Why I love Mr. Nate:
- He always shows up when we need him.
- He’s protective of us.
- He’s kind to me.
- He doesn’t judge me when I’m naughty.
- He gives me treats.
- He plays with me.
- He adores Miss Josie almost as much as I do.
After Cedric left, Miss Josie locked the garden door behind him and pulled me into a hug. Wisps of her hair had fallen out of her bun and tickled my nose, but I didn’t mind. I licked her cheeks, wagging my tail so hard my whole body wiggled.
“I will never let that awful man near you again,” she said, squeezing me tightly. “And I’m glad you chewed up his shoes. He deserved it.”
“Did you hear what she said, Rocco?” I asked. “She chose me. She picked me instead of Cedric.”
Rocco, who’d been rubbing back and forth against Miss Josie’s legs, paused. “Of course, she did. Compared to Cedric, even you are quite the prize.”
We went back into the bookstore to find Mrs. Steele putting on her coat and gathering her things, oblivious to what had just happened outside. “Josie, I looked through this pile of books, and all were intact.” She tapped her hand on a tall stack of books next to the cash register. “I’ll be back on Wednesday unless you need me tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Steele.”
After she left, Miss Josie turned to Mr. Nate. “I have to go upstairs and pack Cedric’s things. Do you mind staying here? I’m sure it’ll be fine, but after what happened in the back garden, I’d rather not be alone.”
“Of course.” Mr. Nate sat down on the stool near the cash register Mrs. Steele had vacated. “Do you want me to look through some of these books while you’re upstairs?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “It’ll be fun.”
Miss Josie snorted. “You have a strange idea of what ‘fun’ is, Mr. Murray.”
“I like this sort of thing.” His gaze met hers, and he stumbled over his words. “And anything I do with you is fun.”
“Oh.” She blinked, adjusting her glasses. “Okay.”
She turned and bumped into a table piled high with books on Samhain and Halloween traditions. Rubbing her hip, she hobbled up the steps quickly, muttering, “Ow, ow, ow,” under her breath. I followed her, because I follow Miss Josie everywhere. I don’t even let her go to the bathroom alone.
She packed Cedric’s things, shoving them into a suitcase without folding them. It looked like she bunched them up on purpose. I understood why. After what he’d done to me outside, he deserved to have wrinkly clothes.
About to go downstairs, she paused, checking her face in the mirror. I thought she looked amazing, but apparently, she thought she needed some lipstick. She stepped into the bathroom to put it on, making her lips a bright, cherry red. She brushed her hair, letting it hang down to her shoulders instead of pulling it into a bun. Then she readjusted her bust area, which I found very odd. I tilted my head to one side as I watched her. What on earth was Miss Josie doing? When she spritzed herself with her honeysuckle and gardenia perfume, it finally dawned on me.
This was a mating ritual.
Uh-oh.
As she grabbed Cedric’s suitcase and headed down the stairs, I wondered what I should do. I faced a conundrum. Seeing Rocco perched on the bookshelf near the bottom of the steps, I decided to ask him for advice. “She’s falling for Mr. Nate. What are we going to do?”
Rocco paused in the middle of licking his private area. I felt sorry to interrupt, but this was important. “Do?” he asked. “Why should we do anything?”
He got me so flummoxed I stuttered. “B..b..b..but he’s moving away. He can’t be her Mr. Darcy if he’s moving away.”
Rocco squinted at me. “Her Mr. Darcy? What are you talking about?”
“Miss Josie needs to find her Mr. Darcy. All she seems to encounter are Wickhams and Willoughbys and Bingleys and Collinses. It’s so frustrating.”
Rocco’s jaw dropped. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Of course, I am.”
“And you think the coffee guy isn’t her Mr. Darcy because he’s leaving?”
“Yes. Mr. Nate has done all the other things. He wrote her a letter like Mr. Darcy did after Lizzie spurned his proposal.”
“Nate proposed?”
I shook my head. “No, but he wrote a letter.”
Rocco rolled his eyes. “And writing a letter makes him Mr. Darcy?”
“It’s not only that.” I got agitated. “Captain Wentworth wrote letters, too. All the great Austen heroes did, but it’s also the way he always looks out for her, and brings her coffee, and helps her stop Cedric from killing me.”
“The last one is a negative in my book,” said Rocco, but I knew he was joking. Or at least I thought he was joking.
“And he listens to her opinions, and he looks at her like she’s the most beautiful person in the world.” I paused, thoughts bouncing around my little Labradorean brain like ping pong balls. “Oh, calamity. He loves her. How terrible. He’s not the perfect man for her.”
