Chapter 36 GETTING BACK INTO THE GROOVE
Chapter 36
G ETTING B ACK INTO THE G ROOVE
Charli wastes no time seeking a new job. After long talks with her accountant and several visits to the bank, she knows what is required to realize her dream of opening the bookstore. She’ll take the highest-paying job with the caveat that it’s in a healthy work environment, and she’ll squirrel away every penny she can to prepare for the onslaught of charges, such as renting the space and buying shelves and furniture, and purchasing inventory. Meanwhile, she’ll follow in the steps of her favorite bookstores in their early years and host pop-ups and drum up media interest and run a Kickstarter campaign. It won’t be easy, but it can be done. And if it can’t, she’ll die trying.
A week after returning from England, Charli is catching up with Viv on the phone, which is weird, because Viv hates talking on the phone, when another call comes through. “Hey, I gotta run. This might be a job thing.”
“Okay, keep me posted,” Viv says.
Charli clicks over. “Hello, Charli Thurman here.”
“Hi, Charli, this is Erica with Welsh and Wright.”
Charli’s insides tingle as she tries to play it cool. W&W are a young firm led by women who manage social media for start-ups. They are within walking distance of her house and are looking for someone to edit and proof social media posts, blogs, and newsletters for their clients.
“Hi, Erica. So nice to hear from you.”
“We enjoyed chatting with you and are ready to make an offer. We think you’re perfect for our team. And we get it that we might only be lucky enough to have you for a couple of years, considering your bookstore concept, but that’s okay. We’ll take what we can get.”
She briskly paces the apartment as she and Erica work out the details.
“When can you start?” Erica asks. “I know we left that open ended.”
“I can start in five minutes if you want me to.”
Erica laughs. “That’s exactly the attitude that made us all like you so much. Why don’t you come in tomorrow morning, and we can hash out the details. Say ten?”
“I’m so grateful. I’ll be there.”
Charli hangs up and does a dance, then finds Tiny sprawled out on the couch and runs to him. “Guess what. Your mom just got a job. A good job. And I’m so flippin’ happy, Tiny.” She presses her face to his and closes her eyes. This. This is what it feels like to be living.
In that moment, her door buzzer rings. She hops up and pushes the intercom button. “Yes?”
“Looking for Charli Thurman,” a muffled voice says. “I’ve got a DHL package here for you that needs a signature.”
She hasn’t placed any orders, especially one that would be coming through DHL. “Um, I don’t ... okay. I’ll be right there.”
Feeling on top of the world, she skips down the stairs and pulls back the wooden door. And then ... the world stands still.
Noah has a shadow of a beard, which works like magic on him. She has a thing for guys in pink, and he’s wearing a baby-pink button-down tucked into dark jeans. A bag hangs from his shoulder.
“You’re not the DHL man,” she says, her face contorting in surprise.
He doesn’t reply, just stands there with that gorgeous smile of his, one side curled up more than the other. The joy of seeing him starts like a tremor and works itself to a rumble inside.
“Is this a dream?” she asks. “Are you real?” She reaches out and playfully pinches his cheek, which only causes him to brighten more.
“You had to be expecting me?”
“Expecting you? You live three thousand miles away. A call would have been nice. What if I’d been shacking up with another Englishman?”
“I would have come in and pummeled him.”
They share a laugh.
“And what was with that American accent?”
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“It might need a little work. And next time, maybe use UPS or FedEx. Nobody gets DHL packages around here.”
“Noted,” he says. “For the next time I travel across the world to surprise the woman I can’t seem to shake from my heart.”
His words are a bubble bath with a good book. Some kind of survival mechanism in her is telling her to play it cool, but she can’t. “Yeah, I tried to forget about you, too, but ... I don’t know ... you’re kind of sticky in that way.” She’s still trying to wrap her head around what has happened, how he’s suddenly standing in front of her. “What if I wasn’t here? And how did you find me?”
A look of pride rises over him. “I kind of knew you would be.”
“How’s that?”
“Your friend Viv and I have been chatting.”
She shoots her hands out in front of her. “What?”
“I found her on Instagram and told her I was coming to surprise you. She liked the idea and shared your address. And that’s why she called you a few minutes ago. Just making sure you were home.”
Charli furrows her brow. “You and my best friend are colluding?”
“She’s a doll, by the way.”
“Yes, she is. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”
“I can’t either. Sounds like we’re all going over to your father’s marina for dinner.”
They’re talking as if they were having coffee only this morning. She’s truthfully gobsmacked by his presence. “Wait, what? He knows you’re here?”
“I think so. Viv says she and her dad are heading over there in a few minutes.”
