His speck, his perfect oasis. The fact that no one understood that made it even more apparent that he would always need Winchester Falls. Whether his net worth was one thousand or one hundred million dollars, it didn’t matter. This was home.
But that was for him and not the world. He slapped Steve’s arm. “I like to give back and the bands I have coming in are more than worth your drive out.”
“Yeah, they are, especially Lindsey York. When is she arriving?”
“Tomorrow.” Logan held up a hand. “I already asked her to do an interview.”
“And that’s why you’re the man.”
Logan resisted the urge not to roll his eyes. Instead, he gave him another genial smile. “Talented, stage presence for days, and pretty—she’s the trifecta.”
“I can’t wait to talk to her.”
And Logan couldn’t wait to throw the spotlight on someone else. But for now he had to put his lead singer face on and make pretty pictures.
Two
“Help!”
“Girl help or boy help?” came a shout from the front of the store.
“Since I’m a girl lifting a couch, not sure that’s a fair question,” Isabella Grace grumbled. “Whomever wants to help me lift a couch,” she shot back.
Nichole Wolfe’s pinup lush body filled the doorway. She held up fisted hands and flexed her impressive biceps. “You mean me, then.”
Bella grinned as she lifted one end of the chaise lounge with a grunt.
Nic rushed forward for the other end. Her dark eyes widened at the weight. “Holy crap, is there a body hiding in the cushions?”
“No, this was back when they made furniture last,” Bella said.
“Ya think?” Nic blew a strand of rich walnut hair out of her face. “Where are we putting this?”
“Front of the store. Music section.”
“You suck.”
“I know,” Bella panted. They shuffled into the main space of Between the Lines, where an old baby grand piano had been re-purposed into a bookcase and fastened to the wall. “Over there.”
“Good, because I think I broke my spleen.”
“Doing good, honey,” came a male voice from the registers.
“Shut up, wimp.”
Adam Wolfe laughed. “I have such a strong, strapping wife. I’m so proud.”
“Ass.” But Nic’s lips were twitching into a grin as she set her end of the couch down.
Bella tried to ignore the little twinge that always happened when she was around them. Nic and Adam had grown up together. They were the original boy and girl next door. Instead of growing apart, they went away to college and fell stupid in love. Then they went ahead and assimilated Bella into their spun sugar house of happiness. Somehow they never made her feel like a third wheel.
Well, mostly.
Regardless of the occasional pang of loneliness, they’d become an inseparable unit. So much so, that they’d studied business and literature together and started an online rare book business, Between the Lines. Fast forward ten years and they’d opened a storefront to go with their virtual shelves. Almost a year later, they were actually making a profit in the sleepy little town.
The majority of their sales were still made online, but they were becoming the go-to market for hard to find books. Sometimes it was the same edition of Heidi that a client’s mother read to them every night before bed, sometimes it was a first edition Chaucer. Whatever it was, the three of them could find it. But now they also had a place to store the more eclectic books and memorabilia they’d found on their treasure hunts, as Nic liked to call them. And with the odd little shops that dotted the area, Between the Lines was slowly becoming a favorite stop for a lot of collectors.
Isabella dragged the pad of her thumb over the spines of the coffee table books of underground musicians she’d found in Australia last winter. She knew all it would take was one request, one special client to do an internet search.