The Little Bookshop at Herring Cove

by Kellie Hailes

  ‘I’m so glad to have a daughter in the family.’ Veronika pressed a kiss to her cheek. Completely at odds from the cool air-kiss Sophie had received on their first meeting.

  Sophie returned the kiss. Her heart full for the woman who’d taken the time to get to know her. Never pressed. Never fussed. Sophie had taken Veronika’s initial distance to mean she was not fond of her, but over family dinners, which became weekends spent together searching out first editions when Alexander was too busy to come along, she realised she’d mistaken dislike for a natural reserve. One that hid a warm, generous woman, who hadn’t just accepted Sophie into her family, but ensured she felt very much a part of it.

  Sophie passed her flowers to Natalie, blew her a kiss, then with a deep breath turned to her soon-to-be husband.

  Their hands found each other and the ceremony began.

  Rob, who’d attained his celebrant certificate specially for the occasion, officiated with his usual charm. Weaving a tale of how the two met, having their guests in fits of laughter one moment, dabbing their eyes the next.

  ‘And now for the important bit.’ Rob gave them an encouraging nod. ‘The vows.’

  Sophie swallowed hard, terrified she’d forget the words she and Alexander had spent hours crafting, then more hours trying to remember.

  They were simple words. And few of them. But they meant everything. Embodied their love exactly.

  Alexander held her gaze, sent her strength. She returned his support with a squeeze of hands, then took a deep breath…

  ‘I, Sophie, promise to never let fear see us fall. To risk everything to ensure we grow. To trust in us, always.’

  ‘I, Alex, promise to stand up for us. To catch us should we fall. To keep us steady no matter what life throws our way.’

  ‘I promise to love you with my heart.’

  ‘I promise to love you with my soul.’

  ‘For you are mine.’

  ‘As I am yours.’

  ‘Forever.’ The last word said together, in perfect unison, as they slipped a gold band onto each other’s ring finger.

  ‘And with those beautiful words, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You know what to do next….’

  Their guests laughed as Alexander pulled her closer, and they sealed the deal the best way they knew how.

  With a kiss.

  One that spoke of unshakeable foundations. Good bones. A solid roof.

  And a lifetime of love.

  If you enjoyed The Little Bookshop at Herring Cove then why not try The Little Unicorn Gift Shop, another uplifting romance by Kellie Hailes?

  Click here if you’re in the US

  Click here if you’re in the UK

  Acknowledgements

  Where would I be without you, wonderful reader? Thank you for taking the time to read my book. For taking a chance on my writing. For all your support.

  My eternal gratitude to my husband and daughter. Thank you for putting up with a messy house, thrown together meals, and the odd moment of ‘are there any clean undies?’, while I write, edit… and have the odd existential crisis.

  To those who help Englishify things for me when my Kiwiness gets in the way, Natalie Gillespie, my copy-editor Clare, and the fabulous HQ Digital writer crew - your knowledge-sharing is truly appreciated. Thank you.

  Ah, the editor. Where would a writer be without one? This book would be an entirely different kettle of fish if it were not for the fabulous Charlotte Mursell. Charlotte, I’ve loved working on Herring Cove with you. Your ability to see what I’m trying to say, point it out, and make it better, blows. My. Mind. It’s like you know my brain better than I do. You’re one in a million. A goodie. A keeper. Never leave me!

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read this book – we hope you enjoyed it! If you did, we’d be so appreciative if you left a review.

  Here at HQ Digital we are dedicated to publishing fiction that will keep you turning the pages into the early hours. We publish a variety of genres, from heartwarming romance, to thrilling crime and sweeping historical fiction.

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  If you loved The Little Bookshop at Herring Cove then turn the page for an exclusive extract from The Cosy Coffee Shop of Promises…

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘Wine. Now. And don’t get mouthy with me.’

