A Valentine Proposal

by Viv Royce

  Looking into her expectant eyes, he didn’t want to do it. But what other option is there?

  He stared into his half-empty coffee cup. “I’m assessing several shops in the region. It’s not a done deal yet that we are going to take on this shop.”

  “Does that mean I have to prove that the shop is good enough?” Now it was disbelief sparking in her eyes. “In a sort of competition?”

  “No, it means I might choose another candidate and you’re off the hook.” That’s what you want, right? Escape?

  “Far from it.” Her shoulders tightened. “My boss needs to sell, and…there are no other takers.”

  “You shouldn’t tell me that. Make me believe that there are interested parties, so I’ll work harder to get the shop.”

  She scoffed. “You obviously don’t want it and don’t like what we do here. What would be the point?”

  Mark took a deep breath. She didn’t want his philosophy or his involvement. Only his money. Wasn’t it always the same? In business and even in their personal lives…

  “I need to see the finances and the business plan you have for after the takeover. Your boss told me on the phone he has full confidence in you to run this shop so…”

  “Yes, but my way. With the book castle, the coffee corner, and the Valentine’s campaign.”

  Mark perked up. Something commercial? “A Valentine’s campaign?” The day of love he’d rather delete from the calendar, but if she had a good plan to make sales off it, it might help her case.

  “Yes. We have got some amazing things lined up.” Cleo held up her hand and enumerated, “A crafting class to make heart-shaped bookends, a charity auction, and a night where people cook dinner in teams based on literary likes.”

  Uhm, wait while I process this. Mark blinked and tilted his head. “Yes, and how does any of that sell books?”

  “With the crafting class, we reach out to kids and through them to their parents. The charity auction shows that the shop supports community goals, and the books on offer will draw in a lot of outside people and press. Good publicity for the shop.”

  No, please. Always this misplaced enthusiasm about getting publicity and then suddenly selling more books. Yes, if you got into a huge publication maybe, but the Wood Creek Wanderer or whatever the local newspaper might be called? No, no, no.

  “And the cooking night based on literary likes is brilliant,” Cleo explained. “It starts from the assumption that people who like the same books will also have matching personalities and can strike up a friendship.”

  What kind of books would she like? Not to read for the shop, to stay on trend, but purely for fun. To sink into, get lost in, forget about time.

  Don’t ask.

  He forced a factual coldness into his voice. “So they’ll have new friends after that night, nice for them, but where are the book sales?”

  “Sales, sales.” Cleo leaned her elbows on the table. Her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks turned even redder. “Are you going to be talking about sales all the time?”

  “Well, obviously someone has to.” He also leaned on the table, holding her gaze. “What are the costs of all these events you described? You need venues for them, catering. There has to be some profit to counterbalance the money you’re going to put into it.”

  “The crafting is at the community center, so we don’t pay rent for the room. Galloway Tree Farm is donating wood for the bookends. The grocery store takes care of soda and candy for the kids. Also some healthy snacks, I heard, as Mrs. Barton is a big fan of that. For the charity auction, all the books we’re going to auction off are donated by book lovers from the region so no costs there. People with money to spend buy tickets to the auction, so that brings in money…”

  “For the good cause,” Mark supplied, “not for this bookshop.” His focus was full on, like during a game of tennis where he tried to place the ball just out of his opponent’s reach. This was more than a game, though, verbally outwitting her. You claim to believe in something. Show me how much you believe.

  They stared at each other. Mark held his breath. Something about her got to the core of him, shaking him up as if he were suddenly wide awake while before he had been sleepwalking through life, going through the motions like a robot.

  She rose to her feet. “Refill?” Without even waiting for his reply, she grabbed his cup and went to the coffee machine.

  …

  I can’t think when I look in those eyes. Cleo’s heart pounded so hard she was almost shaking. For a few breathtaking moments, tension had crackled between them, dissolving anything logical she wanted to say.

  Focus. He’s listening. He wants to hear your side. Put the lawyer in you to good use for once. Reason can convince him.

  She released her breath slowly and relaxed her shoulders. If it’s but an inch to fight for my dream, I’ll take it. She’d prove to him, and also to Dad, that it was worth it.

  “Why only aim for immediate returns?” she said, not looking at him. “I believe in building a name, a brand, a business, step by step. Getting people to know you, see you in action, learn to believe in you. That you are reliable, compassionate, and an asset to the community.”

  “You told me there were no other takers for the shop,” he said, his voice cool and clipped. “If the community values the shop so much, why didn’t people pitch in to keep it open?”

  “They can’t. That’s the sad truth of it. Everyone has a business of his own to run. They want others to succeed, honestly, but their first priority has to be their own bread and butter. Can’t blame them, either. They all have families to raise, mortgages to pay. They have kids in school here. They can’t move away. My position is relatively easy. It’s only me. I’d hate to leave Wood Creek and start over, but it wouldn’t affect an entire family.”

  “You’re not a local?”

