Three hours was a long time to sit with a couple who had substantial shared assets but zero shared opinions on how those assets should be handled in the event something happened to them. They were not only the most contentious married couple he’d ever met with, but they’d fought even more than some of the couples he’d helped revise established plans for when they went through divorces.
He was exhausted and he’d missed lunch, but at least he didn’t have any more appointments today. After pulling up their file and adding the extensive notes from today’s meeting, he closed the laptop and took out his phone for a few minutes of relaxing distraction.
After scanning his family Instagram pictures, he hovered his thumb over the search icon for a long moment. In the week since he’d last spoken to Zoe, he’d looked at the Cedar Street Books feed every day—including hitting the heart icon on their Veterans Day display out of habit, and then hoping she wouldn’t notice—but he didn’t follow the account. Each day he told himself to leave it alone and each day he lost the battle of willpower.
Today was no different, and when he clicked through to see the most current photo, he actually laughed out loud.
The caption announced a shipment of new books had arrived, and Zoe was standing next to a desk, with her hand on a stack of books. She was wearing a soft blue sweater that hugged her curves, but it was the book she was holding up as she smiled at the camera that made him laugh.The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Estate Planning.
She’d been thinking about him.
Two days ago, she’d posted a photo of a book in her lap that had a beach chair and the ocean on the cover, and in the background were her flip-flop clad feet. Once he’d come to terms with finding bright fuchsia toenails attractive, which was another thing he hadn’t known about himself, he’d read the caption.Flip-flops might be entirely unsuitable for November, but I’m not finished with beach reads season!
He’d caught the “entirely unsuitable,” which meant she’d noticed he’d liked her window display photo. And he was probably supposed to be annoyed by the DIY estate-planning book, since it was obviously another deliberate shot at him. It wasn’t the kind of book you highlighted when you had a pile of popular fiction under your other hand. And even though she’d undoubtedly ordered it after their last meeting went south, the photo she’d posted an hour ago let him know he was still in her thoughts.
Sure, those thoughts probably weren’t very flattering, but since she spent an unusual and inconvenient amount of time inhisthoughts, it seemed only fair.
Maybe it was time for them to cross paths again.
He should meet the other owner of the bookstore, he told himself. Carly was his neighbor, too, and he should introduce himself properly. And if he and Zoe should exchange some words that were neither hostile nor veiled Instagram captions, that would be a bonus.
After closing up the office, he gave himself a few seconds to rethink his decision, but his skin was practically tingling in anticipation of seeing her. Nerves, maybe. But he didn’t think so. Though he could make no logical sense of it, he was attracted to Zoe Randall and he wanted more than Instagram pictures. He wanted to hear her voice.
And he did. Her laughter was the first thing he heard when he stepped into the bookstore, and when he realized she was with customers, he was tempted to back out through the door and go home.
But the bell over his head caught her attention, and when she turned and their eyes met, she smiled.
No, he shouldn’t have come here, but now there was no way he was leaving. Not until he’d had a chance to speak to her.
It didn’t take long. She excused herself from the woman and little girl she’d been talking to and walked to the front of the store to greet him. “Good afternoon. What is it I can help you with today?”
Her smile was tight and there was definitely an edge to her tone, but her livelihood depended on the store being an inviting place to visit, so she wouldn’t make a scene and throw him out. Probably. “I thought I might look around a bit, if you don’t mind. And I was hoping to meet your partner, actually. I had lunch with Joe the other day and I understand she’s your cousin?”
Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed like her body relaxed and her expression warmed slightly. “Carly took today and tomorrow off. Noah—her husband—and his boss had to go to Rhode Island for business and they decided to take their wives with them.”
“I guess I’ll meet her another time, then.” When the silence stretched toward awkward territory, he knew he should start looking at books, but he couldn’t force himself to walk away from her yet. “You could have mentioned our landlord is your grandfather.”
Something about her smile must have sucked all the air out of the shop because he had a hard time breathing when she turned that full-wattage grin his direction. “What fun would that have been?”
“That’s not playing fair.”
She didn’t even pretend to look sorry. “Hey, you’re the legal type who decided to jump into a game without knowing the players.”
Lawyer, actually. Not alegal type. But he didn’t correct her because he didn’t want this fun, saucy Zoe to go away. “I’m learning the rules as I go along.”
“Oh Zoe,” the woman she’d been talking to when he entered called. “Do you have that book they made a movie about? That lady who runs off to Europe or something?”
“I’ll be back,” she said to Preston. “Feel free to browse.”
He took that as an invitation to not go anywhere, so he picked a shelf and started perusing titles. They had a wide variety of well-organized books and it wasn’t long before he was totally immersed in the shopping.
Eventually, he heard the bell over the door ring and Zoe made her way back to him. “Finding anything?”
“You have a great selection. I’ll probably pass onThe Do-It-Yourself Guide to Estate Planning, though.”
A pink flush brightened the tops of her cheeks. “Saw that, did you?”
“I did. You do a really great job at social media.”
