Page 1 of A New Chapter

Chapter 1

“Don’t turn around,” Kelly ordered from her position behind the cash register.

“Why not?” Emma asked, her head bent over a stack of books that had just arrived.

“Because someone is staring at you from self-help. A very handsome someone, I might add.”

“If he’s in the self-help section, I don’t know that I want to turn around,” Emma responded drily.

Kelly chuckled, but her laughter was quickly cut off and replaced by the sound of a man noisily clearing his throat.

“Emma, is that you?”

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Emma couldn’t quite place it. In any case, she couldn’t very well ignore it. She turned around slowly to face the man who had been accused of staring at her from the self-help section. Oh no, not him. Why now? Why here? Why, why, why?

“Yes, it’s me. Hello, Zack,” Emma replied coolly.

She hadn’t seen Zack Kostas since her cousin’s wedding five years ago, and she’d hoped to never see him again. They had been paired up together as groomsman and bridesmaid, and she had spent half the night fending off his advances. It wasn’t because he was bad looking or uninteresting; it was the fact that both of them were taken! Last she heard, Zack had married his date from the wedding, and they lived in Ann Arbor. Why on earth was he in her bookshop in her hometown after all these years?

“Great to see you,” he said, his eyes lit up with genuine pleasure.

Kelly had been glancing back and forth between the two of them, and now she spoke up. “Emma, aren’t you going to introduce me to your… friend?” she asked, breaking out the smile she usually reserved for their best customers.

Realizing that she had no choice, Emma made the introductions, determined to ignore the appreciative once-over that Kelly gave Zack.

“So, you’re standing behind the counter. Does that mean that you’re the owner of A New Chapter? Great name, by the way.”

“Yes, I am,” Emma answered proudly. “I must say I’m surprised to see you here; I thought you lived in Ann Arbor.” Rats! She didn’t want him to think that she had kept tabs on him after all these years.

“Actually, I just moved here. My folks live in Clarkston, and I wanted to be closer to them, since…”

Just then, a little girl with wavy dark brown hair and a bright smile rushed up to Zack and wrapped her arms tightly around his legs.

“Daddy, Daddy, come to the kid’s section. There’s something I want to show you.”

Daddy? Zack Kostas, playboy extraordinaire, is a daddy? Emma was shocked, although, why should she be? The man was married, after all. For some reason, she just didn’t see him as the “family” type.

“Just a minute, sweetie. Daddy’s talking to someone. Why don’t you go back to the coloring table, and I’ll be there soon?”

Zack’s daughter looked up at Emma with big, expressive brown eyes and then narrowed them at her dad.

“Ok, but hurry up,” she demanded before running off.

“Where was I?” Zack asked, thrown off by the appearance of his daughter.

“You were just explaining why you moved here,” Kelly answered sweetly.

Ok, Emma was officially going to kill Kelly after the store closed! She had no interest in why Zack moved to Clarkston; she just wanted him to leave so she could get back to work.

“That’s right,” Zack said, turning his attention back to Emma. “I’m divorced, and I decided to move here so that my parents could help out with Gracie.“

Ah-ha, that explained it. Emma could relate to his divorced status, having gone through her own divorce six months ago. In any case, she wasn’t prepared to swap sob stories with this man.

“Well, it was nice to see you. I really should get back to work though. I have a mountain of new books to shelve and—”

“I can take care of that, Emma,” Kelly offered eagerly.

Ok, since Emma couldn’t actually kill her, she was at least going to cut her off from reading romance novels! Kelly was a hopeless romantic, and she was undoubtedly trying to set up Zack and Emma as the next couple in her “happily ever after” world. Kelly was in for a rude awakening!