Nevermore Bookstore (Townsend Harbor Book 1)

Confliction

(KŎN′FLĬKT′ION) NOUN. AN EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE RESULTING FROM THE OPPOSITION OR SIMULTANEOUS FUNCTIONING OF MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE IMPULSES, DESIRES, OR TENDENCIES.

Bare-Naked Book Club Presents: Blind Date with a Book Boyfriend.

Looking to fill an empty evening? Why not take a duke between the covers?

Cady snorted into her glass of wine, nearly turning it into a Neti pot. “Nope. No. Absolutely not. If we put that in the Town Crier, I don’t even want to know what kind of people are going to stop by our booth.”

She had only been half listening while the Bare-Naked Book Club’s usual suspects attempted to cobble together a description of their booth offering for Townsend Harbor’s annual fall festival.

Myrtle looked up from the pad she’d been taking notes on. “Why not take a duke between the sheets?” she suggested.

This time, she nearly got Gemma. “It’s the duke part that’s the problem, Myrtle,” she explained, dabbing a dribble of Cabernet from the corner of her mouth.

“If these novels had any sense of historical accuracy, they would know that a marquess would be far more desirable in terms of a match. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone reads genre fiction.” Caryn Townsend tossed the brown-paper-wrapped book on the table, lifting her pale blue eyes to meet Myrtle’s warm brown ones.

Pushing fifty-five, Caryn had the kind of dewy skin that suggested regular facials or perhaps a deal with some minor underworld deity. High cheekbones, minimal crow’s-feet, and a jaw line probably created by the kind of plastic surgeon you had to be referred to by a secret handshake. Even on a night like tonight, where a howling wind turned a steady drizzle into a diagonal assault, she’d shown up with her silvery-blonde bob stubbornly sleek.

She was the kind of woman who would never not be beautiful. Or wealthy. Or well respected.

Worse, she was Ethan Townsend’s mother.

“If you’re going to be so picky, then why don’t you be the scribe?” Myrtle held out the glossy black raven’s feather quill that she insisted on using for the book club’s meeting minutes. Which she also insisted on recording. To what end and for what purpose, none of them had ever figured out.

Seated directly across from Myrtle in the circle of chairs, Caryn glared at the quill as if it were crawling with some mysterious avian disease. “That’s quite all right, Myrtle. I’d hate to distort the official record.”

Caryn somehow managed to make this sound both patronizing and complimentary at the same time. Like the minutes and the elaborate leather-bound tome where they were recorded, Myrtle had come up with the idea of the BNBC needing a scribe.

“Of course, we wouldn’t be experiencing this problem had we gone with my suggestion,” Caryn added.

Cady and Gemma locked gazes from across the circle, and Gemma crossed one eye on the non-Caryn-facing side. Cady had first seen this particular trick during the tenth-grade summer school algebra II class where they’d initially forged their friendship—Cady to make up for the semester she’d lost to Astrid’s onset; Gemma to retake what dyscalculia, a symptom of her yet-undiagnosed ADHD, had cost her.

Though they had initially bonded over a mutual hatred of correlation coefficients, they’d soon begun mapping other uncanny convergences. The same lucky number (thirteen). The same food aversions (tomatoes). Even matching seventh-grade boyfriends named Ben.

And most recently, a mutual dislike of Caryn, who had been instrumental in getting Melvin Stewart appointed as deputy mayor when her late husband vacated the position.

“I mean, of course a booth about beach reads would have been amazing,” Cady said. “It’s just that the group couldn’t seem to come to a consensus about which books we should recommend.”

And by couldn’t come to a consensus, Cady meant nearly resulted in a lawsuit.

In Myrtle’s defense, she hadn’t meant to throw Ice Planet Barbarians at Townsend Harbor’s former first lady. The septuagenarian’s half-inch-thick bifocals just tended to make depth perception a challenge.

