by Maisey Yates
Sulky and ripe, it tempted him to take a taste before he introduced himself properly.
More fascinating, she did not smile at him.
At all.
In fact, if he didn’t know better—based on a lifetime of experience that suggested there wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t like to smile at him, big and bright and sometimes with a flush that suggested she couldn’t help herself—Browning would’ve described the way she was looking at him as downright unimpressed.
Like he’d done something to her when he was sure he’d never had the pleasure.
“I expected you to be puffy and dissipated,” she blurted out.
Also not a typical reaction.
“It’s early yet,” he replied lazily. “I was planning to head down to the diner for lunch and get good and puffy. And I usually save the hard-core dissipation for nightfall.”
He waited for her to apologize, or backtrack. Giggle, flush, look embarrassed. Flutter, damn it.
She did not.
Instead, she kept right on staring him down.
Browning could not for the life of him understand why such a pretty girl would put so much effort into making herself look...well, not ugly. That wasn’t possible. But so serious. There was the aggressively blunt hair, but there was also what she was wearing. She was dressed like a black shroud.
As if she was in mourning, which, now that he thought about it, would explain the spontaneous crying. “I apologize,” he said, keeping it polite. And not thinking about her mouth. Too much... “Has somebody died?”
She blinked. “You mean...in general? I think someone has always died.”
“You look like you’re grieving, that’s all.” Browning reminded himself that he was doing a favor here for Keira, his sister-in-law, which meant he was also doing a favor for his brother Remy. And in the West family, it was always good to have a few favors to pull out when needed. So he smiled wider than he might have otherwise. “I don’t mean to intrude.”
“Why would you think I’m grieving?”
“You look like you’re dressed for a funeral. And you burst into tears when I walked through the door.”
“Oh.” She looked down at her outfit, which looked to him like an oversize black dress—possibly a small circus tent—with some sort of black scarf thing thrown over it. It was all oversize and slouchy and yet somehow, he was still aware of the fact that she was slender and delicate beneath it all. “Because I’m wearing black?”
“A lot of black.”
“I’m wearing a dress and a scarf. Two garments. Hardly a lot.”
“Why are you wearing a scarf? It’s summer.”
She looked at him like he was a lunatic. “Um, it’s a summer scarf? Obviously.”
“Obviously.” Maybe he really was a lunatic. But Browning was surprised to discover that wasn’t a deal breaker. His body was communicating its interest in unequivocal terms, and not only because she was the most entertaining thing he’d seen in some time. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but the tears?”
She stared at him, deadpan. “Allergies.”
“I’m afraid to ask what you’re allergic to. Me?”
She folded her arms over the front of her shroud of a dress and her summer scarf, tilting her head slightly to one side to size him up. “That has yet to be determined.”
Browning only grinned. “Do you want me to go get my tools? Or would you rather I stay here and see if it brings on anaphylaxis?”
“Do you spread allergens wherever you go? That is not what it said on the bathroom stall in high school.”
Browning threw back his head and laughed. “It sure didn’t.”
“How would you know what it said? It was the girls’ bathroom.”
“I know what it said.” He grinned at her. “I wrote it.”
He left her and headed outside then, shaking his head slightly as he walked to his truck. He paused as he was getting his tools because there wasn’t much better than a summer morning here in Jasper Creek and Browning never passed up an opportunity to indulge himself—in women, work, whiskey, or the sweet goodness of a perfect morning.
Browning had been lucky enough to get himself born and bred right here in this part of Oregon, and he was wise enough to appreciate that stroke of good fortune. The West ranch had been a fixture in this community for generations and, unlike his father, Browning had four brothers to help shoulder the responsibility. This land was stamped deep in him and he liked it that way. He liked the pretty little town, done up in old brick and ignored for a generation, but now cared for by its concerned citizens. He liked the mountains that framed the valley, the rolling foothills, the deep green forests, and the rich fields.
Home, in other words. He’d always liked being right where he was.
He had his own property out on the family acreage that he hadn’t seen fit to build on yet, though he would one day. Meanwhile, he got to work the land with his best friends who he occasionally wanted to kill, given that they were his brothers. His parents could be challenging, but Flint and Annette West made up for it by always, always treating their sons like men. The West family was known for its intensity, sure, but Browning had always liked to distinguish himself.
He was happy-go-lucky no matter what, no matter that even his family were tempted to consider him less serious about things when they should have known better. And he was still the one who Remy had called to help Keira’s tenant out because he was dependable. Colt and Smith, the oldest West brothers, were too overset with responsibility or incapable of carrying a conversation, respectively. Parker, the youngest, was more likely to get in a fistfight than lend a hand.
Browning didn’t mind if they dismissed him. Just like he didn’t mind what the people of Jasper Creek liked to say about him both to his face and behind his back, because he didn’t do shame. He was who he was, take it or leave it.
