The Bookshop on the Corner (A Gingerbread Cafe story) (3 page)

Missy arched an eyebrow, and stopped her furious scissoring. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you just say you’d rearrange the shop?”

“I did.”

“And the C word? Change? What’s brought this on? I know you, and change isn’t in your vocabulary.”

I laughed at Missy’s reaction. Change was so alien to me, it was almost another language. I was a staunch fan of the ‘if it’s not broke — don’t fix it’ mentality. Missy ran her hands through her client’s hair, fluffing it up. “I’ll just blow-dry Lettie’s hair, and then we can have a proper girl chat — what do you say?”

Lettie piped up, “Don’t mind me, gals. I’m enjoying this.”

Missy threw her head back and hooted. “I’m sure you are, Miss Lettie. Shame I’m about to drown out any conversation with this little beauty.” She winked at me and pulled out a hairdryer. The whooshing sound prevented us from talking, so I walked out back and made a pot of tea. When I returned Lettie was gone and Missy was sweeping up piles of golden-blond hair from around the chair.

She rested the broom against the mirror and said, “What’s this really about?”

I poured tea in two dainty but mismatched cups, and handed one to Missy.

“The gentleman who called told me the most incredible story about his wife, and their relationship…and seeing Lil and Damon every morning, kissing like their life depends upon it, I just feel a little lost. Dormant. Maybe nothing happens to me because I don’t try hard enough.” The words fell from my lips before I could edit them.

Missy clucked her tongue. “Oh, Sarah, you don’t need to
try
. You’re perfect just the way you are, and the quicker you see that, the better.” She sashayed over to me and joined me on the sofa. “I think broadening your horizons is a great idea but don’t go changing who
you
are.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “It’s time for this little bookworm to scramble from the pages for a few days, at least.”

Missy leaned in to hug me. “Who knows? Maybe you won’t need to. Maybe change will blow in on the wind under the guise of a six-foot-tall, dark, and handsome stranger.”

“You romantic, you,” I said, and rested my head on her shoulder.

***

Later that day, I was finishing an order for a client who collected old comics, when Mary-Rose, a regular, walked in. She worked down the street a way, selling aromatic candles, and beautiful bath products.

“You literally smell like peaches, Mary-Rose,” I said.

“I’ve just made a batch of peaches and cream bath bombs. The whole shop smells divine!”

Mary-Rose made everything from scratch using natural products; often the scent would meld its way down the street, having us scurry up to see what concoction she’d made this time. “I’m still in love with the marshmallow bath bombs. They make my whole house smell gorgeous for days after. You’re an alchemist.”

Mary-Rose grinned. “That’s what I keep telling Paul, but will he listen? No!”

Paul was Mary-Rose’s husband, who originally told her it was preposterous opening up a bath shop in Ashford. That she’d go broke before the first week was out. But she hadn’t. It seemed the townsfolk of Ashford adored her products, and what girl didn’t like smelling as if she’d just bathed in a tub of peaches?

“Paul will work it out eventually, once you’re sunning yourself in Spain, a holiday paid with the profits!”

“Wouldn’t that be something?” she said longingly before shaking her head. “Must not think of Spain. I’ll get the worst hankering for tapas and I’m not likely to find them around here, unless I get Lil to expressly cater them for me. Now, I’m looking for a book.”

“What kind of book?” I moved around the counter.

Mary-Rose scratched her chin. “It’s got a red cover.”

I tried to keep the grin off my face. “A red cover, right. Do you know the title?”

“Hmm, no.”

“The author? Or genre?”

Mary-Rose crossed her arms, and gazed around the shop. “Well, no…I think it might be classed as romance, but it could also be family saga.”

It never ceased to amaze me when customers enquired about a book they wanted purely based on the color of the cover. As though there were only a few books in all the world with a red cover, and it was just a matter of narrowing it down.

“Family saga, well, let’s start there,” I said. “Come down the back, Mary-Rose. I think I have just the book you’re after.”

I’m sure the books rustled in anticipation, and somehow we found the mysterious red-covered volume Mary-Rose was searching for. That was the inexplicable magic books held over us mere mortals.

***

After a long night at the kitchen table poring over the paperwork for the bookshop, I’d eventually given up, and gone to bed with a regency romance. Debonair heroes were just what the doctor ordered, and I’d ended up finishing the book just as midnight struck.

