Chapter Four
Andrew
“I hope there’s a bathroom at the bookstore.”
At the slightly strangled voice of his seven-year-old son, Finn, coming from the back seat, Andrew Morgan flashed a quick
look in the rearview mirror.
“I’m sure there is. Hang on, bud. We’ll get you taken care of.”
“Why didn’t you go before we left?” Zara demanded. At ten, she considered herself superior to her younger brother in all things.
“Because I didn’t need to go then. Now I do. Anyway, I don’t like that bathroom much.”
You and me both, kid, Andrew wanted to say.
“It is nasty,” Zara agreed. “I can’t believe we only have one bathroom with a toilet that actually flushes. I feel like we’re
camping or something.”
When they finally moved out of the carriage house apartment and into Stormhaven, they would have five bathrooms but as of
now they were all unfinished.
His entire house was unfinished. Like his current manuscript. And, hell, the rest of his life.
“I liked our old bathroom,” Finn muttered.
“Me, too,” Zara said. “Wood Briar blows and our house is creepy.”
“I’m sorry you feel like that. I hope once we’ve been here awhile, you’ll like it better.”
“I liked our old house,” his daughter muttered. “And our old school and our old neighborhood.”
“So did I,” Finn said. “But then our house burned down and so did our school.”
The lingering sadness in his voice made Andrew’s heart ache. Those damn Santa Ana winds. Hadn’t his kids lost enough already
in their short lives? Their mother had only been gone three years. They were finally beginning to find their way after Tracy’s
death when the wind-fueled firestorm had decimated their house, their neighborhood and the life they had been trying to rebuild.
“We all needed a change,” he said, trying to inject a cheery note in his voice. “And your grandma is here. Won’t it be fun
to be near her?”
“I guess,” Zara said.
“And we’re close to the ocean.”
“We were close to the ocean in LA,” she retorted. “And it was warmer there. Grandma said you can’t swim here in Oregon unless
you have a death wish.”
Zara’s negative energy was beginning to grate on his last nerve, though he tried to give her a little grace. He knew this
move had been hard on her.
She had wanted them to rebuild their house in Los Angeles. She loved her friends, her school, their small house on a hillside
above the ocean in a thriving neighborhood. While he understood where she was coming from, Andrew had plenty of reasons for
wanting to start over somewhere new.
“You need to give Oregon a chance. Once the renovations to the house are done, you’re going to love it,” he assured her. “You’ll
have your own room and bathroom. You won’t have to share with Finn like you did at our old place. Everything will be closer.
You can ride your bike to the library, to the park, to the beach. We won’t have to spend half our lives in the car like we
did in Los Angeles.”
“But Mom is in LA. We’re so far away, we can’t even go visit her.”
“Mom is in heaven,” Finn reminded her.
“You think I don’t know that?” Zara glared at her brother. “I meant, her grave is in LA.”
Andrew sighed, wishing he was better at this whole single dad thing.
For the past three years, they had all been in survival mode. He had felt pulled in a dozen different directions while he
tried to juggle the kids’ school and sports schedules, his book deadlines, publicity tours for his two books that had come
out since Tracy’s death, as well as the movie that had been made of his first book, released at Christmastime.
It had left little room for him to think, breathe, grieve for his wife, who had died two years after being diagnosed with
an aggressive form of leukemia.
A year ago, he finally felt as if things were coming together. And then everything had gone to hell.
“We will still make trips to LA to put flowers on her grave,” he promised.
“It won’t be the same,” she muttered.
He wanted to tell her that was an inescapable part of being human. Everything changed. Life was a constantly evolving river,
ever reshaping its banks.
He didn’t bother waxing philosophical. It only annoyed his kids and they were pulling up to a convenient parking space near
the bookstore anyway.
The Rainy Day Bookshop had a charming facade, but unfortunately that was about the only charming part about the store. The
interior was cramped, dark, dingy. Utterly unappealing.
Still, it was the only game in town and did carry a nice selection of kids books and esoteric research books.
Finn was first out of his seat belt. He opened his door, jumped out of the Range Rover and raced for the entrance to the bookshop.
“Slow down,” Zara snapped. She unfastened her own seat belt and rushed after her brother, slamming the door behind her.
Andrew followed more slowly, feeling as if he were a decade older than his forty-three years.
