Chapter 1 #2
media influencer by sharing decorating tips. She was already in the process of turning the fixer-upper she and Mark had purchased
a few months earlier into an HGTV-worthy project. Although lately Mark wasn’t being much help.
Alice’s flattery brought back a smile. “Yes, it does.” The smile was short-lived.
“Something’s got to be done about this Parker Black.
He’s messing over people’s lives right and left.
And that’s not just couples like Mark and me.
It includes you and Mom and every other romance bookstore owner. You’re right in his crosshairs.”
“That’s your sister the drama queen,” their mother Nola said when she returned to the store and Alice told her of Scarlet’s
dire warnings about Parker Black. As always, Nola Willoughby looked perfectly put together, wearing her favorite leggings
and a long, red sweater under her faux fur coat. She carried a large plate of brownies as well as some lavender sugar cookies.
Temptation on Fiesta Tableware. Alice told herself not to look. The curse of being short, there wasn’t as much storage space
for carbs.
“What does she expect us to do?” Nola asked.
“She didn’t say exactly.”
Nola shook her head. “I’m sorry Scarlet is having marriage troubles, but shutting up one grumpy man isn’t going to help her.
And we have our hands full making our own little corner of the world a better place.”
“Scarlet talks like he’s coming after us.”
Nola set down the plate next to the plastic glasses and bottles of wine Alice had set out. “Well, when he does, we’ll give
him some cookies and a book to read.”
“It is pretty mean what he’s doing,” Alice said, “picking on women and trashing what we like to read.”
“Mean people are everywhere. If the man is so angry he’s ranting against women on the radio, you almost have to feel sorry
for him. Bitter people aren’t born that way. But it’s nothing to us. Don’t worry about it.”
Mom was right. Let the angry people stomp around their angry world.
At HEA Books it was all love and kindness.
The bookstore was a haven and a happy place, with walls painted an unashamed pastel pink and a small selection of necessary reading accessories such as handcrafted bookmarks, mugs with book-themed quotes and chocolates by local chocolatiers. Here in Romance Land, all was well.
Except in Scarlet’s neighborhood. She showed up several minutes before the others were due to arrive and started working on
Nola.
And wound up as irritated with her mother as she’d been with Alice. “This man is wrecking relationships right and left, including
mine, and you’re going to just stand by and let him? You know, this is why bad things happen in the world, because good people
do nothing.”
Nola had buried a husband, raised two girls single-handedly and started a business. When it came to daughterly scolding, she
was Teflon. “We’re not talking genocide or war or economic collapse,” she said.
Scarlet had an instant comeback. “He could collapse your economy.”
That made their mother laugh, deepening the creases at the corners of her eyes. The romance heroine, scoffing at the misguided
tycoon who was trying to put her out of business. Nola looked the part, with her even features, chestnut-colored short curls
and her statuesque figure.
Which Alice wished she’d inherited. Oh, well.
“Do you seriously think one disillusioned male is going to stop our customers from buying romance novels?” Nola posited. “He
has nothing to do with us.”
It did sound preposterous when she put it that way.
“Well, he has something to do with me,” Scarlet shot back. She scowled and grabbed a cookie, just as Bettina Cross, the store’s right-hand woman, arrived, bringing another plate of cookies.
Bettina was middle-aged and happily single, unworried about the gray hairs taking over her head. “I have the perfect life,”
she liked to say, “book boyfriends by the ton and total control of the TV remote.” She was fiercely loyal to the Willoughby
women and considered herself their personal guardian.
“Scarlet, I’m glad you came. You need something good in your life right now. Like us.” Bettina pulled the plastic wrap off
her plate. “Here, have a cookie.”
“Thanks,” Scarlet said and helped herself. “I’m glad someone understands what I’m going through,” she added, shooting a look at her mother.
That was definitely Bettina. When it came to Scarlet’s marriage, Nola was focused on offering unbiased advice, and lately
she’d offered a generous motherly share of it. Bettina, on the other hand, was a big believer in bias when it came to people
she cared about.
The next Back in Time book club member came into the store. She was followed by another and then another, and Scarlet’s frustration
got swept away on the stream of lighthearted chitchat. The ground was slushy from the Snowmageddon of a whole three inches
that had fallen two days before. It had cleared grocery store shelves and kept Seattleites off the streets, but no book club
member would let a little slush keep her from meeting with other book lovers.
Everyone soon settled in to discuss the World War II novel they’d read. And devour the last of the goodies.
“These are to die for,” said the club’s leader, Georgia Bishop, on her third brownie. “So was Safe Harbor,” she added. “I had never heard anything about the Night of Broken Glass.”
“I’m really happy Erich and Nissa survived to be together in the end,” said another woman. “I do love a happy ending.”
“They went through enough awful things getting there,” said another woman.
“We all go through hard things. It’s how we deal with them that counts,” Nola said, casting a quick look in Scarlet’s direction.
Scarlet said nothing.
“So, Alice, have you got a recommendation for us for our next read?” Georgia asked. “We depend on you, you know.”
Alice loved being depended on. “I do,” she said. She held up a book with a cover showing two women walking in the rain under
an umbrella. The Eiffel Tower rose in the background. “This is a World War I novel, and the main characters are both strong
women. I think you’ll all find it inspiring.”
