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I can’t be in the shop today. Very important meeting.

Archibald and Barnabas, I expect you to represent the Owl’s business honorably.

Tempest, please try not to give your brothers any trouble.

Archibald read the note over her shoulder. “Oh… Mmhmm. Right,” he said knowingly.

“What’s the meeting?” Tempest asked.

“Business thing.” He was already moving away.

“What kind of business thing?”

“The businessy kind.” Barnabas took the note from her hand and folded it once, neatly, and put it in his breast pocket. “Nothing for you to worry about, Pestie. You’ve got more than enough on your plate today, haven’t you?”

The stepbrothers exchanged a pointed look behind her back. She wasn’t supposed to notice it, but she did.

Dan Wilder had said he’d be there by noon and the shop’s cuckoo clock was still clucking out the hour when he arrived.

Tempest wasn’t accustomed to authors being punctual. She was high up on a ladder shelving some overstock when she spied him coming in through the door. She paused to study him from her hidden, elevated vantage point. He was taller than she’d expected, though she didn’t know why she’d expected anything. He still had the mane of messy reddish-blond hair and beard as on the cover photo. His cool blue eyes swept the room and catalogued everything, before doubling back to the display. He seemed genuinely impressed with it all.

Good.

She also noticed that his overcoat was creased and crumpled across the back. There were faint circles under his eyes. He looked tired. She was guessing he’d just flown in. He wasn’t overly eager or posturing, the way most authors were when they showed up at Owl’s for a signing. And he was alone. No posse. Some of them brought whole teams of people with them. Photographers, stylists, assistants, handlers. Dan hadn’t even brought a friend to snap some pictures.

He looked like someone who was showing up to meet his obligations much more than someone who was showing up to take a victory lap. It wasn’t that he seemed rude. He just didn’t seem thrilled to be signing books at Owl’s today. This piqued her curiosity about him more.

She climbed down the ladder and wheeled it out of the way.

“Barn-a-bas!” Archibald bellowed from the back of the store, loud and directional. “Can you get Pestie to check on the catering order? They said noon and there’s nothing here yet.”

She froze.

The catering order was from a new place on Twenty-Third Street. She’d called it in herself and confirmed twice. The delivery window was eleven forty-five to twelve fifteen. That was written down in the run-of-show that she’d shared with her stepsiblings. She wasn’t worried. Not yet anyway.

Nevertheless, she ducked into the stockroom and picked up the house phone to check. It was easier than having another pointless conversation with her stepbrothers. Peering out onto the shop floor, she could see that Dan Wilder had already been greeted by Archibald’s overenthusiastic handshake and Barnabas was launching into his tour of the shop.

The food arrived at the same moment her call with the caterer connected but, sadly, her moment to meet Dandelion Wilder before the crowds descended was gone.

Tempest spent the next half hour setting the luncheon up in the back room. She arranged the sandwiches and crudités on the good china serving platters rather than the plastic disposable ones. Owl’s always provided a modest lunch for staff and their special guests when they had a signing. It kept the sales staff from leaving the premises and the ABCs from getting hangry.

Clement had been unusually generous with the budget this time. The spread wasn’t lavish, but it was abundant. There would be leftovers she could take home and freeze for her dinners next week.

“I’m just popping in to grab something for us and Dan,” Archibald interrupted her, clumsily swiping three sandwiches off her artfully arranged platters. He held a paper plate next to the charcuterie board with one hand. With the other he scraped a pair of tongs across the artful arrangement, sweeping cheese, crackers and sliced fruit into a heap on his disposable dish.

At least he hadn’t used his bare hands. Tempest got to work refreshing the arrangement.

There would be other moments for her to meet Dan Wilder today, she promised herself.

By three thirty everyone from the blue wristband group was lined up in the annex behind a velvet rope. The system was working, almost the way Tempest had hoped it would. She watched people from the green and purple groups filtering in early to browse the shelves and shop for other books while they waited for their group to be called.

The trivia-related board and card games she’d put on display near the registers were flying out the door as shoppers added on impulse items. One woman spent forty minutes in the local history section and left with a branded Owl’s tote bag so full it strained at the handles. The cafe quickly sold out of banana bread.

Tempest didn’t have time to feel vindicated, however, because she was being pulled everywhere at once, helping customers, redirecting the cue outside not to block neighboring shops, and retrieving a sleeping child who had snuck off and curled up with a copy of Winnie the Pooh in the travel section.

She kept catching glimpses of Dan Wilder in between it all. He was good with people. He spoke kindly to everyone. She got the feeling that he found individuals more interesting than crowds, even while surrounded by a mob of adoring fans. Perhaps especially when surrounded.

He met everyone’s eye and didn’t rush them as he answered their questions. He roared with laughter twice in the span of ten minutes, both times with a surprised look. He hadn’t expected to be enjoying himself as much as he was.