Other books caught my attention, but I couldn’t remember what they were about five seconds after I read the backs. I reshelved them, lost. All the while, the romance books sang to me from the corner of the store.
“What about this?” JJ handed me a cozy mystery that showed a teakettle sitting on a lace doily.
I skimmed the first chapter, then slid it back. “Looks nice.”
“Nice? Lizbeth, are you all right?”
“Yep.”
He studied me, but I quickly moved on to the middle-grade section. I’d read a decent number of those in elementary school. After half-heartedly giving him a brief tour of the best titles, we turned down horror lane.
“You like horror?” he asked. He studied a cover with a demon and its spawn crawling out of a dark hole.
“Not particularly.”
“Did you want to go check out the new romance titles?” He hooked a thumb back that way.
I waved a hand airily. “In a moment.”
“Lizbeth . . .”
“Oooh, new cookbooks!”
That would distract him and buy time for my heart to stop pounding. For my breath to catch up with my body.
My plan worked. He eagerly perused a few titles, mumbling about patisserie and choux pastry. In the cookbook aisle, I took a few deep breaths.
I could do this.
I could go back there and face those books without thinking of the Frolicking Moose. Without thinking of everything I’d lost that, until this point, I’d avoided thinking about. But now it slammed into me all at once.
All those books.
By sheer force of will, I swallowed my tears. Sweet baby pineapple, this place smelled like my attic room. Like books. Like paper and safety and home. Like I’d stepped into a story and wrapped myself in its pages. The attic room that would never be the same.
The books. My room. Even my laptop, clothes, phone with the sparkly cover. It was all gone. Not only had I lost my books, I’d lost my friends. Those books had gotten me through Mama’s death. Dad’s drinking. The escalation of his abuse.
Now they were ash.
Like a vengeful ghost, another memory of Mama whispered through my mind. “The books have it right, Lizbeth. If you can find a man in real life that’s just like the ones in the books you and I read, you snatch him up. He’ll keep you safe forever.”
“Lizbeth?”
I jerked, startled by the sound of JJ’s voice. He peered at me, a French pastry cookbook in his hands. He set it aside and closed the space between us in two strides. All of a sudden, he was there, hands on my shoulders to ground me.
“You all right?”
“I can’t go back there,” I whispered.
“Why?”
“Because . . . I can’t see all those books. They remind me of home. Of . . .” A sob peeped out of my throat. He reached up, fingers threaded into my hair as his hand pressed against my cheek.
“Of all you lost in the fire?”
“So many books, JJ.”
“Nine hundred fifty-seven,” he said softly.
Tears filled my eyes, and I nodded. How did he remember that number? How was that the most perfect response?
“Books I can never replace.” I still couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper. “They’re worn in the right places so I can quickly find the best scenes. They were with me in the worst times of my life. Now they’re just gone. Along with everything else. Just . . . not there. They were . . . they were my friends.”
JJ looked over at the shelves and back to me. His hands tightened, giving me a comforting squeeze. “Then don’t go back there. Stay here with me.”
My heart stumbled over itself. Why did it feel like he meant more than that?
“Okay.”
He smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Grief waits, you know. You can ignore it until you gather your strength. Instead of buying books, let’s look at delicious pictures of food that we can make together.”
“Really?”
He nodded. His hair swayed gently around his cheeks. “If you’re not ready, then you’re not ready. You don’t have to go back yet, anyway. I still get you.”
His face was a breath away from mine. My gaze dropped to his lips, half-parted, for a mere second.
“What if I’m never ready to face it?” I whispered.
“You will be, because that’s the kind of person you are. But it doesn’t matter if you’re ready now. The books will be here when that time comes. While you’re figuring that out, let’s find something to make for dinner tonight. Together.”
His hand dropped to my neck. The other one found mine and braided our fingers together. I wanted to pull myself into him and stay there.
“Sound okay?” he asked.
Relief flooded me at the thought of more time with him. Less time with ghosts. I nodded and stuffed the image of Mama away. If I was with him, I could do anything. Even forget all I’d lost.
Because if I hadn’t lost it, would I have ever found him?
“Okay,” I managed.
He smiled, pulled me close, and turned us back to the cookbooks. “Okay. Let’s check out what they’ve got. I, for one, am always craving Indian food.”
24 JJ
My ice cleats dug into the snow.
Breath puffed out in front of me in a fog as I ascended a particularly steep section of trail. I’d broken through thigh-high snow for an hour, and my heart was pounding so hard it shook my torso. Adventura lay at nine thousand feet elevation, but I pressed higher. Close to ten thousand. Shifting through sand-like snow for this long meant my heart would be bruised.
Felt so good.
For a moment, I stopped to scan the mountains. This high, I had a new view. A different perspective. The canyon lay to the south. Ahead of me rose a mountain so high I couldn’t see the top. Last summer, I’d climbed it with Mark while Justin spotted.
Being with the rocks again felt like a cool kiss on frazzled nerves. Mark was feuding with the city council, so he’d slipped into full brooding mode, sitting in his pajamas and staring at the ceiling.
