Page 10 of Fate, Interrupted

“You did what?”

“Padded,” I say. “Adjustable. Built for people who spend too long pretending they don’t need support.”

“I don’t need a chair.”

“It’s already ordered.”

He looks up, eyes narrowing. “Silas.”

“It’ll be here tomorrow. I’ll bring it over and set it up.”

“I said I don’t need it.”

“I heard you.”

He holds my gaze, measuring how far he wants to take it. Rory doesn’t like being handled. The direct approach is always the wrong one with him.

“You’ve been standing at that counter longer than most of these machines have been bolted down,” I say. “No reason to make it harder than it has to be.”

“It’s not hard.”

I don’t argue. I lean back against the counter instead, easing the pressure out of the exchange. “Next thing you know,” I add, “you’ll be asking me to bring in a sixty-four-inch TV. Put your feet up between loads. Ottoman. The whole situation.”

That hits. Rory lets out a short laugh before he can stop it and shakes his head.

“I don’t want an ottoman.”

“Not yet.”

“And if you bring a TV in here, I’m sending it right back.”

“We’ll see.”

He snorts. The edge is gone. He reaches for the next garment, movements a fraction looser than a minute ago. There’s no thanks coming from him. I don’t expect any.

“Call me if anything else comes up,” I say.

He waves me off without looking up. “Go. I’ve got it.”

I don’t doubt that.

I’ve been in that shop twice. The wolf has been quiet about women for years. It isn’t quiet about this one. I don’t know what to do with that yet.

Chapter four

Norah

Two days.

That’s how long it’s been since Silas Coulter walked into The Last Chapter, drank tea in my back room like it was a prescription, told me he wasn’t entirely sure why he came in, and left with a fifteen-hundred-page novel tucked under his arm like a man making a point rather than a purchase.

I have thought about it a completely reasonable number of times since then.

I’d like to say zero. That I thought about him zero times. But that would be a lie. I’ve thought about Silas Coulter dozens of times over the last two days.

I tried to convince myself that evening while I closed that Silas Coulter was an interesting afternoon and nothing more. Interesting afternoons are not the kind of thing a grown woman with a functioning shop and a handful of good friends spends her mental energy on.

The decision has been mostly successful.