Epilogue

 

 

"A Complete World History of Twine," Gunnar read carefully off the flaking spine of the hardbound book. "Really? We're keeping this one?"

"Someone might want to know all about twine," Melody said quickly. "And then where will we be? Completely out of books about twine, that's where."

They were both sitting on the floor of what had been, until recently, Hidden Treasures Used Books. Now it was a disorganized space full of heaps of books, cardboard boxes, and half-empty shelves. The door had a CLOSED AND MOVING sign hanging from it, but it stood half open to let in the afternoon sunshine.

"I can't help noticing we aren't putting very many books in the donation box," Gunnar said. "You know we don't have space for even half of these."

"I know, but Gaby's already said she and Derek will store everything we're not taking at the farmhouse. They have plenty of room there. There's no need to get rid of anything at all."

Gunnar rolled his eyes affectionately. "We're going to have to buy a house the size of your dad's mansion to store all our books, aren't we?"

"Maybe just a storage unit." Melody cleared her throat and put two more books in the box beside her knee, labeled POETRY H-M in black marker. The DONATION box was still empty except for a very scuffed copy of The Little Engine That Could, and that only because Gunnar had pointed out they already had two copies in much better shape.

"A storage unit the size of a warehouse, maybe," Gunnar teased.

Melody grinned and poked him in the leg with her toe. He caught her ankle and rubbed his thumb above the hollow of her heel, just above the top of her sensible shoe.

"Gunnar," she protested, making no move to escape. "We have to get these books boxed up and sort out the ones we're taking with us."

"You sure that sorting books is all you feel like doing today?"

Her foot twitched in his gentle grip. "Absolutely," she declared. "Book sorting and nothing else."

Gunnar massaged her ankle and grinned as her eyes half-closed in bliss.

"I could come back later if I'm interrupting something." Tessa's cheerful voice came from the doorway, as her shadow fell across the book piles and half-packed boxes.

"We're just sorting books," Melody said quickly, attempting to pull her foot back. Gunnar hung on, grinning at her.

Tessa came in. She had her daughter in a front carrier; a tuft of the baby's dark hair was visible, nestled against her chest. "Brought you two lunch from Gaby's café," she said, holding up a paper bag. "Sandwiches and some of her world-famous bear claws."

"Oh, yum." Melody took custody of the bag. "Thank you."

"Hey, there's a price. No free lunch in this world. I also came over to see the RV," Tessa went on brightly. "Gaby told me you finished the last of the interior work, and you had it here at the bookstore today so you could load it up. I didn't see it out front, though."

"No, it's behind the store, in the alley." Melody gave her foot a gentle twist, and Gunnar regretfully let go so she could hop to her feet. "I'll show you. Hon, could you bring a box since we're going that way?"

"Does it matter which one?"

"No, not really—Not that one!" He'd started to pick up the box of poetry books she'd been working on. "That's not full yet. Take the ... um ... how about that box of mysteries there. We still need to fill up those shelves."

Gunnar shared a fondly commiserating look with Tessa and picked up the box effortlessly in his strong arms. Carrying another box with the lunch bag balanced on top, Melody led the way—at least until she was confronted with the need to open the door leading back to the alley. Tessa hurried forward to open it for her.

The alley behind the row of businesses along Main Street was actually more of a gravel parking area, easily wide enough to accommodate a recently remodeled and repainted motor home. For the last few weeks, ever since Melody had bought it, the RV had been parked at Gaby and Derek's farm, taking advantage of the farm's workshop and Ben and Derek's combined woodworking expertise (which Gunnar had been picking up with a flair). Melody had thrown herself into every aspect of the RV's makeover, from providing the basic designs to cutting shelves to long hours painstakingly painting the exterior.

And now it was done. Where there had been a beige, ordinary-looking motor home, now there was a brightly painted vehicle that declared in bold letters on the side: HIDDEN TREASURES TRAVELING BOOKSTORE.

"Hang on, I'll just pop the sides out so you can see the whole thing," Melody said, dropping her box next to the door and hopping up inside.

Tessa poked her head in after her friend. "You're really going to have room for both of you in here and a bunch of books?"

"It'll be a little cramped," Melody admitted. "But we'll have the whole great outdoors for camping, too. I've never camped out, and Gunnar says he's always wanted to. We've kept the bathroom and kitchen, and some fold-out sleeping space inside. And everything else," she declared with a flourish, "is bookshelves."

With the RV's pop-out sides opened up, there was a surprising amount of bookshelf space. Tessa oohed and ahhed over it, and admired the little fold-down wooden bars that Ben and Derek had rigged on each shelf; they kept the books clamped firmly in place while the RV was moving, and could be moved down, out of the way, when it was parked.

There were also some very special shelves, separate from the others, for the books Melody didn't intend to sell. These shelves currently held Melody's forty or fifty most important books (cut down, with great agonizing, from her several hundred most important books) and, just as important, the small but growing collection of Gunnar's books, including The Story of Ferdinand and some workbooks for dyslexic students that they'd been working on together.

"With this, we'll be able to take our bookstore to towns across the country," Melody said, briskly shelving books from the mystery-novel box as she talked. "Towns that are too small to have ever had their own bookstore, and towns that used to have one that closed. We can go to farms and ranches and schools, nursing homes, Walmart parking lots—and big cities too, inner-city neighborhoods that don't have any bookstores, local fairs and festivals ... I can't wait."

