Bent Not Broken (A Cedar Creek #1) (3 page)

With one last deep breath I pulled myself together and focused on the day ahead.

So I dug out my expired make-up and put on a new face. There. That was better. Or at least not too bad. I grabbed an old pair of jeans, my favourite t-shirt, black and silver rock ’n roll scarf, put my silver hoops in my ears, silver rings on my fingers, my cowboy boots on my feet, and went out the door.

On my way to the bookstore I stopped at
Lola’s
, my favourite coffee shop, the only coffee shop in town really, owned by Betty and Pete, a nice couple who had grown up here.

I walked in and counted myself lucky that I had no customers lined up in front of me. I really needed coffee. Stat. I wouldn’t have it in me to wait. Betty saw me walk up to her counter and gave me one of her huge smiles that gave you no other choice but to return that smile. Which was what I did.

“Ivey, dear! Good morning! Look at you all done up! Hot coffee date?”

Hot coffee date? Very funny. Betty knew I didn’t date. Everyone in town knew I didn’t date, since I had shot down every single man that asked me out—not that there were many—during my first year living here.

“Ha, Ha. Very funny, Betty. You know I don’t date,” I said, trying to turn her comment into a joke, though I knew she had been serious. Or hopeful rather. To my surprise, Betty didn’t think I was being funny.

“And why the hell not? Pretty thing like you shouldn’t be alone! Pretty thing like you should have a man at her side! Don’t you think so Pete?” She sounded offended.

This was shouted across the shop, since Pete was at the other end tending to a customer. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard the bell over the door jingle, but paid it no attention, since I was focused on not letting my embarrassment show at Betty opening my none-dating situation up for discussion with the whole coffee shop. As Pete walked over to the counter he mumbled, “Sure,” under is breath. He looked up and smiled at me apologetically.

In an effort to calm Betty down and keep her contained I said in a casual tone, “You sound like Macy, Betty. Not all women want or need a man to make them feel good about themselves. I’m okay by myself. It’s all good,” I tried to reassure her. My words had the opposite effect.

“Ok is
not
good. Or not good
enough
. It’s true, us women, we don’t need men to make us feel good about ourselves. Most of the times they are a pain the arse,” I heard a chuckle and looked up to see Pete smile, his eyes looking adoringly at his wife, “but let me tell you something,” my eyes went back to Betty, “everyone needs someone. You can call it soul mate, other half, call it whatever you want, but nobody is supposed to walk through life alone. Especially not a woman like you. Beautiful like you, loyal like you, passionate like you, true like you. I know you think you are fine on your own, that you have nothing to give, but that is just a load of crap. I can see right through that mask you think you’re always wearing, right through that wall you think is impenetrable. Right through to the real you. And let me tell you, when you are not paying attention to trying to protect yourself and you let out the real you, her light is shining so bright it hurts my eyes. And I am not the only one who thinks that. Look at your friends, look at the people around you, who love you, who want to be near you to catch a little bit of that light shining on them. Isn’t that true, Pete?”

I was frozen to the spot, my eyes glued to Betty’s, filling with tears. After all the drama last night and the resulting nightmares, my walls were still unstable, and I didn’t have enough fight left in me to keep my cool, to ward off what Betty had said.

“Absolutely.”

My wet eyes went up and looked at Pete. There it was again. I realized in that moment that Pete looked at me with the same warmth I had seen in Cal’s eyes just yesterday. Just less sexy, that is. I took a deep breath to control my tears to say, “Betty—,”

“No, dear. No arguing. I say it like it is and you take it. Now, someone must have done something to you to make you feel like you’re not good enough. You think there is no way to fix what’s been broken inside you. But as far as I’m concerned you are not broken. You are a little bent out of shape, but not broken. Everyone with eyes in their head can see that you are a strong woman. No woman who thinks she is broken can smile like you smile, laugh like you laugh, care like you care,
love
like you love. And don’t you give me those wide eyes, missy, yes, I said
love
. I worry about you. Pete worries about you. Your friends worry about you. I know you think you have to hide behind that mask of yours as soon as people, especially men, get too close for comfort, or someone offers to help you out, but let me tell you, you are not doing a very good job of hiding the true you as you think you are. You are warm and soft and loving and pure good. You’ve got a lot to give. You just need to learn to take as good as you give it. Take that in, girl, ‘cause it’s the God’s honest truth.”

Wow. Where the hell did all that come from? I always thought that Betty was this nice, easygoing, non-threatening mother-type lady that had a smile for everyone. But the woman standing in front me now was not that. It was like she had been watching me for the past nine years, studying me, waiting for her opening to give me the truth as she saw it. Like a super patient hard-as-nails Dear Abby who offers advice even though you didn’t ask for it. And in doing so, she had completely blindsided me and to my utter shock, found a way in. My walls lay crumbled on the ground, my mask was nowhere in sight. Her words felt good. They were terrifying, but I couldn’t help the fact that they felt really good. Nobody had ever talked to me that way. Not even Macy. Was that what people saw when they looked at me? Warm and soft and loving and good? I wished I could be that person. She sounded nice.

I could feel my lips start to tremble and felt my cheeks getting wet. It took all I had to keep the sob that was building in my chest inside.

Deep breaths, Ivey, deep breaths.

“Tell it like it is,” this was coming from behind me.

From
behind
me!

I turned around stiffly and saw chest. Chest covered by a plaid shirt. I knew that shirt. My hand had touched that shirt just yesterday. My heart beating fast, my eyes moved up his chest, and there he was.

Cal.

Looking down at me.

Eyes moving over my face, then settling on my eyes. Warm, soft brown eyes on me, just like Pete’s had been a minute ago. Just add the sexy, that is.

