Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Eleanor was finishing a few last-minute odds and ends for the grand opening of her bookstore, which was slated for about a week and a half away…
Or at least that was what she was telling herself.
In reality, what she was doing was puttering around looking for excuses to bring herself near the window so she could look to see if the delivery truck was finally, finally bringing her bookshelf.
She wasn’t sure if this was better or worse than constantly refreshing the tracking app on her phone, but she’d left the device across the room specifically to make that harder for herself, so this was what she was going with, apparently.
She forced herself to fuss with a display, one that made her turn her back to the door. That meant that, when she heard the door open, she jumped halfway out of her skin. She whipped around and was inexplicably disappointed to see that it was Garrett.
Which was silly. It wasn’t like the delivery people would come straight in the door. They would knock.
“Wow,” Garrett said with a teasing smile. “I bring you decorations and this is how you look at seeing me, huh? That’s not what you want to see from your girlfriend, for sure.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes at herself and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said, pulling a face as she crossed to help him with the last few things she had to put up.
These included little cards called “shelf talkers” where she could give staff recommendations on books that she had loved.
Miriam, even though she had no plans of being an employee at the store, was putting up a strong fight for why she should be allowed to recommend things too.
“Age and wisdom, Eleanor!” she insisted whenever the topic arose. “I have age and wisdom, and don’t you forget it!”
“It’s not that I’m disappointed with you at all, obviously,” Eleanor said to Garrett now, taking the box from him and setting it on the front counter. “It’s just—”
“Your bookshelf,” he said reassuringly before leaning down to buss a kiss against her cheek. “I know. Still nothing?”
“Still nothing,” she sighed, then stole a peek out the front window over Garrett’s shoulder.
“I’m not sure staring out there is going to make it come any faster,” he said. His joking words were undercut by the reassuring hand he placed on her shoulder. “Try to relax, if you can. You’re making yourself crazy worrying over it.”
“Ugh, I know.” She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, loving how his arms instantly came around her.
“I just… the bookshelf is my centerpiece, and the whole thing is starting to feel like a myth. Last night, I caught myself checking the order to make sure I’d actually purchased the thing!
I did, by the way,” she added with a slightly self-deprecating chuckle.
“It’s stressful,” Garrett agreed. “All this work that you’re doing to make things look nice have been making me glad that I have a hardware store. Nobody expects their hardware store to look fancy. You just have to make sure the screws are labeled right and everybody is good to go.”
“Well, don’t brag,” she chided halfheartedly.
He rubbed her back consolingly.
“Have you at least heard from your brother?” he asked. When she groaned in reply, he gave a wince, that suggested that he hadn’t realized this was the wrong thing to say.
“I’m excited to hear from him,” Eleanor hastily explained.
She had texted a little bit with Shane earlier in the week, and he had indicated that he was leaning a lot more strongly toward taking a break off work and coming to Magnolia Shore.
He had told her that he just needed a little more time to organize the details, but that he would let her know about his plans just as soon as he firmed them up.
“I really want him to come, obviously,” she went on. “But right now, the waiting to hear… it feels like just one more thing that’s hanging over my head. Does that sound terrible of me?”
“Not at all.” Garrett squeezed her arm. “Waiting is hard, even if it’s waiting for something good. Sometimes especially when it’s waiting for something good.”
“Whoever decided it should be that way is going to get a very sternly worded letter from me,” she grumbled, which made him laugh.
Eleanor had to admit that did make her feel a little bit better. She might be frustrated half out of her mind, but at least she had a great support system, one that started with her wonderful boyfriend.
Her boyfriend. Thinking the word still gave her a little thrill of happiness. So, indeed, not all was as terrible as it seemed.
For a little while, she and Garrett worked in companionable quiet, hanging up the various decorations that Eleanor had planned for the shop.
She tried hard to ignore the glaringly open space in the middle of her near-perfect room, the gaping wound in her vision where the beautiful bookshelf would belong… if it ever arrived.
Eventually, she could not take it anymore. Eleanor hung up the last sign in her hands, the one that showed customers where to find books on gardening and nature, then crossed over to where she had stashed her phone. She opened the tracking app and…
“Oh no!” she cried, the reality of what she was seeing striking her. “Oh, goodness. Oh, no!”
“What’s wrong?” Garrett jumped at her cry of dismay.
She waved a hand at him to indicate that nobody was hurt, even though she meant that only in the physical sense. Emotionally, she felt pretty close to tears.
The bookshelf was delayed… again.
Arrival date: to be determined, her screen read.
They couldn’t even give her a date to expect it!
Eleanor’s stress felt suddenly too huge to bear. She put her phone down on the counter and dropped her head into her hands. She felt Garrett come up beside her and bend down to read the screen.
“Oh, honey,” he said consolingly, rubbing her shoulders. “That stinks. But it’s not the end of the world! You still have more than a week before your opening. It will get here.”
“I know,” she said, even though it did kind of feel like the end of the world at the moment. “I just want it to be perfect.”
“I know you do,” he commiserated. “But listen. We’ll give it a few more days, see what’s happening with the shelf.
And if it comes down to the wire, we’ll figure something out.
Besides, when everyone shows up for your triumphant grand opening, they’ll think, ‘Wow, look how amazing this all is!’ and not, ‘Hey, where is that fancy bookshelf that goes in the middle?’ I promise. It’s all going to be okay.”
She struggled to feel anything other than that this was a huge disaster, but still, Eleanor listened to the low rumble of Garrett’s voice and focused on the soothing way he rubbed circles on her back. It did all make her feel a little bit better.
“What would I do without you?” she asked.
He pecked a kiss on her head. “Dumb question,” he told her, “since you’re never going to have to find out.”