Page 2 of Bear In A Bookstore
“Roger that. I’ll do my best.” He tapped on the printer. “Been doing this for twenty years now. Yeah, I want to retire but the old lady says I have to put in five more years. She wants to travel, you know. Flights to Europe aren’t cheap.”
Kora responded with a tight but polite smile. Great, Earl was a talker.
“Excuse me a minute,” she said and went into the back room to grab her clipboard.
There were several deliveries being made today. Referencing the schedule on her clipboard, Kora checked off ‘printer repair and talk about a security system’ and noted bookshelf delivery was next on the list. A rep from the local construction company she’d hired to install the shelves and do some interior work was supposed to stop by, as well as an electrician, and someone from the Board of Health to see about getting a license to install a coffee bar.
Earl was still poking around, doing nothing of importance, when she returned.
“It’s a shame this place has sat empty so long. After the cult sold it, it was turned into a shady as hell surgery center andthat guy—Dr. Holz? Yeah, he’s something of an Estes Park legend and not in a good way. Used to kill off perfectly healthy patients and pass it off as natural causes, then sell their bodies to medical schools. He made enough dead body money to build the fancy Red Rock Mansion on the edge of town.”
Her eyebrows arched. Dead body money? Christ. He could have kept that to himself. Pulling out her cell phone, she opened her music app and put on the ‘Upbeat Jazz’ channel.
“Thank you for the history lesson, but I could have gone without knowing about dead bodies.”
To be honest, she was enamored with the history of this place. Of the whole town, really. It helped solidify her decision to come here. Los Angeles had become suffocating and was doing nothing to help the anxiety disorder she developed after an intruder forever changed her life a year and a half ago. Her beach house had become a constant reminder of what she’d gone through. She’d pulled away from her friends, preferring to be at home. Alone. Stress and anxiety clung to her relentlessly and her work as an author had become impossible.
Estes Park, Colorado, offered the opportunity to recover, and she was glad she was here. Mostly. Recovery, whatever that truly meant, was slow. Her anxiety was still high. Her mind, always conjuring the worst possible scenario.
She eyed the open screen door and pondered closing it, but the breeze felt too good, so she’d leave it be. See, she thought. Progress.
Earl pulled the front from the printer and squinted as he looked at her quizzically.
“What’s wrong, Earl?”
He tapped his lips with a knuckle. “I’m trying to think of what was in here after the doctor got arrested. Hmmm, well, I’m not sure what this building was used for then.”
“It was a morgue.”
Kora looked up at the new voice and instinctively straightened. A wave of warm tingles washed over her scalp and straight down her spine. The newcomer stopped just over the threshold with an envelope between his large hands as he gave the interior a sweeping gaze before approaching the desk. Kora’s brows fell, her chest hitching as her heart fluttered in excitement.
He was impressively tall and broad, shoulder muscles round and bulging from beneath a blue, long sleeve tee shirt, and as golden haired as a sunny day. She looked over him quickly, trying to take all of him in at once without making it obvious.
His confident, easy expression and the way he walked suggested that he fully owned his presence in this world. There was an undertone of awareness to him, as if he was always watching, always ready for whatever threat might pop out of the shadows.
He’s larger than life.
Her writer brain went into overdrive, soaking him up inch by inch as it crafted the type of character he would be in one of her books. Realizing she was staring, Kora tucked hair behind her ear and mentally slapped herself. Christ, her body was practically humming.
Earl looked over his shoulder, then made a full turn to face the man. “Hey, hey, look who it is! Desi Mitchell ishome. Welcome back, son. I heard you’d gotten out.”
“Thanks, Earl.”
Gotten out? As in, prison? She pinched her lips together and waited to see how this played out.
“How’s it feel to have all this free time on your hands? You know, after being told what to do all the time?”
Desi averted his gaze from the repairman and landed on Kora. Warm, electric shocks raced down her spine. She had the urges to move closer, but also back away. Was there really an ex-con standing in her bookstore right now? Her heart rapped inside her chest.
One eye narrowed as if he were curious about the expression that was surely on her face. She tried to quickly school it but had no idea if the attempt was successful. Her facial muscles felt like she’d simultaneously sucked on a lemon and inhaled a bug. Shit.
“Oh, you know I always got an extra pass for good behavior, Earl.”
Earl snickered. “If anyone could sweet talk their way into some extras, it’s you, Des. They cut your time short, huh?”
Desi grinned as if he were enjoying the hell out of this. “Got out a couple of years early.”
Her lungs constricted. Pursing her lips, she inhaled a quiet breath, exhaled, and reminded herself to stay calm. Her mind lurched into the possibilities of things this man had done. Armed robbery, assault, murder—
