The next morning, I’m up later than usual. My cell alarm flashes 10:30 am. I push damp hair from my forehead. The hotel building lacks modern heating and air conditioning. Finally, cool air pushes up from the floor unit. I pull the string on the light-blocking curtains. A film of condensation obstructs my view momentarily, and I wipe my palm across the glass. The unit blows frigid air into the bottom of my oversized T-shirt and forces the fabric to billow bell-shaped around my thighs. I shudder.
Cold. I hate being cold. My mind flashes to another city. I detested Tacoma with its never-changing, dark horizons. My entire life turned blue and gray last winter. But I can’t blame everything on the weather.
Tacoma’s climate and people matched my life with Wesley—cold, distant, and lonely. A person on the outside, looking in with my nose pressed to the window. Tacoma was the perfect place to hide a wife and keep her estranged from family, far away in Texas.
Her family and his.
The view through my window isn’t the greatest, but it’s one I’ve studied for days—one rooftop below my fifth floor window, a busy street with lots of noisy traffic, and a row of restaurants and bars on the opposite side of the street.
Movement across the street reels my attention back to the present. Leo Jensen opens the coffee shop door and allows a girl to exit. She stops and spends several seconds smiling and talking to him. His classic All-American profile shines from all the way over there.
“Leo, you seem nice. Why were you so mean in the emails?” I step back and grab my binoculars from the nightstand before returning to the window. The two of them pull into focus.
The girl, a cute, twentyish brunette, shifts subtly closer to Leo. He backs away. I shake my head. Body language doesn’t lie. Lady, are you blind? The girl across the street obviously is, and keeps inching toward him.
Leo points toward the west, gives her a smile, and enters the coffee shop. The girl walks away, but I can still see her smiling long after he disappears inside.
I quickly get dressed and find my phone. Evidently, I slept like the dead, because I’ve missed several calls. My mother’s voicemail urges me to call my daddy. She doesn’t say what he wants, but I know he’s going to try to persuade me to move home.
The second voicemail is the one I dread listening to even more than my mother’s. I stare at the number that belongs to Isabella Warren—Wesley’s legal wife and the mother of his beautiful daughter, Charley.
Wesley. Dead, but still reaching out from the grave to affect us.
“Harper? I wanted to talk when you have time. You’re the only one who understands what I’m going through. Charley and I have a museum visit today, but you can call back anytime after nine. Hope you are doing well.”
I swallow the lump I get every time I imagine Charley missing her dad. Wesley.
It’s still hard to reconcile the Wesley who kept me in Tacoma with the Wesley that seven-year-old Charley knew—a kind, caring father. Trying to make the mental picture work is like squashing a one-foot-square block into an ant-sized pinhole.
First, I need to visit Dog Ears Bookstore, a cute little place only a couple of blocks from my hotel. The hotel concierge said Dog Ears stocks the best resources for books about the neighborhoods and places to live in Nashville.
I take my time, enjoying the scenery as I stroll the five blocks. Nashville feels like home. The city’s not exactly like Austin, but a close cousin. A cousin with more of a swagger—louder and more worried about getting your attention. Still, the music and the people are of the same family.
Colorful objects fill the bookstore window. There’s an elaborate tea set with hardback books stacked under various colorful cups. On closer inspection, it’s clear that all the books deal with tea.
Taking a deep breath, I enter and look around for an employee. There’s only one, apparently, and she’s with a customer, so I turn to the nearest shelf and pick up a book. The bookstore opened an hour ago and most aisles appear empty.
A buoyant voice startles me. “I see you’ve found Fifty Ways to Please Your Lover,” the girl says, the same girl I spotted talking to Leo a day ago at the bar. Lucky coincidence? She gives me a cheerleader smile to match her voice.
“Excuse me?” I shift uncomfortably.
She cocks her head to the side and looks at the book in my hands. “Wrong book?”
“Oh,” I flip the book to the front. The cover, a naked couple locked in an incredibly acrobatic embrace, causes me to avert my eyes. “I…um…picked it up by mistake.” I shove the book back onto the shelf.
“What brings you in today? By the way,” she gives a devious smirk, “that book you picked up is a New York Times bestseller. I sell at least a copy a day.”
“I don’t want to please a lover.” I lower my voice to right above a whisper. Is my declaration a Freudian slip buried deep in my heart? Can the other customer hear this conversation?
She grins.
I want to crawl behind a shelf. “I don’t have a lover.” I am not helping the situation, but cannot seem to stop myself. “I don’t need a book for that.”
She bobs her head in agreement as if she deals with awkward customers every day. “OK then. Wonderful. My name is Josie. Can I help you find a great read today?”
The only other customer in the store exits and I refocus on Josie. “I’m browsing.”
“Sure. Let me point out some sections of the store. We have self-help in front of you. Popular fiction books on all these stands near the front middle. Popular non-fiction near the back. Fiction organized by genres and then author on the walls.” Josie points to a poster mounted behind the counter. “There’s a map of the store. Or ask me.”
“Non-Fiction. Is there a book about Nashville?”
“Too many to list. Follow me.” She leads the way to the left wall of the store. “Are you looking for a travelogue? Or a historical?”
I lift my shoulders, attempting a casual shrug. “I’m visiting. It’s my first time.”
She glances over at me before striding to the end of the shelf. “A Nashville virgin. You’ll want tourist stuff then. There’s so much to do that you’ll have to be selective.”
“I’m thinking about sticking around. Moving here, if I can find a job and a place to live.”
“Really? We must’ve made some impression on you. You aren’t a musician, are you?”
“No.” I pause for a minute. “I think I’ve seen you before. Were you eating lunch at Dastardly Bastards the other day?” I deliver my words slow enough to sound uncertain.
“Oh yeah. I eat there all the time. Good burgers.”
“You were at a table near me. I think you might’ve been with your boyfriend.”
She snorts. “Leo? No. He’s my brother. But you just reminded me of something. Are you looking for a house? Or an apartment?” Josie pulls a book about Nashville restaurants from the shelf and hands it to me.
“What?” I’m confused.
“You said you need a place to live. There’s an apartment in Leo’s building that’s empty. It’s for rent if you’re interested. The rental has these amazing high ceilings. Leo’s been hoping it doesn’t rent because the last renters were partiers and drove him insane. But you don’t seem the type to swing from the—”