“I need you to bring me here more often,” I said softly. “To the table. Not just for the good things. Especially the hard ones.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise you, Cara.”
I slipped my hand into his and held on.
Chapter 35
Cara
The months that followed felt like I could finally breathe again.
Jasper kept every promise he made that night at the cabin. He brought me into the job the way he said he would—texts during the day with funny details about clients, phone calls on the evenings he stayed late in Willowmist Falls, and long conversations at the kitchen table whenever a week looked like it might run long. The travel turned out to be lighter than either of us had feared. Most cases stayed close, and the few times he had to drive out of town, he was home by dinner or called the moment he knew he wouldn’t be.
We settled into a rhythm that felt like ours. Some nights, I drove to the cabin after closing the shop. Other nights, he came to me, slipping through the alley door with flowers or a bottle of wine and that quiet smile that still made my stomach flip. My books lived beside his on the shelf he had built. The space between us had grown smaller, steadier, safer.
One quiet evening, Jasper asked me to close the shop a little early.
He met me at the front door, his eyes holding that familiar mix of nerves and certainty I was learning to recognize.
“Tonight is for you,” he said softly. “Lock up when you’re ready. I’ll be waiting upstairs.”
Before I could ask what he meant, he kissed me once—slow, lingering, full of promise—and headed up the stairs.
I finished the last tasks in a haze of curiosity. When the shop was empty and quiet, I turned the sign to CLOSED, locked the front door, and left only the soft glow of the reading lamps and the string lights along the fiction wall. On the table next to the door lay an envelope, cream-colored, my name written in Jasper’s steady hand. Inside was a single note card.
Start where stories begin.
I smiled and crossed to the fiction wall. The second envelope waited between two well-loved copies ofJane Eyre.
Where you first told me you loved mysteries as much as I love coming home to you.
My heart beat faster. I moved to the mystery section and found the next envelope resting against a hardcover ofMurder on the Orient Express.
Follow the trail of the woman who built her life one page at a time.
Each envelope led me deeper into the shop—through memories only we shared. One took me to the reading nook. Another brought me behind the counter, where he had kissed me senseless the night he returned with the flowers. The trailwas thoughtful, personal, woven with the quiet moments that had become the foundation of us.
The final envelope waited on the small table in the reading nook. My fingers trembled as I opened it.
Come upstairs. Our last chapter is waiting.
I climbed the back stairs, pulse humming with anticipation. When I stepped into my apartment, the sight stole my breath.
The lights were dimmed low. Dozens of tiny flameless candles flickered across every surface, bathing the bookshelves and worn rug in warm golden light. The cats were batting around piles of white rose petals that led from the door through the living room and into the bedroom. Soft music played from the old speaker in the corner—something slow and acoustic that Jasper knew I loved.
And there he was.
Jasper stood in the center of the living room in a dark button-down and jeans, looking impossibly handsome, his expression a beautiful mix of hope and nerves. In his hands, he held one last envelope and a single red rose.
“Hi,” he said, voice low and warm.
“Hi,” I whispered, stepping closer. “You did all this?”
“I wanted to give you a mystery night in the place you love most.” He handed me the final envelope. “One last note.”
