Emmie Elliot lasted three breaths in the old bookshop, her measured exhalations stirring dust motes that danced in the afternoon light streaming in from the large display windows that looked over Main Street. She backed out the front door and turned her back on Metlin Books, staring at the lazy midday traffic driving south on 7th Avenue. Then she bent over, braced her hands on her knees, and let her auburn hair fall, shielding her face from the afternoon sun.

Daisy walked out of the corner shop and came to stand beside her. “What’s going on? You’re even paler than usual.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Can’t do what?”

Emmie straightened. “I can’t sell the shop.”

Daisy’s eyes went wide. “I thought you and your gran—”

“Yeah.” Emmie took a deep breath, clearing the dust from her lungs. “I know.”

What are you doing, Emmie?

She had no idea.

She’d spent her whole life trying to get away from this town. The bookstore was her grandmother’s. Sure, she’d grown up in it, and sure, she worked in a bookstore in San Francisco, but that was just temporary. She was just doing that until something happened. Something bigger. More important. More… something.

Emmie was twenty-seven and still waiting for something big to happen. She had a job she tolerated, an apartment she loved. No husband, no boyfriend, a mother she barely spoke to. She didn’t even have a cat.

Her assets in the world consisted of a newish car, a very small inheritance from her grandma Betsy, a circle of carefully chosen friends, and a three-unit retail building on the corner of Main Street and 7th Avenue, right in the heart of Metlin, a sleepy town in the middle of Central California.

She and her grandmother had talked about it a year ago, when they knew the cancer wasn’t going into remission. Emmie was supposed to sell the building and use the proceeds as a nest egg for…

They’d never really talked about that part.

“What’s going on, Em? What are you thinking?” Daisy frowned and twisted a lock of dark wavy hair back in the bun on top of her head. It was afternoon, but she was still wearing her apron from baking that morning. With her tan skin, dark eyes, and retro apron, Daisy looked like an updated Latina June Cleaver if you didn’t notice the tattoos at her wrists.

Her friend Tayla had offered to accompany her from San Francisco, but Emmie had refused. Emmie was taking a full two weeks off work from Bay City Books, but Tayla worked at a big accounting firm and couldn’t afford to take the time off. She’d never been to Metlin and had no desire to visit. Tayla was a city girl to her bones.

It’s fine, Emmie had told her. It’s not like I have any reason to stay. My mom cleaned out my grandma’s apartment. I’ll visit Daisy and Spider, sign papers to put the place on the market, and leave.

Emmie straightened her blouse and played with the buttons on the sleeve of her cardigan. She wasn’t dressed for Metlin; she was dressed for an upscale bookshop in Union Square. If anyone from her childhood were to pass by, they would have a hard time putting Emmie’s sleek hair and tidy, professional appearance together with the rumpled girl who’d spent most of her life hiding behind a book.

She didn’t belong in Metlin anymore. She never had. She’d always wanted a bigger life. A more important life around people who liked music and art and travel, not farmers and mechanics and ranchers.

Daisy said, “I know you must have sentimental attachment to the building, but I’m not sure you realize—”

“How bad it was?” Emmie picked at a thread on one of her buttons, twisting it between her thumb and forefinger. “I know how bad it was. Grandma was completely up-front with me.”

Emmie had no illusions about the state of Metlin Books. The shop was barely hanging on. The only thing her grandma’d had going for her was that she owned the building, the apartment above it, and rented to two successful neighbors, a family hardware business and Café Maya, Daisy’s restaurant.

She walked over and sat on the cast-iron bench in front of the bookstore windows, kicking at the doggie water dish chained to the bench. The dish that had remained dry since her grandmother had passed six months before. “Bookstores are not a good bet.”

“Not generally, no.”

“She told me not to be noble.” Emmie eyed the water dish again. Then she took the water bottle out of her purse and dumped the contents in the bowl. “We had a plan. Sell the shop with provisions for you and Ethan—”

“Leave me and Ethan out of it,” Daisy said. “I loved your grandma, but I think I can speak for Ethan—”

“Speak for me how?” Ethan Vasquez, owner of Main Street Hardware, set down the A-frame sign advertising daily deals and walked toward Daisy and Emmie. “Em, you all right?”

Daisy kept talking. “We both loved Betsy, but this is your life and inheritance, so don’t worry about us.”

“What’s going on?” Ethan and Daisy hovered over her.

Daisy straightened. “Emmie’s not sure about selling the shop.”

“Great!”

“No,” Daisy said. “Not great. This was not the plan.”

And all of Emmie’s friends knew how much Emmie liked a plan. She was famous for them. Emmie would plan a night out three days in advance and email a detailed schedule to everyone “so they were on the same page.” She didn’t do spontaneous. The idea of returning to Metlin permanently was giving her heart palpitations.

You’re waiting, a little voice in her head whispered. What are you waiting for?

