It was twelve o’clock and the start of the lunchtime lull. The only other people in the library were Stanley, snoozing behind a newspaper in his chair, and Mrs. Bransworth, skulking around the shelves muttering to herself. June sat down at the desk and took a few deep breaths, filling her nostrils with the comforting scent of the library. As a child, she used to believe that each book had its own smell, specific to its story, and the smell of a library was the combined scent of thousands of different tales. She once explained this theory to her mum, telling her that the Children’s Room smelled best because everyone knew that kids’ books had more exciting stories than grown-up ones. For months after that they’d played a game whenever they read a book together, deciding what particular aroma the story had. The Secret Garden, for example, smelled of mud and roses, while Charlie and the Chocolate Factory smelled of both sugar and cabbage soup. “Excuse me, can I take these out, please?” June looked up to see a tall pile of books in front of the desk, with a pair of eyes blinking at her over the top. “Of…

March 1967 Glory Ann scooped her daughter from the back seat, relishing the sweet pudge still lingering on the fifteen-month-old’s lengthening legs. The curly-haired tot pushed back from her mother’s embrace and bore her blue-eyed gaze into Glory Ann’s. “Down! Me do it.” Glory Ann swiped a thumb across the child’s sticky cheek. “Okay, but stay close and no running. It’s Gramma Hawthorne’s birthday.” Her chest tightened. “And we must be on our very, very best behavior.” Glory Ann put her daughter down and straightened the crumpled flounces of the tiny pink dress. She then smoothed the front of her own orange shift. “Now, hold my hand.” It had been months since she’d been home to see her parents, and though her mother promised she’d come to Brighton, she had never made the one-hour drive. Not in the many months her little one grew in her middle. Not when she’d labored in the sterile hospital, longing for her mother’s hand to hold. Nor any other time during the fifteen months of her daughter’s life. She took a shaking breath and found an anchor in her child’s tight grip on her thumb. It had seemed a fun idea to surprise Mother…

“When I’m with you, I get these crazy feelings,” she started slowly. “Emotions I’ve never experienced before come bubbling up out of nowhere. They’re so powerful, they take my breath away.” Even as Samantha recognized the complete truth of what she’d said, it was impossible to miss the effect her words had on Trey. He looked stunned. “Crap,” she muttered, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. “This isn’t coming out the way I wanted. I must sound insane.” But instead of backing away like she expected, Trey took her into his arms, squeezing tight and making the most calming shush- ing sounds she’d ever heard. “You don’t sound insane,” he said, tugging her close until her head was nestled comfortably under his chin. “I completely get everything you’re saying. It’s not crazy at all.” Samantha pulled away, opening her mouth to tell him she didn’t appreciate being patronized. She was so focused on what she was about to say, she forgot about Trey’s mug sitting on the edge of the counter. At least until her flailing hand slammed into it and sent it flying, spinning the thing into the tile backsplash hard enough to shatter it into a thousand pieces,…

“Mr. Astor, a pleasure to see you this evening,” the dark-coated maître d’ greeted, flashing a wide smile beneath his thin mustache. “A pleasure to be here. Anyone we should be concerned about inside? We have the Premier’s niece, Miss Katherine Ormsby-Gore, Miss Dinah Brand, and Miss Christian Grant.” “Michael, don’t tell him who we are.” Katherine glanced around as if anyone who was mingling nearby might care or notice. “Don’t fret, Mr. Rossi won’t tell a soul you’ve been here.” “If I were so indiscreet we’d be closed in a month,” Mr. Rossi assured them. “Not to worry, ladies, no one of concern to any of you is here tonight. Should one arrive, I’ll notify you at once. We don’t like awkward scenes at the 400 Club.” “How does he know who we should and shouldn’t be worried about?” Valerie whispered to Jakie. “Mr. Rossi knows more about people’s lineage than Debrett’s. Don’t worry, you’re in capable hands.” “Table forty-eight, John.” He handed them off to a young waiter, who led them into the heart of the small and dimly lit club. Valerie and the girls gaped at the pillars holding up the low ceiling and the dark silk…

Hi everyone! This scene picks up after Cam and Reese have just played a game of This or That with his brothers and things got a little sexy. He’s offered to walk her back to the guesthouse where she’s staying on his family’s property… “I’ll walk you back,” Cam said, making her jump. She hadn’t heard him follow her. “You don’t need to do that.” “I know.” They stepped onto the porch together. “About what just happened…” he trailed off, hands in the front pockets of his stylish sweatpants as they continued toward the guesthouse. “It was nothing. We got a little carried away is all. I call it the Nash influence.” “The Nash influence?” “Yes, he loves to infer dirty and sexual things, which in turn gets the people around him thinking them.” “Okay, but in this case…” They’d gone there on their own. Of course Mr. Smarty McSmartyPants would realize that. She spun and faced him, took backward steps. “Sugar Rush.” He raised an eyebrow. Just one brow, in that sexy way of his. “When a person eats sugar, the brain produces a surge in dopamine, which in turn makes them think of pleasurable things and then sometimes…

