Love at First Book

One

Em, are you all right?" Samantha Gale, my very best friend, answered her phone on the fourth ring. Her voice was rough with sleep and it belatedly occurred to me that nine o'clock in the morning in Finn's Hollow, Ireland, was four o'clock in the morning in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Damn it, I woke you up, didn't I?" I asked, feeling awful about it.

"No, it's fine," Sam said. "I told you when you left that I'm always here for you." There was a low grumbling in the background and she added, "And Ben says he's here for you, too."

That made me laugh. Sam and Ben had become couple goals for me. Not that I thought I'd ever find anything like the connection they'd made, but they kept the pilot light of my innermost hope aflame.

"Thank you and Ben," I said. "I'm going to hang up now. Forget I ever called."

"Emily Allen, don't you dare," Sam said. Now she sounded fully awake. Oops.

"No, really I-" I began but she interrupted me.

"Tell me why you're calling, otherwise I'll worry." There was more grumbling in the background. Sam laughed and said, "Ben says he's begging you to tell me so that I don't drive him crazy with speculation."

I grinned. She would, too. Then I grew serious.

Glancing around the Last Chapter, the quaint bookshop in which I was presently standing, I noted objectively that it was a booklover's dream come true. A three-story stone building chock-full of books with a small café, where the scent of fresh-brewed coffee, berry-filled scones, and cinnamon pastry permeated the air. I felt myself lean in that direction as if the delicious aromas were reeling me in.

One of the employees had unlocked the front door of the shop, and I had trailed in behind a handful of customers who'd been waiting. I'd been agog ever since.

This was it. The bookshop where I'd be working for the next year. My heart was pounding and my palms were sweaty. The black wool turtleneck sweater I was wearing, in an attempt to defeat the early November chill, felt as if it were choking me and I was quite sure the pain spearing through my head meant I was having an aneurysm.

"I'm supposed to meet my boss in a few minutes, and I think I'm having a heart attack or potentially a stroke," I said.

There was a beat of silence then Sam said, "Tell me your symptoms."

I listed them all and she noted each one with an "uh-huh," which told me nothing whatsoever as to what she thought about my condition. I was three thousand miles away and starting a new job in a bookshop, having put my career as a librarian on Martha's Vineyard on hold to chase some crazy fantasy where I traveled to a foreign destination and lived a life full of adventure.

"I think I'm going to throw up," I groaned.

"Inhale," Sam said. "You know the drill-in for eight seconds, hold for four, out for eight."

I sucked in a breath. Ouch. "I can't. It makes my head throb. See? Aneurysm."

"Or a lack-of-caffeine headache," she said. "Have you had coffee yet?"

Come to think of it, I had not. I'd been too nervous to make any before I left my cottage this morning so the potential for this skull splitter to be from coffee deprivation seemed likely.

"No," I said. "And I see where you're going, but I still have brutal nausea and I'm sweating. I bet I have a fever. Maybe it's food poisoning from the airplane food last night. I had the beef stroganoff."

"You ate airplane food?" Sam sounded as incredulous as if I'd confessed to eating ice cream off the bathroom floor. She was a professional chef, so not a big surprise.

"I know, I know," I said. "It's pure preservatives. I'll likely be dead within the hour."

There was a lengthy pause where I imagined Sam was practicing her last words to me, wanting to get them just right.

"Em, you know I love you like a sister, right?" she asked.

Well, that didn't sound like the beginning of a vow of friendship into the afterlife.

"I do," I said. "I also know that's how you'd start a sentence I'm not going to like."

"You're panicking, Em," Sam said. Her voice was full of empathy. "And you and I both know that bout of hypochondria you dealt with last summer was how you coped with your unhappiness."

"But I'm not unhappy," I protested. "I'm living the dream in a quaint village in County Kerry where the green is the greenest green I've ever seen and there's a sheep staring at me over the top of every stone wall. Seriously, I'm drowning in picturesque charm, which is probably why I'm about to keel over dead."

