Reed glanced uneasily at the counter, where Brenda was affixing sale stickers on a pile of hardbacks they needed to move. He didn’t want to discuss this here. “Can you meet me at The Grind?”
He could all but hear her curiosity pique in the silence.
“Sure. See you there in fifteen?”
Reed tipped the phone away from his mouth. “Brenda, are you okay to watch the shop on your own for a bit?”
Startled, she looked up. “Sure. It’s been pretty slow today, and it’s another hour or so until the after-school traffic trickles in.”
He spoke back into the phone. “Fifteen.”
By the time Reed had stowed the magazines in his office—he wasn’t going to be the one to blow Cecily’s secret—and walked across the town green, Norah was waiting, a large coffee in one hand, a lemon square in the other. He made his own order, and they retreated upstairs for some privacy.
“I need your help.”
“Name it,” she said instantly. “Is Inglenook in trouble?”
The bookstore wasn’t exactly a cash cow, but it was holding its own. Reed shook his head. “Not in trouble, no. But not living up to its potential, either.”
“Color me intrigued.”
“This is partly to do with the store and partly a more…personal matter. And before I go on, I need your assurance that you won’t say anything to the rest of the family. Not even Cam. It’s a matter requiring discretion.” Clearly Cecily valued that.
Her dark eyes sharpened. “Okay, I promise.”
“I know you tried to set me up with Cecily.”
One elegant brow arched. “I did no such thing. I made introductions between two people I happen to care a great deal about and then stepped back to let nature take its course. Which was apparently nowhere.”
Reed winced. “Yeah, well, that’s my fault. I said something that left her with a bad impression. And I want the chance to fix it.”
The other brow climbed up. “Why now? It’s been three months.”
“Because I only just figured out what I did wrong.”
“Better late than never, I suppose. What does this have to do with me? Why not just apologize to her like a big boy?”
Reed glared. “Because…reasons. It’s more complicated than that.” He didn’t know if Norah was aware of Cecily’s background, but if she wasn’t, he wouldn’t be the one to break her secret.
“So…you want me to do what, exactly?”
“Get her to work with me. I just need the chance to spend some time with her, so she can see that I’m not… Well, just so she can see me without my foot shoved halfway down my throat.”
Norah angled her head and studied him. “You know Cecily’s internship is over, right? She’s hanging around working hourly for me only until she lands a full-time position elsewhere.”
He’d known that objectively. But that was before he felt the flare of hope that he might be able to earn a second chance. “Why can’t that be here? Don’t you want her to stay? Keep the dream team together and all that?”
“Of course, but we don’t have it in the budget to hire her full-time at the rate she merits. She’d have to do something other than work for the city.”
“Well, don’t you at least want to stack the deck, give her more reasons to stay than go?”
“Do you?”
“I want the chance to try.”
“You believe you might be a weight on the side for staying?”
He thought about that flare of desire he’d seen in her eyes at the shop last week and that potent glance they’d shared at Los Pantalones. “I think there’s something between us, and we didn’t get a proper chance to explore it before I inadvertently screwed things up. I need the chance to make it right.”