Sawyer had been pretty open about the fact that he was dreading the emptying of the nest, but she also didn’t want to make it seem like she thought he needed babysitting. In the end she decided to just blurt it out. That had been working well in…other contexts. “So Clara asked me to come with you guys to Toronto for the big move-in.”

“That would be great. I’m going to be a basket case. You sure you don’t mind?”

Well, that had been easy. “Nope. Everything’s basically done here. Just waiting for the Realtor to decide when to make the listing live. She has a big theory about timing—I’m just doing what she says.”

“Well, as long as she writes this thing into the purchase agreement.” He moved to the Little Free Library and shook the post, like he wanted to make sure it was holding.

“I saw one went up at Jenna’s.”

He ducked his head. “That might have been my doing.”

“Really?”

“Well, I’m kind of getting this vision of Main Street.” He faced the street and lifted his hands like he was an artist contemplating his masterpiece. “Moonflowers and Little Free Libraries.”

God, was he trying to torture her? “You’d better be careful. People might get their sickeningly adorable small-town traditions mixed up and start throwing books into the lake.”

He turned back to her library and started rummaging through it. “What have people been leaving?”

“I’ve actually been doing quite a bit of curating—removing some titles I don’t think reflect well on my little library, adding others.”

“Collections development,” he said.

“Yes! Though it’s actually more of a hybrid of that and my old job, because I still get to interact with people. See them delight in finding a book.” She was going to miss that, actually.

“You know, this inn could easily slide into a book-themed place. You have the mermaids—fairy tales. You could have a library inside for guests. An actual room. Coordinate with Maya and her kids’ camps and do story hour…”

He trailed off, probably because he was realizing that he was doing the same thing she kept catching herself doing—forgetting that she was leaving. Selling the inn. Going back to Toronto to take the job she’d been working toward for so long.

“So was this one yours?” He held up a book. The Joy of Lesbian Sex.

She grinned. “That was not mine, but I gave that one a lot of thought. It’s extremely outdated. For some reason, they updated The Joy of Sex in 2008, but they left the lesbians in the 1970s.” She eyed him closely. Clearly Clara had not alluded to anything, or he would have said something. “Outdated sexual health information can be dangerous,” she added. “But I also feel like on balance, it has the potential to do some good.”