by Nicole Ellis
The tea kettle hissed and she plopped a tea bag in a cup and filled it with the boiling water. While the tea brewed, she swirled the tea bag around in lazy circles. Yet another thing for which she needed to obtain more money from Agnes. Her appetite had faded. Renting the apartment out for additional cash wasn’t even an option anymore. She’d traded two months of rent for the green sofa she had to have for the bookstore. Had it been worth it?
She wanted to say no, but when she pictured the antique in To Be Read, creating ambiance and solidifying her own personal style, she knew it had been the right choice. But what did she know about Wendy? She’d said that she had family in Candle Beach, but Dahlia knew very little else about her.
She shook her head. What was done was done. Wendy would come to town soon and Dahlia needed to get things together before her new tenant arrived. First she needed to call the roofing company to schedule a roof replacement, and she had to get the money from Agnes.
After getting an appointment on the roofer’s schedule, Dahlia called Agnes and arranged to meet her at the Bluebonnet Café at noon. She forced herself to walk down the hill to town. She’d rather go to the dentist and have a cavity filled than meet with Agnes.
At eleven thirty, she placed the last of the boxes against the far wall of the storeroom and surveyed the store. She’d moved loads of books into the clearance section and filled several carts with the unpopular books to be marked down when she reopened on Monday. The hallway was clear and she’d managed to create a moderate-sized workspace for Wendy to work on her furniture projects. She brushed the dust off her hands and tidied her hair in the small bathroom, before reviewing the profit and loss statements the accountant had sent over and a printout of her own spreadsheet detailing her projected expenses for the bookstore remodel. Ironically, for being close to broke, she’d never felt more organized and in control of her financial situation.
When she arrived at the café, she saw Agnes sipping coffee at a two-seat table near the back of the room. She would probably melt if she sat in the sunlight, she thought. She waved at Agnes, who simply nodded back to her. As she passed the waitress, she asked her to bring over a cup of coffee.
“I suppose you want more money,” Agnes said as a means of greeting, as Dahlia sat across from her.
“Yes, I’m renovating the bookstore and what I need exceeds the monthly stipend I receive from Aunt Ruth’s trust.” Dahlia pulled out her reports and prepared to show them to Agnes.
“No,” Agnes said. “I will not give you any more money.”
“But you don’t understand,” Dahlia said. She pushed her spreadsheet across the table. “Look at what we still need.” She pointed at a line item. “At the bare minimum, I need to get the floors refinished, and I’d really like to put in an espresso bar at the back of the store. After I get the proper permits of course,” she added, looking pointedly at Agnes.
“You need to make the store work without spending so much money on it. Why, Ruth worked her whole life for that nest egg. You’re going to blow it all at once.” Agnes shook her head. “I’ve never met anyone less responsible with money.
Agnes’s words stung. Dahlia had worked hard to prepare for this meeting and to develop a plan to improve the bookstore and put her own touch on it.
“You said you wanted me to put effort into the store. Well, I’m doing that. I’ve got the upstairs apartment ready to rent and I have plans. This is going to work.”
“It’s going to need to work with what you already have. Figure it out like an adult.” Agnes stood and threw three one-dollar bills on the table to cover her coffee.
“Wait. The roof at the house is leaking again,” Dahlia said. “Can you at least give me the money to pay to replace it?” The excited energy she’d had yesterday had all been drained out of her body and she hated having to beg for the money to replace the roof.
“Have them send me the bill,” Agnes said. She turned and strode out the door without looking back.
Dahlia stared at the old woman’s retreating form. Pure exhaustion swept through her body. How had she thought going to her was a good idea? More so, how had she thought managing the bookstore herself was a good idea? Agnes was never going to let her succeed. She had a vested interest in the bookstore failing. Aunt Ruth had trusted Agnes with her hard-earned money, and this was how she’d been repaid.
“More coffee?” The waitress held up the coffee pot.
“No, I’m good, thanks.” The waitress left and she pulled a few dollars out of her purse to cover the coffee. She set the money under the sugar packet holder and left the restaurant.
She entered the bookstore and walked through to the back room in a daze. Feeling defeated, she sat in Aunt Ruth’s desk chair and surveyed her surroundings with tears clouding her vision. How was she going to make this work? She remembered her grandmother’s advice to sleep on problems, so she left a note for Wendy at the bookstore with her phone number and walked home to take an afternoon nap.
Sleep brought nothing but a nightmare about Agnes flying overhead on a broomstick, trying to steal books from the store. Dahlia forced herself to get out of bed after an hour and make coffee. She had to make a decision. Stay in Candle Beach, or return home? Fortified by caffeine, she called Agnes to concede defeat.
“May I speak with Agnes, please?” Dahlia asked in a manner more formal than necessary since she knew she lived alone.
“This is Agnes.”
“This is Dahlia. I’m sure this news will devastate you, but I’m leaving Candle Beach. The bookstore is yours. I’ll drop the keys off at the property management company later today.” She blinked back tears, grateful that Agnes couldn’t see her face through the phone line. “Please let the lawyer know when you’re ready to settle my share of the estate.”
