Excerpt: The Writer

She glanced back at Julian who was absorbed in his cooking. Except he wasn’t. His eyes were on his work but she could feel every bit of his attention on her. She returned The Common Theifto its place and took down another, Mendon’s latest: Coronation. She flipped it open and knew immediately that she was the first to do so.
Natalie felt a peculiar sensation begin to gestate deep in her. It unfurled at a rapid, eye-blink pace; an amalgam of shock, exhilaration, and something akin to panic. In her mind’s eye the days and weeks of her time with Julian at the café began to coalesce into a whole, and from that whole bits of conversations, strange comments, snippets of conversations rose to the surface like flotsam from a shipwreck. Natalie’s heart began to pound.
No, she thought. Impossible. She turned her head, intending to ask Julian…something. Why he had such a collection, perhaps, if he’d never even opened them. Her thoughts were in such a jumble as past experiences collided with what was happening now; she wasn’t sure what to do or say. She turned her head and opened her mouth to speak, and her eyes fell on another figurine, this one a smooth wooden sculpture resting on the shelf above the blue pony. Her words died on her lips.