“I read The Poisonwood Bible while we were summering in St. Paul de Vence, and the Mediterranean was a deeper blue for it. I believe Townsendites and even the…tourists,” she said, encasing the word in ice, “would be better for it.” Myrtle took a lavender shortbread from her plate and dipped it into her teacup. “And I still say ‘Harbarians’ need blue alien dick.”

Either an elephant had sneezed, or Bob’s sinuses had just tried to violently exit his head. Seated at the table Cady always set up for anyone who wanted to come in out of the cold on book club nights, her new handyman coughed into his fist as a kid with ear gauges and blond dreads thumped him between the shoulder blades.

“You’ll get used to it, brother,” the kid said, reaching for a scone with a hand sporting a brand-new pair of Gemma’s fingerless gloves.

“Must our conversations always devolve to this topic?” Caryn asked crisply. Her masterfully rejuvenated lips pursed as she sipped the Sauvignon Blanc she’d poured from a bottle she brought then stashed beneath her chair.

“Bare-Naked Book Club is a romance-centric reading group,” Gemma pointed out. Egging Myrtle on was one of her favorite pastimes, and considering the obvious discomfort it was causing Caryn, Cady wasn’t about to stop her.

“I, for one, think Myrtle makes an excellent point.” Vivian, proprietress of Townsend Harbor’s first vagina-centric boutique, had entered the chat. A retired sexual anthropologist in her Mirren-esque mid-seventies, Vee had a way of legitimizing even the wildest of Myrtle’s observations.

It was the accent, she and Gemma had decided.

“I thought the author’s decision to fit the male Sa-Khui with ridged phalluses bearing clitoral stimulation glands at their base is an important statement about the prioritization of the female orgasm. Which, you don’t have to be an anthropologist to know, is frequently not reflective of lived experience.”

Gemma reached out and bumped knuckles with Vee, flicking her fingers in a dramatic mic drop.

“Isn’t that the truth.” Myrtle took another cookie from the tray. “Beautiful man, but my Frank couldn’t find a clit with a GPS pin and a headlamp. And that was before the cataracts.”

Cady glanced back at Bob to find the back of his neck had turned an alarming shade of crimson.

“If you’d had my Nigel, God bless him, you’d have wished he couldn’t.” Vee ran an arthritis-afflicted hand through her shock of ash-gray hair. “He’d rub so hard I wasn’t sure whether to he was trying to turn me on or burn it off.”

“Question?” Gemma said, raising her hand.

“Of course, darling.”

“If Nigel was so terrible at it, why did you keep having sex with him?”

A misty look came into Vee’s gray eyes. “Because I loved him. And it’s what you did then, wasn’t it? It wasn’t until I discovered Judith Krantz that my real education began.” Her cheeks lifted in a mischievous smile. “Of course, Nigel was a bit scandalized at first. But he was a quick study. I think he might have enjoyed E.L. James had the aneurysm not got him.”

“May he rest,” Myrtle said. An unintentional moment of silence followed. “What about you, Caryn?” she asked, attempting to draw their mostly silent member back into the conversation. “Was E.T. the Third a secret sexual dynamo, or were you counting cracks in the ceiling like the rest of us?”

Cady felt herself cringe hard enough to fold her own liver. Though Myrtle had become one of her favorite humans in the world, she had the subtlety of a dump truck.

Setting her wine glass down with a decisive clink, Caryn pulled herself to her full designer-heel- and pantsuit-wearing height. “There are no cracks in Townsend Hall’s ceilings.” Lifting her expertly enhanced chin, she turned on her red-soled shoe and marched toward the bathroom. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Definitely a dud,” the fertilizer maven diagnosed.

“Maybe we could take it just a little bit easy?” Cady scooted forward in her seat, careful to keep her arm close to her torso. When she was finally free from her sling, she intended to burn it and dance naked over the ashes.

Having finished all the cookies on the plate, Myrtle turned her attention to the truffles. “Excuse me all to hell for speaking ill of the dead. But she didn’t seem to like him very much while he was alive.”

