Page 45 of Strictly Pretend

But fun isn’t something I know a lot about, anyway.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

EMMA

As soon as I walk into the book shop the next week my stomach drops. We’re supposed to be leaving in half an hour for Montana. Brooks is picking me up because we’re flying in a private plane to Bozeman. But whatever, right now all I can think about is where the hell did all these boxes come from, and how am I going to get them unpacked in thirty minutes?

Whoever unloaded them – and I have a pretty good idea who because there’s only one delivery driver in town and he’s so slippery he’ll wait for hours to slip a card through your door when you’re not looking rather than actually unload boxes out of his truck – has just dumped them all over the front of the shop, forming a cardboard wall that means I can barely slide through the front door before my face is smashed up against a box.

“Granddad?” I call out.

“Hello.” He peeps at me through a hole in the box wall. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”

“I came in to say goodbye. You weren’t answering your phone.” I messaged Brooks to tell him to pick me up from here. I couldn’t leave without checking that Granddad was okay.

“It’s on the other side.” He points at his cell on the desk next to the window. It’s on my side of the wall. “I can’t get to it.”

And then it dawns on me. If I hadn’t stopped by, he’d have been stuck there for hours. Maybe days if no customer had come in. Sure, he has access to the kitchen and the bathroom, but there’s no food in there.

My stomach twists.

“What are all these boxes?” I whisper to him.

“There was an estate sale in San Francisco,” he tells me. “I didn’t have time to go, so I bought everything. I guess their library was bigger than I thought.”

“They couldn’t delay the delivery until I got back from Montana?” I ask him, and for the first time he looks sheepish.

“I thought it could be my little project while you’re away,” he tells me.

Translation: I hoped that you’d never find out I ordered even more useless books.

Okay, I need to think. A check of my watch tells me I now have fifteen minutes until Brooks picks me up. My suitcases are in my car.

“We need to at least make you a walkway,” I tell him. But the truth is I can’t leave him with all these boxes. He’s old and even though he hates to admit it, he’s getting frail. He could trip or they could fall on him and…

Now I feel sick.

Just as I reach for the box closest to me – the one at a top of a stack of five, the door opens and the bell rings and somebody comes barreling into my back.

I fall against the boxes, the sudden impact making the wind rush out of me, as they tumble and I land on top. I’m wearing a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt because I hate traveling in anything restrictive, so at least my underwear isn’t on show, but seriously, that’s the only dignity I have left.

“Shit,” a deep voice mutters. “Are you okay?”

Two hands wrap around my waist and lift me up so easily for a moment it feels like those dreams where you’re flying. And then my back is pressed against a very firm, very warm chest and I know I’m not dreaming.

When I turn to look at him, Brooks is staring at me, his brows pinched. “Did I hurt you?”

“Just my ego.” I give him a wan smile. “What are you doing here? It’s another fifteen minutes until we have to leave.”

“I’m early,” he says shortly, in a ‘suck it up’ kind of way. And weirdly, I prefer that to him looking all concerned and caring.

I believe it more, too.

Neither of us have mentioned that kiss since it happened. We haven’t even exchanged more information about ourselves on the phone because he’s been busy all week trying to catch up on work before we leave for Montana. Every now and then I’ll think of a question for him and message it over. He rarely answers before midnight and if I didn’t know better I’d probably feel sorry for him.

Take yesterday, for example. I was in the coffee shop, cooing over a little baby who was giggling at everybody who paid her any attention. And it hit me, I don’t even know what Brooks was like as a baby. So I got out my phone and sent him a message.

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