by Nicole Ellis
She turned and walked along the carpeted hallway to the room that had been hers when she came to stay in the summers. A double bed took up half of the room, but a window seat in the upstairs bay window made the room feel spacious. Dahlia had fond memories of sitting on the seat and gazing out the window with its view of town and peekaboo view of the ocean. A few newer romance novels sat on the bedside table, evidence that her mother had slept in there during her visits. Vanessa could never resist a good romance.
After opening the window to let in the cool evening breeze, she lay down on the bed, atop the crocheted coverlet. Her eyes closed as her head hit the soft down pillow, and she told herself she would bring her suitcases up in a few minutes.
5
Sunlight streaming through the open window woke Dahlia the next morning. She checked her watch with bleary eyes, dismayed to see it was after eight. Normally, waking up at eight a.m. on a Saturday morning meant she could sleep for a while longer, but now she was a business owner—at least until she could find someone to take over management of the bookstore. She groaned and swung her legs off the bed. After a quick shower, she had just enough time to stop at the Bluebonnet Café for a chocolate chip muffin and large latte. As she’d heard, the pastry selection was excellent.
She opened the store at nine on the dot. Business was brisk, with weekenders buying beach reads. She perused the operations manual in between customers. At noon, she flipped the sign over on the door to announce she’d be back in half an hour. She had to find someone to run the bookstore for her, so she needed to pay a visit to Adam, the owner of the town newspaper. Since it was Saturday, she wasn’t sure if he’d be in, but she couldn’t put the chore off.
She peered through the windows of the Candle Beach Weekly, but the lights were off, except for what appeared to be a light on in a back room. She was standing on her tiptoes to get a better view when a sound from behind startled her. She lowered herself to standing and turned around.
“Excuse me, can I help you with something?” A man carrying a box of donuts and a copy of The Seattle Times jangled a ring of keys, which he then used to unlock the door.
“Hi.” She followed him inside. “I’m Dahlia, Ruth Wright’s great-niece.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m Adam Rigg. I own the Candle Beach Weekly.” He placed the donuts and newspaper on his desk before shaking her hand.
She’d assumed the newspaper owner would be older, but with his freckles and tousled, carrot-red hair she felt like she’d just met Dennis the Menace in person. Immediately, she was at ease with him. “You’re much younger than I expected,” she blurted out.
“I get that a lot. It works to my advantage, because people tend to tell me things they wouldn’t divulge to anyone else. It’s like I’m undercover in my own skin.” He waggled his eyebrows devilishly at her and she laughed.
Then she eyed the newspaper pointedly. “A competitor’s paper?”
“We only publish local news. I like to keep up on what’s happening in the rest of the state and the world. What can I do for you?” He offered her the box of donuts and she selected a maple bar. Not much chance she’d have time for a real lunch.
“I’m trying to find someone qualified to manage the bookstore after I go back to Seattle on Monday. Gretchen Roberts mentioned you might be able to help me find someone.”
“Hmm. Did she?” He grinned and his freckled skin flushed. “She does tend to overestimate my talents. No one comes to mind at the moment. It’ll be hard to locate someone on such short notice, but let me think about it.”
Dahlia had hoped for better, but she wasn’t surprised to hear him say he didn’t have a good candidate for her either.
“So you’re only in town until Monday?”
“That was the plan, but it appears I’ll need to stay a little longer to find a new manager for To Be Read.”
“We couldn’t talk you into moving to Candle Beach?”
“No, I don’t think so. Why?” She took another donut out of the box, grabbed a chair from an employee’s desk and settled in with her unhealthy lunch.
“Always good to get some fresh blood in town. Many of us who grew up here have moved to bigger cities, and we could use more young people.”
“Are you a native Candle Beach-ian?” she asked. She couldn’t remember seeing him when she’d visited in the summers.
“Yes, I’ve lived here all my life.” He must have seen her perplexed gaze. “You probably don’t remember me because you came in the summers and I spent most of every summer with my grandparents in Idaho. Grandma was a teacher and had the summers off, so it was the best time to visit them.”
“Ah, that explains it.” The donut stuck to the roof of her mouth. She motioned at the coffee pot across the room. “May I have some?”
“Sure, it’s fresh today, help yourself.”
She poured herself a full cup of coffee and sat back down. She didn’t usually feel so comfortable chatting with strangers, but something about Candle Beach relaxed her and made it a natural act. To be honest, she didn’t have many friends in Seattle either, and it had felt good to converse with her old friend Gretchen and what she hoped was a new friend in Adam.
“So I’m assuming you’ve decided to keep the bookstore for the full year instead of selling it?” he asked.
“Does everyone in town know about the terms of Aunt Ruth’s will?” The gossip mill in this town was amazing.
“It is a small town,” he admitted. “News travels fast.”
“Well, I haven’t decided. I thought I could hang on to it for a year, but without a manager, I don’t know if that will work.” She leaned forward and wrapped her hands around her coffee mug.
“Have you heard about the new Book Warehouse going into downtown Haven Shores?” he asked, referring to the town about thirty minutes south of Candle Beach.