Ethan crossed his arms over his barrel chest and let out a long breath. “You know I can’t be unbiased on this one.”

“So stay out of it.”

“I am staying out of it.” He scratched his beard thoughtfully. “That’s why I’m reminding her I can’t be unbiased.”

Emmie looked up and took a deep breath. “Don’t be unbiased. I want your opinion.”

“A new owner is likely to kick me and Dad out,” he said. “Just when I’m turning things around. You know that. Our shop is huge, and space on Main Street is at a premium these days. A new owner would likely split our store in half and make double what we’re paying now. So of course I want you to stay.” He crouched down. “Metlin’s different, Emmie. It’s not the same town you left.”

“That I can agree with,” Daisy said.

“And I know the store needs work,” Ethan continued, “but me and my dad would help you out. Anything you need. We’re free labor after all the favors Betsy did for us over the years. You know that, right?”

Ethan’s big brown eyes pleaded with her. Emmie looked past him to the new paint on his store, the fresh awning, the racks of vegetable starts for backyard gardens. Main Street Hardware had been flailing until Ethan came back from college four years ago and revamped his family business.

Now, instead of depending on the dwindling business of the retirement crowd, Main Street Hardware appealed to young do-it-yourselfers in their late twenties like Ethan and his buddies who were buying the old Craftsman cottages south of downtown and fixing them up. Ethan led workshops on container gardening, and his dad taught plasterwork and hardwood-floor-refinishing courses.

Beyond the hardware store, Café Maya bustled with midday customers. It was a narrow café and bakery started by Daisy’s grandmother Maya, who’d come from Oaxaca and started the restaurant with determination and a treasure trove of recipes. Daisy’s mother had modernized the menu, and Daisy had added a bakery. Café Maya was a Metlin institution and business had remained solid.

Beyond Emmie’s building, stretching west, sat the rest of downtown. Sitting at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Metlin had never been big enough to attract attention from any of the big chains. It had only ever had one bookstore, Metlin Books. And for as long as anyone could remember, it had been run by the Elliot family. Emmie’s great-grandfather had bought the building and started a book and toy store. Eventually the toys left and her grandmother had focused on the books. Emmie’s mom, despite her bookish roots, had never been a reader and lived an itinerant life as a working musician. She was happy, but Metlin wasn’t her home.

But for Emmie—growing up in the fishbowl of Metlin—the bookshop had been her home, her refuge, and the gateway to a much larger world.

“I have an apartment in San Francisco,” she said quietly. “Friends. A life. A job.”

Ethan asked, “Aren’t you working in a bookstore up there?”

“Yeah.”

He frowned. “But you own a bookstore here. Why on earth would you live in San Francisco, pay God knows what in rent, and get paid to work at someone else’s business when you could own your own business here doing exactly the same thing?”

Daisy said, “Back off.”

“She knows I’m right.” He stood and pointed at Emmie. “You know I’m right.”

Emmie’s stayed silent. She didn’t deal with confrontation well, but Ethan wasn’t entirely wrong. How many times had she tried to change something at the bookstore she worked at in the city, only to be told “that wasn’t the way things were done” at Bay City Books?

Still, she hesitated. “I manage a store. I don’t know if I could run a business. My grandma wasn’t like your dad. She didn’t give me a lot of responsibility in the shop. I know nothing about bookkeeping or—”

“You’d figure it out,” he said. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. You helped me with my place when I was drowning.”

She shrugged. “You would have come up with those ideas on your own with enough time.”

“I doubt it. You have a great brain for marketing. You know what people like now. How to put everything online. How to find the right customers.”

Daisy shook her head. “Books are a tough business, Ethan. I know exactly how much Betsy was making with this place, and rent from your place and my café was the only thing paying her bills. Competing with online retailers—”

“Can’t be any tougher than competing with the megamart hardware stores,” Ethan said. “Emmie knows—”

“Emmie knows”—Emmie stood and cut them both off—“she needs to spend some time thinking about this.”

Daisy’s mouth fought off a smile. “Emmie also knows she needs to stop talking in third person, right? Because it’s obnoxious.”

“Whatever you do,” Ethan said, “don’t talk to Asshole Adrian until you’ve made up your mind.”

Emmie frowned. “Adrian? Adrian from high school?”

“Yeah, Adrian Saroyan. He’s in real estate now. And he’s an asshole.”

Daisy tried to shove Ethan away. “Ignore him. You know he never liked Adrian.”

“Nobody likes Adrian.” Ethan let Daisy shove him. “You were the only one who liked him, Em.”

“Me and the female half of my high school class.” Emmie watched Daisy—a foot shorter than Ethan—shove the big man back to his shop.

Ethan repositioned his sign. “He’s a dipshit and an asshole.”

Daisy said, “He stole your girlfriend; that’s the only reason you hate him.”

