Chapter 14
Liza woke up to the sound of a rooster and that unmistakable smell of salty air.
She had made a decision.
The letter was on the nightstand, and her father’s crossword puzzle book was beside it.
Two sets of paper.
Two sets of handwriting.
And two men who understood the world through the structure and pattern and careful placement of words.
She’d lost one of them, and the other one was just two hundred yards away in a puzzle shop with his crooked owl on the counter, waiting to find out if he’d ruined everything.
She took a shower, got dressed, and stood in front of the mirror looking at herself for a moment.
She looked so different from the woman who’d arrived in Seagrove three months ago.
It wasn’t dramatic, nothing other people would probably even notice.
She didn’t have a new hairdo or new clothes.
She just looked settled, like the pieces of her face had found the right arrangement.
Her shoulders were lower and not up by her ears anymore.
Her jaw was softer.
The woman in the mirror looked like someone who had stopped running.
She picked up the letter and read the last line one more time.
The crossword said STAY. I meant it. I still mean it.
She folded it carefully, put it in the crossword book, and went downstairs.
The Puzzle Post was open for business.
The sign on the door said so, and the door was unlocked.
No more locked doors.
No more glass between them.
The bell chimed when she walked in.
Grant was behind the counter.
He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
There were shadows under his eyes, and his hair was slightly less precise than normal, which for Grant meant that a single strand was out of place.
He was holding a cup of coffee, but not drinking it, just holding it.
The way that you hold something when your hands just need something to do.
He saw her and went still.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
She walked to the counter and set the letter down in between them. He looked at it, then back at her.
“I read it,” she said. “Three times, actually.”
He put the coffee cup down. His hands weren’t entirely steady.
“I need to say something,” she said, “and I need you to let me finish before you respond. Can you do that?”
He nodded.
She took a deep breath.
“You hurt me. Not because of the deal. I understand deals. I know about hard choices. What hurt was you hiding it and the silence, the way that you decided for both of us without even giving me a vote in the matter. You took the one thing that I asked for, honesty, and you withheld it because you were scared.”
She could see his jaw tightening, but he didn’t look away.
“But here’s the thing. I came to this island because I was hiding, too.
I lied to my mom for three months. I told Dixie I was in between things instead of just saying the truth, which was that I fell apart and didn’t know how to put myself back together.
So I understand what fear looks like, and when it’s wearing a disguise, because I’ve been wearing one too.
” She picked up the letter and held it against her chest. “This letter is the most honest thing anyone has ever given me. The words were extraordinary, Grant. But what matters more is that you chose to write them. You chose honesty when it would have been easier to disappear. You chose to stay.” She put the letter back down and then reached across the counter and took his hand.
“So here’s my answer. I’m not going anywhere either.
And not because you asked me to stay, but because I want to stay.
Because this island and the bookstore and that ridiculous owl cookie jar and the porch step at ten o’clock…
” Her voice cracked slightly. “Well, this is where I belong. I didn’t know that when I got here, but I know it now. ”
His hand tightened around hers. His eyes were full. His lips pressed together, holding himself against the tide of something too big to contain.
He came around the counter and didn’t say anything, just pulled her into his arms and held her.
His face in her hair.
His hands spread across her back.
She held him back.
The shop was quiet, and the owl watched with its enormous knowing eyes.
Somewhere through the wall in the bookstore, the old clock that Dixie had never bothered to fix ticked on, counting the minutes of a morning that felt like the beginning of something big.
When they finally stepped apart, his hand stayed on her arm.
His eyes were red but clear.
“I’m going to mess up again,” he said. “I mean, not like this. But I’ll get scared, and I’ll go quiet, and you’ll have to remind me that being quiet doesn’t mean I’m safe.”
“I know.”
“And you’re going to get overwhelmed and take on too much and then forget to tell me that you’re not okay.”
She let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“So we’ll remind each other.”
She looked up at him. Grant Whitmore with his red eyes and messy hair and no wall left between them. And it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“You have a deal,” she said.
Later, after coffee, of course, he told her every detail of the Meridian call.
She told him about the journalist, and they agreed that neither one of them was allowed to make a decision without consulting the other again.
Then he pulled a second crossword from under the counter.
“I made this last night,” he said. “After I wrote the letter. Of course, I couldn’t sleep and needed to do something.”