ExPro hockey player, Jake Champagne, and artisan pie maker, Evie Pemberton, were best friends from childhood until Jake ghosted on the friendship when he fell for Evie’s beauty queen cousin. Now, as Jake recovers from a messy divorce, they have reconnected and are struggling to find their footing in this new relationship. Can they get their old friendship back, or do they want something more? In this except, they have been shopping and a salesperson mistook them for a married couple. *** “I can’t believe she thought we were married.” Jake laughed. “I could have told her you were in my wedding, all right. You just weren’t the bride.” And in a split second, the laughter died on Evie’s face. “Jake, I wasn’t.” She hadn’t been in that Cecil B. Demille production of a wedding? At least fourteen women had marched down that aisle wearing dresses the color of Bazooka bubble gum; surely Evie had been one of them. “You weren’t? I could have sworn…” How could he have missed that? Evie smiled a sad little smile. “To be fair there was a lot of pink tulle and ruffles going on with those dresses. It was hard to see who…

Beck watched the heavily gunned galleon sweep around the small isle, the wind filling its sails. After six months of patrolling the waters off the west coast of Scotland, Beck wouldn’t let this chance of capturing the most notorious French pirate slip past him. If the bastard outgunned them, he would use some intimidation to slow him down until Cullen could attack the Borreau from the other side. “Gavin,” he yelled, “are the men ready?” Gavin’s mouth dropped open, frozen, as he gazed past Beck. Beck pivoted on his boot in time to see… Eliza? The woman wore sailor’s clothing. No petticoats, but the breeches that she’d worn under her skirts. Tall boots hugged her shapely legs up past her knees. She wore a longish coat of wool and leather with an intricate braid trim, a white tunic, and a floppy hat over her hair. A crossbow swung by her side. She charged across the deck, Alice, who was also dressed in trousers, hurrying behind her with a lantern. “Holy Lord,” Rabbie said next to him. “Beck,” Drostan yelled, pointing at Eliza. As if he hadn’t seen her. Half his men had stopped to stare at the lass as she…

I tell Eric I’m reorganizing the closet in the spare bedroom, which has the desired effect of getting rid of him. As soon as he’s gone to his “office,” the alcove downstairs where he keeps his computer, I start tearing through photo albums. I’m not looking for memories. I already have those. I recognize faces in the pictures, remember where and when most of them were taken. Prom, Senior Skip Day, the first years of college, before we stopped printing out snapshots. A few from our courthouse wedding. But those memories feel as though they belong to someone else. What I’m searching for is some emotional connection to the life I find myself living. But even with my entire history laid out in front of me, I’m unable to feel that it’s mine. I have the bed covered with memorabilia, photos and old birthday cards and handouts from college we kept for some reason, when Eric opens the door. I jump, my hands twitching with the compulsion to push everything into a single pile to hide what I’ve been doing. “I see you’ve made a lot of progress,” he says dryly. I laugh, the sound high-pitched and unnatural. “I got…

He’d called her sweetheart. Oh, she knew he’d done it to annoy her parents, to make them believe that her marriage to Ash was a true marriage in every way, but still…when he said it, she’d felt a deep, corresponding thump in the region of her heart, as if it had been an­swering him. Ash had been nothing but kind since their wedding, and before it, for that matter. At first, after her late husband’s abuse, she couldn’t bear to be touched, but now, nearly a year later, she was trying to get over that. She still flinched sometimes when someone touched her, especially when she wasn’t expecting it, but she would recover. She refused to allow that brute to con­trol her life even after he’d left it. Ash always stepped back from any situation, sepa­rated himself from it. He was a man of intellect, not of passion. He either asked for her permission before he touched her or drew back if she responded with a flinch. She felt safe with him. She did not want passion. The oars dipped in the water, the distant sound of life on either side of the wide expanse muted, occa­sionally echoing off the…

14. Crab Crack Six blue crabs rattle in a white bucket at my feet, blowing bubbles and pinching one another’s legs. A gigantic stainless-steel pot boils on the stove. Steam billows overhead, making the already-toasty kitchen even hotter. I dump the blue crabs in-ide. They die instantly, I hope. When they pinken, I drain the pot and carry our Monthly Monday dinner to the porch. For the crab crack, Weezy and I have assembled newspapers, paper towels, heavy spoons, and a bowl of water. Weezy wears an old nursing bra and some stretchy biker shorts. Her grow- ing belly pokes out beneath a tank top. Our legs need shaving. Dirt collects in the spaces between my toes, beneath my nails. We’ve wrapped our hair in careless buns, high off our necks. We sit on the floor. Weezy goes for the claws first. She cracks the shell open with a mallet. I start by prying off the carapace. Warm goop drips from my fingers to the newspaper. I use a spoon to scrape away the gills. I swish the carcass around in the water bowl to clean off excess innards. After I break the body in half, it strikes me that…