"I'm really impressed," Tessa remarked, handing books to Melody to be shelved. "Some couples might've had a conflict if one wanted to travel and the other wanted to run a bookstore. You two just found a compromise."

"It certainly helps that I don't mind traveling too, as long as I've got my books. If Mom can travel with her music hoard on a digital player, why can't I take my books with me too?"

Tessa coughed something into her hand that sounded like "ebook reader."

"Hey! One small step at a time! I do have an ebook reader ... well, a few of them, actually ..."

"I know you have at least one, since it was what I gave you for Christmas last year."

"Oh hush. The point is ... baby steps." She inhaled deeply of the book smell mixed with the sharpness of newly finished wood from the just-installed bookshelves. "I'm a dragon. I need to be able to curl up with my hoard around me."

"Just your hoard?" Tessa asked, smiling, and both of them looked through the window of the RV at Gunnar, shoulders flexing under his T-shirt as he lowered another box of books to the stack outside the bookstore's back door.

"Okay, yes, I like to curl up with more than just books." Melody could feel her cheeks turning pink. "And sometimes we curl up and read books together. In bed."

"That definitely sounds like your idea of a perfect evening."

Melody cleared her throat and slipped another book into its slot on the shelf. "The point is, maybe someday an ebook reader will be enough for me, but for now, I have my traveling hoard and I have my mate, and that is enough." And Gunnar could travel; that was the best part. They'd finally gotten the legal paperwork cleared up, and he was a free man.

"I'm glad you're happy." Tessa hugged her friend, swinging the baby carrier to the side to avoid squishing the baby between them. "You'll have to write, of course. Send postcards. And definitely tell me when Ben and I can expect a new little niece or nephew."

"One thing at a time. You'll just have to deal with being Aunt Tessa to Gaby and Derek's kids for now, not to mention Mom to your own." Melody kissed the top of the baby's soft little head. "But you'll be the first to know, I promise."

"Are you coming back to the farm tonight?"

"Not sure," Melody said. "Any specific reason?"

"Just hoping we'll get to say goodbye before you leave."

Melody had to laugh. "We're not skipping town without saying goodbye, don't worry. I mean, look at all of this. We've still got a ways to go before we're ready to leave."

 

***

 

Later in the afternoon, Tessa was long gone back to the cabin up in the hills that she shared with Ben, and Melody walked around the now-echoing bookstore, retrieving books from dusty corners where they'd slipped down behind shelves or gotten kicked under chairs. She took down a notice for a music act that had played at the biker bar months ago.

They weren't quite done packing up the bookstore. There was still some work to go—a couple of days, at least, before it was empty and clean and awaiting its next tenants. But she'd already moved out in her head and her heart. Most of the books were safely tucked away in the RV or boxed to be moved to Derek and Gaby's farm, and she was already fantasizing about getting on the road.

"Penny for your thoughts." Gunnar slipped an arm around her from behind, and Melody sighed and leaned back against him.

"Just looking forward to our future. By the way, I think Tessa is planning on throwing a going-away party for us, just to warn you."

"What did she say?"

"It's not what she said, it's that the subtle hints are getting less subtle. She and Gaby have had their heads together a lot."

"At least if Gaby's involved, we know the food will be good." He nuzzled against her neck. "Once we get on the road, any thoughts on where we should go first?"

She turned her head to give him better access, smiling. Little shivers ran through her from her toes to the top of her head as he nuzzled at her nape. "What do you think about the seacoast?"

"You want to see the ocean?" he asked, kissing the side of her neck.

She tilted her head back to look up at him. "I've seen it already, though I'd like to see it again, but more than anything else, I want you to see the ocean. I think your bear deserves a chance to swim in real ocean waters, somewhere you don't have to worry about being seen ... don't you?"

His face was startled and open for a moment. He still wasn't used to people thinking about his feelings or taking his needs into account. Well ... she would just have to change that.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah ... I think I'd like that a lot."

A vision popped into her head of Gunnar shedding his clothes and slipping into the water at a deserted stretch of beach, with the setting sun turning his skin to gold. Melody smiled and turned around in his arms so she could lace her own arms around his neck. "Of course I might have a very tiny ulterior motive or two," she murmured against his lips. "Seeing how it's such a hardship watching you take your clothes off."

"A hardship, is it," he murmured, unbuttoning the top two buttons of her sensible blouse.

"Hmm. I think perhaps I should shut the door."

A little while later, they were lying on the floor, amid scattered books and discarded clothing, in a shaft of late-afternoon sun slanting through the window. "You know," Gunnar murmured, stroking her hair, "I think I'm going to miss this place. Or at least the good memories."

"We just need to make sure the new tenants don't find out what we've been doing on their floor. Or how many times we've done it."

Gunnar laughed softly and buried his face in her hair, and she curled into him, filled with a deep warm sense of relaxation and fulfillment. It was a satisfaction both internal and external, the physical release of good sex and the emotional wholeness of having her mate's arms around her, feeling her mate's breath against her skin.

Home, she now knew, wasn't a place. Home was in Gunnar's arms. Home was having love all around her and a few good books with her (and, okay, knowing the rest of her books were safely stored with Gaby; friends were a treasure, too).

Wherever they went, she thought, it didn't really matter, though she was looking forward to it. They could travel, or settle down; it would all be okay. Everything she wanted, everything she needed was right here with her.