Chapter One
WEAR THIS AND YOU’LL FIND HIM:
THE MAN OF YOUR DREAMS.
Jane Finch stopped short. She was on her way to work, but the sign in the window of one of her favorite shops had caught her eye.
Adore was a boutique that sold vintage clothing as well as modern designs. This particular display featured a blue silk dress on a mannequin, with the sign hanging above it.
Wear this and find the man of your dreams? That was some pretty bold advertising. What if you bought the dress and didn’t meet your dream man? Would you be entitled to return it?
It was a sunny October morning: perfect weather for window-shopping in downtown Manhattan. Jane stepped out of the bustle of pedestrian traffic and gave the display a closer look.
The dress was made of soft, glossy, dark blue silk. It was tea length, with a scalloped neckline and three-quarter sleeves. The sleeves were puffed between the shoulder and the elbow, giving the dress a subtle Edwardian feel.
It was beautiful.
Beautiful and impractical. When would she ever wear something like that? She spent most of her time working in the bookstore she owned, and her last date had been three months ago. When she went out with friends, it was to the movies or a coffee shop, not to opera nights or cocktail parties.
The dress was gorgeous, but it didn’t go with her lifestyle, and it was bound to be out of her price range. She might as well gaze longingly through the window at Tiffany’s.
Come on, Jane. It wouldn’t hurt to try it on.
That was the voice of temptation, and she almost gave in to it. But she had to open the Bookworm Turns, and on her way there, she had a novel to outline. That didn’t leave time to try on beautiful clothes she’d never buy.
But as she continued down the sidewalk, it was hard to go back to the hard-boiled detective story she’d been plotting. Instead, she found herself revisiting a different kind of tale—the kind she’d told herself as a teenager.
Our heroine didn’t know that today would be different. Today she would meet the man she’d convinced herself didn’t exist. The hero she’d always dreamed of.
Today, she would fall in love.
She grinned to herself. Maybe she should buy the dress after all. Then she could sit down on a park bench somewhere, gaze wistfully off into the distance, and wait for romance to strike like lightning.
Caught up in her imagination, she didn’t notice the crosswalk signal change until she was bumped by an irritated pedestrian.
“Oops. Sorry,” she said, but the suit-clad businessman had already brushed past.
Once again keeping pace with the people around her, Jane set romance aside and returned to her thriller, murmuring the words of an opening paragraph under her breath.
“‘Before the day was over, Detective Mack Connor would survive two shoot-outs, a bombing, an attempted poisoning, and—’ Okay, that might be too much for the first sentence.”
Mulling over other possibilities, Jane almost walked past her store.
“Jane?”
She came back to earth, blinked, and saw one of her best customers waiting at the door.
“Alicia! Have you been here long? What time is it?”
“Well . . .”
Jane pulled out her phone and checked the screen.
“Oh my gosh, it’s ten fifteen. I’m so sorry. I was thinking about something on the subway and missed my stop, so I had to walk a few extra blocks. Then I got distracted by a store window.” She fished her keys out of her quilted purse and unlocked the door. “You’re here for the new Crochet Club mystery, right? I’ll give you the loyal-customer-waiting-for-the-flaky-bookstore-owner discount.”
The October breeze picked up, ruffling Alicia’s short gray hair. “Nope, I’ll pay full price. There’s no store in this neighborhood I’d rather give my money to than yours. And you’re not flaky. You’re just busy having visions.”
The breeze was strong enough now to tease at Jane’s long brown braid, and she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“It’s sweet of you to put it like that,” Jane said as she opened the door and gestured for Alicia to precede her. “I wish you could convince my family that it’s visions and not flakiness that makes me late for holiday dinners.”
Once inside her beloved store, Jane felt the ripple of pleasure that always went through her in the presence of books. New titles to the left, used to the right, and everywhere the scent of paper and leather bindings and the wood polish she used on the old cherry bookshelves.
“It’s not sweet—it’s accurate,” Alicia said. “Although I will admit, I’ve been waiting for you to fall through an open manhole ever since I’ve known you. What were you thinking about that made you miss your subway stop?”