Cady had formed a similar impression. The pictures of Townsend Harbor’s royal couple featured in almost every issue of the Townsend Leader showed an attractive but stiff pairing. The handsome silver fox of a patriarch’s hands always floated near his wife’s elbow or shoulder. Never her hip, her waist, or the small of her back.

The realization punched Cady straight in the solar plexus and brought on an unexpected wave of sadness.

No wonder Ethan struggled with expressions of affection. He’d grown up an only child in a household where he hadn’t seen much in the way of PDA.

Cady’s heart broke for him a little then. The serious man from a serious household with a serious family name to uphold. A man who had very likely been a serious boy who was seriously lonely.

A man whose love language had likely become acts of service by default. Like installing new locks. And panic buttons. And security cameras, like he was set to put in after the book club finished this evening.

“There are all kinds of reasons a person may not feel comfortable displaying affection—we’re talking about their sexual preferences,” Cady said. “That’s why we put rule number three in place, remember? We don’t yuck someone else’s yum. Like alien dick. Or voyeurism. Or bondage. Or voyeurism.”

“Precisely that,” Vee said, angling her slim shoulders to Myrtle. “I know she gets right up your nose and seems to enjoy doing so, but there’s enough misogyny out there without our helping those bastards tear us down. Our antagonizing one another—”

“Only benefits the patriarchy,” Myrtle finished in the grudging tone of a chastised schoolgirl.

“It’s like we said when we created this club in the first place…” Vee said.

“Maiden, mother, virgin, whore. They don’t write our stories anymore…” Cady began.

“Vampires, lairds, pirates, earls—we’re taking smut back for the girls,” Vee, Gemma, and Myrtle recited in unison.

Though Vee’s remarks were aimed at Myrtle, Cady felt chastened as well. She hadn’t exactly harbored the most charitable feelings toward Ethan’s mother for a variety of reasons not altogether Caryn’s own fault. Radiating money and petite, pretty privilege, Caryn Townsend always made Cady feel…ungainly. Uncouth. Uncultured.

All of the un, basically.

“I think I’m going to go check on her,” Cady said, carefully rising from her chair.

She found Caryn not in the bathroom but outside it, squinting as she ran a manicured fingertip along a jagged hairline crack in the old plaster.

“Bob will be starting on that once he’s finished with the roof,” Cady said.

“Oh dear.” Caryn’s eyes widened in polite concern. “I’m not sure if you realize, as you’ve only taken over operations so recently, but as it’s a building on the national registry of historic landmarks, all repairs to the Townsend Building must be completed by a licensed contractor preapproved by the city council and Historical Preservation Society.”

Cady felt her intended apology turned to ash on her tongue. “I did, actually. I reached out to a contractor on the mainland, but he’s booked solid until February. I didn’t want the crack to get any worse.”

“Dick Sullivan?”

Cady nodded.

Caryn’s eyes lit with pleasure. “He’s an old family friend.” Because of course he was. “If you like, I could ask him about moving you up the schedule.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking,” Caryn said, reaching out to squeeze Cady’s elbow. “I’m offering. We’re neighbors, after all. The sooner this beautiful building is restored to its former glory, the better for the entire town.”

Cady’s stomach knotted around the single oatmeal chocolate chip cookie she’d eaten this evening. “That’s very kind of you,” she said through a tight jaw.

“Not at all,” Caryn said. “I told Ethan that after what had happened the other day, you could probably use a little cheering up.”

“That reminds me,” Cady said. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for the lovely plant. It brought me…so much comfort.”

“Of course, dear. There’s nothing like a little greenery to brighten up the place.” Caryn touched a dusty leaf from the fake fig plant parked in the corner. “Isn’t it amazing how lifelike they can make these look these days?”

“Amazing,” Cady agreed.

“Well, I shouldn’t be keeping you. Ethan mentioned he’d be stopping by after the book club is over. He’d never forgive me if I contributed to your tardiness.” Caryn’s beauty-pageant-worthy white smile was dazzling even in this context.

