

  Looking around his store, with all its meandering rooms flowing one to the next, a small part of him wondered if Annelise had been right on some level. He hadn’t turned Inglenook into the fully engaged community hub he’d wanted. Other than expanding their catalog to be more in keeping with the times, he’d changed very little since he’d bought the place. It was a small town bookstore and he loved it. But it wasn’t the more he’d envisioned for it.

  The phone in his pocket buzzed. He slipped it out to find a text from Selina.

  Hey cutie. How’s your day going?

  Reed glanced instinctively toward Brenda. Zach’s plan had worked like a charm. As soon as she’d found out about his “girlfriend,” she’d backed off. No confrontation. No awkwardness. Well, not more than a tolerable level, anyway. Thank God.

  Because he had no one else to talk to about this, he texted Selina back. Do you ever feel stuck?

  Selina: Stuck how?

  Reed: I don’t know. In life, I guess. When I bought the store a few years ago, I had all these plans for what I wanted it to be. Big, huge plans. And I’ve just been sitting here looking around thinking that I really haven’t implemented any of them.

  Selina: What’s stopping you?

  What indeed? Reed hesitated before answering. I don’t know. Maybe fear of failure.

  Selina: Well, never trying guarantees failure. Wouldn’t you rather try and fail than never take the risk? I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?

  The worst that could happen? Having reality bear out Annelise’s prediction that his vision would never fit in a town like Wishful. Having her be right about anything was enough to give him indigestion. But even if it didn’t work, what would he really lose? He liked his bookstore exactly as it was. If he tried something and it didn’t take, it wasn’t as if he didn’t like his life and his work. He was still better off without her, still perfectly content with his small town world.

  Reed texted back. You know what? You’re right.

  Selina: Good for you! So what’s your first step?

  The first and most obvious step would be to take advantage of the assets at his disposal. This kind of project was what Cecily excelled at. What would she say if he asked for her help? She’d probably find an excuse to get out of it and pawn it off on Norah. Not that Norah wouldn’t be amazing at this. She’d probably even do it as a family favor. But if he was going to take a risk on the one, why not take a risk on the other?

  He hadn’t fought hard enough to find out what was wrong this summer, and he’d regretted it ever since. If he could convince Cecily to work with him on this bookstore project, then maybe he could convince her to give him a second chance. Reed knew she was looking for jobs elsewhere, knew that his window of opportunity was closing. It was now or never.

  Fingers flying, he texted Selina back. I’m going to ask for help.

  Selina: Bravo.

  Reed looked down at the stack of magazines still waiting to be racked.

  He owed Cecily an apology. But how could he make one without admitting he knew her secret? And she clearly wanted to keep it a secret or she wouldn’t have had Christoff buying up all the evidence linking her to her family. Did she even have a cousin Blair? Or had that whole interlude been an excuse to run interference while Christoff made the purchase? Did that mean Christoff knew?

  Didn’t matter who knew. Either way, Reed needed the opportunity to do some damage control, to prove that he wasn’t the narrow-minded reverse snob he appeared to be. And there was only one person who had the power to give that to him, his cousin’s fiancée.

  She answered on the first ring. “This is Norah.”

  “Hey, it’s Reed. Have you got a minute?”

  “For you I can make two. What’s up?”

  Reed glanced uneasily at the counter, where Brenda was affixing sale stickers on a pile of hardbacks they needed to move. He didn’t want to discuss this here. “Can you meet me at The Grind?”

  He could all but hear her curiosity pique in the silence.

  “Sure. See you there in fifteen?”

  Reed tipped the phone away from his mouth. “Brenda, are you okay to watch the shop on your own for a bit?”

  Startled, she looked up. “Sure. It’s been pretty slow today, and it’s another hour or so until the after-school traffic trickles in.”

  He spoke back into the phone. “Fifteen.”

  By the time Reed had stowed the magazines in his office—he wasn’t going to be the one to blow Cecily’s secret—and walked across the town green, Norah was waiting, a large coffee in one hand, a lemon square in the other. He made his own order, and they retreated upstairs for some privacy.

  “I need your help.”

  “Name it,” she said instantly. “Is Inglenook in trouble?”

  The bookstore wasn’t exactly a cash cow, but it was holding its own. Reed shook his head. “Not in trouble, no. But not living up to its potential, either.”

  “Color me intrigued.”

  “This is partly to do with the store and partly a more…personal matter. And before I go on, I need your assurance that you won’t say anything to the rest of the family. Not even Cam. It’s a matter requiring discretion.” Clearly Cecily valued that.

  Her dark eyes sharpened. “Okay, I promise.”

  “I know you tried to set me up with Cecily.”

  One elegant brow arched. “I did no such thing. I made introductions between two people I happen to care a great deal about and then stepped back to let nature take its course. Which was apparently nowhere.”

  Reed winced. “Yeah, well, that’s my fault. I said something that left her with a bad impression. And I want the chance to fix it.”

  The other brow climbed up. “Why now? It’s been three months.”

  “Because I only just figured out what I did wrong.”

  “Better late than never, I suppose. What does this have to do with me? Why not just apologize to her like a big boy?”

