Chapter 42
The fit check photo I sent to Lily was not well received.
You look like an old woman. Wear something casual, like you would any other day of the week. Add some bling and an extra coat of mascara, she texts back.
I look at myself in the mirror, and I think she’s right. I do look like an old woman and it has me changing my outfit.
Everything inside of me buzzes. The store is about to be packed for the next four days.
My schedule will be busy from sun up to sun down.
Rachel worked with me for an hour yesterday, and has an hour carved out today to work with me as well.
Noah was right. She loves the story and wants to change everything about it all at the same time, but I’m giddy to do it.
Noah stayed in town last night to spend more time with Abby’s family.
I’ve had a long talk with myself about it, and I have to be okay with it.
I mean, I’ll never have that part of him.
And the part I do have will return to New York in four days.
It’s not a complete loss. I mean I did get an agent out of it.
I also know he loves me.
I’m grinning as I pull off the sweater I had on and stand in front of my closet in only my bra looking for something else to wear as the successful owner of a small town bookstore.
The thought has me laughing and it feels good. I have forgotten how much I stopped laughing since I moved back home so many years ago. I need to laugh more. I need to laugh like the night Noah and I ate the brownie.
Now I snort out a hearty laugh. God, that was a good night.
I search through my closet and finally pull out a white button up shirt.
I pair it with a pair of jeans and a nice belt that I think Lily picked out for me when we’d gone thrifting.
Adding more bling, as she’d said to do, and then taming my hair again, I head into town to help oversee the madness that will be the Book Affair Literary Event.
There is a line outside the store as I pull around the back. My heart is racing. This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!
I park my car next to Lily’s and she jumps from hers and runs to open my door.
“Did you see that line? Oh-my-God!” She’s shouting and pulling me from the car.
“I did.”
“We’re going to be exhausted,” she says with a huge smile on her lips.
“We’ll never notice.”
“Someday this will be for you,” she says and the sincerity in her words have me pulling her into me and squeezing my arms around her.
“I doubt it, but your enthusiasm is just what I need.”
She kisses me on the cheek, links our arms together, and we walk through the back door of the store ready for the chaos to begin.
The first event is at the hotel. There is a welcome breakfast for all of the attendees and the celebrated authors.
Noah has texted me photos of the room and it’s at maximum capacity. He said that Sylvia tried to convince Katie to sit her next to him, but he got moved to the other side of Sutton Upton, a thriller writer that Noah admires and Olivia Edwards, a romance author he thinks I should meet.
Mrs. Packer, Lily, Julia, and I are still working because not everyone is at that breakfast. The store is plenty busy and books are flying off the shelves—and not just the books of the featured authors.
Dr. Peter Wells will be very happy to know that those three consigned books he wrote about Pine Haven have sold.
They’ve only been on the shelf since he published the historical account of the area ten years ago.
How’s it going at the store? Noah’s text comes in near noon.
Non-stop! Greatest day ever! I respond.
Any chance you could get away and have lunch with me? Room service?
I send him a picture of the store and the crowd.
I guess not, he replies. I’m missing you.
“You can’t text that man during business hours,” Lily says as she nudges me out of the way to get to the register. “Your face becomes nearly obscene.”
“It does not,” I laugh, tucking my phone into my back pocket, the grin still wide on my mouth.
“It kinda does,” the woman buying the books says, and I lift my head to see Abby’s sister there smiling at me.
“Oh,” I let the word fall from my mouth. “Hi,” I manage.
She holds her hand out toward me and Lily stops scanning the stack of books. “I’m Grace Thompson. Abby Carter’s sister.”
My throat has closed hearing her name … Abby Carter.
The woman Noah loved.
The wife of the man I love.
The woman who died and broke him—who probably broke all of them.
Lily manages to kick me behind the counter making me snap to. I reach out to take Grace’s hand. “Emma Reynolds. I own the store,” I add as if she doesn’t know everything about me by now.
Grace manages a smile, and it’s sincere, but equally nervous as mine. “Would you have time for a cup of coffee?”
As I take a breath to protest the invitation, Lily shoves me.
“She sure does,” she says. “I’ll keep your books up here and they’ll be ready to go when you are.”
“Thank you,” Grace says, then turns her attention back to me. “Is the coffee next door good?”
“It is,” I say.
“Just don’t order anything special from the back,” Lily adds and I squeeze my eyes shut wishing I’d wake up from this very strange dream.