Page 59 of The Cowboy Who Came Home

“Can you put these under the table, baby?” she asked, glancing toward the door. “I always get so nervous doing these.”

“You’re a natural,” he said. He put the boxes where she wanted them, and he’d no sooner done that than another author arrived with her boxes and bits and baubles.

Edith gushed over her—a woman named Pauline March—and before he knew it, the library director arrived and took both authors with her. “I’ll see you after,” she said, and Finn lifted his hand in a good-bye and good luck wave.

He moved out from behind the table and ducked out of the children’s hall where the Summer Reading intro meeting was set to start in another fifteen minutes. He visited the restroom and returned to the room to find it filling, and fast.

He took a seat in the last row in the corner and watched Edith for a moment. She chatted with the library director and her fellow author, her eyes darting out nervously to the crowd as it continued to gather.

Adults sat in the chairs behind the wide, arcing carpeted area in front of the stage, and when the clock struck ten, the library director picked up a mic and said, “Welcome, everyone, to our Summer Reading Kickoff!”

Applause filled the hall, with plenty of children’s voices. The library director waved people forward. “Kids can come up onto the carpet. Children up here.”

After several seconds of movement and shifting, the library director said, “We have two amazing authors with us this morning.” She grinned at the two women to her side. “From Three Rivers, Edith Baxter.”

His lovely Edith lifted her hand in greeting, her gorgeous smile lighting up her eyes. She seemed perfectly at ease while the director introduced the other author, and when she picked up the mic to start answering questions, there wasn’t a brighter person in the room.

Finn basked in her light and warmth, and he felt himself falling, falling, falling in love with her. He knew it was fast, and he told himself to slow down. But he loved working with her at Coyote Pass, and he loved talking to her, and he loved that she got to do events like these because of her writing.

He’d also never seen anyone as good with kids as she was. She could somehow see the ones who got overlooked, and she came out from behind the table almost instantly so she could be closer to them.

“Did you draw your covers?” one little boy asked, and Edith grinned at him like he’d been turned to gold by speaking.

“No, sir,” she drawled out. “A really talented illustrator drew them. He got to read the book, and then he drew several scenes from it. I got to go through them and pick one I thought would work for cover.”

“What was his name?”

Edith didn’t hesitate at all. “A really wonderful man named Levi.”

Finn’s heartbeat stopped. Just absolutely stopped, right there in his chest. Somehow, his mouth still said, “Levi was her illustrator.”

Edith had not told him that. He hadn’t asked how they’d met, and she hadn’t said. They hadn’t talked much more about Levi since she’d told him about their move here, his diagnosis, and his passing.

She continued to talk but Finn focused on how she was lit from within while she spoke about her former fiancé. While she talked about his art, and how she had all the drawings that she hadn’t chosen for the covers at home, and how much she’d loved working with him.

For anyone who didn’t know anything about Levi—like all the children and parents here in Amarillo—it was just a nice story. To Finn, Edith loved working with Levi because she’d been completely in love with Levi.

And the worst part was, she still was.

Finn found his throat was far too narrow to swallow through. His heart felt giant in his chest, and it crowded painfully against his other organs until he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He got to his feet and turned away from the children and parents and the other author and Edith.

He had to get out, and he had to get out right now. He strode with purpose toward the exit, hoping he wouldn’t cause a scene. He was maybe just a dad who needed to run to the bathroom for the second time in under an hour.

He’d originally told Edith he wouldn’t stay, that he didn’t want to make her nervous. She’d said he didn’t have to leave, but now he wished he’d have looked up the best place to get breakfast in Amarillo and gone there instead.

Maybe then he wouldn’t have had to listen to Edith talk about Levi like she still loved him. He burst outside and fast-footed it down the steps to the sidewalk. His chest heaved as he breathed, and he had no idea where he was going.

He only knew he had to go.

An hour later, Finn had managed to swallow his pride and return to the library to help Edith with her boxes and signing supplies. She’d sold almost all of her books, and Finn stood to the side while she took a picture with a girl who looked to be ten or eleven years old. They both shone like stars, and Finn’s blood felt like ice in his veins.

The event ended, and Edith’s energy and demeanor fell noticeably. She started cleaning up, and when she met his eyes, she said, “Sorry that went longer than they said.”

“It’s fine. These go back in boxes?” He picked up the four books still on the table and put them in one of the empty boxes. Then he turned to take down her banners. They didn’t speak, and Finn realized it was because Edith was simply worn out. Speaking and being on at that high level for that long had likely sapped her.

She worked in a methodical way, and it only took one trip with both of them carrying things to get back to his truck.

Finn had planned to take her to lunch and then stop by the ranch he wanted to look at on the way home, but now he simply wanted to head straight back to Coyote Pass, drop off Edith, and go home.

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