Page 43 of Fiona and the Fixer

“No, I don’t.”

“It just so happens that I’ve got some free time.”

Him? Help me? “You’re running a bookstore. Or trying.”

“Which is right over there.” He pointed down the block. “With a view of the pickle shop.”

He had a very good point. From the bookstore’s front window, the pickle shop was going to be easily visible across the street.

Still…

“I don’t like having a partner,” I said, bristling at theidea of working with Dax on this. Sex was one thing, but this was my pseudo-investigation.

“Why is that not a surprise?” he muttered.

“I don’t like you,” I snapped when we got to a street corner.

He cocked his head, set his free hand over his dick. “Sweet nothings like that make me hard, sweetheart. You can ride my dick when we get back to your place.”

I growled. “Want me to punch you in the face again?”

He laughed. I punched him in the nose, and he was offering up sex and laughing. Who was this guy?

Why did he drive me crazy and ruin my panties? Because they were ruined. Again.

21

DAX

After listeningto Dottie explain the complex gossip grapevine of Coal Springs the night before, I realized I couldn’t keep Hannah’s shop closed any longer than I already had. I worried that news of that would somehow reach Jack and Hannah all the way in Hawaii. If Hannah was upset, Jack was upset and people died when that happened.

Because of that, I approached the front of Happily Ever After Bookstore just before ten. I took a gander across the street at the pickle shop, but nothing exciting was happening.

Then I turned my head back to my side of the road. A woman pushing a stroller had to weave around me at my sudden stop.

There was a line.

Of women.

A line of women who were waiting for the bookstore to open. As I approached, they eyed me like I was the lead singer in a boy band they had posters of on their bedroom wall.

Using the key, I opened the door and heard the women whispering to each other. About me.

“There he is.”

“I told you he was hot.”

“I think I just got pregnant by looking at him.”

“Sarah was right.”

I entered, typed in the alarm code, then stepped to the side and held the door open. “Ladies,” I murmured, adding in a welcoming arm gesture. What I was really doing was using the glass door as a shield, protecting myself.

When they entered en masse and started to browse, I went to the counter and got the register going, remembering the yoga woman’s helpful instructions from the day before.

Over the next few minutes, the store not-so-slowly filled. I glanced around in a slight panic at how busy it was. A bookstore couldn’t be this popular, could it?

I barely figured out the register the day before, and I’d needed help in doing it. What if someone asked me about a book or wanted a gift receipt?

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