As the day went on, Chris did whatever paperwork needed doing at the beginning of the week while I did, well, everything else. Unpacked the boxes of new books that were delivered on Monday, tidied up some shelves. Little indie bookstores didn’t do a roaring business on a Tuesday at the tail end of summer, so we weren’t exactly busy. After a while Chris looked up from her paperwork.

“You know Lauren, right?”

“Lauren Pollard? She’s one of the kids, right?” Meaning, one of the kids in the cast. I was pretty sure Chris was talking about one of the dancers who came by the tavern a few times a day for water.

Chris nodded. “Nicole goes back to school at the end of August. I told Simon I wanted a high school student to help out this fall, and he suggested Lauren. She’s going to come in on Friday. Do you think you could train her back here?”

“Sure.” Even as I automatically agreed, my stomach dropped and my world stopped spinning. While we occasionally had a rush of customers, on the whole we were barely busy enough to keep the two of us from being bored. There was no need to hire reinforcements unless . . .

 . . . Unless one of us was leaving.

Chris had been running this place on her own until I came along. Now she was hiring help. We hadn’t talked about my plans past the summer, but I’d assumed I was sticking around. Although that wasn’t fair, was it? Chris didn’t know my plans had changed. All she knew was what I’d said at the beginning of Faire: that I was staying through the end of the summer. It wasn’t fair to get upset that she was planning for a future with that in mind.

I could say something. I could say, “Don’t hire Lauren. I want to stay.” But old insecurities began flooding back, taking hold in my heart. What if she didn’t want me? What if my usefulness to her was at an end? I’d started to think of Willow Creek as my home. But if I was being fired, maybe I needed to rethink that.

Not to mention Simon knew about the new employee. He knew Chris was replacing me. Maybe he was fine with me leaving at the end of the summer too.

It was a lot to consider, and I was still turning over these new revelations when Simon dropped by the shop. I didn’t see him at first; I’d heard the door chime from the front while I tidied up the coffee counter and straightened up a nearby display. But I recognized the timbre of his voice, mixing with Chris’s in conversation, and I thought about staying back here. Hiding. Curiosity won out, though, and I headed up front to say hello.

“I’m not sure if they should come back next year.” Chris sighed. “Their shows didn’t bring in very many patrons compared to others. And if they’re talking about charging more next year, then maybe they’re pricing themselves out of our Faire.”

“I don’t know.” Simon’s brow furrowed and his expression was serious as I came around the corner. “They’ve been part of the Faire for a long time, haven’t they? They were one of the first acts Sean hired. I’d hate to start just changing things.”

“This isn’t a random change, Simon. And it’s been three years. We should start mixing in some new talent. What do you think, Emily?” Chris turned her attention to me as she saw me approach. “Did you catch any of the jugglers’ shows this summer?”

I stopped short. “We have jugglers?”

Chris snorted, and Simon’s laugh was a short bark, an involuntary reaction. “Fair enough.” I tried to parse his smile—was he glad to see me?—but my own distress melted away when I got a good look at him. He was impeccably dressed, as always, but he looked faded, wrung out. This wasn’t the carefree figure who had wooed me on Saturday. This was a man with a lot on his mind and in desperate need of a vacation. Or at least a nap.

If Chris noticed his apparent weariness, she didn’t comment on it. “I can’t start planning next year yet. Let’s get this summer over with first.”

“Almost there,” I said. Those words had become a familiar refrain lately. Mid-August in Willow Creek had brought blazing hot temperatures and a strange sense of both sadness and urgency. Even though we still had two weekends left, people started talking about Faire like it was over. Some people looked forward to next year even when this summer wasn’t over yet, while others swore this was the last time they were getting involved. Maybe they’d sit out next year, those people said. Simon told me privately that the people who said that the most were usually the first ones back the next spring.

Chris nodded in agreement. “This second half of the summer always goes so fast.”