Jane went over to the windows and raised the blinds, blinking in the brilliant sunlight that streamed through the glass.
“I was plotting a thriller. A hard-boiled detective story.”
“Do you think you’ll actually write this one?”
Jane grinned as she went toward the cash register. “I hope so. But thinking it out is the fun part.”
“With an imagination like yours, I’ll never understand why you waste it on murders and mayhem. Why don’t you dream up the perfect boyfriend?”
Jane went behind the counter to the shelf of special orders and customer holds. It took only a moment to find Alicia’s.
“I gave that up in high school,” she said, sliding the cozy mystery novel across the counter. “The gap between imagination and reality was way too depressing.”
Alicia chuckled as she perused the back of the book. “I can understand that. But you’re single these days, aren’t you? As a single lady myself, I can tell you what I think about late at night after I’ve been watching Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice.” She glanced up from the book. “Now, if you were going to imagine the perfect man for yourself, what would he be like?”
The perfect man.
What Jane had told Alicia was true: she’d given up on the whole imaginary boyfriend thing years ago. She’d indulged her creativity plenty in high school, and the only result had been severe disappointment in real-life guys.
But now, propping her elbow on the counter and resting her chin in her hand, she remembered the sign in the shop window.
The man of your dreams.
“At least tell me what he looks like,” Alicia went on, laying the book on the counter and reaching for her wallet. “You describe your ideal man, and I’ll describe mine.”
What would her ideal man look like these days? Now that she was twenty-seven and not seventeen?
“Dark-haired,” she said, straightening up and running Alicia’s credit card. “The best heroes are always dark-haired.”
“Eyes?”
“Gray. A steely gray that belies his kind heart. A handsome, rugged face, saved from being too perfect by a nose that has been broken at least once—doing something heroic, of course. Getting into a bar fight to defend a woman’s honor, rescuing a kidnapped toddler, rushing into the street to save a dog from being run over. That sort of thing.” She handed Alicia her receipt. “But he’s intelligent, too. And he loves to read. Manly stuff like Twain and Kipling, but he’ll be open to Jane Austen after I tell him how awesome she is.”
“Mmmm, perfect. I’m in love already.”
Jane slid Alicia’s purchase into a plastic bag. “Okay, now you. Colin Firth, I presume?”
Alicia’s eyes widened as she caught sight of something through the store window. “I was about to say yes, but I’ve just been reminded that there’s one type of hero I like even better than Mr. Darcy.”
Jane turned her head, but a bookcase blocked her line of sight.
“What type?”
“Cowboy. Oh my goodness, I think he’s coming in here.”
A cowboy in Manhattan? Coming into her bookstore?
A little tingle ran down her spine. Could it be—?
No, Caleb and her sister were still away. Weren’t they? But then who—
The bell chimed as the door opened.
It was him. Caleb Bryce.
He paused for a moment inside the door, letting his eyes adjust after the bright October sunlight outside. Then he came toward the register where Jane and Alicia were standing, both women watching his approach.
His face was shadowed by his old brown felt cowboy hat, but Jane could see his mouth—and the familiar half grin that tipped up one corner.
It was easier to imagine Caleb riding a horse than strolling through a Manhattan bookstore. Since he’d grown up on a Colorado ranch and owned a company that led wilderness treks around the world, that made a certain amount of sense.
It had been a month since Jane had last seen Caleb, right before he and Samantha had left for a trip to the Canadian Rockies. Jane hadn’t realized they were back.
Caleb Bryce was many things. A wilderness expert, her sister’s business partner, and an old friend who was like a brother to her.
But there was one thing he most definitely was not.
Jane’s ideal man.
Her ideal man wouldn’t tease her for being a bookworm who didn’t play sports or go camping. Her ideal man wouldn’t criticize her for living in her imagination, as he put it, and caring more about dreams than reality. Her ideal man wouldn’t badger her to go with him and Samantha on one of their hiking expeditions when he knew she was afraid of heights, bears, spiders, landslides, getting lost in the woods, and dying of cold and exposure on a mountainside.
