Page 83 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

Normally this kind of repair made him feel like he’d accomplished something, but now it was tinged with regret.

His mind was hounded with images of Sera sitting across the table from him working on her journals while he’d slowly repaired this book. It had been so much a part of his relationship with her. He’d known it from the moment he’d come back here today to try to figure out how to fix it.

“Dad’s not to blame. He said some things, but I’m the one who went all in like an ass.”

Wes wasn’t going to let his dad shoulder any of this. He knew Sera wouldn’t be amenable to him saying it was his dad’s fault. He was a grown-ass man who owned his actions.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it must be down to these new daily chats with Dad. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m not even sure what to say. I hurt her, Oz,” Wes admitted.

He heard the squeaking of Oz’s office chair before his brother said, “Can you fix it?”

“I’m not sure. She’s wary of trusting anyone and she started to trust me and then I went allyou stole another book from Grandpa.”

“Dad didn’t mention that,” Oz said.

“It wasn’t a full-on blowup, just me asking why she would take it.”

Oz’s chair squeaked again. “I’m not sure what to tell you. Since you flunked out of college, books have been your touchstone. And I have to say, you’ve used them to keep everyone else away. Grandpa, Dad, me. But Sera uses books the same way, bro. So I think you probably have an idea what you have to do to fix things. It’s just, are you willing to do it?”

Wes had a few ideas. He’d have to go to her friends, of course. He had a feeling Poppy might be sympathetic, but Liberty would rightfully try to curse him or something. He didn’t blame her. He’d done something to Sera that he’d hoped he wouldn’t do. He’d hurt her.

He hadn’t ever been aware of another person’s feelings and put them above himself. He’d been aware he’d hurt Grandpa, but instead of staying to try to heal that relationship, he’d given the town of Birch Lake the finger and left.

But with Sera he couldn’t do that again. He loved her. He’d been trying to avoid admitting it to himself, but the truth was there in the pain in his heart. How could he hurt someone who mattered so much to him?

He hated that he’d done it. First, he had to ask for help from her friends. Then he would show her how much he loved her.

Because he wasn’t sure he’d be okay ever again if she didn’t forgive him. Oh, he’d continue to live, but it would be in that same gray world he’d existed in before Grandpa died and Wes had come back to Birch Lake and seen Sera standing behind the counter of WiCKed Sisters.

Her thick brown curly hair around her face, her quirky outfits, quick wit and temper. She’d challenged him, turned him on and woken him up to the fact that he’d been moving through life fixing things instead of fixing himself.

“Thanks, Oz. I think that will work. I might need you and Dad to come up here once I get this figured out.”

“Sure. I can do that. I think Dad might bring his girlfriend. I know he wants her to meet us,” Oz said.

“I’d like to meet her. Sounds like she’s good for Dad and he’s trying to be good for her.” That wasn’t something Wes would have thought he’d say before this point.

He hung up with his brother and then finished putting the cover on the antique book. He looked down at it, repaired and in working condition. He would have to do the same for his relationship with Sera.

First, though, he had to get her friends on board. That would be monumental, but if he had the right incentive, something they knew would make Sera happy, they might help.

Actually, that was precisely what he needed them for.

Twenty-Two

For the next two days Sera was in a funk and didn’t see any signs of Wes. Which almost made her feel she’d been right about him not caring about her the way she’d cared about him.

He’d spent most of his life running from everything when it got complicated. She couldn’t help comparing it to the story he’d told her about arguing with Ford.

Sitting in the back room with a cup of Earl Grey, her feet propped up on a stack of books Greer had been unboxing before they went home for the evening, she knew she had to snap out of this.

She was in those same feels she’d experienced the first time she’d been shunted from one group home to another. That first time she’d believed the new home would become her family. That she’d have something permanent. She’d deluded herself then. Had figured out quickly that she wasn’t going to have anything lasting until she created it for herself.

Wes was the first man she’d thought seriously about a future with. She’d even downloaded the application for a passport off the internet, sort of hoping they were really going to London in the fall.

She put her head back against the sofa and felt tears welling in her eyes. She hated crying. It was so unproductive, but at this moment she couldn’t stop them and didn’t even try. She was allowed to be sad when the man she’d thought...

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