He considered that. “Seems like a dying thing, though. So will the idiom change? Should we start saying things like ‘posting it online’?”

“‘Create a banner ad’?” I suggested, leaning my elbows on the counter.

“See, I like that better.” He mirrored my pose and he was close, so close to me that my heart pounded. I was no match for his smile. “Close to the original idiom, and it implies the same thing—spending money to make an announcement.”

I allowed myself a second to be lost in his smile before I laughed. “Good God. Once an English teacher, always an English teacher.”

“Guilty. I can’t help it, I love language.” He straightened up again, which brought him too far away. I missed him. “That’s why I’m here, actually.”

“Because you love language?” I gestured around. “Well, it is a bookstore.”

“Because I’m an English teacher. I wanted to check on the summer reading inventory. Make sure kids are actually doing the reading.”

“Or at least buying the books?” I tried not to let my disappointment show, since I thought he’d come to see me. Seeing him today had lit up things in me that I hadn’t even realized were dark, and all my doubt had fallen away once he walked through the door. But now the dark came creeping back, like a cloud over the summer sun, and it chilled me just as much, because he wasn’t here to see me. This was just business.

The display was relatively picked over, but there were a few copies of each book left. I straightened up the books left on the table. “Looks like you’ve got some slackers in your class this year. Unless they’re putting it off till the end of the summer. I hope they’re speed readers.”

“No, this looks about right.” He picked up the annotated Pride and Prejudice and flipped idly through it. “A lot of kids are moving over to e-book versions, especially of classics they can get cheap or even free. Or they get them out of the library.” He put the book back down. “I order fewer books than I have students, and I still end up with too many. I’ll assign it again in a few years, and Chris will sell them to a new group of kids.”

I stared hard at the book display. “Recycle your assignments. Sure.” I didn’t want to talk about his students or their reading lists. But that seemed to be where we were.

“Hey.” His voice dropped an octave, and when I looked up he was studying me with concern in his eyes. “What’s the matter?”

I shrugged out of the hand he started to place on my arm. His touch was too confusing right now.

His face fell, but he didn’t reach for me again; his hands went into his front pockets. “Come on, Emily. Talk to me.”

Oh, God. I’d put that uncertain look on his face, and I hated myself for it. Give the guy a chance, April had said. Okay. I took a deep breath for courage. “I need to know how you want me to play this.”

“Play what?” He looked flummoxed.

“This.” I fluttered a hand in the space between the two of us. “I told you, Chris knows. The banner ad, remember? So how do you want me to act on Saturday? Just . . . same as ever?” I choked on those words, because that was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to be kissing him right now. But I soldiered on. “Because I can do that, if that’s what you want. Go back to that. If you want.” My breath came fast in my chest and I was repeating myself, babbling like a robot starting to break down. But the thought of going back to the way things had been with Simon hurt more than I had thought possible.

“No. Hey . . .” He reached for my arm again but stopped himself, his fingers flexing in the space between us. “Why would you think that? What did I do?”

“Nothing.” This was terrible. He’d looked so happy the morning before at his kitchen table, and I’d ruined it all. Could I fix this? I reached for him this time, and he let me take his hand. “This is all me. This is your town, you know? These are your people. And I . . .” I took a shaky breath as his thumb stroked lazy, soothing circles along the back of my hand. Even when I had hurt him he was trying to make me feel better. “I’m not very good at this.”

“At what? Living in a town?”

I laughed weakly. “At relationships. At knowing when I’m in one.”

The uncertainty on his face turned to even deeper confusion. “But you said you’d been with your ex a long time.”

“Five years.” I nodded. “But it was a drunken hookup that kind of became . . . comfortable. It wasn’t like he ever asked me out.”

“And neither did I.” Understanding dawned on his face, and his confusion became horror. “Oh, Emily, I never meant . . . I don’t want you to think . . .”

“No, it’s okay!” After talking over each other, we both fell silent together. Finally Simon took a breath.

“Can we start over?” He tugged a little on my arm as he stepped closer, and we met in the middle. “Emily?”

“Hmm?” I could never get over how many colors were in his eyes. From a distance, they looked like a plain brown, almost dull, but up close they were a riot of color. He was my very own pointillist painting.

“Hi.” I caught a flash of his smile as he bent to kiss me. His lips were warm and his kiss was sweet. Gentle. He only deepened the kiss a little while his hand slid into my hair and his other hand curved into the small of my back.

I smiled as he pulled away. “Hi.”

“That’s better.” He cupped my cheek in his hand, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheekbone. “I’ve missed you since yesterday. Is that weird? Does that make me one of those stalker guys?”

“Only if you follow me home. Cut off a lock of my hair while I sleep. Something like that.”

“I thought I’d save that for next weekend.” He bent to kiss me again but swerved at the last second to brush his lips against my cheek instead. “I have a theory about you, Emily Parker.”

“You do?”

“I do.” Another kiss on my cheek, and then his teeth grazed my earlobe, and I shivered. “I don’t think you’ve ever been wooed. Have you?” The words were a low whisper in my ear, and the shiver intensified.

“Wooed?” The word felt strange in my mouth.

“Wooed,” he repeated, punctuating the word with a kiss on my other cheek. “Courted. Swept off your feet. Had someone show you how you make him feel.”

“I . . . I can’t say that I have.” That was an understatement.

“Then brace yourself.” He straightened up and backed away from me a step or two. “I’m going to woo your ass off.”

Nineteen

Despite his promise to woo my ass off, the rest of the week went by without my feeling particularly wooed. Sure, Simon dropped by the bookstore a few more times, and he never left without giving me a kiss that made my toes tingle. And Friday night we went on an actual, proper date: flowers, dinner, a movie, the whole bit. Now that our bad first impressions of each other had been shattered, we had everything to talk about over dinner, and having Simon next to me in the dark of the movie theater, lightly stroking the side of my throat before trailing his fingertips down my arm to hold my hand, made me want to do things that had nothing to do with what was on the screen.

It was all lovely. But not particularly woo-ful. Still, as he led me up the walkway to my front door, I decided it didn’t matter. He was making an effort, and I was more than happy to play along. So when he bent to kiss me good night I stretched up onto my toes, and his mouth took mine under the amber of the front porch light. A perfect kiss to end the night.

I smiled as he pulled away, more content than I’d felt in years. I reached up to brush his hair off his forehead because I couldn’t stop touching him quite yet. “Thank you.”

He raised his eyebrows as he leaned into my touch. “If you’re going to thank me every time I kiss you, it could get pretty repetitive.”

I shook my head. “For tonight. This was wonderful. Consider me wooed.”

“Oh.” A knowing, slightly wicked smile tinged his mouth. “Oh, no. This wasn’t wooing.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Nope.” He bent to kiss me again, a quick punctuation on the evening before he left. “This was just a date. When I woo you, you’ll know it.”

The next morning at Faire he was scarce as we all got ready. I glimpsed him once across the tent, but he disappeared before I could get to him. While I sighed with frustration as Stacey and I started up the hill, I also had to laugh at myself. A few weeks ago, he was the last person I wanted to see. Down, girl, I told myself. Maybe he’s trying to be professional while we’re at Faire. You can hold out till tonight.

When we got to the tavern, there was a single red rose laid across the bar.

“What’s this?” Stacey picked it up and twirled it by the stem. I recognized the rose—we all did. There was a vendor at the front of the grounds near the main gate. She sold flowers, mostly roses, as “favors.” They could be given to knights before they charged into battle in the joust, or to your favorite fighter at the human chess match. (Mitch had been given his fair share of roses. Obviously.) Or they could be handed to your sweetheart as you strolled the Faire.