Even in the looks department Caleb didn’t quite fit the bill. His hair was light brown, not dark, and his eyes were a muddy and uninspiring hazel.
Okay, so those eyes did have a lot of humor and intelligence behind them . . . but they turned mocking and derisive much too often. And yes, his face was handsome . . . but his nose had never been broken. That, along with the cleft in his chin, made his features a little too perfect.
It was harder to find fault with his body. He was tall and strong and powerful, which definitely made for hero material.
Not that she was noticing. Caleb was the big brother she’d never had, and thoughts about his body were out-of-bounds.
It would help if his clothes didn’t draw attention to his lean, powerful musculature. His jeans, old and worn, hung low on his narrow hips. His denim shirt, also worn, stretched tight across his broad shoulders.
Everything about him screamed testosterone.
Too much testosterone for her ideal man. Her hero would be masculine, of course . . . but he would also be sensitive. A bookworm, like her. Not a man who scoffed at the very idea of reading, like Caleb. And he—
Caleb stopped next to Alicia, returning the older woman’s smile before turning to Jane. When she didn’t say anything right away, he reached across the counter and tugged at her braid.
“Hey there, darlin’,” he said. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
The brush of Caleb’s fingers made heat crawl up the back of her neck.
“Hello,” she said almost grudgingly, knowing she didn’t sound particularly happy to see him. Better that than sounding too happy, though. Caleb didn’t need any help in the ego department.
“Well, I guess I’ll go home and read my new book,” Alicia said, her expression telling Jane she could expect a quiz about Caleb the next time she came in. “But before I go, young man, I don’t suppose you’d care to do a favor for an old woman?”
Caleb grinned at her. “I will if I can find one. I only see young ladies in here.”
“Very gallant,” Alicia said, smiling up at him.
Caleb cocked his head to the side. “What’s the favor, ma’am?”
Her smile widened. “That was it. I wanted to hear you call me ma’am. Ideally while tipping your hat, but that’ll do.”
Caleb chuckled, and then he moved to get ahead of Alicia as she headed for the door. He pulled it open and held it for her, and as she passed him, he tipped his hat. “Have a good day, ma’am.”
Jane shook her head at him as he came back toward her.
“Charming my customers? Really?”
“I’ll always do a favor for a lady,” he said, reaching out to tug her braid again. “Even you, pipsqueak.”
She hated that nickname. Among other things, it reminded her that Samantha was the statuesque, beautiful older sister while she’d been dubbed Plain Jane by Sam’s first boyfriend.
“Don’t do that,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound like an easily goaded little sister.
“Do what? This?”
Caleb tugged at her hair again before taking a step back and appraising her lazily. “You know, you are a grown-ass woman. Maybe it’s time to lose the braid.”
“I don’t need grooming advice from you, thanks all the same. But while we’re on the subject, you know this is New York City, right? We’re not out on the prairie. You don’t have to dress like an ad for cowboy cologne.”
Caleb swept off his hat and bowed, and her lips twitched in spite of herself.
His teasing could definitely be annoying. But as he straightened up and grinned at her, she knew a part of her enjoyed their verbal sparring.
“Whatever you say, ma’am.” He tossed the hat toward the shelf behind her, and of course it landed perfectly. “Now, may I ask for some assistance? You’ve got a paying customer here.”
A lock of his too-long brown hair fell across his forehead. Without his hat shadowing them, his hazel eyes seemed greener, especially against his tanned and weather-toughened skin.
She focused on his words. “You, a customer? Since when do you buy books?”
“Since your sister’s got a birthday coming up.”
Jane raised an eyebrow. “Sam’s birthday isn’t for two weeks. I think you’ve got time. Also, she doesn’t read.”
“Yeah, but you do.”
She looked at Caleb suspiciously. “How is that relevant?”
“You’ll see. Now point me toward your travel section, please.”
Caleb grinned to himself as he followed Jane through the labyrinth of bookcases. He was determined, this time, to succeed in his years-long effort to get Jane’s nose out of her books and her head out of the clouds, and to get her away from the city and into the great outdoors. He hadn’t yet come close to accomplishing that goal, but persistence was his middle name.