  “No, I came a few years ago.” Don’t ask where I came from, what I did before. “But I’m settled here now, and this shop is worth fighting for.” I put so much of me into it. I built parts of it with my own hands. I never knew I could do that. Her mom and dad despised anything artsy or having to do with imagination. Those sides of her had never had a right to exist.

  “I can’t take your word for it. I have to know if there’s enough customer potential here to even warrant the presence of a bookshop.”

  “Every town should have a bookshop.” Cleo turned around abruptly, her ponytail slapping the wall. “It doesn’t have to prove it has a right to be there. It’s culture, it’s history, it’s fantasy, imagination. It is an escape, a gateway to other worlds.” Everything Dad scoffs at.

  Mark held her gaze. His ice blue eyes didn’t betray what he was thinking. Maybe he felt a connection with the culture and history part. She could easily picture him at a museum looking at modern art. If only because he feels he has to. But fantasy, imagination…are those even in his dictionary?

  “Prove it to me.”

  Excuse me? She stared at him. Had she heard him right?

  “Prove to me that your ideas work. That the community needs this bookshop. That the good publicity surrounding your Valentine’s events brings customers.”

  He was giving her a chance? Just like that? Maybe the law school training is paying off. Excitement coursed through her. “And that this table deserves to stay?” She patted it.

  “Don’t push it.” The amusement in his voice sparked a bit of hope inside. Maybe he wasn’t as cool and businesslike as he pretended to be. Maybe, if she spent some time with him, she’d discover a different side to him?

  Nope, definitely not. This is about proving something, remember, winning your place or losing it. Dead serious stuff. Distractions will be dangerous.

  “The table has to go. But I’m debating about the coffee. It’s too good to say good-bye to.”

  Cleo’s cheeks went warm under his probing look. There w
as a big challenge up ahead. One involving everything she lived for: the bookshop, her apartment over it, her future in Wood Creek. The new life she had built away from her parents’ expectations. It all depended on winning over this man.

  It would have been an uphill battle if he had been the tough businessman she had to somehow convince.

  Add intriguing to the equation, and she was in deep water.

  How am I ever going to make this work?

  Chapter Four

  “Thank you, that’s very helpful.” Mark placed a check on his bookshop list. Right on top was Rook. It was two days after his visit there, but it felt like ages. His mind kept debating whether he had done the right thing offering Cleo a sort of…wager to show him her shop could stay the way it was. His father would never accept that. There was no way he could pull it off.

  Forcing his thoughts to the present, he smiled at the middle-aged woman who had handed him a thick file folder while explaining it contained her business plan put together by her son who majored in marketing and two friends of his who each already ran a successful business in Harker. The town reminded him a bit of Wood Creek but bigger and better organized. Something his father would take into account when evaluating which shops he’d want to accept into the chain and which not. One more point against you, Cleo.

  His shoulders tensed as if resisting the conclusion, but it was a mere fact. Can’t argue with facts.

  “Thanks for your time. I’ll be in touch.” Mark put the file folder under his arm and headed for the door. The bookshop had a nice big window through which lots of light flooded into it. It used two tables to display current bestsellers, and the owner had immediately agreed to position them to lead the customers past the cash register. She had told him she wanted to do anything for the shop’s survival, and her attitude during their talk had underlined this. She’d clung to his every word, nodded her assent to whatever he’d suggested, and repeated over and over how honored she was to have the Stephens name on her shop front. Dad would have really liked her pliability, but it was the polar opposite of Cleo’s approach. Instead of wanting a rule book, she had a personal vision for her shop. And for the first time, he asked himself, Why isn’t there room for that within our chain?

  Instead of seeing individuality and ideas as a headache they could do without, they should embrace it. After all, not all shopkeepers were the same; some people, such as this elderly lady, were happy with clear instructions on how to run everything, while others wanted to use their own ideas. Cleo’s imagination gave Rook its whimsical, almost fairytale-like quality. And she had been correct when she’d pointed out that the locals knew the situation better than someone who came from the outside. Could he actually persuade Dad with that one?

  He could already see his father shake his head. She wants our money, son. Without abiding by our rules? Can’t do that. I’m no charity. Anger usually fueled him when he thought about the way people loved his family’s money and what misery that caused. They took the risks, and others made the profits. James foremost.

  But the anger died under a wave of tiredness. It had been a long day of driving past shops and listening to people’s stories of why their business was no longer able to go on as it had before. He had been shown old photographs, yellowed and with dog-eared edges, of opening days and anniversaries of the past. Of smiling faces of people who looked into the camera, beaming that their dream was coming true.

  But reality didn’t leave much room for love or dreams. The harsh truth was that customers weren’t loyal to shops anymore but bought wherever they wanted, however they wanted. He had written those very lines that were now the core motto of the Stephens empire: Make it easy for them. Be everywhere they are. Be in their face, as it were, their first (or only) choice. Make them buy from you instead of the competitor. Not by personality, but by opportunity.