But he found himself wondering about the girl in the shroud who was standing there like a rain cloud in the middle of an empty, sun-drenched shop. And why she remembered his name on a bathroom wall when he didn’t recall ever laying eyes on her before.
He would have remembered that face.
On his way back to the shop, he tipped his hat at old Mrs. Kim, sitting there on her favorite bench. She smiled at him. As he walked he cast a critical eye along the row of four old Western-style storefronts that had been sitting there, falling apart, for years now. He couldn’t think why four friends who hadn’t even lived in town in recent memory would want to take on a project like this.
And he said as much when he got back inside to find his little shroud waiting for him. She still had her arms crossed and she was still this close to a full-on scowl, but she’d moved to stand behind the counter like she was warding him off.
Good luck with that, Browning thought.
“Moving back here and opening four brand-new stores in the course of one summer seems like more than I’d want to bite off,” he said.
“I understand. It can be hard to think outside the box.”
Was that an insult? She kept surprising him. When was the last time someone had surprised him? “That’s me. Always right in the center of any box that’s around. I meant taking on a new business; it’s a risky proposition anywhere, but especially in a small town. Nothing to sneeze at, I would’ve thought.” He grinned at her lazily and a little hotter than the situation called for. “Particularly given your allergies.”
“We did actually grow up here,” she said, sounding faintly disapproving. He tried to remember her name. Kathy. Kelly. Something like that, but Browning knew that it was never appropriate to ask a lady her name. No matter the situation, she was always going to think he should already know it. “My father’s Lawrence Hall.”
She said it like that was supposed to mean something to him, so Browning considered it for a moment. “You mean that
guy from the paper?”
“The editor-in-chief of the Jasper Creek Gazette for the past thirty years or so? Yes. That guy. He also puts out the Jasper Creek Chapbook, so.”
Browning had started to measure but now he stopped pretending he wasn’t watching the show. “What’s a chapbook?”
“A chapbook,” she said slowly then sighed so hard it made her bangs flutter. It was amazing how much Browning would have liked to brush that whole blunt edge back and set his mouth to the top of her frown. “It’s like a poetry magazine. Although in this case, it’s not only poetry, of course, but essays and observations.”
“Jasper Creek has a poetry magazine?”
“This part of Oregon is actually filled with creative energy.”
“Is it now.”
Her cheeks were getting red, finally. He didn’t hate it. “There are any number of artists around here. I personally think it’s all the green—the forests, the hills. It promotes creativity in a way concrete can’t.”
“Here I thought it was all pickup trucks and country songs in these parts.”
It occurred to Browning as he drew out his drawl there that he was playing up the redneck in him. And more, that she was having absolutely no trouble believing it.
This sharp-edged woman with her elegant hands and her summer scarf and her bathroom wall thought he was a yokel.
Browning found he was happy to play the part.
He took his sweet time measuring her walls and her floor space and everything else.
“I want to accentuate the exposed brick rather than hiding it,” she said, following him around. “I’m expecting that the books will provide their own colorful decor.”
“Why do you keep calling the bricks exposed?” he asked. “Are they feeling particularly vulnerable all of a sudden?”
She looked at him for a moment as if he wasn’t speaking the same language. Then she laughed a little. “Oh. Sorry. I just mean the brick walls.”
“When I mean a brick wall, I say brick wall. I find it clears up any confusion about the emotional state of stones.”
They were standing in the back room, maybe a little too close. But if she didn’t notice that, Browning wasn’t about to tell her. Especially because, for a thunderous shroud of a woman, she smelled a lot like lavender.
Turned out he liked lavender. A lot.
“In New York, they say exposed brick, probably because that indicates that it’s an older building,” she told him. “Prewar, meaning before World War Two.”
He got it then. The mention of New York was what did it. And that tone she used, like she couldn’t help herself, like she had to deliver that information to him or she might die. That, plus her father and his paper, made the pieces come flush. She was Kit Hall.
Browning still didn’t remember her from high school, but he remembered hearing about her afterward, when the fact that she’d gotten into a fancy East Coast school had been the talk of the valley. Meaning, people had talked about Kit’s college plans to his mother, who had then complained about it to the whole family.
Life is free, Annette had drawled. But by all means, pay out a fortune for a fancy degree for all the good it will do you.
In retrospect, Browning wondered if it was Kit’s father his mother had an issue with, given how many folks around here went off to college without inspiring any commentary from Annette.
“Jasper Creek is filled with old brick buildings, also prewar,” he said. “That being the Civil War.”
She frowned again and looked as if she was about to say something but didn’t. Browning might not know a whole lot in this life—he was conversant on cattle, and he liked a drink and a decent burger—but when it came to women, he was an expert.
