Chapter Two #2
Emma pulled out her phone, opening a new note she labeled Possible Changes.
Beneath that, she typed in big letters, Redecorate.
The place needed new lighting, new flooring, new paint and a whole hell of a lot of elbow grease. She definitely had her work
cut out for her.
You’re going to screw this up, like you screw up everything else.
She tried to push away the negative voice in her head. She didn’t screw up everything. She had already accomplished far more than she ever expected during those hard years when she only cared about her next
fix.
“Ready for a tour?” Rosie asked.
Emma nodded, filled with renewed resolve. Her mother was counting on her to do a good job. More than that, Olive was. Her daughter deserved a better life than the one they left behind. If she could prove herself at the bookstore, perhaps
she could figure out a way to convince her mother she was capable of more.
She simply had to use the same stubborn determination she inherited from both her mother and grandmother, the grit that had
pushed her this far.
Sylvia opted to stay near Olive in the play area, so Emma followed her mother through the crowded aisles, jotting copious
notes as they went.
The store was mostly empty except for a few customers and two employees, one at the checkout counter and one stocking books.
She saw one customer looking at magazines and a couple of teenage girls giggling over what looked like a paltry collection
of romantasy titles.
The comforting, familiar smell of ink and paper surrounded them, along with something musty and old.
“As you can see, your grandmother has let a few things go,” her mom whispered.
Had it been hard for Rosie to turn over the operations of the bookstore to Sylvia?
Emma could remember how excited her mother had been when she purchased The Rainy Day Bookshop. When Rosie wasn’t helping Emma’s
father at Lucas Construction, she had worked here part-time for the previous owner, a crusty old man who had been certain
the future lay in renting out videotapes and CDs.
With big dreams and bigger ideas, Rosie had purchased it from him only a few months before the accident. Before everything
had changed for all of them.
Now her mother ran the construction company alone and Grandma Sylvia dabbled in managing a floundering bookstore, between
juggling her active social life and apparently roller skating.
Her mother was introducing Emma to the employee shelving books, a studious-looking boy named Ethan with shy dark eyes and
a nervous smile, when Olive’s voice drifted to them from one aisle over.
“My name is Olive. What’s yours?”
A deep male voice answered something she couldn’t hear. It was possible Emma listened to far too many true-crime podcasts,
but her mind immediately went on stranger-danger alert.
In midconversation, she walked away from her mother and Ethan to hurry around the endcap to the next aisle.
There, she found her daughter chattering away to a gorgeous guy in a snug T-shirt and jeans.
Unlike Emma, her three-year-old seemed to excel at finding hot guys.
“Olive, honey, I thought you were sitting with your grandmother in the play area. She was reading to you.”
“She fell asleep. I wanted another book. One about dogs.”
“Hi, Emma. Great to see you!”
At the voice coming from the hot stranger, she looked up. He was tall, lanky, with work-rough hands and long eyelashes. She
had the disconcerting thought that she should know him but couldn’t quite place his face.
She narrowed her gaze. “I’m sorry. I’ve been gone from town for a few years. Do I know you?”
“Bryce!” Her mother’s voice from behind her drew the guy’s attention and he straightened, smiling broadly. Emma suddenly knew
exactly who he was.
Bryce Kendall.
The man who currently had everything she wanted.
Rosie hurried forward, her features bright with pleasure. Ethan was nowhere in sight and Emma assumed he had resumed stocking
shelves.
“I didn’t know you were coming into the bookstore today,” Rosie exclaimed. “I’m so happy to see you. This is my granddaughter.”
“Of course she is. I immediately recognized her from the many, many, many pictures you have on your desk. Hi, Olive. I’m Bryce and I work with your grandmother.”
“My grandma builds houses.”
“I know. So do I. And offices and stores and restaurants sometimes.”
Her mother wore a proud expression but Emma couldn’t tell if it was directed at Olive or Bryce.
“I guess you know Emma,” she said. “You were in the same grade at school, right?”
“Only because I graduated a year early and Bryce was held back a year.”