Charli doesn’t even know where to start. He’s popped over from London as if they’d never strayed from each other. They’ve texted some, but he gave no indication that he was coming to see her.
“What are you doing here, Noah?”
His face straightens as he stands aside to let two men carrying a sofa pass by. She soaks him in, making sure he’s standing here before her.
By the look of his face, he’s pleased that he surprised her.
“Could I come inside?” he asks.
She can’t get past the pink, how he knows that she loves men in pink—she surely mentioned it to him—and how he intentionally wore this particular shirt today.
“Yeah, yes, of course. Let’s go upstairs.”
Upstairs, Tiny comes charging for him and takes the spotlight for a long three minutes while Charli waits patiently to hear what is going on here, why this man is suddenly in her apartment.
When Tiny finally settles down, Noah stands and looks around. “I love your place.” He gestures toward all the books. “Books much?”
“Yeah, the leftovers from the store.” She can’t take it any longer and is ready to get to it. “What are you doing here?” she whispers, but she knows.
He wanders toward her, dangerously close.
She’s missed him so much, and the longing comes back in spades. Her lips go to his like magnets, and it’s as if the two of them never parted ways. He pulls her into him, and if she doesn’t stop this soon, the whole block is going to be listening in on a romance being written.
Pulling her lips away, she places a hand on his chest. Sure, they left things open, but what is he really here for? Another fling or something more? “Stop. Stop. Good God, stop.” She wipes lipstick off the corner of his lips. “You can’t just fly over here a week later and jump me.”
He allows a concerned look to take over. “Why not?”
“Because.”
He touches her waist and steals another kiss. “Because why?”
“Because, because. Because.” She adjusts her blouse. “Because.”
“You really are a wordsmith, aren’t you? You should open a bookstore.”
“Don’t pick on me.”
He lets go of the playful facade. “Look, Charli, I miss you, okay? That’s why I came. I miss you, and I want to figure out a path forward—if you have any interest in doing so. I don’t know what that is, but I’ve thought about you every single day since you left. Every hour. Hell, every minute. I booked the trip four days ago. I’m here to find a way to make this work. If you’re still interested—”
“I am.”
He kisses her.
“I can’t hear you,” he whispers.
“I am interested,” she confesses, and he takes her in for a comforting hug. A few minutes ago she was starting to get used to not having him, and now he’s here, and she can’t imagine ever losing him.
“But how would we ever make it work?” she asks.
“I left the pub.”
“You can’t leave the pub. It’s your pub.”
“I still own my piece, but Victoria is going to run the front-of-house duties now.”
“Stop it.”
“She got a raise and is moving into a new place a block away. She wanted it for so long anyway.”
Charli feels all kinds of giddy inside. “Good for Victoria. I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.”
“Yeah, that’s the truth.”
They stare at each other, starting and stopping and inhaling and exhaling, their eyes searching, making sure what they had translates to a new land.
“I want to be with you, Charli. I will go back when I can to visit. Maybe you’ll come with me on occasion. But you are the nonnegotiable in my life. I’ve got a decent résumé. Surely there’s a tech firm or two in this city that will take a chance on me.”
“I got offered a job, by the way.”
“What?” The delight in his eyes sends her to the stratosphere. “For who?”
She tells him everything, including her plans for the bookstore.
Eventually, he lowers his eyes to his leather satchel, slides his hand in. “I have something to show you. No, not that. Well ...” He pulls out a copy of the book she’d recommended to him, Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End . “This isn’t what I was going to show you ... but wow. What a book. I’m almost done, so don’t spoil it, but I’ll tell you this ... you may have just gotten me back into reading. I like Duchess a lot.”
Her body tingles with joy. “Right?”
“We’ll talk more when I’m finished.” He shoves the book back in, then pulls out an old notebook made of leather, the binding well worn, the edges frayed and discolored. A leather string wraps around it. “My granny and I were cleaning out her attic the other day. Seems you stirred up her own curiosities of the past. We came across this journal. She’s never seen it before. Turns out it belonged to her great-grandfather, Arthur, who was Lillian’s brother.”
“What?”
Noah finally hands it to her. “I spent some time reading it, curious about the murder and my family. And I found something that’s damned near hard to believe.”
“Tell me already ... you’re killing me, Noah.”
“Read it.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now. Go to the page I marked.”
With a curious craving, Charli unties the leather string and pulls open the book. A musty smell rises from its pages. She sits on the couch. Noah sits next to her and watches her.
October 5th, 1921
Miles came to see me. Our son was out of the house by then, and Sadie was visiting her sister in London. I was in the garden when he came. It took me a moment to realize it was him. He was weak and skinny. But when I did, all my anger came rushing back. Of course, I wasn’t in my best health either, and he managed to push me to the ground as I tried to swing at him.