“It does.” But Simon’s nod was businesslike. “But you know we have to start booking for next summer months in advance.” He took his tablet out of his messenger bag. “If we’re going to look at changing acts, that’s going to be a lot more work. We should figure out—”

“We will.” Chris channeled a little of her Queen persona, shutting Simon down. “Just not right now, okay?”

Simon blinked at the sharp tone in her voice, and to be honest so did I. “Sure. Okay.” He didn’t look happy about it, but he slid the tablet back into his bag. “We can get together after Faire is over and talk about it.”

She smiled in relief. “That sounds perfect. Come by the house for dinner, maybe the week after Faire’s over?”

Simon nodded, and I wondered what I’d be doing that week. Would I still be in Willow Creek at all? How much longer was April going to let me stay in her guest room when I was out of a job? But I didn’t want to plan for any of that yet. So instead I tugged on Simon’s hand, and he followed me to the back of the shop, where I ushered him to a table and pointed. “Sit. Coffee?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be great, thank you.” He let his bag fall to the table as he dropped into a seat.

“Maybe Chris has a point.” I poured him some coffee and added the amount of milk I knew he liked before bringing it to him. “Enjoy the last couple weeks of Faire. You don’t need to worry about next year yet.”

He took a too-long, too-fast gulp of coffee, wincing at the heat of it. “If I don’t, no one else will.” He blew across the surface of his mug. “It’s up to me. It’s always up to me.”

I didn’t like the tone of his voice, how hopeless it sounded. “But it’s important, right?” I sat down next to him, my hand on his arm. “I mean, it’s your brother’s legacy. It’s what you—”

“It’s what I do.” This was the least enthusiastic I’d ever heard him, and I had a feeling he didn’t mean to show me this side of himself. A side that was more stuck with keeping things going than doing it because he wanted to. Had he let anyone else see it? Or did everyone think, like Mitch and like Chris, that he was perfectly content in this? Chris treated Faire as a hobby, while it took over Simon’s life. Were they the only two who kept the whole thing running? Simon was terribly overworked if so.

There had to be a way to help him. But was it my place? A day before, I would have offered to help come up with a solution. But a day before, I thought I was making a home here, and I was still rattled from my conversation with Chris earlier, and knowing Simon had had a hand in hiring my replacement. How many more things was I wrong about?

So instead I gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, and he shook his head as though he were waking up from his thoughts.

“Sorry, that’s . . . well, it’s not important now, is it?”

“If it’s important to you, then . . .”

He waved a dismissive hand. “No, Chris is right. It can wait. I have better things to pay attention to for the next couple weeks.” He brought my hand to his mouth for a kiss, and a smile lit up his eyes. This was a part of his pirate personality that had crossed over into his real life, and I couldn’t complain. Although I’d never been with a guy who had been into hand kissing, with Simon it felt natural. But his words landed with a thud in the pit of my stomach. Would I really get only two more weeks with him? Part of me wanted to ask, get it all out in the open. What if that conversation went badly, though, and I ended up with no more weeks at all? Two was better than none. Right?

Simon didn’t notice my inner turmoil. “The shop closes at six, right?”

I nodded. “I’m here for a few more hours. I can meet you later—”

“I can wait.” He indicated the laptop bag on the table. “I’ve got some work I can get done.”

“If you’re sure . . .” I pushed back to my feet. “Let me know if you need more coffee, okay?”

As the afternoon went on, I split my time between the coffee counter and the front of the store, helping Chris whenever she needed it. She seemed to need it more than she usually did, teaching me about running the shop. It was interesting, since retail was new to me, but I didn’t get why she wanted me to learn all this now when my time there was coming to an end. When she left around five I went around to the back to close down the coffee counter. I may have stopped at a certain table to run a hand through my favorite pirate’s hair.

“Still here, huh?”

Simon looked up from his laptop and smiled at me. “Where would I go? I’m waiting for you.”