Page 33 of Book and Ladder
Their laughter dims to a few snorts and constrained coughs.
“What’s he doing to you, Daisy?” Dustin’s voice comes through.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she shouts back.
“No doubt about that,” Dustin replies.
“Stay put,” Daisy says. “Let me squeeze through here.”
I do as I’m told. She opens the cover to the alarm panel and I step next to her. She smells good—objectively speaking—cinnamon and cloves, fall and books.
Her arm brushes against mine and I shouldn’t feel it through the layers of my gear, but I do.
I focus on the panel. We finish up the checks and I give the “all clear” into the mic.
“You’re good to go,” I say, looking down at her.
“Thanks,” she says.
And then she bolts out of the office as if the bookshop actually is on fire and she’d rather take her chances with an uncontrolled flame than be stuck with me one more minute.
Chapter 10
Daisy
They parted at last with mutual civility,
and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.
~ Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice
I dartout the back door of the shop into the cool air—hands shaking, heart pounding, brain a tangle of thoughts.
Patrick O’Connell bursting into my shop like some hero out of a movie, filling the space with his firefighter-on-a-mission presence? Too much. My skin actually tingled when I brushed against his coat in my way-too-small-for-the-two-of-us office.
Patrick O’Connell does not make my skin tingle.
To save you.
I shake my hands out and lean against the back wall of my shop. Gran’s shop.
The alarm scared me. Of course it did. For more than a split second I imagined everything going up in flames. I ran through the shop, looking for signs of an electrical fire. But then I realized it was probably the smoke detectors. I grabbed the pack of 9-volts out of my desk drawer and wentthrough the shop replacing batteries. Then I reset the alarm panel.
Jillian showed up after the alarm had gone off, so I carried on business as usual, putting on a face of calm composure even though my whole life had flashed in front of my eyes not fifteen minutes prior.
Of course the day the alarm shrieks is one when Effie isn’t scheduled, Winona’s already gone, and Waylon’s shift hasn’t started.
I had known it was time to check the detectors, but it’s one of those tasks I put off and then forget. And then something like this happens—a full scale alarm, fire engine on the scene, neighbors and customers gathered out front—and Patrick to the rescue.
I don’t know what shook me up worse—the thought of the bookshop being in danger, or him being the one to barge through my door on a rescue mission.
I take a few cleansing breaths, push off the wall and stare out into the woods behind the shop.
How long has it been since I’ve been on a hike down those familiar paths?
I resolve to go on a walk in the woods soon.
Then I climb the back steps and reenter my empty shop.