Before I could start again, he said, “I came here to tell you the truth.”
“The truth?” I said back to him. “You murdered my sister, you bastard. I don’t need to know the details.”
Miles took me by the coat collar and shook me hard. He said, “How on earth could you think that I killed her? You know how much I loved her.”
I don’t know if I’m good at reading people, but I knew that he was telling the truth.
“Allow me to tell you what happened.”
I nodded. “Very well.”
And so he told me of that night, and of his escape and move to the US and his marriage to a woman named Margaret. And of what had led him back here now. He was absolutely riddled with guilt, feeling responsible for her death. He wished he’d not pulled her into his world. Returning to speak to me was his way of attempting to move on with his life.
I know not what to do with the information. Revenge lingers sweet on my tongue. I suppose the days will tell. For now, I am simply putting it here as a way to set straight the truth. This is the best of what I can remember ...
Charli reads for ten minutes, doing her best to work out some of Arthur’s poor handwriting. She eventually turns to a blank page. “That’s all?”
“That’s everything we found,” Noah said.
She flips back a page. “Your grandmother had no idea it was there?”
“No, but she was excited for you to read it.”
She glances to the top and reads the first few paragraphs again. Frances had been right. It was guilt that he’d left reverberating in their family. Though Miles hadn’t pulled the trigger, he’d felt responsible, nonetheless. She wonders if he ever found any sort of happiness after losing Lillian. Perhaps not. And that’s partially why it’s her job to overcome it. For him and for her.
She’s about to close the book when she takes another look at the entry date. October 5th, 1921. “Hold on,” she says. “Wasn’t he killed in October?”
Noah cocks an eyebrow. “Maybe?”
“I think so. I have to look.” She retrieves her laptop and navigates to the article she saved about the day Arthur shot Lord Edward Pemberton.
“October 10 was the day he died. A few days after he wrote this entry, which gave him time to plan. So this is why he went after Edward all those years later. He’d just found out the truth.”
“My God,” Noah whispers. “Well done, Charli.”
Charli’s shaking her head, seeing how it all happened. “I wonder if Miles ever found that out. I wonder if he knew the trouble he’d caused.” She runs a hand through her hair. “It never ends,” she says.
“What’s that?”
“At some point, you have to move on. Or you’re bound to keep living the same way.” She exhales a breath. “I just ... I knew the truth, but to read it here makes a difference. Makes me feel like I’ve found even more closure. Maybe your family has too. Thank you for coming, for bringing this ... and”—she sets a hand on his thigh, feeling the desire that’s been cooped up for too long—“for bringing you.”
He leans forward, and she grips the back of his neck and pulls him in. After they kiss, she says, “We shouldn’t ... we’re going to be late ...”
“Yeah, yes, we are,” he mumbles back.
“Maybe we should wait—”
It’s too late.
Overcome by their cravings, they go at each other, tugging off and slinging clothes across the room, running their hands and lips up and down each other’s bodies, pressing against one another in a wildly fierce surrendering, becoming one with each other, writing poetry with their touch and the pounding of their no-longer-lonely hearts.
They race to get dressed a little while later. Charli is still buzzing—from his surprise arrival and the lustful fire they lit between them just now—but she’s finally coming back to reality and pondering the future.
“I wonder what it would be like to eventually open up a second location in Winchester. Do you think there’s room for another bookstore?”
He’s buttoning his shirt. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as too many bookstores.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Well, it’s something to think about.”
“I’m into that. You already miss it, don’t you?”
“Winchester?” She slips into her shoes. “Yeah, I do. You know, it’s my family’s town too. You can’t hog it.”
“I wouldn’t dare. I’m already seeing the sign in my mind. The Iambic Inkpot, Chapter Two. Right down the street from the pub.”
Charli’s seeing it too. Not just another store either. She sees all of Chapter Two, and this guy beside her is on every page.
“Remind me of something,” he says, as he laces up his boots. “How do you say ‘Worcestershire sauce’ again?”
She looks down at him. “Are you going to start picking on me?”
“Oh, c’mon. Do you know how many times I’ve thought back to that day and heard you absolutely butcher the word in front of my entire family? It’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard. Say it for me, one more time.”
Charli feels safe enough to give it a try. “Worche ... Worches ... no, I can’t do it.”
A joyous expression fills his face as he reaches for her hand and pulls her down to the couch. “Try it one more time.”
“We’re going to be late,” she says, straddling him.
“Say it . . .”
She rolls her eyes. “Worcestershire sauce.”
“Ah, that’s it.”
Charli leans forward and presses her lips to his ear. “And I love you.”
“Right back at you, my lady.”
And then running a little late doesn’t seem to matter anymore.