Morning in Ridgeway Hollow arrived gently, like it didn’t want to startle anyone awake. Hannah liked that about it. By the time she pulled into the small lot behind Hearth & Leaf Books, the sun had climbed just high enough to warm the brick faces of downtown without bleaching them. The street out front looked like it always did. The tidy, unhurried vista had the same few cars angled in familiar places. If you stared long enough you could convince yourself you’d seen this exact morning before, down to the man walking his dog past the courthouse lawn and the cyclist coasting without any concern for her time.

  Hannah grabbed her tote bag and shut her car door with a soft thunk, then stepped around the building to the narrow back entrance. The door opened with an old metal key. She turned it, heard the satisfying click, and slipped inside.

  The shop smelled like paper, wood, and whatever tea had been brewed recently.

  The scent drifted warm and floral through the narrow aisles. It was threaded with something earthy Hannah couldn’t quite place. She paused just inside the back entrance, and breathed it in.

  “Maggie?” she called.

  “In the back, love,” a cheerful voice floated out.

  Hannah smiled to herself and followed the sound. Margaret Ellseworth stood near the small counter by the kettle, silver?gray hair swept into a loose bun and secured with a clip she had probably set down and picked up three times already that morning. Reading glasses hung from a thin chain at her neck, tapping softly against her cardigan as she moved.

  She poured hot water into a ceramic pot decorated with faded leaves, her hands steady despite the faint ink stains and old paper cuts that marked her skin. There was something gentle about the way she moved, but nothing fragile in it. Steam curled lazily toward the ceiling, and the whole shop seemed to settle around her presence as if it knew she belonged there.

  “That’s new,” Hannah said, setting her tote down. “What is it?”

  Margaret peered into the pot. “Something herbal. Chamomile-adjacent, I think. The woman at the shop swore it was good for nerves.”

  Hannah raised an eyebrow. “Your nerves or mine?”

  Margaret's mouth curved. “Yes.”

  Margaret poured the tea into a waiting mug, the liquid steaming as it filled. She slid it across the counter, and Hannah took it gratefully, wrapping her hands around the warmth.

  “You didn’t have to make extra,” Hannah said, though she’d never once complained when Margaret did.

  “Oh hush,” Margaret replied. “A bookshop without tea is just a storage unit for facts and fiction.”

  Hannah laughed softly and took a careful sip. The tea was mild and comforting. “It’s good.”

  “Mm,” Margaret said, satisfied. “We’ll see if it survives the week.”

  They stood there for a moment, with a companionable silence settling between them. Outside, a car passed. Inside, the shop felt suspended until Margaret broke the silence.

  “All right,” Margaret said at last, nudging the pot aside. “You get settled. I’ll finish up back here.”

  Hannah nodded before moving toward the front. She flicked on the lights, one row at a time. The front windows brightened, the aisles took shape, and the Hearth & Leaf came to life. The work day had just begun, and it had become almost a tradition over the past year that a small meditative breath was accompanied by the faint hum of the old heater and the distant sound of a delivery truck somewhere down the street.

  It was perfect.

  Hannah set her tote behind the counter, took one last sip of tea, and her usual routine began.

  A stack of returns waited on a cart by the register. From mystery novels with bent corners, to a romance paperback with a cover so dramatic she couldn’t help but snort. For how casual the business day tended to be in the downtown of Ridgeway Hollow, she always had a variety of books to shelf and inventory. She picked up the first book and ran her thumb along the spine, checking the call number Margaret had written in careful handwriting.

  She shelved by habit, the alphabet living somewhere deep in her internal programming. The entire process and technique had been cultivated through repetition.

  Fiction first.

  The aisle was narrow enough that she had to turn sideways to pass the cart. The dark wood shelves rose above her head. They were polished by years of hands sliding books in and out. She found the spot, eased the book into place, and straightened the neighboring row until all the spines lined up like they were posing.

  Hannah liked this part. Out in the world, everything felt loud. Everything seemed to constantly be competing for your attention. Much of it seemed expectant and even entitled to your time. Here, the rules were simple.

  Books went where they belonged.

  She moved down the aisle with the quiet satisfaction of putting order back into something that wanted to become messy. Her hair fell forward, and she tucked it behind her ear without thinking. A faint strain settled in her shoulders from lifting and stacking and reaching, but it was the good kind.

  The bell over the front door rang, and Hannah paused mid-shelve.