“No,” she said. “What about it?”
“It might be something for you to consider. Bookstore customers might decide to make the drive to Haven Shores for a better selection now. Ruth always did a good job of promoting the store and making it a welcoming place for customers, but the competition could make it difficult to turn a profit by the end of the year.”
Dahlia fell silent. Her trip to Candle Beach had felt like watching a chain of dominoes toppling slowly, one after another. Aunt Ruth’s house was falling apart, she couldn’t find a bookstore manager, and with a new competitor in the area, how would she afford a manager? What was next? If she couldn’t make the bookstore a success, maybe she should sell it if the prospective buyer’s offer was still on the table.
She looked up at the round clock on the wall and stood. “Thanks for your help and advice. I’ve got to get back to the bookstore, but I may be back to pick your brain again in the future.”
“No problem. Let me know if you need anything else while you’re in town.” He held the door open for her. “Please say hi to Gretchen for me if you see her. She hasn’t been around in a while.” He smiled at her as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“I will, thanks again.” She hurried off down the street.
Customers weren’t exactly lining up at the door when Dahlia unlocked the bookstore and flipped the sign around to ‘Open’ again. She retrieved the lawyer’s business card from her purse in the back room and phoned the law office. She found herself pacing the floor between the main part of the bookstore and the storeroom as the phone rang on the other end.
What if business didn’t pick up during the week? There was no way she could turn a profit without an increase in foot traffic. She didn’t have the skills to turn the business around. Selling now could be her best option if the buyer was still interested.
“Hello, law offices of Schmidt, Anders, and James. How may I help you?” the receptionist chirped, jerking Dahlia out of her thoughts.
“Yes, Larry Anders please. This is Dahlia Winters, calling about Ruth Wright’s estate.” She flipped the card between her fingers, creasing the crisp, white p
aperboard.
Larry’s voice came over the line. “Ms. Winters. How may I help you?”
“I’m here in Candle Beach and I’m having trouble finding a manager for my aunt’s bookstore. To be truthful, this whole thing is a mess.” She took a deep breath. “I’d like to accept the offer on the bookstore and list the house as well. There are a few repairs that need to be made, but I can get a handyman scheduled while I’m in town.”
“Ms. Winters, I’m sorry to say that the offer on the bookstore has been revoked,” Larry said. “I did warn you that it was only valid until five o’clock last Wednesday.”
Dahlia fell silent. If selling the bookstore was no longer an option, she had no choice but to make it profitable. At that moment, she realized she had no idea about To Be Read’s or Aunt Ruth’s financial status.
“Can you please provide me with more information about the bookstore’s finances? And Aunt Ruth’s house needs work. Are there funds to cover that?”
Larry gave her a brief overview of her aunt’s finances and promised to email her a full list of assets. “Please let us know if you’d like us to put you in touch with a real estate agent to list the bookstore. If you decide to sell, you should put the properties on the market soon in case the economy worsens at a later date.”
After promising to call him back with her decision, she hung up the phone. Then she went into Ruth’s office and sank down in the desk chair. Things were worse than she’d thought. While Ruth’s own finances were fairly strong, with enough money to more than adequately fund the house repairs and anything else she needed for the property, she had used Uncle Ed’s pension to subsidize the bookstore losses for years. With a history of losses, finding another potential buyer would be even tougher. Sitting in her aunt’s chair, she closed her eyes, hoping that somehow Ruth’s spirit would tell her what to do.
Before she received any messages from beyond the grave, the bookstore doorbell chimed, alerting her to a potential customer. She rose from the chair, shrugged her shoulders back and walked into the main room. She’d sleep on her decision and call the lawyer back in the morning.
6
Three months later, Dahlia straightened the New York Times bestseller that had toppled from the lowest tier of To Be Read’s front bay window display and glanced through the window. The weather was considerably nicer than when she had arrived in April. After she’d been unable to find someone to manage the bookstore for her, she’d been left with no other option but to quit her job and move to Candle Beach. Moving out of her apartment had actually been a relief, and after donating her bedraggled furniture to Goodwill, everything that remained fit either into her car or in her mother’s basement. Although she missed her friends in Seattle, over the last few months she’d grown close to her childhood friends, Gretchen and Maggie. For the most part, she was enjoying her time in town, however long it may be.
She pushed the curtain aside to see if the summer storm had cleared. The hot July sun had burned through the fog and clouds of the morning’s rainstorm, and now shone on a glistening Main Street, brightening both the town and her spirits. But her joy faded when she saw the woman approaching the bookstore.
It was too late to hide, too late to pretend to be busy in the back storeroom. The elderly woman’s lips formed a thin, determined line across her face as she beelined for the store’s entrance.
Dahlia gazed longingly at the back door before steeling herself for the woman’s arrival by molding her own lips into a forced smile designed to hide gritted teeth. The woman entered the store, making a show of wiping her spotless low-heeled pumps on the entry mat. The acrid scent of recent rain followed her.
“Why Agnes, how nice to see you.” Dahlia’s cheeks screamed with the effort of the pleasant greeting. It had never hurt so much to smile.