As soon as Emma said the bitchy words, she regretted them. They made her sound like a spoiled, surly child in the playground,
kicking sand all over someone else’s bigger and better sandcastle.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
He gave a cool smile that didn’t quite hide the tiny glimmer of emotion in his hazel eyes.
She couldn’t tell Bryce or her mother the reason for her pettiness, that she was fiercely jealous of his role as her mother’s
trusted second-in-command at Lucas Construction.
How had that happened, anyway? It still made no sense to her.
Bryce had been the class clown, always causing trouble. Though mostly annoying, he used to make her laugh the way no one else
ever could.
Yet now, at twenty-seven, he was a respected builder whom her mother seemed to trust above all others.
Grandma Sylvia had mentioned to her a few months ago that Rosie expected Bryce to one day take over running the company.
Not if Emma could help it.
Lucas Construction was her family’s legacy. Not Bryce’s.
Her father had fought hard to build it from the ground up to the well-respected business it was today. Going on job sites
with him had been her favorite thing in the world. She used to love handing him nails, helping him clean up the site or simply
sitting beside him, chattering away about whatever came to mind.
She wanted in at Lucas Construction. While running the bookstore would do in the short term, eventually she wanted to prove to her mother she was capable of handling the responsibilities of a big operation like Lucas Construction.
“What brings you to the bookstore?” Rosie asked Bryce, her features bright with affection. At forty-five, she was still as
lovely as ever, Emma realized with some degree of shock.
“You know me. I love to check out the new releases and sometimes Sundays are my only chance.”
“I wouldn’t have taken you for much of a reader,” Emma said. “We had English together both our junior and senior year and
if I’m remembering correctly, it wasn’t your favorite subject.”
“I love books, but not really reading them.”
“Oh, just looking at the pictures?”
The words spilled out, despite Emma’s best intentions to be civil. What was wrong with her?
“I’m an audiobook listener. I go through two or three a week while I’m working or driving from job site to job site.”
“Listening to audiobooks still counts as reading,” Rosie said, a sliver of censure toward Emma threading through her voice.
“I agree,” Emma said. “But does The Rainy Day Bookshop sell audiobooks?”
“Not very many,” she admitted. “We have a few old CDs, but that’s it.”
“I’m actually here to buy something for . . . a friend. But I like to come in regularly and see what’s new and what looks
good,” Bryce said. “If I find something that appeals to me, I’ll listen on audio. When I find a book I love, I like to buy
a copy of the physical book here for my own collection or to donate to the town library. It needs all the help it can get.”
“I love books!” Olive announced, her features wide with delight. “Grandma Rosie said I can have one. Will you help me pick
it?”
Emma thought at first her daughter was speaking to her but then realized her daughter’s grin was only aimed at Bryce.
He seemed disconcerted at her friendliness. “I don’t know much about kids’ books, I’m afraid. We didn’t have many at my house
when I was growing up.”
Emma couldn’t even imagine that. Books had been an integral part of her childhood. Both her parents had been avid readers
and she picked up her love of stories from them. During the long, hard years in Las Vegas, public libraries had saved her
more times than she could count. They had been shelter, sanctuary, a place of safety and peace.
“You don’t need to bother Mr. Kendall,” Emma said.
“Come with me, darling,” her mother said, holding out her hand to Olive. “We’ll go look at the books. I’ll help you choose
a good one.”
“Okay.” Olive stuck her hand in her grandmother’s, and the two of them headed for the children’s section. Emma was left with
Bryce and her wholly unreasonable resentment toward him.
“Your mom tells me you’re going to be running the bookstore until Sylvia is back on her feet,” he said. Emma noticed again
his long eyelashes fringing hazel eyes and his farmer’s tan, visible when his T-shirt sleeve rode up, exposing a strip of
paler skin that contrasted with his darker forearms.
She was a sucker for sexy muscled forearms.
Emma swallowed a sigh, trying to tell herself it was only a reaction to the sheer scope of the challenge ahead of her, not
any quiver of awareness.
“That’s right. The bookstore hasn’t exactly been profitable for a few years.” Or ever. “I’m hoping to use this summer as a chance to chart a different path. I would like to turn things around.”