I’d fallen into a restless sleep, dreaming about my life and how to make the bookshop a little more successful. Words flashed through my mind, until I plucked a couple from my dream.
Book blogging.
It couldn’t hurt to start a blog, discussing my love of books, and what the bookshop had in stock. Maybe I’d review books as I read them. Start discussions on the latest trends, including the popularity of the eBook. I knew there were a lot of books being published that were only in digital format, and, being a voracious reader, I didn’t want to miss out purely because they weren’t in paper form. Either way, a daily blog post could only help the bookshop, and who knew what might come of it? Energized, I got up in the pre-dawn darkness and dressed for another day at the bookshop.

***

“Book blogging?” Missy cried. “That’s about the greatest thing I’ve ever heard of! I follow a bunch of lifestyle blogs, and they’re great! I can’t believe we haven’t thought of this before.” Her forehead furrowed. “At any rate, it’s not too late. And, you know, you can have a link to your online store too.”

I’d been waiting all morning for Missy to arrive to tell her my plans. “Right, well, today The Bookshop on the Corner blog will be born!”

Missy sipped her coffee and then said, “The possibilities are endless. You can do a monthly book club, or monthly discounts, book bundles, all sorts of things…”

I inched forward on the high-back chair in the reading room. “Guest authors, interviews, I’m in heaven just considering it.”

Missy stood, and kissed my cheek. “Let me know when it’s up, sugar, and I’ll send it out to my veritable treasure trove of online friends.”

Chapter Three

The Bookshop on the Corner blog took off moments after I sent the link to clients old and new and my friends in Ashford. It seemed people loved to read about daily life in a second-hand bookshop. Within a month, I had over three thousand followers, and the numbers grew daily. I’d met a community of other book bloggers who were supportive, and funny, and felt like real friends.

Orders poured in for vintage Harlequin romance books, so I’d been busy scouring my usual sources trying to find more. I was as busy as I’d ever been, and this new venture had given me a major confidence boost. Women emailed me daily with stories about their lives, and how books had been there for them when times were tough. It reminded me of the Ernest Hemingway quote, ‘There is no friend as loyal as a book.’ And this new cluster of online friends made me cherish our shared passion, always and for ever — reading. I’d found people who were just like me, and it made me feel as though I could do anything, and be myself and that I was enough. It changed me almost overnight, giving me a sense of self-assurance I’d never had before.

The cloud of feeling lost that had hung over me the weeks before had vanished as quickly as it had come. For the first time in ages I was invigorated, and felt that the world — albeit virtually — was opening up to me, as I tried to open up to it.

***

After scheduling my blog post for the morning I gave into temptation and settled behind the counter with my book, promising myself I’d only read for ten minutes. Twenty if I finished on an odd-numbered page. Thirty if I was stuck halfway through a chapter. OK, I’d stop when a customer walked in.

A silhouette loomed through the open doorway blocking out the last vestiges of the summer sun. The half-shadow seemed rugged, masculine. A second later, a man stepped over the threshold of the bookshop dipping his hat. The girl held her breath, hoping the stranger would be as handsome as his powerful saunter implied. She gulped as he stood in front of her; the orange glow of the overhead light lit up his face, highlighting his chiseled cheekbones, and piercing gaze, making her mute with desire…

“Excuse me, miss?”

The book fell from my hands as the presence of a man startled me. There he was, the rugged stranger with chiseled cheekbones, and a look in his eye that screamed
take me to bed
!

It took a moment for my brain to unscramble and realize I was not in fact living out the scene I had just read. Actually, it took
far too long
for me to understand that I was staring at him, my eyes wide, jaw hanging open, like some kind of fool. Gathering my thoughts, I coughed, clearing my throat, and donned my professional bookseller face.

“Can I help you? Let me guess, you’re looking for a book on…” I took in his appearance: tight denim jeans, casual white tee shirt, tight around the bicep region — I mean, wasn’t that uncomfortable? The sleeve of his tee looked as though it were practically cutting off the blood supply. I dragged my eyes back to his face, and my breath caught. I hadn’t seen a man so good-looking except in my imagination.

“On…” he prompted, raising an eyebrow.

Damn! No more romance reading during work hours.

