The sign Ox was painting in the alley would hang over the 7th Avenue door. It simply read INK.

INK. What else could they call it? Books and tattoos. Tattoos and books. INK.

They were doing this, and Emmie asked herself every morning if she was making a horrible, awful mistake.

“It’s not too late to call it off,” Daisy said. “Then you can find a nice children’s retailer to work with while I convince Ox that the two of you are meant for each other.”

Daisy had hopped on the INK train and immediately hopped off when Emmie had told her about Ox’s condition.

“Don’t be ridiculous, and keep your voice down,” Emmie said. The shop was finally clean, the shelves were empty with all salvable stock boxed and organized, and Emmie was standing on a ladder, starting the new coat of vanilla-cream paint that would set off the dark oak bookshelves and the counters that Ethan and his dad had ordered.

“You and Ox would be great together,” Daisy hissed, glancing toward the back hallway that led to the alley. “I was thinking about setting you up. I was just waiting for him to break up with Ginger.”

“You are full of shit. He may be hot, but I am the opposite of his type.” Emmie started the paint and immediately let out a happy sigh. Everything was better with fresh paint. She’d cleaned out her old bedroom upstairs and painted it a fresh green that reminded her of the mountains. The bathroom was sky blue. The living room she was waiting to paint until Tayla moved south next month.

“He is a twenty-eight-year-old man,” Daisy said. “Trust me, he doesn’t know what type is good for him.”

“Good for him? What about me?”

“Trust me. That man would be very good for you. Or parts of you at least.”

Emmie rolled her eyes. “We are starting a business together. Not getting involved was a smart condition, and I agreed immediately because I am a grown-up and business is more important than my hormones.”

“And then you died a little inside,” Daisy said sadly. “Because you will linger alone, a poor village girl, slave to her virtue, never having felt the fire of passion in your too-short life.”

Emmie laughed so hard she snorted and almost smudged the woodwork. “Have you been watching telenovelas in the kitchen again?”

“I swear, Eddie works faster when they’re on in the background,” Daisy said. “I think I’m absorbing them subconsciously. Spider thinks you’re nuts.”

“For not hooking up with Ox? That seems like none of his business.”

“No, about putting a tattoo shop in your bookstore.”

Emmie spun around. “He told me he liked the idea!”

“He does. He just thinks you’re nuts.”

Emmie turned back to the wall. “Well, all you doubters can stuff it. Tayla did some research and tattoo shops combined with other businesses are cropping up all over the country. We’re just pushing Metlin to the cutting edge.”

“Because Metlin was just begging to be pushed to the edge.”

“I am determined to make this town cool,” Emmie said. “I may go broke in the process, but I’m going to try. And Ox is going to help me.”

“Help you what?” Ox walked down the hallway, unsnapping the air filter from his face. “Sign is painted. Looks good. Want me to start on the next one?”

Emmie bit her lip and nodded.

Ox held up a hand. “Are you sure?”

“We’re not getting rid of the old sign,” she said. “I need to let it go.”

Emmie had decided that with a new look and a new theme, they needed new signs. One for Main Street and one for 7th. But removing the Metlin Books sign that had hung over her family shop for generations was difficult. In the end, it had been Ox who had suggested cleaning up the old sign and hanging it inside over the built-in bookshelves. He’d already brought some of his grandfather’s old cattle brands and a few signs from his family’s ranch for his section of the shop. The Metlin Books sign tied in perfectly while giving space for the new branding outside.

“Let’s do it,” Emmie said. “Do you need the ladder?”

He nodded and Emmie climbed down, setting her paint roller in the tray. Together, they carried the ladder outside and steadied it as Ox climbed up with the electric screwdriver and started removing the brackets.

“Help you with what?” Ox said.

“What?”

“What was Daisy talking about when I walked inside? Was there something else you needed help with?”

Emmie bit her tongue. Her eyes had been stuck on the edge of skin peeking from Ox’s shirt, and her very first thought would probably have made Daisy very, very happy. While also violating workplace sexual harassment standards. Yes, Mr. Oxford, I need some help taking off your shirt so I can see what delicious thing you have inked on your back.

“I need help making Metlin cool.”

He turned and smiled at her, his eyes squinting in the afternoon sun. “Silly Emmie. Didn’t you know? Metlin is already cool.”