Agnes was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear this. Your aunt wanted you to have the bookstore.” She hung up.
Dahlia held the phone away from her ear. Was that an apology of some sort? Or another insult? Agnes had sounded sincere, but she’d done nothing but make Dahlia’s life miserable since she’d arrived in town three months earlier. She put the phone back in its cradle and stood. The mechanic had promised to have her car fixed by Monday so she could get the food permit from the county. At least she didn’t have to worry about the permit anymore. Her to-do list was full enough already if she wanted to leave town by the next day.
She shoved her clothes into the first of her two suitcases and collected her toiletries from the bathroom. She didn’t have any place to go, but she knew she couldn’t stay in Candle Beach, not with Agnes there. Her mother would probably take her in, or even her father if he was in town. She had options. None made moving home with her tail between her legs sound any better than it was.
In the bathroom, she found Garrett’s fleece that she’d hung on the towel rod to dry. The black jacket mocked her. She’d seen Candle Beach as a place to start over with life. From the moment she’d arrived in town, she’d been battered by rejection—from Garrett, from Agnes, and from life in general. She fixated on the jacket. It represented everything that had gone wrong. She pulled it down, causing the hanger to spin crazily and clatter to the tile floor.
She ran down the stairs and grabbed her keys from the rack by the front door, gripping Garrett’s fleece as if her life depended on it. She may not be able to save the bookstore, but returning the fleece would give her a sense of closure with him.
She marched down the hill to his rental cottage, refusing to let the town break her completely. Even though things hadn’t worked out in Candle Beach, the time she spent there had given her the space she needed to change her life. Maybe it was time to get a full-time job and more permanent living space back in Seattle. After living in Aunt Ruth’s light-filled house with its expansive ocean views, the idea of moving back to a basement apartment with few windows gave her the creeps.
That reminded her—she needed to tell Agnes about the rental arrangement with Wendy. She was not looking f
orward to that conversation.
Dahlia stopped in front of Garrett’s cottage to remove a pebble from her sandal. She’d never seen his home close-up before. It was a charming seafoam-green Craftsman bungalow, surrounded by a white picket fence. White dormers peeked from the roofline above a roomy porch. Candle Beach had been built in the early 1900s and this house must have been original to the town. It didn’t suit him, or at least how she thought of him.
In the flower bed below the porch, marigolds and bluebonnets swayed in the slight breeze. Fuchsias trailed down the sides of baskets hung from the porch ceiling. This cottage had been built at a lower elevation than Aunt Ruth’s house, but still offered a stunning ocean view.
What was she doing? She wasn’t here to admire the flowers or the view. She unlatched the gate and walked up the stairs.
She rapped on the door three times with her knuckles then cocked her head to the side to listen for the sound of approaching footsteps, but none came. Good. Without Garrett home, she’d be back to packing in no time.
The fleece dragged her arm down like a weight. It had to go. She tried the brass doorknob, which turned easily. Thank goodness for small-town naiveté. She opened the door with the intention of leaving the fleece on the first available surface.
It couldn’t hurt to take a look around while she was there though, right? Once inside, she did a double take. Whoa. Any crocheted-doily-loving grandma would be at home in his lair. She’d assumed his style would be dark and contemporary.
That couldn’t have been further from the truth. He’d left every curtain open, flooding the front rooms with sunlight. Purple African violets flourished in special clay pots on the windowsills and tall white bookshelves covered a full wall in the living room. In the corner of the room, she spotted a desk covered with papers. Rumors had circulated around town about what type of books Garrett wrote. Saul at the Bike Barn even had a betting pool going, with the general consensus being he must be a suspense writer with his quiet, mysterious persona. The computer’s screen was dark, but in between a cup of tea and the keyboard lay a sheaf of printed manuscript pages. The neatly typed sheets drew her closer. She reached out her hand to pick them up, but hesitated. Should she look? Curiosity won out.
The header of each page provided the title and the author’s name. She read it and laughed out loud. Her snooping had been in vain. She’d thought she’d found a piece of Garrett’s next novel, but the manuscript didn’t belong to him. He must have been reading it for a friend. Why would the reigning queen of romance want him to provide feedback on her work? Was he involved with her in some way? She set the papers back down in the same neat pile and in the process of doing so, accidentally jarred the computer mouse with her hand.
The screen flickered and lit up. The novel’s title in the header, the same as in the printed draft, drew her attention. But the author had stopped typing mid-sentence on this draft. Her eyes widened. Was this Garrett’s novel? Her lips twisted into an ironic smile. Too bad she planned to leave town. A secret this juicy would have been fun to hold over him.
A breeze flowed through the room, fluttering the pages. She glanced over her shoulder.
12
“What are you doing in my house?” Garrett asked.
Dahlia turned around to face him. Icy guilt shot through her body like venom, immobilizing her feet in place. “Uh…”
He looked past her at the illuminated computer screen. “I see you’ve discovered my secret identity.”
“You’re Susannah Garrity?” She couldn’t keep the incredulous tone out of her voice.
“Guilty as charged,” he said. “I don’t usually tell people because my publisher likes to keep it under wraps. Apparently women don’t think men can write about romance.”