He looked around. “You have your work cut out for you.”
“I’m fully aware.”
“Any initial ideas?”
She looked at the note on her phone, up to multiple screens of to-do items now. “Too many,” she admitted. “I don’t know where
to start.”
He looked around. “What this place needs is something besides books to bring people in.”
“This is a bookstore, Bryce. It’s right there in the name.”
“Ha. Yeah, I’m aware. But you want to entice people into the store who might not necessarily be in the market for books. They
walk in for something else, something irresistible, then see a cover that speaks to them. And before they know it, they have
a whole stack of new titles in their basket and you have instant sales.”
Emma had been thinking along those exact same lines. For some reason, it irked her that she and Bryce were apparently on the
same page. “I wrote down ‘What about a small coffee bar?’ ” she admitted.
She wasn’t sure if that was a valid idea or simply a knee-jerk reaction, coming from someone who until recently had managed
a coffeehouse.
“That would be perfect. Maybe you could even work out a cooperative arrangement with one of the local coffee places to provide
staff and product. We have some great ones in town. And you could sell pastries from Coastal Crumb, the bakery down the street.
Their cinnamon rolls are as addictive as your books.”
She could put the café setup near the display window facing Main Street, to bring in more foot traffic. They could start genre book clubs that could meet there over coffee and pastries.
The store could even host silent-reading book clubs, where people sat together, drank their coffee and enjoyed their latest
read.
Her mind filled with possibilities, each more exciting than the one before. Then she took in her surroundings once more, and
she fell back to earth with a hard thud.
“I think I need to focus on more basic renovations first before I think about expanding. Brighten things up. New paint, maybe,
new lighting, and I could clear out about half the inventory, so it doesn’t feel so cluttered in here.”
“Not a bad idea. If you need help, let me know.”
“I can’t believe my mother hasn’t put more energy into freshening up the place. It’s not as if she doesn’t have the resources.
She owns a construction company, for heaven’s sake.”
His mouth tightened, as if he was annoyed at her for daring to voice anything resembling criticism of her mother. It was another
unwanted reminder of their close working relationship.
“She’s been a little busy trying to keep Lucas Construction afloat. That’s why she brought in your grandmother to help with
the bookstore in the first place.”
Emma glanced over at him, surprised. “Lucas is doing great, isn’t it? I mean, the town has grown so much. When we drove in
yesterday, I saw construction projects everywhere.”
“Wood Briar is definitely growing, but Lucas Construction isn’t the only game in town.
It takes a lot of effort to stay relevant in an evolving market, especially with plenty of healthy competition.
It’s not easy for a construction company to pay a living wage and also make a profit.
Your mom has really turned things around the past few years, but it’s been a rough road to get here. ”
Her parents had both worked hard to build the company. Emma remembered many hours spent hanging out in the office up on Kingfisher
Road when she was a kid. That was when the company was a two-person operation and built maybe three or four homes a year.
Lucas Construction had soon branched out to commercial real estate as well as working more with property developers, and the
business exploded. They had taken on more employees: project supervisors, designers, office staff. By the time she left town,
Lucas Construction had a payroll of more than fifty people.
Including Pam Clarke, the office manager.
Her stomach clenched. From what Emma had heard, Pam still lived in town, still worked for the company. Emma would have to
see her at some point. She couldn’t avoid it. The thought left her feeling vaguely ill.
“I really would be happy to help you,” Bryce said. “Let me know.”
Emma probably would not be doing that. “Thanks,” she said.
“It really is good to see you again, Emma. I know Rosie is thrilled to have you home.”
“Right. Good to see you, too,” she lied.
Okay, it wasn’t completely a lie. What woman didn’t appreciate a hot, ripped guy who loved books? But that wasn’t why she
had returned to Oregon.
She didn’t want to mess this up. She had a job to do at The Rainy Day Bookshop. Her mother was counting on her . . . and her daughter needed the stability and connection to her grandmother and great-grandmother Olive was already finding here.
Emma couldn’t afford to ruin everything by letting herself become distracted by a man who stood in the way of everything she
wanted.