Caleb had a brother but no sisters—at least, not until he’d met Jane and Samantha Finch.
Samantha was like his twin. They had the same interests and skills, and they meshed perfectly as business partners. Jane, on the other hand, was the kid sister he had nothing in common with, the one he loved to tease, the one who—
His thoughts stuttered to a halt.
Jane had knocked a book from a table display as she brushed past it, and now she was bending over to pick it up.
In the instant before he forced himself to look away, that image of Jane was burned into his brain. Her curving hips. The bare skin of her lower back when her navy-blue shirt rode up. The incurve of her spine, creating a dimple above the waistband of her jeans. Her perfect butt.
“Caleb?”
Get it together.
He took a deep breath and focused on Jane again.
They were near one of the store windows, and a shaft of sunlight picked out strands of gold in her brown hair. Her skin glowed. When she blinked, the shadows of her long lashes were visible on her cheekbones, behind the lenses of her tortoiseshell glasses.
“Caleb?” she asked again, frowning a little.
“What?” he asked, his voice harsher than he’d intended. What the hell had she said, anyway?
“I said, here’s the travel section. Now tell me. How is the fact that I read relevant to my sister’s birthday?”
Samantha’s birthday. Right.
He cleared his throat. “You’ll see.” He gestured toward the door, where two women were just coming in. “Go ahead and help your other customers. I know what I’m looking for.”
By the time he found the titles he wanted, he was feeling back to normal. Jane was and would always be a friend to him. Period.
There were several customers in the store now, but they were all browsing and no one was at the register. He strolled over to Jane and laid his two selections on the counter.
“I’ll take these, Madame Bookseller.”
Jane looked down at the two titles. “The Appalachian Trail in New York? Maybe. But The Beginner’s Guide to Backpacking? That’s the worst birthday present ever. Samantha’s not a beginner. She knows more than you do.”
He grinned at her. “You’ll never get me to admit that. And anyway, the book’s not for Sam. It’s for you.”
Jane’s eyes widened. Then, after a moment, they narrowed.
“No way. If you’re trying to lure me out into the hinterlands, you can just—”
Caleb rested his forearms on the counter and leaned toward her. “Come on,” he said. “Sam’s only going to turn thirty once. You know there’s no present she’d love more than a hiking trip for the three of us. Just a few days, maybe a week. Not Mount Everest or the Alps or the Rockies. All we have to do is drive north for an hour and a half, and we’ll hit the Appalachian Trail. We won’t even have to leave the state.”
She started to answer, but then her eyes shifted to someone behind him.
“I haven’t finished browsing yet,” a male voice said, “but may I leave these here while I do?”
“Of course,” Jane said after a moment. She sounded almost startled, and Caleb turned to get a look at the customer.
He was too late. All he saw was the man’s back as he disappeared into the maze of books.
He turned back to Jane. “On my honor, I promise to protect you from spiders, bears, and avalanches.”
Jane was focused on him again. Her eyes were big and dark blue, and her long lashes made them seem even bigger. “How would you protect me from an avalanche? You can’t stop an avalanche.”
“There won’t be one, so it won’t come up.”
“How do you know there won’t be one?”
“Because an avalanche is the rapid flow of snow and ice down a sloping surface. There won’t be any snow when we go.”
“Hmm.”
Caleb loved to argue with Jane. It was one of his favorite things to do when he came to the city between wilderness trips, because he could always needle her into a response. Now, though, she seemed a little distracted. When she looked at something over his shoulder for the third time, he turned his head.
It was the man who’d come up behind him a moment ago. He was standing about twenty feet away, gazing at the book in his hand the way Caleb looked at a rib-eye steak.
“What’s up with that guy? You keep staring at him.” Caleb leaned toward Jane and lowered his voice a little. “Think he’s a shoplifter?”
“Don’t be silly.” She hesitated. “He just reminds me of someone I was thinking about this morning.”
“Reminds you of someone? Who?”
Jane took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“My ideal man.”