“That’s not the only reason,” Ethan muttered. “Just one of them.”

Emmie left them bickering and walked back into the bookshop. She stood in the mosaic-tiled entryway and examined it with critical eyes.

Pros: She owned it, free and clear. It had a recognizable name and a good location. It was a beautiful space with huge built-in shelves and custom woodwork her giant bookstore in San Francisco tried to imitate but never really could. Metlin Books had history. Charm. And a two-bedroom apartment over the shop. If she lived here, she would have no commute and no rent.

Cons: Profits under her grandmother had been pretty much zero. The only real income was from renting the rest of the building, and that just paid the bills. The bookshop was a ton of work with a very small profit margin. She’d be solely responsible for it. There would be no vacation days accrued. No retirement plan. No one else paying the bills. No one to call in sick to.

But it’s mine.

Yes, it was. Emmie walked around the shop, rifling through the stacks of used books her grandmother had collected. Most of the new inventory was so old she could never sell it at cover price. She’d be starting over.

Betsy had stocked lots of romances, but nothing modern. There was a nice stack of vintage Harlequins she might be able to sell online to a collector. She needed far more new names. Romance ran bookstores. She’d have to get an updated selection and figure out how to buy from self-published authors who made up so many of the new writers these days. It was something she’d pushed for at Bay City, but the owners were complete snobs about self-publishing.

The shop had a good mystery section, but it leaned toward cozies. Her grandmother hadn’t cared for thrillers or any dark psychology.

Hardly any literary fiction or poetry, but in Metlin that was probably a safe call.

Nonfiction was in dire need of updating. Judging from the traffic at Ethan’s store, gardening manuals and idea books would probably sell well, as would interior design and home-improvement stuff.

With growing tourist traffic from the national park, local history and outdoor guides could be a winner.

Emmie wandered across the shop and looked out the windows just as a trio of motorcycles revved their engines at the intersection of 7th and Main. Emmie watched two guys in an animated discussion in front of the custom-car-upholstery shop and listened to the buzz of music and voices from Ice House Brews that sat catty-corner to Metlin Books at the intersection. Directly across from her on Main was Bombshell Tattoos. Beyond it, a specialty cigar and smoking club. A couple with vividly dyed hair and heavy ink left the tattoo shop hand in hand and walked past the T-shirt shop on Main headed toward Top Shelf Comics and Games.

What books would that couple read? How about the guys in front of the car shop? Graphic novels? Steampunk? Auto history?

Emmie watched from behind her windows as a trio of women dragged a giant mirror from one of the antique shops farther down 7th, laughing as they tried to fit it in the back of a battered pickup truck. Decorating books. DIY manuals.

Across the street, a graffiti-style mural decorated the front of an art-supply store next to an auto-body shop. Art history books? Political science?

Ethan was right. Metlin was changing. The industrial and the traditional were colliding and creating something odd and new and more than a little cool. And Emmie realized the bookshop—her bookshop—was sitting right in the middle of it all.

Maybe she hadn’t belonged in the old Metlin, but times changed. Towns changed. People changed.

This was not in the plan, her logical side said.

Maybe the plan needs to change.

Emmie pulled out her phone. Her finger shook as she touched Tayla’s number and waited for her best friend to pick up.

“Hey!” she answered. “Did you get everything signed? How’s Daisy?”

Emmie took a deep breath, stirring the dust again. “I have an idea. And it might be crazy or it might be amazing.”

“If it’s a really good idea, it’ll be both. And it might also involve handcuffs or Silly String.”

She blinked. “Silly String?”

“Do you really want to know? You sound weird.”

“I didn’t sign any papers to sell the shop.”

“Okay…?”

“I think you should quit your job, move down to Metlin with me, and help me reopen the bookshop.”

Tayla didn’t say a word.

Emmie squeezed her eyes shut. “I know it sounds nuts, but you can have free rent.”

Her best friend remained silent.

“Tayla, please say something.”

“Maybe it’s because I caught one of the senior partners staring at my boobs again today, but I am actually considering this.”

Emmie tried not to jump up and down with excitement.

“That’s not a yes. Or a no,” Tayla said. “But… maybe?”

“I’ll take maybe.”

“Tell you what, it’s Friday. I’ll catch the train tomorrow morning,” Tayla said. “I can’t guarantee anything, but I want to see this hick town you claim to hate but now suddenly want me to move to.”

“I’ll meet you at the station.”

“Is this a result of valley fever?” Tayla asked. “I’ve read about that, you know.”

“I don’t have valley fever.”

“Isn’t that something someone with valley fever would say?”

Emmie squeezed her eyes shut. “Tayla, I can’t explain it. I just think it might be awesome. Or nuts. But you know how you were getting on my case last month for always being cautious and never taking chances?”

“Yep.”

“This…” Emmie turned around in the empty shop. “This is a chance.”