  Mel watched Tony’s sea-blue eyes light up as his lips parted slightly…

  ‘What’s got your knick…’

  ‘I’m serious,’ she cut in, before he had a chance to be the second person to grind her gears that day. ‘I’m in no mood for your cheek. And I can tell by that twitchy jaw of yours that you’re contemplating still trying to give me some.’ Mel took off her navy peacoat and shuddered as wintry air wrapped its way around her thin form. She promptly buttoned up again and tugged her scarf tighter around her neck. ‘All I want from you is for you to do your job, pour me a glass of pinot gris and leave me to drink it, alone, and in peace. And why is it so cold in here? It’s freezing out. It shouldn’t be freezing in.’ She shook her head. ‘No matter. I don’t care. The wine will warm me up.’

  ‘Bu…’

  ‘No. No buts. No whys. No questions.’ She pointed to the glass-doored fridge. ‘Just get the bottle, get a glass, and pour.’ Mel gave Tony her best glare, hoping to get past his notoriously thick skin.

  She watched the muscles in his jaw continue to work, as if debating whether to ignore her order to be left in peace or do that clichéd ‘had a bad day, tell me about it’ barman patter. Sensibility must have won, because he turned and bent over to grab a bottle of pinot gris from the chiller, giving her a fantastic view of his toned and rounded rear. A view she’d usually take a moment to appreciate, but not right now, not after the unexpected, and not in a good way, phone call she’d just received from her mother.

  Tony sloshed the wine into a tired-looking, age-speckled glass, pushed it in her direction, then punched at the card machine. ‘Here you go,’ he said, proffering the handset.

  Mel squinted at the numbers on the screen. ‘Tony, um, that’s not right. You’ve overcharged me.’

  ‘No, that’s the price.’ Tony nodded, but kept his eyes firmly on the bar. ‘Since the beginning of this week.’

  ‘Really? You can’t tell me a bottle of wine rose in price by almost double in the space of seven days?’

  ‘You’re right, it hasn’t.’ He glanced up. ‘But the hole in my muffler is yelling at me to put the prices up. And I haven’t in years, so …’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Sorry.’ Mel handed over her bank card, embarrassed to have questioned the price rise. She’d heard the village gossip. Tony’s business wasn’t doing so well. Apparently hadn’t been for years, but had got worse since his dad passed away the year before. Not that she knew much about that. She’d been new to town, and didn’t want to get a reputation as a gossip, so had only heard the odd conversation here and there over the coffee cups in her café, nothing more.

  ‘So, are you going to just stare into that glass of wine or are you going to drink it? Because I don’t have a funnel to pour it back into the bottle. Although reselling it would make my mechanic happier faster. And if you buy two glasses I might even be able to afford to put the heating on.’

  Mel shot Tony a grateful smile. Despite his infamous reputation as a ladies’ man, he was also known about the small farming town of Rabbits Leap as being something of a gentleman and had quite the knack of making you feel at ease, which, considering her current heightened state of irritation, was quite a feat.

  ‘You’re still not taking a sip, or
a slug. And, well, it sounds like you needed a slug.’

  Mel narrowed her eyes at Tony, hoping to scare him into shutting up with a stern look. ‘What did I say about getting mouthy? And teasing for that matter?’

  ‘I’m not teasing. You look pale. Paler than usual, and you know you’re pretty pale, so you’re almost translucent right now. Even the bright streaks of pink in your hair are looking a little less hot.’

  ‘You pay attention to my hair colour?’ Mel’s hand unconsciously went to her hair and tucked a stray lock behind her ears. Tony looked at her hair? Since when? She’d always assumed he’d seen her as nothing more than a regular customer, a friendly acquaintance, not someone to take notice of. Sure, they got along well enough, would chat for a moment or two if they passed each other on the street, or if it was quiet in the pub, but that was the extent of their relationship.

  ‘Well, you’re about the most exciting thing to happen in this place for the last ten years…’

  ‘Me? Exciting?’ A tingle of pleasure stirred within her.