Some days his kids exhausted him. As much as he adored them, they had boundless energy and they seemed to expend most of it
bickering with each other.
Andrew didn’t really consider himself an older father—he had been thirty-three when Zara was born, thirty-seven for Finn—but
there were definitely times when he wished he and Tracy hadn’t waited five years after they married to start having kids.
He pushed open the bookstore door to be met by the musty, delicious, addictive smell of dusty paper, old wood and possibilities.
If he closed his eyes, he would probably enjoy the vibe of The Rainy Day Bookshop more.
Books were cluttered everywhere, stacked sometimes two or three deep on shelves. Finding the exact book you wanted in this
bookstore would be like trying to find a single star in a sky full of countless flickering lights. It would require patience,
dedication and more than a bit of luck.
Still, it was a bookstore.
As long as he could remember, Andrew had always felt most at home in the world when he was surrounded by books.
Finn must have found his way to the bathroom. Zara, he saw, was already looking through the books about horses, her favorite
subject right now. If he had purchased a ranch in Montana instead of a crumbling mansion in Oregon, she probably would have
been much happier.
She looked up as he approached. “You said I could get two books, right?”
“That’s right.”
She sent him a sidelong look, obviously calculating how far she could push. “What if I find three?”
“We can talk about it.”
Both of them knew Andrew was a sucker, especially when it came to books. He had a hard time saying no to his kids, which he
knew wasn’t helpful for any of them.
He could certainly afford three books for his daughter, if that would make her happy. His success and the subsequent movie
and licensing deals had been lucrative beyond anything he might have imagined in his wildest dreams when he first decided
he wanted to become a writer.
“I think I want to get two books about horses, one fiction and one nonfiction, and then maybe that new book in the Castle
Door series.”
“Okay. Maybe you can help Finn find a book, too.”
She nodded and went back to perusing the shelves while Andrew headed over to the cluttered nonfiction section.
The bookstore did not seem to be crowded for a Sunday in early June. The town’s tourist season hadn’t really picked up yet.
He expected in a week or two, the place would be hopping. Though Wood Briar was not as popular as some of the towns farther
up the coast, like Cannon Beach, Lincoln City or Newport, it still drew plenty of people wanting to enjoy the rugged Oregon
coast.
He had a pleasant time combing the shelves, looking for more research books to add to his collection. He was looking specifically
for a book on alchemy. He could always order it online but he preferred to buy local when he could. Anything he could do to
help out the town’s only bookshop.
As usual, being in a bookstore seemed to settle something restless deep inside. He expected those soothing properties had started after his brother’s death, when their already stiff and formal home had become a place of darkness and grief.
His father had been too busy burying his emotions in work while his mother had retreated into herself. More often than not
at loose ends, especially during the summer months, Andrew would escape to the library and if he couldn’t find what he wanted
there, he would find his way to his favorite bookstore.
Books had been his refuge, his sanctuary. He lived in books more than real life when he had been young.
He couldn’t regret it. How could he, when his obsession with books had led to his career as a bestselling author?
He was browsing the shelves when he overheard a snatch of conversation from the next aisle over.
“Yes, that’s Andrew Morgan’s latest,” he heard a female voice say.
Naturally, his attention perked up at that. He liked surprising his readers in bookstores. It invariably gave them a jolt
of happy serendipity and helped connect him to readers, random moments he could take out to help push him forward during the
long hours he spent alone at his laptop.
“I haven’t read that one yet,” a second, younger-sounding woman said.
“You could skip it,” the first voice said in a dismissive tone. “It’s not nearly as good as his last one. And that one didn’t
have the same promise as his early works. He’s massively overhyped, in my opinion.”
Okay. This was awkward. Andrew stiffened, keeping his features turned to the bookshelf in front of him.
“You think so? I feel like his books have gotten better and better.”
“I had no idea you liked his books so much, Em,” the first voice said, sounding surprised. “You know he’s moving to town, right?”
“Grandma told me that. How exciting! I hope I get the chance to meet him. I started reading him years ago. I saw the movie
last Christmas with some friends and it was amazing.”
“It was good. The books aren’t as good as the movie, if you want my opinion.”
Andrew didn’t know about Em, but he certainly didn’t want the other woman’s opinion.