  It worked for them, which explained why all these shop owners were eager to receive him, pour him coffee, offer him cake or other snacks, and nod at everything he said to get access to the lifeline he threw them.

  All but Cleo. She wanted to do it her way, with her Valentine’s events of activities that people would view as free entertainment, without any obligation to start buying from her. It went against all he stood for, the rules he beat into other people’s brains on a daily basis. And yet it had struck a chord inside of him that hadn’t been touched in a long time.

  Outside, the streetlights were already on. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Tamela. He wanted to hear her voice, see if it would betray her sad mood. He wanted to feel close to her, even though they were separated by hundreds of miles. He wanted her to know she could come to him if she needed to.

  She didn’t answer.

  He stood at his car, uncertain whether to call again or leave it be. He opened the door and put the file folder the woman had given him in the back with the others. Staring at the tall stack of people’s plans, of their hopes to help their business survive against all odds, fatigue splashed through him. He couldn’t help them all.

  With reluctance, he slipped into the driver’s seat and put his phone in the holder. Tamela might see he had tried to reach her and call him back. His gaze fell to the pink flyer he had stuck behind the holder. Valentine’s events, it read in bold flowing letters, listing the craft night, charity auction, and dinner of literary likes Cleo had told him about. He had picked up the flyer in another town where he had walked into the community center to see what kind of activities they had there, to get an idea of what the town was like, what potential customers he could expect there. Senior citizens, he had guessed. But on their bulletin board, beside the inevitable offer of book clubs and bridge nights catering to said citizens, there had been lots of flyers of ladies’ nights for thirty-something singles and girls offering themselves as babysitters. So there were singles there and young families. More potential for sales than he had thought.

  And then Cleo’s flyer had caught his eye. It had stood out because of the color, the font and the many hearts strewn over it, all things he usually shied away from. But the events advertised had sounded familiar, and he had looked it over, read and reread it, and finally, glancing surreptitiously around him, removed it and put it into his pocket. Now it sat there in his car, its bright and cheerful design beaming at him, like Cleo’s sparkling eyes and her light-up-the-world smile. Why go to his hotel and lie brooding in the darkness when he could attend her craft night and see what it was all about? It’s tonight.

  His phone rang. He jerked upright and reached for it, scanning the screen for the name he hoped for. Tamela, yes. “Hello, sis.”

  “Hey, Mark.” Her forced happy tone cut deep into his heart. “Where are you?”

  “Harker, New Hampshire. A little town you wouldn’t be able to find on a map. To evaluate the umpteenth bookshop.”

  “Poor you.” It sounded like she almost laughed. For real. Great, keep going.

  “A few days ago, I was in a bookshop where the owner built a book castle for kids. When I came in, I found the shop empty and two sneakers sticking out of the book castle’s gate. A disembodied voice asked me to hand over some tongs lying on a stool because she was looking for a bear.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “Honestly not. I gave her the tongs, and she came crawling out, covered in dust, with the bear. A scrappy black thing full of dust as well. A small customer had lost it, and she had retrieved it for him.”

  “I used to love my Mr. Teddy.”

  “I know. I almost broke my neck climbing in that tree to get it back for you.” Mark smiled as he recalled the afternoon when his little sister had been crying her heart out because some neighborhood bully had taken her bear and put it in a tree where she couldn’t get it back. He had accompanied her to said tree and climbed into it, even though the branches were rather thin and sagging. He could see her ecstatic expression when he had given her the bear.
She had hidden her face in it like the little boy in Cleo’s shop had.

  He swallowed. If only he could go back to the days when he could easily give her what she needed. When he could solve all of her problems in a single strike.

  Tamela said, “Look, Mark, you don’t have to call me every day. I’m fine.”

  “I know. I like to hear your voice. It’s a tough slog out here.”

  He knew she probably didn’t believe him. He…

  “James called me the other day.”

  Mark sucked in breath. “You let the phone ring, right?” Tell me you didn’t answer and give that no good liar another chance to hurt your feelings.

  “He wants to give it another shot.” Every word crackled with tension.

  What?! Mark held his breath, afraid to hear more. He wanted to believe she had told James no, without hesitation. She had her pride. She wouldn’t fall for weak promises or lousy excuses.

  But Tamela had been broken after the betrayal; all the spark had gone out of her. She had walked around with bags under her eyes, not even hearing when people talked to her. She had only wanted to have James back in her arms.

  And that bastard knew it. He waited a bit and…

  “I told him I’ll think about it. He sent me flowers this morning. My favorite flowers.”

  He could see her looking at the bouquet as she told him. Looking at it with the same eyes as the woman in the bookshop just now. Anxious, uncertain, but hoping for a good outcome. Because that outcome was the only thing she could see for herself. The only future she wanted to have.

  “It’s great you’re letting him dangle a bit and can then tell him, ‘Not in a million years.’” He waited for her confirmation that that was exactly what she had in mind.

  When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “You are going to tell him, ‘Not in a million years,’ right?” Please tell me you are.