But somewhere in the years after—long stretches of deployment, bases in places where there wasn’t much to do in the downtime but sleep or read—I’d found my way back to it. Books had become the thing I reached for when everything else was loud. I’d read things I never would have picked up on my own, and some of them had stayed with me in ways I hadn’t expected, and every so often something in a page would catch me, and I’d think, without meaning to, about a library table and afternoon light and a girl explaining why a story mattered.
Pine & Pages had been there every time I came back to Honeybrook Hollow. I’d always had a reason not to go in. Leaving again soon. No point starting something. Better to keep the window between us—the warm glow of it, the stacks visible through the glass. I’d looked through that window more times than I’d ever tell anyone.
I parked at the curb and sat there with the engine idling, fingers drumming once against the steering wheel before going still. The storefront filled the windshield—brick worn smooth at the corners, big front windows crowded with handwritten signs and stacked displays that leaned just enough to feel intentional.
A poster caught my eye, taped to the cedar siding beside the window. Hand-illustrated in deep burgundy and gold, fall leaves scattered around the edges like evidence at a scene, a magnifying glass centered beneath the wordsPine & Pages Mystery Nightin careful block lettering. Someone had drawn a small trail of footprints disappearing into the leaf pile at the bottom corner, which was either a very good touch or a clue I wasn’t equipped to follow yet.
Pine & Pages Mystery Night
A cozy whodunit inside the bookstore.
Hidden clues. Curious minds.
A mystery to solve together.
Friday evening. Limited seating.
I read it twice.
Then I killed the engine.
I stood on the sidewalk outside Pine & Pages for longer than I had any good reason to.
It wasn’t a complicated building. Two stories of old brick on the corner of Sycamore and Mill, the painted sign above the door, the autumnal window display a careful arrangement of books, handwritten cards and a small ceramic lamp that was on, which meant she was in there. I knew her car. I’d clocked it in the alley without deciding to as I drove past.
I ran a hand through my hair and looked at the door.
The thing was, I’d walked into situations considerably more requiring of composure than a bookstore in a small town. I was aware of the irony. I was also aware that none of those situations had involved Cara Darlington on the other side of the door, which my body apparently considered relevant information regardless of what my brain thought about it. I’d been shot at. I’d held a fireteam together in conditions that didn’t bear describing over dinner. I had, by any reasonable metric, nerves that functioned under pressure.
I almost turned back to the truck.
I didn’t, because that was ridiculous, and because I’d been almost turning back for the better part of a year every time I drove past this corner, and at some point, a man had to just open the damn door.
I pushed it open.
The bell chimed. Warmth wrapped around me first. The place felt peaceful, as if the noise outside had been turned down before it crossed the threshold. Books lined every wall, shelves packed tight, spines brushing close like they’d been there long enough to settle into each other. Tables broke up the space, with stacks arranged without symmetry yet somehow balanced. Little handwritten cards sat tucked beneath rows, ink looping across them in careful script.
I took a few steps in, slower than I needed to, boots creaking faintly against the floorboards.
Cara stood behind the counter. She didn’t look up right away. Glasses on. Same thick frames. Hair pulled back, but not tight—strands already slipping loose near her temples. She leaned over a clipboard, pen moving in short, precise strokes, like she was trying to pin something down before it got away.
My breath caught. A warmth moved through my chest, low and certain, the kind that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room and everything to do with her.
I’d seen her around town plenty since I’d been back. Enough that I’d thought I had a handle on it—on her, on whatever it was that happened in my peripheral vision every time she walked into a room I was already in. I’d managed it fine at the bar. Polite distance, neutral expression, the careful architecture of two people pretending the past was just the past. I’d been good at it.
Standing still in a quiet bookstore while she existed twelve feet away from me, apparently, was a different problem entirely.
There was a crease between her brows I didn’t remember being there before, when I used to know her. I made myself look away and then looked back, because my self-discipline had apparently been left outside the door.
A customer stepped in front of her, talking. Cara nodded, raised her head to carefully listen—eyes steady, attention fixed in a way that made the guy straighten a little, like being heard mattered more than he expected. She smiled at something he said, and it changed her whole face for a second.
I looked away before she could catch me watching and took a breath that was steadier than I felt and reminded myself I’d come in here for books.
The mystery section was easy to find. The edges of the spines lined up just a little too perfectly. I ran a hand along them as I passed.
Classic whodunits.
Small-town secrets.