  The sound was delicate, cheerful, and completely out of place with the way it made her spine straighten. She set the book in her hands down carefully, as if sudden movements might disturb the quiet, and rolled the cart a little farther into the aisle before she stepped toward the front.

  A man stood just inside the doorway.

  He wasn’t loud about his presence. He’d stopped and let the bell finish ringing, hands in the front pockets of his jeans, with a contained posture. For a moment he simply looked around as if orienting himself, eyes adjusting from daylight to the warm interior.

  He looked like he didn’t belong.

  It wasn’t because he looked out of place in downtown Ridgeway Hollow. Plenty of strangers wandered through in hiking boots and flannel during tourist season. Many more were new faces on behalf of the college campus. He looked like someone who rarely paid the local urban center a visit, despite being a familiar face in the area.

  He was tall, and broad-shouldered in a way that suggested strength without showmanship. He had dark hair that needed a cut, but it wasn’t an objectionable kind of messy. He wore a plain jacket. His face was clean-shaven, but there was a tiredness under his eyes that made him seem older than he probably was.

  He held himself like he was trying not to take up space.

  “Morning, Nathan,” Hannah said automatically.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  His gaze flicked to her. Recognition softened the sharpness by just a fraction.

  “Morning, Ms. Moore,” he replied. His voice was low and even. He wasn’t unfriendly, he just sounded careful.

  Hannah nodded toward the counter. “You’re here for a pickup, right?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated, then added, “Least, I hope it is in.”

  “It should be,” Hannah said. She was already moving, setting the book in her hands down and crossing behind the counter. “You usually come in right on time.”

  She pulled the ledger toward her, flipped it open, and scanned the neat list of names Margaret kept in her looping handwriting.

  “Oh,” she said lightly, wiping her hands on her jeans as she stepped closer. “Another field guide?”

  Nathan’s eyes lifted to hers.

  There was a brief pause that was not long enough to be obvious, but just long enough that she knew she’d interrupted whatever quiet rhythm he preferred.

  “You’ve been keeping track?” he asked, soundin faintly surprised.

  Hannah shrugged, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Enough to be curious as to what is on the menu for this pickup. You always order things that sound like you’re preparing for something.”

  She pulled a small wrapped package from behind the counter with Nathan’s order identified on it.

  Hannah tipped her head toward the wrapped book, as she handed it to him. “What is it this time? Structural framing? Wilderness first aid?” She hesitated, then added with gentle levity, “You building a bunker out there at home?”

  The word lingered in the air a fraction too long.

  Nathan stilled. For half a second, his expression emptied like he was somewhere else entirely before returning.

  A small exhale left him, almost a breath of amusement. “Something like that,” he said.

  The words were easy enough. His tone wasn’t, and Hannah felt it. It left her wondering if she had said something that made him uncomfortable.

  She softened her smile. “I mean… I respect it,” she added quickly. “Most people can’t fix a leaky sink without calling three different relatives. You’ve got an entire property to manage.”

  Nathan looked at her again, and this time something warmer flickered through his expression, that wasn’t guarded. “It keeps me busy,” he said.

  Hannah smiled, “That doesn’t sound like a complaint.”

  Nathan closed his eyes and made a gesture with his hands, “It isn’t.”

  He tapped the edge of the package lightly. “It’s gonna help me to be prepared. Like the other ones.”

  There was weight in the word “Prepared”. Hannah held his gaze a second longer than necessary.

  “For the end of the world?” she asked softly like she was entertaining a conspiracy.

  He replied, “Mostly for whatever comes”

  She thinned her eyes, “That’s it? That is all you’re gonna give me?”

  He carefully opened the packaging, and slid the guide up to reveal: “The Mountain Mycologist’s Companion” that came complete with pictures of some rather exotic fungi on the cover.

  He said dryly with a smile, “Mushrooms.”

  Hannah awkwardly drank in the cover for a moment, and said, “Oh…”

  Before she could speak again, a voice floated out from behind the shelves. “Nathan?”

  Margaret appeared at the end of the aisle. She took in the scene in a single glance, and beamed a smile.

  “Well,” she said. “If it isn’t Mr. Blackburn.”

  Nathan inclined his head slightly. “Morning, Maggie.”

  “You’re right on time,” Margaret said, before she turned to Hannah, “Love, would you mind finishing that cart? I’ll ring Nathan up.”