And it didn’t take an expert to see the moment it occurred to Kit Hall, Princeton graduate, that she was standing much too close to him. In the back room of her empty shop that looked out over a deserted parking area. Where anything at all could happen.
Browning watched her blue eyes widen. She swallowed, hard. He waited for her to back away, but instead, she gave him a regal sort of nod.
“Don’t let me distract you,” she said, as if she was doing him the favor.
“You’re not distracting me. Thank you for the opportunity to do something other than ride fences. They don’t come along every day.” He smiled. Slowly. “Truth is, I’ve always been good with my hands.”
The most fascinating stain of color washed over her then, while he watched. It made her glow. It made her vibrate.
“I’ll be out front,” she said, curtly.
And then she swept from the room, leaving the scent of lavender behind her.
Browning finished his measurements and then ambled his way back out to the front room, where she was standing behind her counter again, looking stiff and mutinous. And if he wasn’t mistaken, staring at his cowboy hat like she’d never seen one before.
He set his pad of paper down on the polished wood between them and didn’t look at her again while he sketched out his ideas. His grandfather was the one who’d taught him how to build things. Browning’s three older brothers had always been in the midst of one squabble or another, meaning the two youngest had spent extra time with their grandparents while their parents handled the hellions. Parker had considered it torture. Browning had loved his long weekends out in the shop with Grandad, learning how to take things apart, put them back together, and if he was patient enough, make it art.
When he got around to building his own house, he had big plans for his own shop. He would build things using the tools his grandfather had given him two Christmases ago when the old man had finally accepted that his arthritic hands had betrayed him for good. It was like having a memory of the life he knew he would have. It felt that real, that right.
“Are you...an artist?” Kit asked, with a note of interest in her voice. And astonishment. Too much astonishment, certainly, but he concentrated on the interest. Given it was the first she’d shown since he’d walked in.
“I can draw.”
“I wish I could. I can’t even draw a stick figure.” She wrinkled up her nose and it was so cute it made his ribs hurt. “They always come out looking like I accidentally murdered them. Their heads are always wonky and the hair is just tragic.”
“Do you spend a lot of time drawing stick figures?”
She paused. “I have been known to attempt a doodle or two, yes.”
Browning put his pen down. He was leaning against the counter on one side and she was leaning in from the other, and he wasn’t going to be the one to change that. “Why do you sound like you’re making a confession?”
“Oh. It’s not that, it’s just...” She shrugged. “I know doodling is frivolous.”
“Frivolous.” Browning did not reach across and test the sharp edge of her bangs. Or acquaint himself with the line of her jaw. And he felt he deserved a parade for his restraint. “That’s a real fancy way of saying fun.”
She jerked like he’d slapped her, and instantly scowled.
Browning found her charming when he knew, objectively, she had so far been about as charming as a wet cat.
He did not make the obvious Kitty joke and, again, felt that continuing to refrain from antagonizing her when he easily could have, should have resulted in applause at the very least.
None was forthcoming.
“The point is, no, I’m not an artist,” she said flatly, when that blue-jean gaze of hers was anything but flat. “Hence my career choice of books. First editing them, now selling them.”
He pushed his pad over to her with his quick sketches of where he thought shelves could go and she grabbed it like it was a lifeline. Then glared down at it, hard.
“I don’t want to burst any bubbles,” Browning said. “But you know Jasper Creek already has a bookstore, right?”
She didn
’t look up. “No. I’ve never been on Main Street. I thought I’d swan in and open up a shop on the main drag without at any point looking to see what other businesses were here.”
Wow. “This isn’t New York City. Jasper Creek is a small town. You really think we can support two bookstores in two blocks?”
Kit made an impatient noise, still looking at the drawing. “We won’t have the same clientele.”
“You’re both going to sell books, right?”
She raised her head then and it was all very serious bangs. “This is going to be a genre-specific bookstore.”
Browning didn’t know what was wrong with him that the more New York she sounded, the more it made him grin. “Genre-specific, huh?”
“Romance novels.” She rolled her eyes. At him, clearly. “And before you feel compelled to make any commentary on that, I should tell you that these walls are a contempt-free space. There will be no maligning of romance novels here. Period.”
“I’m not a big maligner,” Browning drawled. “The bathroom wall should have made that clear.”
“Romance is about hope, not bathroom walls,” she said fiercely. And sure enough, that flush was back. Browning liked that. Way too much. But then, passion was passion. “Hope and happiness and redemption. Who doesn’t need those things? And before you wind yourself up to say something you think is funny that I can promise you will not be, I would challenge you to read a few.”
He eyed her from across the counter for long enough that she shifted on her feet and he was pretty sure the color in her cheeks was no longer about books. And more than that, she was as aware of how close together they were standing as he was.
“And here I would’ve sworn that you don’t think I know how to read,” he drawled.