Chapter 2
Penny
I shift the burnt-orange chrysanthemums to the other side of the cinnamon dahlias and tilt my head, considering my next move. Maybe just a few more decorations?
Snagging the sprinkling of marigolds I stole from my family’s flower farm, I place them strategically beside the maple-golden lanterns outside the front door and grin as I take everything in.
Perfect.
As soon as I snap the picture, I wish I was working with better lighting. When the sun sets in Hope Harbor, it casts the most magical golden glow over my bookstore, but I can’t wait until the evening to post, which means this will have to do.
I upload the photo to my personal Instagram page—@apennyforyourbooks—first. I started it before I opened the bookstore, and even though I don’t have many followers, there are a few dedicated accounts who always brighten my day with their sweet comments.
I’m hoping my regular posting will one day pay off and I’ll go viral.
I hate to say I need it, but with how slow sales are in our small town, I really do need the online sales to do something if I’m going to make it another year in this storefront.
In the caption I type, what’s better than a good book on a fall morning? before clicking out of the app and moving over to the town chat to send it there, too.
Me: The bookstore is ready for tonight!
Babs: It’s still summer! What’s with all the fall decor?
Tally: Leave my sister alone. Fall is her passion.
Rayna: And it can be her passion. Next week. AFTER labor day.
Rosie: Keep it up and I’ll have pumpkins and bales of hay lining the brewery driveway first thing tomorrow!
Babs: I’ve got a surprise for tonight.
Tally: Oh god, I’m scared to ask.
Rosie: Is it another alien penis?
Stew: Mr. Mayor!
Fletcher: Ladies. We’ve had this conversation before. This is a town chat. Meant for important town business. Please take this conversation elsewhere.
Rosie: Prude!
I snort as I pocket my phone. The town chat is one of my favorite things about the small New England town I was born and raised in, and the home of one of my dreams come true: my Bonfire and Bliss Bookstore.
My most frequent customers are Hope Harbor’s Liberty Ladies, a group of women who insert themselves into everything town related.
Barbara Wilcox, who we all lovingly call Babs, and Rayna McGovern are two of the loudest members.
But there’s also Mindy, Angelina, Ruby, and my mother.
Though my mother rarely looks at the town chat.
She’s not big on electronics. She prefers her flowers.
Even though the chat is only supposed to be used for important town business, a group of us likes to use it for more lighthearted things.
Especially my younger sister, Tally, who recently moved back to town and now owns the adorable bakery across the street from my store, and Rosie, her best friend, who runs the bustling local brewery.
I don’t think anyone loves the town chat as much as Rosie. And what does she adore the most about it? Winding up Fletcher Matthews, our mayor, persona non grata to Rosie.
I grin as I think what a fabulous story they’d make.
I spend half my life imagining tales about strangers, and the other half with my head in a book reading other people’s stories. “Head in the clouds or head in a book”; that’s what my dad always said when I was growing up. Though lots has changed since I was a little girl, that has not.
The familiar pinch hits me—this will be my first fall without my daddy.
There have been a lot of firsts this year, though not all have been bad.
Tally returning home full time after spending most of her life as a traveling chef has made the difficult time easier.
Plus, my store is celebrating its second year of business in just a few short weeks.
I’m hoping we make it to next fall; running a successful business has proven trickier than I imagined when I first stenciled the beautiful bonfire and maple tree on the front glass window.
Another thing I did with my dad. God, I miss him.
This is also my first fall without Dick the douchebag, my ex-fiancé, Richard. Tally and I have taken to calling him Dick. You play stupid games, you earn stupid names.
Dick never understood my love for the season. Never understood my love for books, either. They say hindsight is 20/20, but my vision must have been diabolically bad if I thought he was the one.
I understand love stories. Hell, I spend the majority of my life thinking about them. I still can’t work out how I didn’t realize Dick wasn’t my romantic hero.
I shake my head. I’m not wasting another second thinking about that fool or how he ended our engagement because I refused to sell my silly little bookshop hobby so I could follow him across the country to work for some start-up in California last December. A month after my father died.
Now, in spite of him, and because I can, I’m decorating the shop in all its autumnal finery early.
I reach for the sunflower wreath, surrounded by golden-brown and crimson-red leaves, and set it against the door. Some may say it’s too much, too soon. But how could anything as beautiful as fall be too much?