“When did that happen?”

“When you and I decided to start this shop.”

She smiled and Ox winked at her before he turned back to the sign.

Emmie’s eyes landed on his ass. She forced them away because she was smart and focused. Business, not hormones.

Daisy was holding up a sign inside the shop. Lingering alone. A slave to your virtue.

Emmie held up her hand and showed Daisy a different kind of sign.

The first confrontation with Ginger wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Ox had predicted, though it left Emmie rattled in completely unexpected ways.

Emmie was kneeling in the children’s book section, painting the display platforms Ethan had built to go under the Main Street windows. She’d decided the back of the platforms could be turned into chalkboards since the children’s section faced the Main Street windows. The new platforms also protected the original trim from crayons and chalk.

Emmie was painting the last side when she saw Ginger walking across the street from Bombshell.

“Oh shit.” Emmie glanced over to the parking on 7th, but Ox’s truck was nowhere in sight. He was helping at the ranch that morning.

Ginger pushed open the door and walked in, her hair perfectly coiffed and her makeup precise. Ginger was every inch the glamour girl. She totally sold her shop’s name. She looked like the bombshell painted on the window. In fact, she’d probably been the model.

“Hey.” Emmie cleared her throat. “Can I help you?”

Ginger spun around, her assessing gaze raking over Emmie, who was wearing work jeans and an old flannel. Her hair was up in a bun on top of her head and likely dotted with paint.

Ginger’s gaze moved quickly from assessing to patronizing. “Look at you. You’re a mess.”

Emmie forced a tight smile to her lips. “Well, that’s generally what happens when you paint.”

Ginger strolled around the shop, which was beginning to take shape. The furniture had come, a mix of the old couch from Daisy’s aunt and some vintage wingback chairs Emmie had collected in San Francisco. Paired with a midcentury coffee table and a Persian rug Emmie had stolen from upstairs, the shop was beginning to look eclectic, bohemian, and cozy, exactly the kind of place customers would want to linger and hang out while they drank coffee and chatted about book recommendations.

It was not coiffed, precise, or glamorous, however.

“Well, this is… interesting,” Ginger said, staring at Ox’s side. “Letting the country boy out, I see.”

Emmie stood and set her paintbrush down. “Can I help you? We’re not open yet. Ox isn’t here. But if you want to leave him a message, there’s a notepad on the counter over there.”

Ginger spun and smiled at her. “No message for him. He’s a handsome one, isn’t he?”

Emmie forced herself to keep smiling. “I suppose so. But we’re business partners; it’s not personal.”

“Oh.” Ginger cocked her head. “I guess you wouldn’t be, would you?”

Bitch. “If you don’t have a message for Ox—”

“He at his mom’s this morning?”

Emmie didn’t want to tell this woman anything, so she just stood there with a hand on her hip, trying for an expression that said bored and impatient without being rude.

“Miles Oxford.” Ginger ran a finger along his counter, her mouth curling around Ox’s name. “So handsome. So sexy. So… devoted.” Her voice fell on the last word. “He’ll always pick them over you, by the way. You know that, right? I hope you’re not too invested in this little business because at some point they will make him choose, and he will choose them.”

The punch landed exactly as Ginger had intended. Emmie felt sick to her stomach. She had invested everything in the shop, and she thought she had a partner as dedicated as she was. Ox had talked about his family—his mom, sister, and niece—with affection, but there’d been no indication that they depended on him. He always seemed like his own man.

But what did Emmie know? Did she know Miles Oxford as well as his ex-girlfriend who’d been with him for over a year? She knew Ginger was trying to unnerve her, but how much of what she said was true? Emmie had no idea.

If Ox abandoned INK, she’d have spent a large percentage of her renovation money on a part of the shop she had no way of using. She’d be up shit creek. She needed him to pay rent and bring in business. She needed him to make her vision work.

“Well,” Ginger said. “This has been informative. Nice to meet you…”

“Emmie,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Emmie.” Ginger smiled, all bubbles and sweetness. “Isn’t that cute? Emmie. Like a little doll.” She waved over her shoulder as she sauntered out the door and across the street.

No, her first meeting with Ginger was not at all what Emmie had expected.