11:17 a.m.

Kincaid: This is not about the money.

11:59 a.m.

Kincaid: Call me. *GIF of a dog making a phone call*

Wednesday—9:01 a.m.

Kincaid: You’re really going to ignore me? Did you miss the part about me being relentless? We need to talk.

9:05 a.m.

Kincaid: Where are you? We can do this face-to-face. I’ll come to you.

11:59 p.m.

Kincaid: Ash, please. Don’t shut me out.

Thursday—2:17 a.m.

Kincaid: You’re making me look like a crazy ex-girlfriend.

2:19 a.m.

Kincaid: Is your new girlfriend going to answer and pretend you’re in bed together? I heard you’re not above that. :P

Friday—7:05 a.m.

Kincaid: I’m not using this money.

Kincaid: We have to talk.

Kincaid eyed the screen of her phone, her desperate messages from the last two weeks both embarrassing and enormously frustrating. She’d verified with Grace that Ash’s number hadn’t changed. Grace had said he was doing some research in Mexico, but she didn’t know which part and that his phone signal could be spotty. Kincaid didn’t think this was a phone coverage issue. Ash was ignoring her messages. She’d gotten a dot dot dot once, and her heart had leapt with hope, but then it’d just disappeared. Ash was reading the messages. He just wasn’t responding.

Or maybe he was too busy drinking excellent tequila and sleeping with beautiful women he met on the beach.

Kincaid collapsed back onto her bed with a groan. Fate was being a total bitch. How could it finally show her who she was meant to be with and then not give her access to him? Was this her punishment for not realizing what Ash meant to her from the start? Ugh. Probably. She’d made the guy pine for years. Now she got to pine.

Pining sucked.

Pining made her want to eat all the Christmas cookies she’d baked for her friends.

Pining made her want to throw things.

She picked up her phone, tempted to toss it, but it vibrated in her hand and made her yelp. She sat up and flipped it over, hope sparking through her, but she sighed when she saw the name on the screen.

She put the phone to her ear and tried to sound more pleasant than petulant. “Hi, Grace.”

“Hi, sweetie,” Grace said, her tone as cheerful as a Christmas elf. “You busy?”

Yes. Pining. “Not really. What’s up?”

“I have great news.”

“Oh yeah?” Kincaid perked up a little.

“The Stuffed Shelf has sold!” she announced with glee. “And it’s going to stay a bookstore.”

“Oh, Grace, that’s fantastic,” she said, genuinely happy for the Lowells but a pang of loss going through her. The bookstore would be in someone else’s hands. It was like losing her version of her family home. “I’m so glad it worked out. Did a local buy it?”

“No,” she said, sounding distracted. “Someone moving here from out of town. But it will be in good hands. They loved the look of the store. You did a great job with the holiday decorations.”