It’s the season of magic, of cool crisp nights and golden-sunshine afternoons. Of a cozy blanket wrapped around your shoulders and a book in your hand. Of pumpkin spice everything. Pies, coffee, martinis…I even found pumpkin spice Oreos last year.
Now, with Tally’s bakery just across from me, it’d be easy to convince her to make every treat under the sun with pumpkin in it.
There’s nothing my sister loves more than trying new recipes.
Well, maybe her boyfriend, Jesse Walker.
He works on my family’s flower farm—Darling Daffodils Farm—which he now part owns, too.
He and Tally fell in love in the spring after she came back to help my mother during wedding season.
I glance toward her bakery, Whisk and Wildflowers, wondering if I have time to stop in and grab something sweet before I head to the Montgomerys’ house. Probably not. Once Tally and I start talking, there’s no stopping us.
My phone continuously buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out to see what the Liberty Ladies are saying.
Babs: My surprise tonight IS town business. In addition to talking about how the stalker got that sweet girl to fall for him, we’re going to do a cleansing.
Rosie: You should preface the stalking thing before Stew complains again.
Babs: Ah yes. It’s a book. About a stalker. He ties her up. It’s delicious.
Fletcher: Ladies!
Tally: What kind of cleansing?
Babs: Relationship cleansing. Penny needs to clean that ex-fiance from her aura so she can finally move on and find THE ONE.
I huff, trying to think up a response to Babs that won’t make me sound pathetic.
This has been the only con of my recent breakup: how obsessed the Liberty Ladies are with setting me up—with the mailman (he’s sixty and smells like foot powder), with Babs’s son (he’s married), with Jerry from the fire department (he tells everyone he sees dead people—and talks to them).
It’s been so relentless I’ve considered pretending I have an online boyfriend, though I don’t feel like being warned about catfishing.
While everyone else is concerned about my romantic prospects, I’m happy on my own.
Besides, I have plenty of book boyfriends.
I’d rather spend a night with a piece of maple pecan pie, a pumpkin spice tea, and a steamy book than stumble through an awkward get-to-know-you conversation while eating a salad.
I head inside my bookstore, smiling at the beautiful shelves bursting with all my favorite books. There’s only one rule I have when it comes to Bonfire and Bliss: the story must have romance and a happily ever after.
As I pass my Local Authors shelf, my fingers brush across the only books that break that rule: Jake Montgomery’s.
My lips lift into a smile the moment I think of him. I pull up our chat to see if he’s sent anything new. Since we reconnected in May, we’ve been exchanging random texts.
Monty: I would never tell you to take dating advice from Babs and Rayna, I promise.
Nope, nothing since that last message. I’m not sure why I hoped for more. Monty is a man of few words. Or at least he has been since we graduated high school and lost touch. It’s been nice to have this little bit of friendship back. Even if it’s just memes and a few stray texts every few days.
I spot the time on my cell phone and curse.
Dammit. I’m going to be late if I don’t get a move on.
I rush upstairs to my apartment, snag the books I’d set aside for today’s visit with Monty’s vovo, Ana, throw them in a tote, and change quickly, making it back down to the sidewalk in less than fifteen minutes.
The Montgomerys’ property is located around the harbor opposite downtown. Thankfully the air isn’t as sticky this late in the day and with fall around the corner, so it will make for a nice walk.
Hope Harbor is a small New England town, and while most people travel to Vermont or the Berkshires to see the wonders of fall, the areas on the coast—like Hope Harbor—are a secret among locals.
There is nothing prettier than when a maple tree turns orange and red against the sparkling blue of the ocean. Or when the harbor, dotted with sailboats, transforms from a glittering turquoise to a midnight blue under the autumn sun.
Every season in Hope Harbor is celebrated but nothing compares to this time of year.
As I stroll down Maple Lane, our version of Main Street, I take in all the little shops, housed inside deep redbrick buildings, weathered from centuries of standing tall.
My neighbors are local shop owners who obsess over their crafts—homemade trinkets and pottery or artisanal foods that you can find at stores like Wicked Wine and Cheese, where Tally, Rosie, and I love to spend an evening sipping on a bottle of wine. Or two.