A sound came from my phone that resembled someone stepping on a duck.

"Are you laughing at me?" I asked. Rude but understandable.

"No, never," Sam said. She cleared her throat. "I just think you might be freaking out because it's your first day at your new job."

"I'm not," I protested. I was. I absolutely was. "I just think I need to come home before they discover I have some highly contagious pox or plague and I'm quarantined in a thatched stone cottage to live out my days in a fairy-infested forest, talking to the trees and hedgehogs while farming for potatoes."

"Have you ever considered that you read too much?" Sam asked.

"No!" I cried and I heard Ben, also a librarian and formerly my boss, protest as well.

Sam laughed. She enjoyed goading us.

"Just think, if I leave now, we can meet for coffee and pastries at the Grape tomorrow morning."

"While I'd love to see you, you know that, you have to stay in Ireland and see your journey through," Sam said. "If you go home now your mother will guilt you into never leaving again, not to mention clobber you with the dreaded 'I told you so.'"

"Fair point." I sighed. I glanced at the display on my phone. My mother had already called five times and texted twelve and I hadn't even been in Ireland for twenty-four hours yet. I'd let her know I'd arrived safely, but I knew that wasn't what her messages were about.

My mother had made it clear that she expected me to continue in the role of her caregiver, a position I'd assumed when my father left several years ago. Were she incapable of caring for herself, I'd understand, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with her except a scorching case of toxic narcissism. I tabled the mom problem to deal with the one at hand.

"I still think I might pass out and then I'll likely lose the job and this entire conversation becomes moot," I said.

"You won't," Sam said. "Find a place to sit down. Can you do that?"

"Okay." I was standing in the stacks-well, more accurately, hiding. The shelves were dark wood, long and tall and stuffed with books. They comforted me. Scattered randomly amid the shelving units were step stools. I found one and sat down.

"Are you sitting?" Sam asked.

"Yes."

"Good, now put your head between your knees," she ordered.

"Um." I was wearing a formfitting, gray wool pencil skirt. I tried to maneuver my head down. No luck. The skirt was too snug. The closest I could get was to look over my knees at my very cute black ankle boots. "Sorry, Sam, nothing is getting between these knees. Not even a hot Irishman."

Sam chuckled, but over that I heard a strangled noise behind me and I straightened up and turned around to see a man in jeans and an Aran sweater, holding his fist to his mouth, looking as if he was choking. He had thick, wavy black hair and blue eyes so dark they were almost the same shade as his hair. Also, if I wasn't mistaken, he was my new boss.

Two

Um, Sam, I have to go," I said.

"The breathing helped, right?" she asked.

"Totally. Call you later." I ended the call and stood up. The man cleared his throat and dropped his fist. Now that I could see his face, it was indeed my new boss, Kieran Murphy. He appeared to be trying to figure out what to say, so I jumped in and asked, "You didn't happen to hear what I just said, did you?"

My long auburn hair was pinned at the nape of my neck in a loose bun and I pushed my large wire-framed glasses up on my nose. Suddenly, I was overly warm and not in a good way. I paused to consider it. I was only twenty-nine. This could not be a hot flash . . . could it?

"Just the last little bit," he said. His voice was deep and his brogue was thick and it curled around me as if it were a magic spell being cast. He tipped his head to the side and said, "Should I take it as a warning?"

"Oh, no, it wasn't meant that way," I protested. "I'd be happy to have a hot Irishman . . . er . . ." I paused and shook my head. "That's not going to come out right either."

I wanted to smack my forehead. I didn't. Instead I stood there, feeling my face heat up with extreme self-consciousness, which no doubt would turn my pasty complexion the shade of an overripe tomato. I probably looked like I had a horrible skin condition.

Mr. Murphy's unwavering gaze had me completely rattled. Not just because he was my boss but because he was a hot Irishman and I was sure that penetrating stare of his could see into my very soul. What a sorry impression I was making. I felt like the human embodiment of embarrassment wrapped in mortification dipped in humiliation.