Cady ducked into the bathroom and took several deep breaths. When she no longer felt the urge to smash the old-fashioned shaving mirror, she removed her glasses and cleaned them before putting them back on. Rather than rejoining the group, she made a beeline for the card table near the front window.

Bob sat up straighter at her approach, confirming her suspicion that he’d been listening to every word of their discussion. And was most likely scarred for life now as a result.

“Everyone doing okay?” she asked.

The weathered-looking men seated there murmured their assent, none of them bothering to glance up from the assortment of magazines she typically left out for them.

“Anything I can bring anyone?”

“Got any more of those dairy-free vegan carob brownies?” Dreads glanced up from a 1970s issue of Italian Vogue.

“I think so,” she said. “Anyone need a coffee refill while I’m back there?”

Four hands, each bearing a different color of fingerless gloves, rose.

“I’ll help.” Bob scraped back in the folding chair she hadn’t been certain would hold his considerable mass.

“You don’t have to do that,” Cady assured him. “I can get it.”

“Could use a breath of fresh air,” he said.

Their eyes met, and she understood.

As he worked wonders on her roof upstairs, the time he could spend indoors had slowly increased. She’d moved the card table closer to the window for his benefit, but more than once had noticed him glancing longingly at the door.

“All right, then.” She headed back past the bathroom and didn’t miss Gemma’s raised brows as she looked up from the paperback she was busily covering with a deconstructed brown paper bag.

Now with sixty-five percent less beard and fifty percent more flannel, and occasionally a hundred percent less shirt, Bob was giving hardcore lumbersnack.

And Cady wasn’t immune.

Only yesterday, she’d come upstairs to find him at the top of a ladder, low-slung jeans revealing the infamous V muscles, and caught herself lingering a few breaths longer than strictly necessary before making her presence known.

She did the same now as he stood in the open doorway, gulping in breaths of air heavy with rain and wood smoke.

The tension in his jaw seemed to have eased incrementally when he joined her in the kitchen and closed the door.

As he stood at the counter filling the coffee carafe, she couldn’t help but mentally map the location of the various tattoos she’d noticed during yesterday’s ladder incident.

Tattoos, and scars. The worst of them was the angry purplish gash that snaked from the bottom of his shoulder blade and around the left side of his rib cage.

However he’d gotten it, it hadn’t healed pretty.

Opening the fridge, she pulled out a bakery box and lifted the lid in search of the requested confection. “You doing okay out there?”

“Yep,” he grunted.

“But I mean, like, really okay,” she said, lifting a dense, sticky square of “brownie” onto the plate.

“Yeah,” his broad back answered.

“Like, really really?”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Really. You?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Really?” he repeated, eyes slightly narrowed.

“Totally.” She nodded enthusiastically, deciding to add some fresh strawberries to the plate for some color.

Bob set the coffee carafe down on the counter and turned to face her, angling his long legs out in front of him and leaning back against the counter to bring them closer to eye level.

Closer being a relative term.

He cocked his head, studying her with an intensity that made patches of heat break out all over her skin. “Really?”

What sort of wizardry he had attached to the last round, she couldn’t be sure. Only that she felt her tongue loosening, her mouth opening, and, following a shrill laugh, a torrent of words erupting.

“Yeah, no. Totally not okay. That woman out there? The expensive-looking one with the annoyingly perfect hair? That’s the sheriff’s mother, and I’m pretty sure she thinks I shouldn’t be trusted with this building. And if that weren’t bad enough, she’s also the one who gave me the plant that I gave you head trauma with. And Ethan is supposed to stop by later, and now I have no idea what to say to him, because he’s installing security cameras that I really need, but now I’m afraid that it’s some strange nice-guy gesture of affection? So, I’m not sure if I should ask him not to do that because it might be considered leading him on? Even though I know better, I can’t stop thinking about this other man whose voice basically haunts me twenty-four seven despite the fact that he’s a completely dysfunctional human being with more red flags than the Daytona 500 and who doesn’t want to meet me in person.”