  Tony winked and turned that tingle into a zing. Since her last boyfriend, the local vet, had taken off to care for animals overseas, Mel hadn’t had any action, let alone a compliment, from a man. And apparently, if that unexpected zing frenzy that had zipped through her body was anything to go by, she’d been craving it.

  ‘Yeah, exciting.’ Tony’s glance lingered on her face, as if drinking her in. ‘And pretty, too.’

  She rolled her eyes, trying to ignore the way her body reacted to the words of approval. She picked up her glass and took the suggested slug. She was being stupid. Tony wasn’t calling her exciting, just her hair. And the only reason he was calling her pretty was because that’s what he did; he called women pretty, he charmed them, he took them to bed, and that was that. And she’d had enough of her love life – heck, her life in general – ending with ‘that was that’ to be interested in someone who’d pretty much created the phrase.

  ‘Feel better?’ His eyes, usually dancing with humour, were crinkled at the corners with concern.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Have another slug.’

  As she lifted the glass she glanced around the bar, taking in the bar leaners with their tired, ring-stained, laminated tops and obsolete ashtrays in their centres. The tall stools next to them looked rickety from decades of propping up farmers, the pool table needed a resurface, and as for the dartboard… it was covered in so many tiny pin holes it was amazing a dart could stay wedged in it. The village chatter was right, Tony was doing it tough…

  Her eyes fell on a machine sitting at the far end of the bar. All shiny and silvery and gleaming with newness. That shouldn’t be there.

  Her blood heated up, and not in an ‘oh swoon, a man just complimented me’ kind of way.

  ‘What is that?’ Mel seethed through gritted teeth.

  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. What was he thinking? Did he have it in for her, too? Was it ‘Let’s Piss Off Mel Day’? She’d moved to Rabbits Leap just over a year ago to try and create a sense of security for herself. A place she could settle down in, call home, maybe even meet a nice, normal guy she could fall in love with. And in one day what little security she’d carefully built was in danger of being blown apart. First her mother calling to tell her she was coming to town and bringing her special brand of crazy with her, and now this?

  ‘What’s what?’ The crinkles of concern further deepened.

  ‘That.’ She pointed to the cause of her ire.

  ‘The coffee machine?’

  ‘Yeah, the coffee machine. The coffee machine that should not be in your bar, because I have a coffee machine. In my café. The only café in the village. You remember that? The one place a person can get a good cup of coffee? The place that just happens to be my livelihood, and you want to screw with it?’

  Tony took a step back as if he’d been hit with a barrage of arrows. Good. His eyebrows gathered in a frown. But he didn’t look sorry. Why didn’t he look sorry? And why had he straightened up and stopped looking stricken?

  ‘It’s just business, Mel.’

  ‘And it’s just a small village, Tony.’

  She looked at her wine and considered throwing the contents of it over him, then remembered how much it had cost. Taking the glass she brought it to her mouth and tipped it back, swallowing the lot in one long gulp.

  She set the glass back on the bar, gently, so he wouldn’t see how shaken she was. ‘There’s only enough room in this village for one coffee machine.’ She mentally slapped herself as the words came out with a wobble, not as the threat she’d intended.

  ‘And what does that mean?’ Tony folded his arms and leant in towards her, his eyebrow raised.

  Mel gulped. He wanted her to throw down the gauntlet? Fine then. ‘It means you can try to make coffee. You can spend hours trying to get it right, make thousands of cups, whatever. But your coffee will never be as good as mine and all you’ll have is a big hunk of expensive metal sitting unloved at the end of your bar.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re challenging me to a coffee-off.’

  How could Tony be so cavalier? So unfazed by the truth? He’d spent a ton of money on something he’d only end up regretting.

  Mel took a deep breath, picked up her wallet and walked to the door. She spun round to face her adversary.

  ‘There’s no challenge here. All you’re good for is pulling a pint or three. Coffee? That’s for the adults. You leave coffee to me.’

  She leant into the old pub door, pushed it with all her might and lurched over the threshold into the watery, late-winter sun and shivered. Could today get any worse?