  Hannah watched Margaret approach and said, “Yeah. Sure.” She then closed the ledger, and smiled as she gave a small wave, “Looking forward to seeing what else you are prepping for on your next order.”

  Nathan returned the smile and said, “I will try to make it more interesting next time.”

  Margaret slipped behind the counter with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where every single thing in her shop lived. Hannah returned to her cart. She resumed her task and slid another book into its place.

  Nathan didn’t move much beyond shifting slightly as he looked about the store like something had changed but he couldn’t put his finger on what. He was brought back to attention as Margaret collected his package from the counter.

  She said, “I was worried the distributor would drag their feet, but it came in yesterday afternoon.”

  Nathan said, “Thank you.”

  “You always order the most interesting titles,” Margaret went on, amused. “And you always pick them up the moment they arrive. Most folks forget they ordered anything at all till we remind them.”

  “I do my best to keep a steady schedule,” Nathan said.

  Margaret made a sound that might have been agreement, might have been a quiet, knowing hum.

  Hannah glanced back despite herself, and then shook her head before busying herself with the cart again.

  Margaret leaned her elbows lightly on the counter. “How’s the place out on Still Creek Road treating you these days?”

  Nathan’s pause was slight, but Hannah caught it. “It’s… steady,” he said.

  Margaret nodded as if that answer fit exactly where she’d expected it to. “Two years in, that sounds about right.” She placed the package back onto the counter.

  “Still a work in progress,” Nathan added. “Always something that needs fixing, and always a new opportunity to find something new to try and work on.”

  “There usually is,” Margaret said. “But you’ve been patient with it. Land like that rewards patience.”

  A beat passed and Nathan smiled.

  His voice was quiet as he tapped the package, “I’m lucky to have gotten the property. This is gonna help alot.”

  Hannah’s hands stilled on the spines for half a second.

  Margaret didn’t react outwardly, but her tone softened. “I hope it does.”

  A sound that might have been a breathy laugh escaped Nathan, so quiet Hannah almost missed it. He handed her a few bills.

  Margaret tallied the money, counted his change and handed it over along with his receipt. “Here you go. And—” she peered at him over her glasses, “you look like you could use a nap more than a new book. Are you sleeping at all?”

  Nathan’s jaw tightened. He didn’t get defensive, exactly. He just became more controlled.

  “I’m sleeping,” he said.

  Margaret’s eyes said she didn’t believe him.

  He gave her a slight smirk, “Maybe I could use an occasional nap.”

  Hannah pretended very hard to be invested in the correct placement of a paperback.

  Nathan lifted the package. “Thank you, Maggie.”

  Margaret replied, “Take care of yourself, Nathan.”

  He nodded once then turned toward the door.

  As he passed Hannah’s aisle, he slowed, just enough.

  Hannah looked up. Their eyes met through the narrow space between shelves.

  He opened his mouth like he might say something, then thought better of it. Instead he gave a polite nod and a wave that somehow felt heavier than a greeting.

  Hannah nodded back, and waved because that was what polite people did.

  The bell rang as he left. The shop’s quiet rushed back in behind him.

  Hannah exhaled without realizing she’d been holding her breath.

  A moment later Margaret appeared at the end of Hannah’s aisle, hands folded over her cardigan.

  “You all right, love?” Margaret asked.

  Hannah blinked at her. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Margaret’s mouth quirked, “Because you’ve shelved the same book twice.”

  Hannah glanced down.

  Sure enough, she was holding a paperback she’d already put away.

  She huffed a laugh, half-embarrassed. “Hmm… So I did… Guess I’m not fully awake yet.”

  Margaret stepped closer and plucked the book from Hannah’s hands with gentle efficiency. “Go on,” she said, nodding toward the back. “I’ll finish the cart. You make yourself some coffee before you start alphabetizing text books.”

  Hannah hesitated. “You don’t have to—”

  “I do,” Margaret said pleasantly, leaving no room for argument.

  Everyone surrendered to Margaret eventually, and Hannah was no exception.

  She pushed the cart toward the back and started the kettle, listening to the soft sounds of the shop, from the heater to the shelves creaking.

  After a minute Maggie spoke again from the aisle, almost to herself, “That boy really does look so tired.”

  Hannah paused, as she had begun prepping the drip coffee maker. Outside, the downtown had begun to wake up. Inside Hearth & Leaf, the kettle began to whistle.