Page 66 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

No more doubting the fact that she deserved Wes.

“No. You weren’t. You surprised me, Wes. And I am liking every second of it.”

Seventeen

Wes only had two weeks left of his contracted time with Sera, and now that Greer had taken over making the signatures, Wes had taken on more of the cover making, which left her time to actually design covers with the scraps of paper she collected. He loved watching her work in the afternoons after the morning rush passed.

After Valentine’s Day it seemed everything was moving forward too fast. Never in his life had he wanted the days to stretch out. He got a text from his assistant, Hazel, alerting him to a book sale in a nearby town that afternoon. She’d found it on one of her online groups.

“Hey,” he called over to Sera.

“Hey,” she said back in that sexy way of hers.

Or maybe he just found everything about her sexy.

“Can you take the afternoon off? There’s an estate sale about an hour or so from here with a huge book collection. Might be fun to go together,” he said.

She chewed her lower lip and then nodded. “Let me check with everyone. You can totally go regardless.”

Which was nice of her to offer since she was technically his boss, but he wanted to go with her. Greer had stopped working, not even pretending they weren’t listening to the conversation.

“I can handle the shop and the journals we have left to make today,” they said. “I’m the master of the Coptic stitch now.”

Wes laughed at the way Greer mimed stitching.

“You definitely have a talent for binding stitches,” Wes agreed.

“Great. Let me go and talk to Poppy and Liberty,” Sera said.

She moved away and Wes watched her go, admiring the swish of her hips in faded jeans. He loved how eclectic her clothing was and how she never wore the same thing twice. The same piece, yes, but she always managed to make it into a different vibe. Maybe the vibes matched her mood, or maybe it was delightfully random.

“Dude, you’re staring.”

“Can’t help it,” he said. He’d given up pretending he and Sera weren’t a couple while they were in the shop. Everyone had already figured it out after Valentine’s Day. “If you get ahead on the binding, use your time to make more signatures.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Greer said. Wes had been in charge of training and supervising Greer when they’d first started.

They had a real talent for binding, but also a love of books almost as obsessive as himself and Sera. Greer had mentioned wanting to apprentice under Wes to learn book repair. Which Wes was considering...if he stayed.

He had already found a shop just two down from WiCKed Sisters available to rent starting in March. It would make a nice space for him if he decided to set up shop in town. The books he dealt in were different from Sera’s, so he wouldn’t be directly competing with her.

He’d given this a lot of thought. Even had his accountant run the numbers for him. He could make a go of the shop here. It wouldn’t be a hardship, and he’d be closer to Sera.

All pluses.

But it was in Birch Lake. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to get the closure he’d once wanted where Grandpa was concerned. He did understand the older man more than he ever had before.

He’d learned more from him through Sera, those stories and the techniques she had gained from Grandpa. His feelings toward the place had changed.

There was something enchanting about Sera that Grandpa would have been drawn to. She was shy and standoffish with most people until she knew them. Wes had skipped the shy part by making her mad, but having come to know her now, he realized her reaction had been driven by hurt.

He’d hurt her, and though he’d apologized, he sometimes wondered if she would ever fully trust him.

He hoped she would.

But hope... His dad said to put hope in one hand and shit in the other and see what you had more of.

Crude, but it did the job. There was no way he could ignore the fact that if he moved here, it would be for her.

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