Page 48 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

We.Her heart beat a little bit faster when he linked them together. She reached over and touched his thick hair where it curled at the back of his neck. “That’s their problem, not ours.”

“Yeah. Fuck off, Oz.”

She laughed at the way he said it. “How does Oz think what you do is nerdier than being a tax attorney?”

“I’m not sure. He’s seven minutes older than me and sometimes he lets it go to his head.”

Wes told her a story of when he and his brother were younger, and she knew then there was nothing nerdy about either of the Sitwell twins. They were intelligent and might not have had enough supervision, but from what she could tell, they’d had to find their own way.

She reached over and squeezed his hand. There was so much about Wes that called to her soul. She had to be careful. It felt like Ford had left a void she was in danger of filling with his hot grandson.

Hot or not, Wes wasn’t staying. He was trying to figure out closure with his grandfather and she was helping him. And helping herself too. She’d never even had a long-term boyfriend. She’d never let herself go there, and this time she was considering taking a leap into the unknown.

She thought of the new moon when she’d had sex with him for the first time and all that it meant. A new beginning, even though she’d been focused on the ending of one thing. It was time to let the new moon work its magic on her and in her life. No more holding back.

Wes tossed their trash in the kitchen with Sera following him. “Tell me what you’re doing to this book.”

He glanced at where she stood near the book he’d taken apart. She was leaning over it, her hair falling forward over her shoulder, seeming much longer and straighter than it did normally. There was something almost magical about his maybe-witch woman tonight. He was having a hard time keeping his mind on anything but her.

Sex was the one place where he could turn his mind off where she was concerned. It was hard to admit, even to himself, but he wasn’t sure why he’d asked her to stay. Everything about her made him behave in some way he couldn’t explain. He wasn’t logical around her. Loneliness was an easy answer, but he was more used to being alone than with someone.

What was even odder was that it didn’t feel weird to have her in the kitchen looking at the book he was fixing. He’d always fixed things when his life was fucked-up. It had made him feel in control when he knew he wasn’t.

But Sera made him feel out of control and yet somehow surer of himself.

“Let’s see. I’ve taken the damaged bits apart. There are still some well-bound pages to the volume, so I removed the torn ones. Now I’ll see if I can repair them with some matching paper fibers. I have a kit that I usually bring with me on jobs. But since I didn’t plan to stay for long, I don’t have it here.”

“But you brought this leather pouch?” she asked, pointing to his tool kit.

“Yeah. I don’t go anywhere without it.”

“Nerd,” she said with a faint smile.

“Hey, I thought we didn’t use that word.”

“That was before I saw this,” she said with a laugh.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her while she was laughing, trying to capture the joy of this moment. He had never felt so relaxed around someone. Never felt so free. He’d always felt the burden of his father’s and grandfather’s sacrifices to get him back from his mom. Always felt as if he couldn’t live up to their expectations. Always felt he wasn’t doing enough.

But with Sera in his arms, those burdens were gone.

She turned, pulling his capable hands down around her waist, and leaned her head back against his chest. “I know what you were doing with the gold leaf, but the cover... How do you repair that?”

He reached around her to gesture toward the board, which he’d sanded and would be restaining. He talked her through what he was doing, hoping he wasn’t boring her, but she kept asking questions, so he moved next to her and started to show her different parts of the process.

“Will you teach me this?” she asked. “I’ll give you one book out of Ford’s box in exchange.”

He looked at her. The books that had been so important when he’d first come back to Birch Lake didn’t seem like they were meant for him anymore. “I’ll do it, but not for a book. Just because you asked me and I like you.”

“I know the books are important—”

“Were,” he said. “Today changed that.”

She looked solemn. “It did, didn’t it? Talking to your dad and brother gave me new insight into Ford and you.”

“I bet. Hearing Poppy read your words about Grandpa was an eye-opener for me,” he said.

Her words had shown him how closed off he’d become from life. He was a workaholic like his dad and brother. They all focused on doing the best job they could, which was great, except they did it to the exclusion of living. And Grandpa hadn’t.

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