“If you’re recommending it, I know it will be good,” said Georgia. “And it has a happy ending?”
“Absolutely,” Alice assured her.
Her assurance was met with excited chatter, and everyone grabbed a book to purchase.
Including Scarlet. “This is the only place I’m going to find any romance,” she grumbled, and her words fell heavily on Alice’s
heart. Her sister was beautiful. Why was she having so much trouble making her marriage beautiful?
“Then you’d better get busy looking in your own backyard,” Nola advised.
“You just don’t get it, Mom,” Scarlet said in a huff.
“I get that marriage can be hard, but you can’t be blaming other people for your problems,” Nola said sternly, and they all
knew she was referring to Parker Black.
Scarlet gave her mother her famous eye roll but still kissed both her and Alice on the cheek before leaving.
Once everyone had left, mother and daughter did a quick cleanup, then turned out the lights on their little kingdom. They stepped outside and Alice locked the door behind them. The air felt icy and brittle. Like some sort of metaphor.
“They’ve only been married three years,” Alice said. “Shouldn’t they still be happy?”
“Three years is plenty of time to start seeing the flaws in what looked like a perfect picture,” said Nola. “I don’t think
their differences are that big. Mark just needs to grow up and Scarlet needs to be less demanding.”
“Scarlet less demanding. Good luck with that. I remember what it was like sharing a room with her,” Alice said.
Nola chuckled. “Don’t worry about your sister. She’ll be fine.”
“And what about us? Will we?” Could one man’s ranting really trickle down to affect sales in their store? Surely not.
“Of course, we will.” Nola put a kiss on her fingers and then transferred it to the glass door of the store, her usual closing
ritual. “Love always wins in the end.”
Later that night, in bed, her cat Mr. Darcy curled up next to her, Alice did an internet search for Parker Black.
He was everywhere. She studied the pictures of him posing with various superstars from Seattle sports teams. With that cocky smile one would have thought he was a member of those teams. There was one of him throwing out the opening pitch at a Mariners game.
Had it been a good throw? The picture didn’t show that.
There were also several head shots. He had a nice head topped with short-cut, thick black hair.
Equally dark eyebrows sat over deep-set gray eyes.
He sported a carefully trimmed dark beard that made her think of pirates under very nice lips, the kind of sensual lips that belonged on a romance hero.
The kind of lips a woman would think—a lot—about kissing.
One full body shot showed him in a suit.
A man in a suit. Sigh. In another he wore jeans and boots and a black T-shirt.
His chest wasn’t Incredible Hulk massive, but still nicely muscled.
So were the biceps on those arms he had crossed over that nice chest. In all the pictures with sports heroes he was smiling, but the smile was missing in his solo shots.
What had happened to make that man so angry and divisive?
“He’s not a very nice man, Mr. Darcy,” she said, stroking her cat’s head.
Mr. Darcy purred in agreement.
“And it’s mean to insult authors’ hard work. But he’ll get what’s coming to him eventually.”
Alice turned off her phone and set it on her nightstand to charge, then grabbed her book. She read a lot on her e-reader,
but at night there was nothing she liked better than to go to bed holding a physical book. Mr. Darcy knew he was about to
be ignored so made his way to the foot of the bed as Alice turned to page thirty-eight, where she’d left off.
There was her latest love, Sir Victor, in all his perfection, waiting for her (and Allegra the heroine) at a masked ball.
Alice thrilled as the lightning (metaphorical, of course) flashed between the two characters. She watched the scene unfold
as Sir Victor threaded his way through the throng and smiled down on the lucky woman of his dreams.
The things that smile promised made Allegra tremble. They got Alice a little shivery, too.
“I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind about coming,” he said to Allegra, his voice like a tiger’s purr.
“I almost did.” Her own voice came out breathless, and she caught her breath as his hand reached out and circled her waist.
She was breathless but then she caught her breath—a little boo-boo the author’s editor had missed. Was that something Parker Black would see and sneer at?
He bent to whisper, his breath hot against her hair. “I’ll make you glad you came.”
If only there were men out there in real life like that. Even if there were, they’d pass Alice by. She wasn’t the kind of
woman men stopped to stare at. She wasn’t good with . . . being seen.
She wanted to be though. Maybe eventually she’d figure out how to make that happen.
Meanwhile, so what if she didn’t have a man in her life? That was why book boyfriends were invented.
She snuggled deeper under the covers and read on, living vicariously through every kiss and every perfect word on the next
page. She finished the chapter just as the evil earl who wanted to ruin Sir Victor and take Allegra for himself found the
couple out on the ballroom’s balcony. Alice wanted to read more but she needed to put the book aside and go to sleep. She
did set it aside, but she did so reluctantly.
Sir Victor would still be there, waiting for her the next night. And who knew, maybe if she was lucky that night she’d see
him in her dreams.
She did see someone in her dreams, but it wasn’t Sir Victor. Instead, it was Parker Black who came up to her at the masked
ball. “I know you’ve been waiting for me,” he whispered in her ear.
“All my life,” she said, and he laughed.
And then she woke up.
What did that dream mean? Nothing, of course. She burrowed under the covers. Maybe it would be better if she didn’t see anyone
in her dreams.