Piece By Piece (South Carolina Sunsets #13)

Chapter 1

Liza Forrester had packed too much. This was a common problem she had, and she knew it before she even left Charleston. She definitely knew it now as she wrestled her third suitcase out of the trunk of her Honda Civic, right behind Down Yonder Books in the gravel parking lot.

The South Carolina humidity hit her the second she stepped out of the air conditioning. It was that thick coastal kind of heat that made your clothes stick to your skin before you’d even taken three steps. She felt like she already needed another shower.

She pushed her sunglasses up on her head and looked around.

Seagrove Island. Population: not a whole lot. One main road, a handful of shops lining the town square, and enough Spanish moss hanging from live oak trees to make the whole place feel as if it were wearing a big green veil.

She’d only been here twice as a kid, both times with her mother to visit Dixie. They had been friends for decades, but her mother’s health had kept her from traveling much lately.

The memories of those visits were soft and blurry at the corners of her mind. Shrimp boils, sandy feet, and a bookstore that smelled of vanilla candles and paper.

That last part, at least, she was about to find out if it still held true.

She grabbed a box from the passenger seat, the one that she’d been so careful not to bury under luggage, and tucked it under her arm.

It was heavier than it looked. Inside were eleven crossword puzzle books, each one dog-eared, pen-marked, and loved within an inch of its life. They had belonged to her late father.

Two weeks. That was the plan. Help Dixie redesign the children’s corner of the bookstore, eat a lot of comfort food, and then go back to Charleston to figure out what on earth she was going to do with her life.

Seemed simple enough.

She hauled the first suitcase up the three wooden steps to the back porch of the bookstore and heard a voice that could cut through a hurricane.

“Well, I don’t care if it came from Timbuktu. I ordered the ones with butterflies on the cover, but these have ladybugs. Ladybugs! That’s not even close. They are two entirely different insects.”

Liza walked through the empty store, and there she was. Dixie, standing on the front porch of Down Yonder Books, one hand on her hip, and the other holding a picture book up like she was showing evidence in a courtroom.

A delivery driver stood at the bottom step, a look on his face that screamed he wished he’d called in sick.

“Ma’am, I’m just the driver.”

“Oh, I know you’re just the driver, honey, but somebody somewhere made a decision, and that decision was just plain wrong. I need you to commiserate with me.”

Liza couldn’t help it. She laughed.

Dixie turned, and her whole face changed. She went from courtroom prosecutor to pure, unfiltered joy.

“Oh, my stars. Get over here.”

Liza set down her suitcase and walked into the kind of hug that only a Southern woman can give. Only a Southern woman of a certain age. Tight and accompanied by at least three declarations about how thin, tired, or pretty you looked.

“Look at you. Just look at you. You’re the spitting image of your mama. You know that? Same eyes, same cheekbones, except your mama never had the sense to wear comfortable shoes.”

Dixie pulled back and looked down at Liza’s sneakers. “Good girl.”

“Hey, Dixie.”

“Hey, yourself. Come sit down. I’ve got sweet tea, and I’ve got gossip, and you’re about to get both of them.”

The delivery driver took that as his cue to leave, and Liza didn’t blame him.

The bookstore smelled exactly like she remembered - vanilla mixed with paper - and a little something else she couldn’t name. Maybe lemon polish. Maybe just time.

The front room was cozy and cluttered, with overstuffed shelves lining the walls and a big window that let in the afternoon light from the square.

A ceiling fan turned lazily overhead, doing almost nothing about the heat, but giving a pleasant white noise that mixed with the soft jazz playing from a speaker behind the counter.

Dixie gave her the tour as if she’d done it a thousand times. She started with the romance section, which took up an entire wall of the bookstore. Romance was the biggest category in most bookstores, and this one was no exception.

“Now, this is our bread and butter here. Always has been. I keep saying I’m going to cut it back and make room for more literary fiction, but every single time I try to think about that, some woman comes in here with mascara running down her face, asking if I have anything with a happy ending.

I just can’t do it.” She pointed to a shelf near the register.

“Now, that’s the local author section. Julie’s book is right there, front and center, of course.