His no-longer-chapped lips curled at the corners. “That all?”

“Also, I’m afraid that our booth at the fall festival is going to be a fucking disaster because Jesus Christ, Myrtle.”

Bob crossed his massive arms across his equally massive chest. A puff of air scented of soap, clean skin, fabric softener, and the pheromone equivalent of pure heroin floated over to her nostrils.

Her nipples hardened against her bra.

Was she ovulating?

“Let him put them in.”

Cady’s eyes widened as she felt the unmistakable rush of heat between her thighs.

She had to be ovulating.

Bob pushed himself away from the counter and positioned his big body between her and the several sets of curious eyes pretending not to be peering through the doorway. “Whether or not you and the sheriff have a future together, he’d want yours to be safe.”

As soon as he said it, Cady knew he was right. And somehow, that made her feel even worse.

“As to this other man. Maybe you ought to call him. Tell him how you feel. If he has any kind of honor at all, he’ll either tell you how he does, or let you go.”

“Tell him how I feel,” Cady repeated, chewing on a thumbnail. “I can do that.”

She hoped.

“That ought to do her.” Ethan stood back, admiring his handiwork.

Any woman in her right mind would have been admiring him. In jeans and a white undershirt, he looked as wholesome and delicious as hot apple pie.

Emphasis on hot.

Cady always cranked the radiator up on BNBC nights to accommodate the soft-tissue- and subcutaneous-fat-lacking elderly members of their number, as well as those who got to spend a precious hour or two out of the cold. When it had come time to un-crank, the knob elected not to cooperate, and now hissed to life every few minutes.

All the while, Cady imagined the numbers on her gas bill steadily climbing like an old-fashioned ticker tape.

“Thanks so much for doing that,” she said, fanning herself with the stack of mail she hadn’t yet convinced herself to open. “I really appreciate your help.”

“Happy to,” he said, folding up the foot ladder he’d brought from his personal collection of Useful Objects Adults Owned.

These few phrases represented the sum total of their communication for the evening, and Cady couldn’t help but hope it stayed that way. The sooner Ethan packed up and left, the sooner she could take her night meds and go stick her head in a freezer.

“About the other night…”

Everlasting shit balls, please, dear God, no. Not now.

“It’s totally okay,” she insisted. “We just got caught up in the moment. I mean, who hasn’t?” A bead of sweat crawled from under her breast down her stomach. “You don’t need to apologize.”

Ethan set his tool chest down on the table and took a step toward her. “I wasn’t going to.”

“Oh.” Cady’s mail fan accelerated from Is that so? to I beg your pardon?

“I liked it.” Beneath the sable tips of his long lashes, Ethan’s eyes flickered over her lips before rising. “I like you, Cady.”

Coward that she was, Cady had been hoping they could circumvent this conversation altogether. That after her performance the other night, Ethan would quietly turn his attentions to any of the more proportionally appropriate, climate-tolerant bachelorettes who practically hunted him like a prize elk.

“I like you too, Ethan. So ridiculously much.”

“But…”

“What’s that?” She covertly mopped her chin and upper lip as he turned to glance out the front window.

“There’s always a ‘but’ when someone says it like that.”

Always. The word deepened the sinkhole in the center of her chest.

“But…” She sighed. “I’m just in a really weird place right now. Ever since Aunt Fern died, I just feel kind of…lost? I have no idea what I’m doing, or what I want. And it’s just not fair to you.” Despite the fact that her skin had become its own heat source, Cady laid a hand on his forearm. “You’re such a good man, Ethan. And any woman would be so lucky to have you.”

He nodded slowly. “I understand.”

She wanted to ask him which part. Maybe all of it. Maybe none.

“I better go.” After shrugging into his flannel, he picked up his tools and looped an arm through the ladder. “Have a good night, Cady.”

The reflexive “you too” died on her lips. She had pretty much guaranteed that he wouldn’t.

Her night, on the other hand, hinged on one simple possibility.

Whether the phone would ring.