Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
ROBYN
Sunday arrived the way it always did in Maple Falls: slow, golden, and deceptively calm.
Robyn had spent Saturday afternoon and evening at the bookshop, shelving returns, fielding questions from curious customers, and pretending the walls weren’t quietly waiting for a new buyer to show up and claim them.
She’d tried to distract herself by recalling the day. All the perfect moments with Tyler and Emma, and the growing realization of how hard it would be to leave all this behind.
When the shop closed, Robyn had gone upstairs and told herself she would sleep.
Instead, the evening hours slipped into early morning as she curled into her favorite spot on the couch, laptop balanced on her knees, and wrote.
Not AfterHoursAuthor’s story or Isabel’s.
Her own.
It was a romance, of course. That was where her heart always returned.
But this one felt different—less like escapism and more like something she couldn’t stop dragging into the light.
It was about the risk you took when you loved someone.
About what it meant to choose a person even when the universe tried to wedge itself between you—expectations, distance, old plans.
It was, if she was being honest, a form of therapy.
A way of telling herself something she hadn’t been ready to admit out loud: Sometimes loving someone meant letting go of the life you thought you wanted and stepping into the unknown with both hands open.
The story consumed her so much that she wrote well into the early hours of Sunday morning, before finally getting a few hours of sleep before having to be up and opening the store at eleven.
Now with the store open, Robyn was back behind the counter, waiting with Mr. Darcy for Emily to arrive with a fresh batch of pumpkin pies while the church bells chimed the hour, the sound carrying across the lake.
Robyn was about to text Emily to see if she needed some help when the bell above the shop’s door jingled.
But it wasn’t Emily who arrived.
It was that potential buyer, Estevez Rodriguez, and he wasn’t alone.
A man followed him in wearing a work jacket and carrying a clipboard. He looked sharp, brisk, and too impatient to be charmed by small-town quirks. He glanced around the bookstore and wrinkled his nose in distaste.
Robyn’s spine straightened. Beside her, Mr. Darcy rose slowly to his feet on the counter, his fur bristling along his spine, ears flattening. A low, guttural growl rumbled from his throat, a sound he usually only reserved for the vacuum cleaner and, apparently, these men.
Estevez didn’t greet them. He didn’t even pretend to browse. He walked past the front displays, talking over his shoulder to the contractor.
“We’ll need to open this up,” Estevez said, gesturing vaguely toward the book nook. “Move the front tables. I want sight lines. Big ones.”
The contractor was already pulling out a tape measure.
Robyn watched, stunned, as the man started measuring the width of the aisles. Then, without asking, he shifted one of the small tables near the window two inches to the left.
Two inches that did not belong to him.
Robyn came out from behind the counter before she could stop herself. “Excuse me,” she said, and the sharpness in her voice surprised even her. “What are you doing?”
Estevez glanced up like she’d interrupted something important. His smile was quick and humorless.
“Nothing that concerns you,” he said.
Heat flashed through Robyn’s chest. “I doubt that. As the manager of this store—”
“Not for much longer,” Estevez cut in smoothly, as if he were commenting on the weather. His gaze slid over her, landing with a strange, assessing weight. “Speaking of which… you’re the one who lives upstairs, correct?”
Robyn lifted her chin. “I am.”
“Good.” Estevez nodded once, like he’d checked something off a list. “Consider this your notice. You have thirty days to vacate the premises.”
Robyn went still. The words didn’t make sense at first. He was talking to her like she was some tenant who’d missed rent. Like she wasn’t a person standing right in front of him.
He kept going, voice maddeningly casual. “I’ll throw in a prorated bonus if you can get out sooner.”
Robyn’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Her body staggered backward on instinct, as if the floor had shifted beneath her. She forced her face to stay composed, even as her stomach dropped hard enough to make her dizzy.
Estevez turned away from her like he hadn’t just verbally slapped her in the middle of the bookstore she managed.
He and the contractor went back to discussing walls and wiring.
“Electrical will need replacing,” the contractor said, scribbling something down. “We could go for an exposed industrial look—”
Robyn’s hands curled into fists at her sides.
Exposed industrial. In Maple Falls. In her bookstore.
She walked back behind the counter on legs that felt too light. Her fingers shook as she grabbed her phone.
Meg answered on the third ring, breathless. “Hey, Robyn.”
“What the hell is going on?” Robyn shot back.
“What do you mean?”
Robyn kept her voice low, but it came out tight. “Estevez is here—with a contractor. He just told me I have thirty days to move out.”
There was a pause. A grim one.
“Robyn…” Meg started, and the guilt in her tone made Robyn’s blood run colder. “I tried to reach you. I called a few times this week.”
“I was here,” Robyn snapped before she could soften it. Because Meg had called once or twice, but Robyn had other things occupying her thoughts. “Did you accept his offer?” she asked instead.
Meg exhaled. “Nothing is signed yet.”
Robyn clung to that. “Okay. Then he can’t just—”
“But he raised it,” Meg blurted. “Significantly. And Robyn, I’m sorry, but I’d be a fool not to consider it. I’ve been trying to sell the place for months.”
Robyn squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the flare of panic.
“Meg, we have the Halloween event coming up here. The book club that just started up again. We hoped with this event, with my great-grandma’s story…
We want to bring the right buyer in. Someone who will keep the bookstore alive.
” And the way Isabel had intended it to be, she wanted to add.