  Reed glared. “Because…reasons. It’s more complicated than that.” He didn’t know if Norah was aware of Cecily’s background, but if she wasn’t, he wouldn’t be the one to break her secret.

  “So…you want me to do what, exactly?”

  “Get her to work with me. I just need the chance to spend some time with her, so she can see that I’m not… Well, just so she can see me without my foot shoved halfway down my throat.”

  Norah angled her head and studied him. “You know Cecily’s internship is over, right? She’s hanging around working hourly for me only until she lands a full-time position elsewhere.”

  He’d known that objectively. But that was before he felt the flare of hope that he might be able to earn a second chance. “Why can’t that be here? Don’t you want her to stay? Keep the dream team together and all that?”

  “Of course, but we don’t have it in the budget to hire her full-time at the rate she merits. She’d have to do something other than work for the city.”

  “Well, don’t you at least want to stack the deck, give her more reasons to stay than go?”

  “Do you?”

  “I want the chance to try.”

  “You believe you might be a weight on the side for staying?”

  He thought about that flare of desire he’d seen in her eyes at the shop last week and that potent glance they’d shared at Los Pantalones. “I think there’s something between us, and we didn’t get a proper chance to explore it before I inadvertently screwed things up. I need the chance to make it right.”

  Norah nodded. “I understand the need for that. I’ll arrange for the set up, but the convincing will fall wholly on you, cousin.”

  “That’s all I can ask for.” He’d just have to make the most of it.

  Chapter 4

  “You wanted to see m—oooh my God, I’m sorry.”

/>   Cecily hurriedly shut Norah’s office door, but not before she had a flash of a bare-chested Cam Crawford pressing a kiss to his bride-to-be’s bared shoulder. As she stood in the hall, listening to hurried movements on the other side of the door, she couldn’t help but think it’d be nice to have someone to be that reckless with. Her brain conjured up an image of Reed.

  Bad. Idea.

  The door opened and Cam stepped out, fully dressed and pink all the way to the tips of his ears. “Sorry about that. We, uh—”

  Feeling the heat in her own cheeks, Cecily waved him off, careful to keep her eyes above the equator. “Almost married and crazy about each other. I get it. Sorry I interrupted.”

  Norah stepped up behind him, looking considerably less embarrassed, with only her hair remaining a bit mussed. How did she do that? “Someday you’re going to remember to lock the door.” She brushed her lips over his.

  Cam stroked a hand down Norah’s cheek in a lingering caress that made Cecily’s heart sigh. “See you in New Orleans, Wonder Woman.”

  Norah stood and watched him, love shining in her eyes, until he was out of sight. Then she straightened and gestured Cecily inside. “You might as well come on in and get the mocking over with.”

  “Why would I mock? If anything, I’m envious. You two are adorable. And God knows you deserve it after how your ex treated you.”

  “I won’t argue with that.” With practiced fingers, Norah twisted her hair back up and secured it with pins. “Just as well you showed up. I need to be getting on the road and he wasn’t in any hurry to let me.”

  Cecily smirked. “You were fighting him off so hard.”

  Norah flashed a wicked grin. “Come help me haul stuff to the car.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Cecily loaded the easel and shut the trunk. “That’s the last of it. Do you have the PowerPoint?”

  “On a flash drive and loaded on the hard drive of my laptop, just in case. I appreciate all your hard work on this presentation. With the dramatic turnaround we’ve seen in Wishful this year, everybody wants to know how to duplicate our results.”

  Cecily dimpled. “Do they know they’d best be investing in cloning technology? None of it would’ve happened without you.”

  Norah swung an arm around her shoulders. “You either. Who knew this time last year that I’d be speaking as an expert at a small town redevelopment conference?”

  “We’ve come a long way from Chicago. When are you back?”

  “Not until Tuesday. Cam’s driving down to meet me Friday night, and we’re taking a long weekend in New Orleans, so I’m leaving you to man the fort while I’m gone.”

  “You can count on me!” Cecily gave her a sharp salute.

  “I always can.” Norah grinned. “Oh, I almost forgot. I promised Reed some marketing services for the book signing he’s got coming up at Inglenook. With all the prep for the conference, I haven’t had a chance to even look at his stuff, and time’s running out. So I’m taking boss’s prerogative and dumping it on you while I’m gone.”

  The smile on Cecily’s face turned brittle. “You want me to do the marketing for the bookstore?”

  “Cakewalk compared to what you’ve been doing. It’ll be a nice change of pace. He’s expecting you sometime today.”

  As Cecily stared, Norah rushed on, opening the car door and sliding into the driver’s seat. “You’re a lifesaver. I need to get going. Long drive. See you next week!”

  Before Cecily could come up with a viable reason why she couldn’t do the job, her boss was driving away.

  Crap.

  She put it off until after lunch, fortifying herself with one of Mama Pearl’s chocolate chip milkshakes from Dinner Belles, the local diner and biggest gossip competitor to The Grind. By then she’d just about convinced herself to put on her big girl panties and get it over with. Procrastinating wasn’t doing anything but making her more nervous.

