Page 10 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind

He isin the tub.NAKED.And he just invited me to use his first aid kit.

I am talking to Soren Mackenzie and he said I could use his first aid kit and—

Ahem.

Fangirl Heidi is in control right now, and I’m not proud of her.

Get it together, Heidi,I tell myself firmly.This is not your favorite author of all time. This is just a man in the bathtub, trying to moisturize without being judged. Get the dog, see yourself out, and pray that Soren Mackenzie forgets all about this.

“Actually,” I say, and I hate the way my voice is more breathless and high-pitched than before, “thanks for the first aid offer, but I’m just gonna go.” I scurry over to Noodles, clip the leash to her collar, and then begin tugging her out of the bathroom behind me. “Uh, enjoy your naked.”

Oops. Freudian slip.

“Yourbath,” I blurt. My correction is way louder than it needs to be, but I don’t soften my voice as I go on. “Sorry. Yourbath.Enjoy yourbath.”

I don’t look at him. I just put all my weight into dragging the Poodle out of the bathroom.

“Hey,” he calls from behind me when I’ve almost reached the door. His voice is gruff, reluctant, but he speaks again, and I turn to look at him. “While you’re here.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Do you know of any good cafés around here? Someplace not too loud that will let you sit there?”

I swallow. “I hear there’s going to be a bookshop and café opening in the town square.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Soon?” he says.

My answering nod is firm. “Yes. Soon.”

3

IN WHICH SOREN IS A SCAREDY CAT

Do you think every man is terrified of the woman he loves?

No?

Just me, then?

There are different kinds of scary in life. The boogeyman under your bed as a kid—that’s a sort of nebulous, intangible fear that looms as large as a child’s imagination. The fear of failure as you grow older—that one is more tangible, the source of a constant internal slideshow of worst-case scenarios.

But the fear of a woman? That one is in its own class. Tangible and intangible, because she’s both impossibly out of reach and close enough that you can smell her perfume. Sour and bittersweet, because while the thought of her rejection ferments your insides, at the same time…if somebody is going to destroy you eventually, you’d rather it be her than anyone else.

At first glance, Heidi Lucy isn’t a scary woman.

On an average day, anyway. The first time we met, that day four years ago when she burst into my bathroom chasing a dog, I almost peed myself from how startled I was. She was red-faced and sweaty and heaving for breath, and her light brown hair was coming out of its ponytail in little swirling tendrils around her face. I was annoyed at the intrusion and then, later, amused. But I didn’t see her again until about a year after that when she opened Paper Patisserie, exactly where she said she would: facing the town square. And that was the day that my stubborn heart cracked, just a little.

It’s been shattering for her ever since.

Not the sad, painful kind of shattering—it’s more like the when a doctor rebreaks two bones that have healed improperly so that they can realign and become whole again.

She’s smart, competent, hardworking—fiercely protective of her dreams and her tribe. She’s endlessly fun to rile up with the most amazing (if not rare) laugh.

She makes things happen. She expects life to go her way, because she will bend the universe to her will.

I adore her.

And she has no idea.

My bandaged, fresh-from-the-hospital Heidi fights me all the way up the stairs when we reach Paper Patisserie and, above that, her little flat.

“You don’t need to help me walk,” she says, pushing my hand off her arm as I try to steady her. “What you need to do is go home and shave, because I don’t want you showing up tomorrow morning looking like a mountain man.”

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