  ***

  Had he done the wrong thing? Was buying that ridiculous monstrosity and installing it in the pub a stupid idea? He’d spent the last decent chunk of money he had to get it. What if it didn’t fly? What would happen next? He couldn’t keep the place open on the smell of a beer-soaked carpet, but he couldn’t fail either. It was all he had left to remind him of his family. The Bullion had been his dad’s baby. The one thing that had kept his dad sane after his mother had passed away. More than that, it was where what few solid memories he had of his mother were. Her smiling at him as he sat at the kitchen table munching on a biscuit while she cooked in the pub’s kitchen. The violet scent of her perfume as she’d pulled his four-year-old self into a cuddle after he’d fallen from a bar stool while on an ambitious mountaineering expedition.

  Then there was the promise he’d made to his father, the final words they’d shared as his father breathed his last. His vow to preserve The Bullion’s history, to keep her alive. Dread tugged at his heart. What if he couldn’t keep that promise?

  God, why couldn’t his father have been more open, more honest with him about their financial situation? Why couldn’t he have put away his pride for one second and seen a bank manager, cap in hand, asked for a… Tony shoved the idea away. No. That wasn’t an option. Not then. Not now. The McArthurs don’t ask for help. That was his dad’s number-one rule. A rule his father had also drilled into him. No, he wasn’t going cap in hand to a bank manager. He didn’t even own a cap, anyway. He just had to come up with some new ideas to breathe life into the old girl. The coffee machine had been one of them, and he’d spent the last of his personal savings buying it.

  But what if Mel was right? What if he couldn’t make a good coffee? Heck, what if she stole into the pub in the middle of the night and tampered with it so he couldn’t?

  Tony shook his head. The potential for poverty was turning him paranoid. Besides, the coffee machine was a great idea. Lorry drivers were always stopping in looking for a late-night cup, and who knew? Maybe the locals would like a cup of herbal tea or something before heading home after a big night.

  Buy herbal tea. He added the item to his mental grocery list, along with bread, bananas and milk. Maybe he’d see if there was any of that new-age herbal tea stuff that made you sleep. Normally he’d do what his dad had always d
one and have a cup of hot milk with a dash of malt to send him off. But lately it hadn’t done the trick and he’d spent more hours tossing and turning than he had actually sleeping, his mind ticking over with mounting bills, mounting problems and not a hell of a lot of solutions. Heck, he was so bone-tired he wasn’t even all that interested in girls. Maybe that was the problem? Maybe he needed to tire himself out …

  ‘Hey, baby brother!’

  ‘Might be. But I’m still taller than you.’ Tony grinned at his sister and two nephews as they piled into the pub. ‘How you doing, you little scallywags?’

  ‘Scallywags?!’

  Tony laughed as the boys feigned insult and horror in perfect unison.

  ‘You heard me. Now come and give your old uncle a hug.’

  The boys flew at him, nearly knocking him over as they hurled themselves into his outstretched arms. He drew them in and held them, breathing in the heady mix of mud and cinnamon scent that he was pretty sure they’d been born with.

  ‘Have we cuddled you long enough? Can we have a lemonade now?’ Tyler peered up at him with a hopeful eye.

  ‘And a bag of crisps?’ asked Jordan, his voice filled with anticipation, and just a hint of cheek.

  ‘Each?’ They pleaded in perfect unison.

  Two peas in a pod those boys were. And the loves of Jody’s life. Since the day she’d found out she’d fallen pregnant to a man she’d met during a shift at the pub, a random, a one-nighter, she’d sworn off all men until the boys were old enough to fend for themselves.

  Tony watched as the boys grabbed a bag of crisps each and poured two glasses of lemonade and wondered at what point Jody would decide they were old enough, because at nine they looked pretty well sorted, and he was pretty sure he spotted flashes of loneliness in her eyes when she saw couples holding hands over the bar’s leaners.

  ‘So what’s with the shiny new toy?’ Jody jerked her head down towards the end of the bar.

  ‘It’s what’s going to save this place.’