I coughed again, this time more forcefully, to pull myself together and focus on the job of selling books. “Right, a book on, er…” It was a gift of mine to be able to garner what book a person was looking for just by their dress, and their mannerisms, but this guy had me stumped. All I could imagine was that little man crease thing, right where his jeans hung. Note to self: stop dropping gaze to his nether regions.

I was doing it again. The mute, bamboozled, mouth-open thing.

“I’d say you’re a thriller man.” There. Done.

He shook his head. “Wrong.”

Folding my arms across my chest, I said, “What do you mean ‘wrong’? You have thriller written all over you.”

He made a huge show of looking for the word thriller on his clothing; he pulled his tee shirt out, and, oh, good God…his six-pack rippled, exactly as it did on the hero of a Harlequin cover.

This time I shook myself as though I’d just come out of the ocean. I couldn’t keep clearing my throat and coughing; he’d think I was sick, or worse
contagious
, or something.

“Are you OK?” he asked, tilting his head.

I moved from behind the counter, and headed towards the front door. It was steamy in here all of a sudden. I made a mental note to open some more windows in future. And maybe stock an ice pack or two.

“I’m totally fine. Just a little hot.” I needed some space. This guy had me dreaming Harlequin, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to do that and keep the giddy, dreamy look off my face.

He followed me, leaning against the opposite door jamb. “Let me guess, you’re more of a romance reader?”

I double blinked and hastily said, “I am not!” Please tell me I didn’t say out loud his abs rippled. “I mainly read true crime. And horror. The gorier, the better,” I big-fat lied. For some reason he looked like the kind of guy who’d belittle romance readers, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing.

He gave me the once-over, a very slow up and down, that made me shrink under his scrutiny. “You look more like a romance reader to me.”

I squared my shoulders. “And what
exactly
does a romance reader look like?”

“Let’s see.” He scratched his chin as if he was contemplating. “She’s tiny, like a doll. Has perfectly cut black bangs, which highlight her mesmerizing doe eyes. Nervous around strangers, unaware that her hands flutter like the wings of a butterfly when she’s thinking things she doesn’t want anyone to know…”

I gasped, and put my hands behind my back.

“Her voice is husky, betraying her desires…”

“OK, stop. What’s with all the flowery prose? Are
you
a romance writer? Are you one of those men who moonlight as Cindii Lovenest, or something, to help sell more books?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

He laughed, throwing his head back, and showed his perfect white teeth. No actually, this
wasn’t
a romance novel, let me adjust that — he laughed, throwing his head back, showed his perfect white teeth, which would one day in the near future, possibly ten years or so away, be not as white. There.

“I am a writer. Just not a romance writer. I’m a reporter from New York.”

“A reporter from New York, hey? Aha, let me guess, you want a self-help book? How to have it all? How to avoid living the cliché? No, wait, how to make every minute count?”

He put a hand to his chest and scoffed. “I detect sarcasm! Do you think us New Yorkers are that bad, really?”

I shrugged. “I only know what I read.”

“Which is romance.”

“Bloody, gory, zombie-loving horror with chainsaws, and ninja stars, and a little true crime, remember.”

“Liar.”

It was not like me to be so extroverted, and I didn’t usually think so…
lewdly
. This stranger had some weird kind of pull over me, eking out a different Sarah from the one who actually existed. Gone was the girl in a corner, nose in a book, somehow replaced with a girl expertly flirting, using fast-paced banter with someone who was
definitely
not my type. Too handsome was
too
hard.

But he smelled good. Not of the tree-bark, glorious man-sweat, musky he-scent, rather I’ve-doused-myself-with-some-male-perfume-that-smells-a-little-like-cotton-candy, and spice, making me consider taking a quick nibble of his skin. This was of course highly inappropriate and a little weird.

He ran a hand through his dark too-long hair. See, too-long? He was the epitome of a romance-novel hero. And it wasn’t a cliché, it just
was
a little too long, in that it curled around his ears in an enticing way that would make women want to tuck it behind for him. It was a ploy, and I bet he knew it. He looked around mid-thirties and had examined what women read about, and, I’d bet, copied the brief, right down to, well…his briefs. I had a twenty-second battle with my eyes, which were trying to drop their gaze to see if his underwear was the usual hero style.