She co-owns this place with me, you know, but between the inn and that book of hers I can't get her through the door these days. And she’d kill me for saying this, but it’s outselling half the stuff from New York. ”

“So Julie’s your friend who runs the inn?”

“Honey, Julie is everybody’s friend. You’ll meet her soon enough. She’s on every committee this island has and even a few she invented herself.”

They passed the reading nook, which was two mismatched armchairs wedged into an alcove by a window, with a small table between them holding a box of tissues and a small dish of individually wrapped peppermint candies.

“I call these the therapy chairs,” Dixie said, laughing.

“The therapy chairs?”

“Well, people sit there and cry sometimes. You’d be amazed at what a good book can shake loose. I just bring them tissues and a cookie and let them be. Costs a whole lot less than a real therapist.”

Liza smiled. There was something about this place, and about Dixie, that made her feel like the world just had a lower speed limit here. People didn’t rush around. There was no such thing as traffic. Like a clock wound back to a time that didn’t exist in most places anymore.

Then they reached the back corner. “Now this,” Dixie said, sweeping her hand out like a game-show host revealing a prize, “is the children’s section.”

Liza looked at it and wondered if this area had somehow been forgotten by time.

There was a small shelf labeled “Kids” in faded marker on a piece of masking tape.

Below it was a beanbag chair with a slow leak, a plastic bin of picture books that looked like they had survived a flood, and a rug that might have been colorful at some point in a previous decade.

A stuffed animal of indeterminate species was propped in the corner with one eye missing.

“Dixie.”

“I know.”

“This is…”

“Sad. The word you’re looking for is sad. I know, you can say it. It’s why you’re here, sugar.”

Liza knelt down and picked up one of the picture books. The spine was cracked, and someone had drawn a mustache on the main character using a green crayon. She put it back.

Her brain was already firing. That was the thing about Liza. Her marketing brain never fully shut off, even when the rest of her was running on fumes.

She could see it so clearly, as if she’d created a slide presentation in her mind.

Low bookshelves at kid height, painted in bright colors.

A huge reading rug with floor cushions. A mural on the back wall.

Something whimsical, like a hot air balloon.

A little chalkboard where kids could write their favorite book of the week.

A monthly storytime event with people in costumes and themed activities.

A display table that rotated with the seasons.

She stood up and dusted off her knees.

“I can work with this.”

Dixie smiled so wide that her eyes nearly disappeared.

“Now that’s my girl. I knew you’d see it. I told your mama, I said, ‘Linda, that daughter of yours has a gift. I know she can look at this mess and see a miracle.’”

“Well, I don’t know about a miracle, but I can definitely get rid of that beanbag chair.”

“Don’t you dare. That beanbag has been here since 2003. It’s our mascot.”

They sat outside the bookstore with sweet tea while Liza pulled out her phone to start a list. The square was quiet in the late afternoon heat.

A couple walked by holding ice cream cones, and an older man in a fishing hat waved at Dixie from across the street.

She waved back without even really looking up, which told Liza this was a several-times-a-day occurrence.

Dixie had her feet up on the railing and was fanning herself with a paper fan, which Liza suspected was less about the heat and more about the drama.

“So catch me up,” Dixie said. “How’s your mama?”

“She’s good. Busy. You know Mom. Doing too much no matter how she feels.”

“Oh, I do know your mama. She’s the only woman I ever met who could organize a church potluck and get her nails done at the same time.” Dixie took a sip of tea. “How’s that fancy job of yours? You still bossing people around in your big office?”

There it was, the question Liza had been rehearsing answers to for three months.

“You know, I’m actually between things right now,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “Just ready for a change of scenery, I guess.”

It wasn’t a lie, exactly. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

The whole truth was that three months ago, she’d had a panic attack at her desk so bad that her assistant thought she was having a heart attack and called 911.

Then the paramedics came.

Her coworkers watched.

Her boss sent her home with a look that was equal parts concern and inconvenience. Who wants a person causing drama at work because she can’t contain her anxiety?

She had quit her job the very next morning without any sort of plan, without any savings, without telling her mother the real reason she was leaving.

As far as her mom knew, Liza had left to “pursue other opportunities,” which was just corporate-speak for “I fell apart, and nobody - including me - noticed until it was an absolute emergency.”

Dixie looked at her for a moment.