"Yes, well." He cleared his throat and said, "I think we can just leave that to be sorted another time, all right?"

"Absolutely. No need to talk about it." I pressed my lips into a tight line, determined to do just that. But being me, I couldn't. "Unless you wanted to discuss that bit of awkwardness right now, which would alleviate me from stressing about the first impressions I made, because I totally will-all day."

He looked surprised and then he laughed. It was a rich rumble that came from his chest and I felt it reverberate in my spine. It was a good laugh. When I smiled in return, he abruptly grew serious, as if he'd caught himself being amused by me and shut it right down. Huh.

"How about we just start over?" He held out his hand. "Emily Allen, I presume?"

"Yes." I clasped his hand in mine a bit too enthusiastically and he winced. I immediately let go. "Sorry."

"No need, fingers are overrated," he assured me while he wiggled the blood back into his. "I'm Kieran Murphy."

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Murphy," I said.

"Just call me Murphy," he said. "Everyone does."

"All right, Mr. . . . uh . . . Murphy," I agreed. He didn't seem like a Murphy to me. In my mind, he was Kieran, or Kier for short, a romance-hero-worthy name for a man who certainly looked the part. I could picture him on a seaside cliff, the wind tousling his thick dark curls and lifting the ends of a red cashmere scarf he'd casually draped around his neck, while he stood with his legs braced and his broad shoulders squared, daring the wind to knock him down as he squinted out at the ocean, looking for, well, obviously his long-lost love.

He was watching me as if waiting for something. It belatedly occurred to me to invite him to use my first name.

"And please call me Emily or Em, that's what my friends call me, you know, if they're close friends, or Red, some people call me Red, well actually, no, only strangers who couldn't be bothered to learn my name have called me Red." I was babbling. I shut my mouth.

Murphy nodded. "So noted . . . Red."

Was he saying we'd remain strangers? Well, that wasn't very friendly.

He turned and we left the shelves behind us. I followed him feeling like an idiot-why the hell had I told him strangers call me Red? But was it really my fault? The man was insanely attractive. If I could have managed it, I would've taken a stealth picture of him and sent it to Sam. She would die. We'd noted he was good-looking from the picture on the bookshop's website but the live-action Kieran Murphy was next level.

I was completely unprepared for this contingency. Why couldn't he be a much older man with thinning hair, a beer gut, and a roguish twinkle in his eye?

"Why don't I show you around a bit before you meet Siobhan." He glanced over his shoulder at me. His expression was shuttered, adding one more layer to his perfection as a brooding romance hero.

No, no, no. I hadn't been on a date in forever but there was no way I was going to start crushing on my new boss. Not when I was on a mission of self-discovery. I had to keep my priorities straight. The only relationship I was having on this trip was with myself.

"That would be lovely." I sounded entirely too eager. I cleared my throat and asked, "How did you know who I was?" I didn't mean to be so blunt, but my curiosity was highly verbal and very direct.

"Deductive reasoning," he said. He gestured to the customers with whom I'd entered the building. "You're the only person I didn't recognize so I figured you must be our new hire."

"Oh." There was no faulting that logic. "Mystery fan, are you?"

He glanced at me with one eyebrow raised slightly higher than the other. It was a dead sexy look. I tried to blink it away like those spots that blur your vision when you inadvertently glance at the sun.

"Indeed I am," he said. "Mostly noir but a bit of traditional as well. And you?"

"Agatha and Dorothy are my girls," I said. He nodded in what I hoped was approval or at the very least acceptance. Mystery readers could be so judgy about the cozy subgenre.

I glanced at the signs over the shelving units. We'd moved from fiction, through books of Irish interest, and now we were standing beside the history section.

"Here's a hypothetical," Murphy said. "A lad comes in and asks for books on magic. Where do you direct him?"