Agnes didn’t bother with such niceties. She squinted her eyes and peered over her pointed nose at the mud-streaked windows. “I see you haven’t managed to run Ruth’s bookstore into the ground yet, although you haven’t been spending much time maintaining the place.”
Dahlia sucked in her breath and slowly counted to ten while exhaling. Of course Agnes picked up on one of the few parts of the store that wasn’t squeaky clean. A coastal rain storm had come through around dawn and spattered the windows with dirt from the flowerbeds in front of the store. With a new shipment of James Patterson’s suspense novels delivered soon after opening, Dahlia hadn’t had time yet to wash the grime off of the windows.
Agnes circled the bookstore’s perimeter, her eagle eyes taking in every book on the shelves that dared to edge half an inch out of line from the others. She made a point to tap one soldier back into formation and shook her head at the rest. It was a wonder they didn’t spontaneously realign themselves with the sheer force of her disapproval.
Dahlia leaned against the door frame and waited for the siege to end. Ever since she’d made the decision to stay in Candle Beach until the summer was over and she could hire help, Agnes had been a thorn in her side. Every week, she came into the store and inspected it. Never once had she said anything positive.
“How is business? I don’t see any customers in here.” Agnes narrowed her eyes at Dahlia. “I hear from the other Ladies that they never see customers when they pass by.”
“It’s great.” Not that it was any business of Agnes or her spying Ladies Club. The truth was, with the opening of the Book Warehouse in Haven Shores in June, what little repeat business she had from the full-time residents was trickling away. At this rate, there was no way the bookstore would make a profit in nine months. She had hoped the summer tourist dollars would help, but here it was, mid-July, and the fabled cash influx hadn’t materialized.
A woman wearing flip-flops, cutoff jeans and a purple tank top with ‘Baby’ emblazoned across the front entered the store. A hint of aromatic coconut sunscreen hung in her wake. While the beachgoer perused the fiction section, Agnes disappeared into the back to do who knew what. Dahlia sidled up to the woman to ask if she needed help, but she said she was just browsing while her husband picked up their picnic lunch from the Bluebonnet Café. When the doorbell jingled, announcing the woman’s exit, Agnes returned.
“Did she buy anything?”
“No, she was just looking.” Dahlia crossed her fingers. “But she said she’d be back later with her husband.” She hated to lie, but sometimes little fibs were necessary.
“If she came in here, she was interested in purchasing something. Every customer is a sales opportunity and you don’t have many of those. Have you done anything to promote the store to tourists? Are you participating in the summer market?” Agnes asked.
“No, it didn’t seem like an appropriate place to sell books.” Dahlia had seen a flyer last month for the summer market, but she hadn’t done anything more with it than place it in the recycling bin. The market operated in Candle Beach’s town square every weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The vendors offered mainly arts and crafts, like jewelry, handmade items and photography, but there were a few produce and other booths as well.
“Hrumph,” Agnes said. “Ruth always had a booth at the summer market.”
“Yes, well, I’m not Ruth.” Agnes’s constant disapproval ground away at the last veneer of Dahlia’s patience and she stifled a scream.
“That’s obvious.” Agnes sniffed high in the air, flounced the hem of her knee-length black raincoat with a quick movement and turned toward the door. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to make it. You should have sold when you had the opportunity. Ruth would be appalled at the state of this place.”
“It looks exactly like it did when I took the daily management over from you and your friends.”
Agnes glared at Dahlia, who shrank back involuntarily. “I told Ruth she should have left her store to your mother. At least she had the decency to come and visit Ruth during her illness. And she has the ability to stick with a responsibility, something you sorely lack.”
A book cover facing out in the self-
improvement section caught Dahlia’s eye and she impulsively picked it up. She thrust her selection at Agnes. “How to Win Friends and Influence People. Perhaps you’d be interested in this book?” False sweetness dripped from her voice. “I could sell it to you at a discount, since I can see this book would be helpful to you.”
“Dear, you can’t afford to be offering books at a discount.” Agnes marched over to where Dahlia had selected the book and plucked another one off the shelf—Saving Your Relationship: How to Compromise. “Perhaps you could have used this book a few years ago,” she said in a matching saccharine tone. “Maybe you’d still be married.”
Her comment slammed into Dahlia with the force of a freight train. She turned for a minute, not wanting Agnes to see the tears that threatened to fall. She regained her composure and turned back around. Agnes waited expectantly, as if ready for active confrontation.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dahlia said. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I wasn’t the problem in my marriage, Jeff was. I was the only person making compromises.” Anger rushed through her veins, flushing her face with heat. “I won’t let you or anyone else tell me what to do. I never asked for this from Aunt Ruth. I’m doing the best I can under the circumstances.”
“Are you?” Agnes surveyed the room again. “It’s not just your marriage that you couldn’t keep together. You’ve been like this since you were a child. Always wanting to put only half the effort into something and then running out to play. Do you know how many times Ruth had to redo a task you’d been assigned when you worked at the store in the summers? Instead of stocking the shelves properly, you’d throw the books on the shelf and leave to go party with your friends.”