Chapter 9
Present day
Shelby went soft at the sight of her father on his porch swing with Ollie. The baby wore a knit cap and fleece sleeper to
stay warm in the cool October evening. Her dad was staring off into space, his salt-and-pepper hair ruffling in the wind.
The lines on his forehead seemed more prominent than they had only a week ago. Her heart ached for him. Losing Gram had been
hard on the whole family.
Shelby stroked her gram’s wedding set, which dangled from a gold chain at her neck. She hoped her face bore no remnants of
her recent crying jag. She’d just left her apartment where the mere sight of Gram’s tea service had brought a wave of grief.
It didn’t seem to take much. One minute she was fine; the next she was falling apart in the middle of her kitchen.
Dad caught sight of her coming up the sidewalk and his expression warmed. “Hey, puddin’. What brings you by?”
“Can’t I just want to check on my dear old dad?”
“I suspect this little package might be the real draw.”
Ollie blinked wide brown eyes at her as she placed a kiss on Dad’s cheek.
“It doesn’t hurt.” She scooped the baby from Dad, who gave him over willingly.
He scooched over to make room for her on the swing.
“Hi there, buddy. Oh, you are so sweet. I could just eat you up.” There was something purely therapeutic about new life.
When she held Oliver all her troubles seemed to wash away.
“Where’s Caleb and Liddy—and if I ran off with this little guy, do you think they could catch me? ”
Dad’s lips twitched. “The town hall meeting ended early, so they took advantage of my free time by grabbing supper out. They’re
probably expecting their son to be here when they get home.”
“Just as well. I’ve got my hands pretty full at the shop.” She’d placed ads trying to find someone to fill Gram’s job, but
she hadn’t had a single qualified applicant, and Gray would be leaving in one week.
She shook away the stressful thought and regarded her dad. “Nice of you to give them a break. They probably don’t get out
very often on their own.” Shelby couldn’t imagine trying to find a trustworthy babysitter in a big city like New York.
“They could get all the breaks they wanted if your brother would just move back home.”
This again. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “You know it’s not that simple, Dad.”
“It could be. He could do his artwork from anywhere, and now that Liddy’s home with the baby, she doesn’t have a job to leave.”
“He might be able to paint anywhere, but the big galleries are in New York.” She was beginning to suspect Dad’s disappointment
in Caleb had less to do with his choice of occupation and more to do with his geographic location.
“He could travel for the showings and ship his artwork if he wanted.”
“I’d love to have them here too, but it would be hard for him to paint his urban landscapes if he’s living in North Carolina.
Besides, he’s a grown man. He has a right to live where he wants.”
Dad’s gaze dropped to Oliver. “How am I supposed to know my grandson if he’s growing up halfway across the country?”
“I guess we’ll just have to go see them more often. Maybe they’ll come around here more too”—she gave him a pointed look—“if we make them feel welcome when they visit.”
Her dad shrugged off the comment. “Well, they’ll have their own house to stay in, thanks to your gram.”
“Have they decided what they’ll do with it?”
“Not that they’ve mentioned. They’ve been over there boxing up some things. We’re supposed to go get the rest of what’s ours
and anything else we’d like to keep.” His voice cracked on the last word.
Shelby offered a sympathetic smile. He’d been close to his mom and he’d never see her again this side of heaven. “How are
you doing, Dad? I can’t even imagine losing a parent.”
“You did lose a parent.”
“Not like this.” When she was seven her mom had taken off for Hollywood with dreams of fame. They’d barely heard from her
after that—and certainly hadn’t seen her on TV or the big screen. It seemed their mom had given up her family for nothing.
Shelby wished she couldn’t remember her at all. But she did. She remembered her glossy dark hair and expressive brown eyes.
She remembered soft hands and melodious laughter.
And she remembered the night when her mom hadn’t come home from work. It grew late. The sky darkened and they ate supper under
a cloud of concern. Then the phone rang and Dad sent Caleb and her to their rooms. But they sat in the hallway instead trying
to hear Dad’s end of the conversation.
A while later, eyes red-rimmed and voice wobbling with emotion, he brought them the bad news.
Ollie squirmed in her arms. She shook the memory away and placed a kiss on the infant’s head, soaking in the soft baby smell
of him.
“Going back to work this week has helped,” Dad said. “You know, staying busy.”
“I’m glad.”
“How’ve you been this week? You were close to her, too, and accustomed to seeing her every day. Now you’re cooped up in the
building with that Briggs boy. It’s all I can do to stop myself from going down there and hauling his rear end out of there.”
“Just remember this was all Gram’s doing.”
He scowled. “I don’t get it. She always had such a blind spot for that kid.”
An image of the five-o’clock shadow on Gray’s jawline as he left the store this evening popped into her mind. “He’s hardly
a kid anymore.”
“That’s what worries me.”
“If it makes you feel any better, he stays downstairs all day—crunching numbers, I guess. I hardly see him.” But every second
of the day she was aware of his presence, always wondering when he’d come up to ask a question.
At first he’d tried to teach her some things related to the POS system. At her reticence he eventually offered to make her
a detailed tutorial, and she latched onto that idea. The less time she spent with him the better.
Even so, Gray seemed to have grown increasingly quieter as the week progressed. Maybe he was just locked in on his task. Fine
by her. Sooner he got it done, sooner he’d leave.
“What if he doesn’t know what he’s doing?”
“Come on, Dad. He has a business degree with a specialization in accounting. I’m pretty sure he’s qualified for the task.
And this’ll get him out of the bookstore for good. It’s a small price to pay to regain 100 percent ownership.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“I know you don’t. I don’t either. That’s why I put it in writing. We’re all covered here. We just have to get through this,
and then he’ll leave town and this will all be behind us.”
Dad’s gaze sharpened on her face. “It’s your heart I’m worried about. There are no legal papers that can protect it.”
She’d once been hopelessly in love with Gray. And the summer he left, it had been all she could do to get out of bed. Breathing
seemed like a struggle. Then fall came and she went off to Belmont University where she struggled through a semester, too
forlorn and distracted to make a real go of it. Why was she struggling so hard to become an English teacher when everything
she needed was back home? She missed her family. Missed the bookshop. Missed home.
Most of all she missed Gray, but he was gone.
None of them wanted to see her return to that dark place. “Don’t worry, Dad. I don’t need a legal document for that. My heart
has a ten-foot wall around it where Gray Briggs is concerned. Besides, I’m seeing Logan, remember?”
His eyes softened. “I like Logan. How does he feel about all this?”
“He trusts me. But like the rest of us, he’ll be glad when it’s over.” Right now that seemed like an eternity away.
“Amen to that.”