He set it on the counter between them.
It was smaller than the STAY puzzle, a simple little grid, maybe seven by seven.
Liza picked up a pencil and started solving.
The fill-in came quickly.
Books.
Puzzles.
Porch.
Island.
Each word was a piece of their story.
The theme answers, read in order, spelled a single word.
OURS.
She set the pencil down and looked at the grid and then at him, smiling.
“Ours,” she said.
“Ours,” he confirmed.
Not his shop or her bookstore.
Not his silence and her noise.
Not two separate lives running parallel on opposite sides of a wall.
But ours.
The shared thing.
Something they had built together.
She folded the crossword and put it into her pocket.
“I’m keeping this one, too.”
“I figured you would.”
“You know, you’re going to run out of crosswords eventually.”
“No,” he said. “I won’t.”
He was certain and steady, and it made her eyes sting for the tenth time that morning.
She was going to have to invest in waterproof mascara if she planned on keeping Grant Whitmore around.
And she definitely planned on keeping Grant Whitmore around.
Dixie called a meeting that afternoon.
Of course, it wasn’t a formal meeting because Dixie didn’t do anything formal.
She made some sweet tea, put out a plate of cookies, and arranged four chairs around the reading nook table.
Then she waited for the people she’d invited to show up.
Liza, Grant, and Julie.
When they were all seated, Dixie stood at the head of the table with her wrist braced and her reading glasses on.
“All right,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about something.”
“Oh, good Lord, that’s never a small thing for you,” Julie said.
“Now you hush. Listen, I’ve been thinking about this bookstore and about what happens next.”
She looked at her wrist.
“This thing is healing, but it’s not the only thing that’s been slowing me down. We all know that. My hands aren’t what they used to be. My knees aren’t what they used to be. And, well, I need real help, not temporary summer girl help.”
She looked at Liza.
“I want you to stay, not as a favor, but as a real part of this bookstore. You’d run the marketing, the events, the children’s section.
I’d keep doing what I do best, and you’d do what you do best, which is all of that marketing stuff.
And heck, maybe even some other businesses around here might could use your help too. ”
Liza’s hand found Grant’s under the table.
“And Grant.” Dixie turned to him. “I want Books and Brains to be permanent, like a monthly thing, or maybe even weekly during the summer. Our two shops should work together regularly. Because what you built at the festival, well, that’s not a one-time thing. That’s a model for something great.”
Grant nodded. “I’d like that.”
“And Julie,” Dixie said, “I want to get the inn more involved. Maybe offer some guest packages where you stay at the inn and get a coupon to visit the bookstore and do a puzzle at the shop. Francine can handle the logistics.”
Julie smiled.
This was a rested smile, not the one that was running on fumes just a few weeks ago.
“I’m in,” Julie said.
Dixie looked around the table.
“So anybody else have anything else to say?”
Nobody did.
It was just the four of them, of course, in the bookstore, sitting in front of the sweet tea and cookies.
Dixie raised her glass.
“To Down Yonder Bookstore, over thirty years and counting.”
They raised their glasses.
The tea was too sweet, the way Dixie’s always was, but nobody minded.
The rest of the week moved with a gentle rhythm.
Julie called Liza on Thursday evening, and she could hear the smile before Julie even said a single word.
“I finished the manuscript.”
“Oh, Julie, that’s great.”
Liza pressed the phone against her ear and smiled. “How does it feel?”
“Like I remembered why I started writing in the first place. Dawson and I sat on the porch until the stars came out, and Francine handled everything at the inn. I didn’t even check my phone once. Not once.”
“Well, that might be a miracle.”
“It might.”
The next morning, Janine stopped by the bookstore with paperwork for the Seagrove Scholars Fund.
The first scholarship would be awarded in the fall.
She put it on the counter and said with a quiet satisfaction, “We did it.”
“Is SuAnn already planning the next fundraiser?” Liza asked.
Janine closed her eyes. “She wants a chili cook-off. I told her we’re not doing pie this time.”
“She agreed? And you don’t believe her?”
“Oh, not for one second.”
The following Wednesday morning, Liza arrived at the bookstore to find Dixie already inside, flexing the fingers of her wrist, newly out of the brace.
“You’re out of the brace.”