I blinked, turned stiffly back around, and stared wide eyed at Betty, who was grinning like a loon. I looked behind her at Pete, who was also grinning like a loon if you could believe it. Shocked into silence and also embarrassed that Cal had witnessed me getting laid out by Betty, I wiped my cheeks and blinked away my tears. Then I took a deep breath, looked back at Betty and said in a whisper, “Thanks, Betty.”

Really, that was all I could say, I was that stunned.

“You’re welcome, darling,” Betty said quietly, squeezing my hand that was lying on the counter softly, her eyes boring into mine, emphasizing all she had said.

“Now, can I have my coffee, please?” I kept whispering. Just block it out. Block it out and deal with it later.

“Sure, darlin’,” this came from Pete as he moved to the coffee machine, grabbed a paper cup, filled it up with black, hot goodness, fixed it just the way I liked it, and came back to hand it to me.

I gave him a bill but he refused, saying, “It’s on the house, sweetie.”

“Thanks again,” I was still whispering, unable to put Pretend Ivey back in charge. She had completely disappeared.

Pete smiled at me. Then he looked behind me, gave Cal a chin lift, and asked, “The usual?”

No answer, though Pete moved to get Cal his coffee. I was keeping my back to Cal, so I assumed he had gotten a chin lift as confirmation. Male communication.

I thanked Betty again and gave her a warm if hesitant smile.

“There she is,” Betty said with a return smile.

Afraid she was going to say more, I quickly grabbed my coffee and turned around to leave, trying to fly under Cal’s radar. This maneuver was successful, seeing as he was busy paying Pete for his coffee.

“No freebies for me?” he asked.

“You ain’t as pretty,” Pete returned, which made me giggle. Giggle? I didn’t giggle in public! At least not unless I was either around children or completely drunk.

I was walking through the door with my back turned to the shop, so I didn’t see Cal’s eyes following me down the street. I also didn't see his eyes getting even warmer while they did so. I also didn’t see Betty’s eyes shining bright when she looked between Cal and me, nor did I know that she had said all she’d said to me then and there, because she had seen Cal walk in to get his morning coffee. And last, I didn’t hear Pete say under his breath, “Shit, woman,” since he had known his wife for a good amount of time and knew exactly what she was playing at.

After that profound and unsettling incident, I went ahead and opened my bookstore. I loved my bookstore. I had always dreamed of owning something that was just mine. Books and reading were my two favourite things in the world—besides coffee and chocolate—, so it was a logical conclusion for me to try my luck and open a quirky little bookstore in a quirky little town somewhere in the Rockies, after I escaped the hell I had lived in most of my life.

Serendipity
was small. I loved the fact that I was able to support new writers by selling books by small or independent publishers. Most of the times though, I had to go the traditional route and stock bestsellers and mass paperback books because of the high demand. Again. A girl’s gotta eat. What my customers wanted, my customers got. Mostly. More often than not I could convince my customers—who were mostly women—to try out something new from an independent author, and more often than not they came back asking for more of the same. I had good taste in books. Be it funny, sad, light, dramatic, suspenseful, or erotic, I could tell you which book would suit you best. My customers appreciated that and trusted me to steer them right.

Walking in through the front door I could see the quote on the wall I had put up in big typewriter font letters:

SERENDIPITY

The art of finding the unusual, or the pleasantly

unexpected by chance or sagacity.

Horace Walpole

I loved that word and what it said. I thought it fit a bookstore perfectly. So that’s what I named it and that’s why I put the quote up for everyone to see first thing when they walked in. I was not a romantic. Not even close. But every morning when I opened the store and this was the first thing I saw, it made me take a deep breath and relax. It was like entering a bubble of excitement and new adventures, exactly what a bookstore with all its hidden secrets and stories meant to me. That was what I wanted everyone who entered my store to feel like.

Running my own business was the best job I had ever had. Sure, I ate Ramen noodles a lot in the beginning of this adventure, but that was okay, since I liked Ramen noodles. Nothing wrong with that. I had worse growing up. But really, it had been a while since it was necessary to buy them. Business had been good the last few years. Excellent actually. I was happy with my life. Yes, I was lonely sometimes, but that was by choice, so it was okay.

Apart from books, I also sold quirky little things that I saw in catalogues and knickknack stores that I thought would be fun. Like light-up pencils, kick ass notebooks, jaw breakers, cute little erasers shaped like animals or utensils or food, and bouncy balls. In my opinion every store should sell bouncy balls. They were fun.

There were comfy chairs and floor pillows all over the place inviting people to pick out a book and stay awhile. It was probably counterproductive to let people read the books in the store for a longer period of time, but I didn’t care. And not surprisingly, more often than not, people told me that that was why they loved coming into my store so much. They didn’t feel pressured into buying a book. They could take their time to read the first few chapters to see if they liked it. Try before you buy. My business motto. It made people leave my store on a high and they always came back for more.

That day when I opened up the store for business, my mind was on what Betty had said to me.

Was she right?

Was the picture I had of myself so wrong? The picture of me not being close to anyone but Macy, of being friendly but distant, reserved?

Yes, I knew that I wasn’t the ice-cold bitch who had cut Grant loose last night. Or hardly ever. Only when I felt vulnerable would I pull her out. She was my armor. I needed her to protect myself sometimes. Protect myself from opening up and letting things in and getting hurt in the end, be it emotionally or physically. I wouldn't be able to survive anything like what had happened to me again. That’s why I created the
Icy Bitch
, as I called her. She had helped me out a lot, especially in the first few months after I left Boston. I depended on her to safe me. I couldn't lose her. Not ever.

But what Betty said stuck with me and I couldn’t force it out of my mind.

Now, someone must have done something to you to make you feel like you’re not good enough. You think there is no way to fix what’s been broken. But as far as I’m concerned you are not broken. You are a little bent out of shape, but not broken.