  An attractive woman in her late thirties was stocking shelves when Cecily stepped inside the bookstore. She dimly remembered seeing her during the evidence-wiping mission she’d run with Christoff the week before.

  The woman looked up and smiled slightly as Cecily approached. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “I’m looking for Reed, actually.”

  Something flickered over the woman’s face—a quick darkening of expression before she seemed to shake herself out of it and reaffix her customer smile. “He’s in the back, in his office.”

  Wondering what that was about, Cecily headed toward the back of the store. In some long ago lifetime, the building had been someone’s home. She wandered through the wide, cased openings, past row upon row of shelves and the comfortable furniture grouped here and there to invite people to sit and stay a while. The overall effect was one of warm welcome. The only thing missing was the scent of baking cookies from the kitchen they might not even have.

  As the woman had said, Reed was in his office. She found him at his desk, a pair of horn-rim reading glasses perched on his nose as he peered down at a catalog of some kind. The sleeves of his button-down shirt were rolled up, revealing muscular forearms. The muscles in one of those arms flexed as he made notes with an honest-to-God fountain pen. Something in her brain short-circuited and her mouth went dry. God, the sexy professor look worked on him.

  As if sensing her eyes on him, he looked up, brightening. “Cecily. Hey.” He pulled the glasses off as he stood, and she felt a pang of regret. “Did she like it?”

  Cecily blinked. “Did who like what?”

  “Blair. Did she like Dark Defenders?”

  “Oh.” She relaxed against the door frame. “Yeah, she loved it. We’re in intense debate about Cass and whether she’s good or bad and why she keeps showing up at all the stuff Mena is investigating.”

  Reed grinned. “You read it?”

  “Cover to cover. Impressionable teen and all that. I had to know what I was giving her.”

  “And what do you think? Good or bad?”

  “I think Cass has her own agenda and that Derrick knows more than he’s telling Mena. His reaction is way too vehement.”

  “Derrick is a pretty straight-forward dude. Very black-and-white. From his perspective Cass is a villain.”

  “Exactly. So how the heck are he and Mena supposed to work? She’s so gray. That’s part of what makes her good at what she does. I just don’t see how such a straight arrow can be a match for her.”

  Reed crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the desk. “I think she fascinates him. He’s keeping her secret for reasons even he doesn’t understand—and that makes for compelling conflict.”

  Cecily had the strangest sense he wasn’t talking about the comic anymore. Which was ridiculous.

  “Guess I’ll find out more in Volume 2.”

  He started around the desk. “I’ll show it to you.”

  “Later. That’s not actually why I’m here.”

  “Oh. Then what can I do for you?”

  You can stop being so damned appealing.

  She steeled her spine. “It’s more what I can do for you. Norah’s tied up with conference stuff, so she sent me in her stead. My marketing expertise is at your disposal.”

  “Really? Wow, that’s awesome. Nice of you to put in the time.”

  She could’ve said something about how it had nothing to do with her being nice and everything to do with her job. But he was being so gracious, she didn’t see the point in mentioning it.

  “Where should we start? Do you need to know the details of the author? It’s Tony Becker.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar. “Mysteries, right?”

  “Yeah. He’s a solid, midlist author. Biggest one we’ve managed to land so far.”

  “That’s good. If he’s given any thought to this at all, he ought to have some kind of press kit we can use. But I’ll get into that later. If he hasn’t, I can make one. I’ve done it before.” I can piggy back on what I did for Aunt Dinah. Probably. She made a few mental notes
on what might need tweaking there before turning her attention back to Reed. “But before we get into the specifics, I need to get a better idea of what kind of information dissemination infrastructure you have in place. So, let’s start with an assessment of where you are now. Just the basics. Do you have a website?”

  “Of course we have a website.”

  “Show me.”

  He gestured for her to come behind the desk with him.

  The office was tiny, with room only for the ancient wooden desk, a visitor’s chair, and a couple of file cabinets shoe-horned in behind the door. In order to get a look at Reed’s laptop screen, she found herself wedged shoulder-to-shoulder with him—or more properly shoulder-to-arm, as he was a good eight or ten inches taller than she was. She tried desperately not to notice as his body brushed hers.

  “It hasn’t been updated in a while, but it’s got all the basics on there.”

  The page loaded and Cecily actually felt faint. Frames. The website was built on frames. “Dear God,” she muttered. “It’s ancient. It’s the website that time forgot.”

  “It’s not that bad,” he protested. “It’s got our location and hours. Even a page of events. What more do we need?”

  Cecily just shook her head in pity. “Please tell me you’ve at least got a newsletter.”

  “Sure. It goes out in the mail once a month.”

  “Snail mail?”

  “Um. Yeah?”

  “Christ. You’re killing me. What about the social media?”

  His lips curved in a rueful smile. “I’d tell you, but I’m pretty sure you’ll hit me.”

  She took a deep breath. Which was a mistake because now she could smell his aftershave and felt a ridiculous desire to nuzzle just there beneath his jaw. “Okay. We’re just going to pretend you have nothing, and I’m starting from scratch. We’ll talk further about what other features you might like once I have the basic framework in place.” Before she had more of her brain cells scrambled, she scooted out from behind the desk.