Because that legacy was important to Robyn.
More than she’d ever realized, until she’d known it could soon disappear.
Robyn simply couldn’t stand the thought of the bookstore closing its doors forever.
“I know,” Meg said, and she did sound sorry. “I do. But Estevez is eager to move fast. He wants to start planning now.”
“He wants to turn the bookstore into an organic grocer,” Robyn hissed, glancing toward the front where the contractor was measuring her shelves like they were disposable.
“And honestly? We don’t need one. We have the farmer’s market.
We have Liam’s farm shop. We have farms that deliver.
Maple Falls is practically farm-to-table already. ”
Meg made a small, helpless sound. “I hear you.”
Robyn’s throat tightened. “Please. Just… wait. Let us have the Halloween event. It’s attracting people from far and wide. Maybe someone will come who wants to buy this place. Give us a chance, please.”
Silence stretched for a beat.
Then Meg said, “Okay. I won’t sign anything until after the event. I promise. That gives you until November first.”
Robyn’s lungs unclenched just enough for her to breathe. “Thank you.”
“But Robyn,” Meg added, gentler now, “if we don’t get another buyer by November first… I’m going to sell it to Estevez. I’m sorry.”
Robyn’s hand tightened around the phone. The words landed heavy. They felt final, a door closing despite Robyn sticking her foot in it.
“Okay,” she managed. “Okay.”
They hung up. Robyn set the phone down carefully, because if she didn’t, she might throw it.
She stared at the counter for a second, trying to make her mind catch up. She’d known the shop might sell. She’d prepared for that. She’d even planned her exit—December 1st, like she’d told herself. Enough time to finish the Midnight in Maple Falls event, and then enough time to breathe.
Now she had one week. That’s it.
Her apartment. Her job. Everything suddenly felt like it was sliding out from under her.
The bell above the door jingled again.
Robyn looked up, expecting Emily once again.
Instead, Tyler walked in, with Emma at his side, looking calm and casual as always with his cashmere sweater, dark jeans, hair slightly mussed like he’d run a hand through it on the way over.
Emma skipped ahead, already peeling off her coat, eyes lighting up as she headed straight for the children’s section.
Tyler’s gaze found Robyn instantly.
And he misread her expression.
“Hey,” he said carefully, slowing like he wasn’t sure he was welcome. “Sorry. I know we spent all day together yesterday, so if you wanted some—”
“What?” Robyn blinked, brows pulling together.
Then she shook her head quickly. “No. I’m happy to see you—both of you.
” She nodded toward Emma, who was already humming to herself as she pulled a book from the shelf.
Robyn tried for a smile. It probably looked more like a grimace. “It’s just… Estevez was here.”
Tyler’s face tightened. “Ah.”
Robyn nodded. The words scraped on the way out. “He gave me a thirty-day notice to move out.”
Tyler stared at her like she’d spoken a foreign language. “What?”
“That was my exact response,” Robyn said, bitterness leaking in despite her best effort. “I just got off the phone with Meg. I managed to get her to agree to wait until November first before she signs anything.”
Tyler’s jaw clenched. His hands curled at his sides, controlled anger flashing behind his eyes. “He can’t do that,” he said, voice low. “Not like that. Not—” He cut himself off, then tried again. “Robyn, that’s insane.”
Robyn let out a shaky breath. “It is. But it’s real and unless we get a miracle, a new buyer…” Robyn couldn’t finish the sentence.
And they only had until the Halloween event to find them—before Estevez turned their bookstore into a frozen food section with “exposed industrial” lighting.
Tyler stepped closer. “Okay, then we make sure the right buyer walks through that door. Someone who loves books and would let Maple Falls keep its bookstore.”
Robyn swallowed hard, heart thudding. “Yeah.” Her mind was already racing.
She’d been happy to let Elsie handle the promotional side until now, too anxious about the event to draw more attention to it.
But anxiety was a luxury she could no longer afford.
If the right buyer was out there—someone who loved books, who’d walk through these doors and see what she saw—then Robyn needed to find them.
And that meant stepping out from behind the counter and into the spotlight she’d been avoiding.
She pulled out her phone before she could talk herself out of it.
She’d start tonight. Post about the event, yes, but also about the bookstore itself: its history, the book nook, the pumpkin pie collaboration, Isabel’s story.
She’d tag every bookish account, every indie bookstore advocate, every bibliophile influencer she’d ever quietly followed.
And somewhere in there, between the autumn aesthetics and the event details, she’d make sure people knew: This bookstore is for sale, and it deserves someone who’ll keep it alive.
It was terrifying. It was also, she realized, exactly the kind of thing Isabel would have done. Isabel would’ve refused to let something she loved disappear without a fight.
Because this wasn’t just about the bookstore anymore.
It was about everything that had happened here.
The book club. The friendships. The pumpkin pie book nook where strangers became regulars and regulars became family.
Tyler. Just his name because there were no words for how much this place had shaped what they’d become.
And Emma, too. Emma, who’d pop in after school and curl up on the armchair with Mr. Darcy, reading aloud to him.
This was the life Robyn had stumbled into and couldn’t imagine leaving behind.
She had to find a way to keep it. All of it. Because losing the bookstore wouldn’t just mean losing a building. It would mean losing a new version of herself she wasn’t ready to let go. But it was a tall order, and Robyn had no idea if she could pull it off. She only knew she had to try.