comes with the territory.”
“Believe it or not, Mika used to be afraid of everyone. I’m not sure what changed, but she loves meeting new people now.” She held her hand out to shake. “I'm Willow, by the way. And welcome to my shop.”
“I’m Lily,” I said, shaking her hand. “I’m actually here for my grandfather. He broke his arm and he’s in a lot of pain. The pain relievers that he currently has don’t seem to be working. Do you have anything that could help him?”
“I actually have a few things.” She turned and grabbed two bottles off the shelf behind me and placed them on the counter. She pointed to the smaller bottle. “This one he will only need to take twice a day by mouth. This one he will use when the cast comes off. It’s an oil that he can rub into the muscles to loosen them up.”
“Thank you so…” I glanced down at her feet at sudden movement, only to find the enormous hulking dog coming at me. I jumped back, pressing my palm over my suddenly rapid-beating heart. She’s just a dog; she’s trying to be friendly. Her little nub of a tail was waving back and forth, no matter how big and terrifying she was.
Strangest of all, the dog had a book in her mouth.
She suddenly dropped the book, just as Willow leaned over the counter to get a look.
The dog dropped the book at my feet, then took a few steps back and sat down.
I’m not keen on dog slobber, but I bent and picked up the book, placing it on the counter. The bright cover drew my gaze, but not in a good way; four guys surrounded one girl, and they seemed to be wearing… flower underwear. What a weird book. Love Blooms blossomed across the front of the cover.
“Ignore the cover. I know it’s cringe-worthy, but the rest of the book will be worth it. It’s Mika’s gift to you.”
Maybe the dog felt bad for scaring me—stranger things were possible in Silver Springs—and I should take it to be polite. Still, it had been years since I read a cheesy romance.
Willow giggled. “Trust me, I felt the same way when I was first gifted the book. Just give it a chance and then promise me you’ll come back and we can discuss it over coffee.”
“Okay,” I said, slipping the book into my purse and pulling out my wallet to pay as she began to punch numbers into the register. “Never look a gift dog in the mouth, right?”
Mika leaned against my legs as I checked out, and I smiled, reaching down tentatively to pat her between the ears.
Bad things are only supposed to come in threes, but as I was driving home, my engine started to sputter.
“No,” I groaned, pulling over to the side of the road just before it died entirely. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Especially when ice cream had been on sale. I had four half-gallons that were probably already melting on my passenger seat. I put my forehead down on the steering wheel.
I called AAA, then leaned back in my seat, waiting for a tow. I pulled one of my shopping bags over and cracked open the top of a carton to find my ice cream looking concernedly wet.
With a groan, I set the ice cream on the dashboard and searched through my car for a spoon. Then I adjusted my expectations and searched for something I could use as a spoon.
As I was rummaging through my purse, I found the copy of Love Blooms that Willow had given me. I pulled the romance novel out of my purse and shrugged my shoulders. I had time to kill—maybe it was time to explore the next evolution of romance novels.
I read a stack of romance novels one boring summer when I was seventeen with my best friend Lupine. We used to make a little extra pocket change cleaning houses. One sweet little grandmother had a huge collection of cheesy but highly erotic paperbacks, and she sent us off to Goodwill with two big boxes of them.
But Lupe and I never made it to Goodwill. We read through each of them that summer, texting each other when we reached the obligatory spanking scene in that particular line of romances. Spanking on p 74—she slapped him during an argument and we all know how THAT ends.
I’d secretly had a lot of fun reading that summer.
I opened the book and began