“No one is perfect, pup. But he is imperfectly perfect in the best ways possible.”
I stared at him, stunned. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. Imperfectly perfect? It’s like you just described Mr. Darcy. But what if he moves away and poor Miss Josie never sees him again?”
Rocco licked his paw and used it to clean his face. “Fortunately, you aren’t the one who needs to make this decision. Your conclusions are whacked.”
“What do you mean?”
“Humans move around a lot, but it doesn’t mean he’ll be gone forever. Even if he does travel, if he loves Miss Josie, this could still be his home.”
Curse my tendency to jump to conclusions.
My eyes widened. “Beaver is his Pemberley?”
Rocco nodded. “Sad, isn’t it?”
I pranced around, performing a little dance of pure happiness. “No, this is the best thing ever.”
Mr. Nate and Miss Josie might be the Darcy and Lizzie of Beaver, Pennsylvania. I’d never been so excited in my whole life.
Miss Josie set the suitcase rather unceremoniously on the sidewalk in front of Bartleby’s, and came back into the shop, stopping when she saw Mr. Nate’s face. He leafed through the books near the cash register with a worried frown.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Take a look at this.” He handed her a book, and she climbed onto the stool next to him. She paled as she studied it.
“So many pages are missing.” She paused, a frown on her face. “But this one came from the pile of books Mrs. Steele already checked.”
“Are you sure?”
She rubbed her head. “I think so. Maybe I misunderstood.”
He reached for her hand. “You’ll figure this out. I’m sure of it”
“Thank you, Nate.”
She didn’t remove her hand. He moved closer. The air hummed with an odd sort of tension as Miss Josie stared deeply into his eyes. Could this be the moment we’d been waiting for?
Rocco huffed and gave his tail and annoyed swish. “I wish they’d get it over with. This is so boring.”
But we were to be disappointed. Instead of declaring their undying love for each other at last, they spent most of the night poring over the books in Miss Josie’s inventory. By the time they stopped, Miss Josie’s shoulders drooped with fatigue, and they’d put nearly fifty books in a large box labeled “damaged.”
“The first book was the tip of the iceberg,” she said, her voice hollow.
“I’m sorry, Josie.” Mr. Nate arms circled her protectively, and her head rested on his broad shoulder as if it belonged there.
“They fit together,” said Rocco. I jerked in surprise. I’d thought he’d fallen asleep.
“You’re right. They do. I’m surprised you noticed.”
“I notice everything. I’m a cat. It doesn’t mean I care though, just to be clear.”
Note to self: Rocco might have hidden depths.
“I’d better go,” said Mr. Nate, kissing the top of her head. “Will you be able to get some sleep?”
“Yes,” she said. “Why are you so nice to me, Nate?”
He swallowed hard, studying her face. “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
I stood up, nearly tripped over my big puppy paws. Did Mr. Nate quote Pride and Prejudice to her in the middle of our bookstore? It might have been the most romantic thing ever—even more than Rocco’s “perfectly imperfect” comment.
Miss Josie seemed to agree. She put a hand over her heart. “I’m impressed, and I still can’t believe you read the whole thing.”
“I read every word. I watched the movie, too.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Which one? I love the feature-length movie, but the BBC’s production is more accurate.” She gazed at him with an entranced expression on her face.
“Both,” he said, his eyes on her lips. “I watched both.”
This time, Miss Josie pulled him in her arms, making a sound of pure joy as her lips met his. She kissed him thoroughly (Miss Josie knew what she was doing), then he held her close, his forehead touching hers.
“I’m glad you made me read it,” he said, his voice soft. “It helped me understand you better.”
She reached up and tangled her fingers in his curly hair. “And I’m glad you made me drink coffee.”
He let out a soft chuckle. “Really?”
She nodded. “Otherwise, I would have already fallen asleep, and I wouldn’t have been able to kiss you goodnight.”
She went up on her tiptoes to give him one soft, lingering kiss after another. And when Mr. Nate had to leave, they kissed in the doorway, like parting for even a few hours felt nearly impossible.
Cedric’s suitcase was gone, which meant he’d come sometime during the night to retrieve it. Miss Josie waved a final goodbye to Mr. Nate. After he left, she leaned against the locked door, a sweet smile on her face, and I realized something important.
In spite of the missing books and the possible thievery of so many precious pages and the awful scene with Cedric the Betrayer, Miss Josie looked happy. And I wanted her to stay that way.