Dahlia turned pink. She’d made the same assumption. “I never would have guessed.”
“What, you don’t think I can do romance?” His eyes twinkled with mirth.
“It wasn’t top of my list of genres I’d expect you to write.”
“Well, I’ll have to change your impression of me.” He locked his eyes with hers, his gaze full of promise.
The ice in her veins warmed considerably.
“So what are you doing in my house?”
“I came to return your fleece.” Her words tumbled out faster than she could think. “I accidentally bumped your computer. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy.” She crossed her fingers at the little white lie.
“You accidentally bumped my computer? Which was five feet away from where you left the sweater?” He looked pointedly at the fleece and then back to her.
She tried to edge her way out of the room, but he planted his feet in a wide stance in the entryway, his arms folded across his chest. She wasn’t getting out of this one unscathed.
“I didn’t mean to discover your pen name.” She stared into his eyes, hoping he’d believe her. In truth, she hadn’t been trying to uncover his secret identity, only the type of books he wrote. “It doesn’t really matter. I’m not staying in town, so don’t worry about me telling anyone else. Your secret is safe with me.”
He stopped trying to hide his amusement behind a frown and dropped his arms to his sides. “What do you mean you aren’t staying in town? You had all those plans for the bookstore.”
“Yeah, well, those plans required money from Aunt Ruth’s trust, which Agnes isn’t prepared to let me have. Without the money, I can’t remodel the bookstore and I can’t make the business profitable or competitive with the Book Warehouse.” She shrugged. “I’m out.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m heading back to Seattle tomorrow,” she said. He stepped aside and she walked past him to the open doorway. “It was nice knowing you.”
“That’s it?” he asked. “You’re just giving up on your life here? What do you plan to do back in Seattle?”
She hesitated at the door, curling her fingers around the outer door jam.
“Come back in and we can talk about it.” He leaned against the wall and gestured to the chair across from him.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do in Seattle.” She stepped back into the room and plunked herself down in the armchair. “All I know is that I’m failing miserably here and I can’t change anything about the terms of the trust. Anything has to be better than that.”
“Are you sure Agnes won’t let you have money to remodel the store? There has to be a way to fix this,” he said. “I haven’t known her that long, but she never struck me as unreasonable.”
“Not unreasonable?” Dahlia echoed. “She’s more than unreasonable. She’s downright antagonistic about anything to do with the store. She was Aunt Ruth’s best friend, but she’s taking the trustee thing too far. I can’t get her to release any funds because she thinks she’s protecting Aunt Ruth’s legacy.” She pushed herself up from the chair and paced between the coffee table and the front door. Her sandals slapped against the floor with every step.
“What she doesn’t realize is Aunt Ruth’s legacy is the bookstore and her role in the community. Which I’m trying to protect by making To Be Read a viable business again.”
His gaze followed her, but he didn’t say a word. She continued her diatribe.
“After Aunt Ruth died, I gave up my job and everything I had to move here. That counts for nothing with Agnes. I can’t win. She hates me and will never see me as anything but a selfish teenager.”
“It seems like you’re running away,” Garrett said. “Are there any other options to get the money you need?”
“No, there’s not, and I’m not running away,” she said. “There comes a point when no matter how hard you try, you can’t make things better.” She walked over to the door again. Why did he have to come home? If he hadn’t returned, she’d be home packing right now, instead of having this conversation.
“If you change your mind, my offer to help still stands. I can help you brainstorm ways to increase sales at To Be Read. I used to work for a marketing
agency and I’ve picked up a few useful tricks along the way. I’d be happy to help you.”
She nodded. “Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be needing your help.” She tipped her head up to the side. “Actually, there is something,” she said. “Are you still interested in buying the bookstore?”
“I’m open to that, but I think you’re doing a great job. You’ve come a long way since I first met you.” He followed her to the entryway. “But it’s your choice, of course.”
“I’ll have the lawyer get in touch with you about buying the bookstore,” she said. “Goodbye.” Tears pearled in the corners of her eyes, but she eked out a smile and closed the door. The disappointment etched across his face would haunt her forever. She remained on the porch and allowed the pain to wash over her like the waves on the sand below. She didn’t want to leave like this, not when she wasn’t sure of her feelings for him. But she suspected they were growing toward something important if just the thought of not seeing his face again made her so maudlin. If she left, it would be the final nail in the coffin for them. She breathed in the familiar flower- and salt-tinged air before she plodded down the steps and back up the hill to Aunt Ruth’s house.
She’d meant what she said to Garrett. She’d failed. This had been her chance to create a new life for herself as a business owner. Back home, she’d been an assistant at a travel agency, a part-time one at that. In the last three months, she had transformed into someone unrecognizable, but in a good way. Sharp pains knifed her stomach. Starting over wouldn’t be fun.
She reached Aunt Ruth’s house and nostalgia wafted over her as strongly as it had when she’d first returned to Candle Beach. Would she ever come back here again? Or would it only be a memory, a blip in her personal timeline? No doubt, Agnes would be quick to sell the house and pocket the proceeds. How was there not a ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard yet? She’d conceded defeat to Agnes over an hour ago.