Сьюзен Виггз - The Lost and Found Bookshop

“I feel so out of the loop. I live— lived —up in Sonoma until all this happened. My mom was planning to make the apartment safer for my grandfather. He had a fall recently and broke his hip, so he moved from the upper apartment to a studio on the main floor.”

“She mentioned some other repairs in addition to the accessibility modifications, but didn’t specify. Said she’d walk me through it all when I got here. Listen, if you want to reschedule, we can do that,” Peach suggested.

“No,” she said quickly. “Grandy—my grandfather—needs those safety features. I have to take care of my mother’s shop. And I need … oh God.” The tears came again. The shirttail. The undeniably cut abs, the kind you saw in a yoga studio if you were lucky enough to see the inside of a yoga studio.

He cautioned himself to quit checking her out. Clients—even potential clients and especially cute, grieving clients—were off-limits. “I can’t imagine how hard this must be,” he said. “You had a terrible shock. I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know your mother, but my daughter loves this bookstore. Dorothy comes here all the time.”

“Dorothy with the yellow pigtails? About yea high?” She sniffled, then gestured with her hand.

“Sounds like my girl.”

“She came in the other day and bought herself a couple of books. She is adorable.”

He flashed a grin of pride. Everybody said that about his kid. And everybody was right. “Thanks. So do we reschedule, or . . .”

“Please. Come on in. I was just . . . My plans for the day have changed.” She took a breath. Squared her shoulders and tipped up her chin. “When all this happened, I left a good steady job up in Sonoma, thinking I’d take over the shop. I woke up this morning and realized I’m never going to make this work, so I came out here to jump in my car and drive to Archangel and ask for my old job back. I left in a fit of pique and I shouldn’t have.”

As the words rushed out of her, he tried to imagine her in a fit of pique. For some reason, that sounded sexy to him. He’d been living like a monk for so long that pretty much everything sounded sexy to him.

“Then I saw that my car had been towed,” she said, “and I’ve decided to take it as a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“I’m taking over the bookstore, and I intend to make it work, after all.” For the first time, something approaching a smile softened her face. Damn , he thought, she’s a looker . “Recognize that burning smell?” she asked.

“What?”

“A bridge, maybe?”

“Sounds like you’re committed.”

“At this point, my options are limited.” She showed him the street-level door to the residential foyer. Next to that was the bookstore entrance. She unlocked it and they walked through the darkened shop. She stopped at the coffee station to turn on a gleaming silver espresso machine. It came to life with a steamy sigh. She poured roasted beans and turned on the coffee mill. Over the gnashing of the grinder, she asked, “How do you like your coffee?”

He regarded her blankly. When the mill stopped, he asked, “You’re making me a coffee? With that thing?”

“Sure. Nowadays, you really can’t have a bookshop without coffee.”

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made him a cup of coffee. “I may never leave,” he said. “Americano, black. Please.”

“My grandfather will be up in a while. Have a seat and we can go over your list.”

When the machine was ready, she expertly drew the Americano and fixed some kind of small latte for herself. He took a sip and looked straight at her. “Damn. That might be the best coffee I’ve ever had.”

“My mom dated an Italian guy for a while, decades ago, and he gave her this amazing machine. Customers love it.”

“Gives people a reason to shop local,” he said.

She nodded, and her shoulders tensed. “So . . . anyway, you’ll have to forgive me. I’m still in a fog.”

“Nothing to forgive.” He studied her face, soft and sad in the morning light. “A plane crash,” he said. “What happened? Or does it suck too bad to talk about it?”

“It sucks whether I talk about it or not,” she said.

“Up to you, then.”

Several seconds passed. She looked at him through eyes that seemed bruised with pain and exhaustion. “What happened was . . . well, there was this work thing. At my firm in Archangel, up in Sonoma.”

“The one you walked away from. In a fit of pique.”

She threw him a sharp look, as if surprised that he’d listened to her every word. “Mom was planning to come up for an event, and she never showed. It wasn’t a big deal. She tends to—tended to—change her plans a lot. Later that day, there was a report on the radio—a small private plane went down.” She faltered, pressing a hand to her chest.

“Damn. I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s nothing . . . We had an amazing memorial service. And people have been coming by, leaving notes and expressing sympathy.” She indicated a collection of flowers and cards, a scattering of dropped petals on the floor.

“I hope that helped. Just a little.”

“It’s nice. But . . . gone is gone.”

As they finished their coffee, a cat sidled over and perched on the windowsill, tail twitching to and fro. “That’s Sylvia,” Natalie said. “She hates me.”

“This girl?” Peach held out a hand. The cat bowed her head and rubbed it against Peach’s knuckles.

“Watch this.” Natalie put her hand out. Sylvia glared at it and bared her teeth. “See?”

“You never know about cats.” It sounded like the start of a song. Peach had been writing since he was a kid, and sometimes his mind hooked onto an idea like that. He finished his coffee and opened his list. “Let’s go see about these repairs. A plumbing issue in an upstairs bathroom . . . She also said there was a damp spot on the wall on the main floor . . .”

“Maybe she meant this section over by the travel books,” Natalie said. “It looks like water damage. Is it, like, really bad?”

“It’s not good.” He bent down to inspect the crumbling plaster. “But I am. I’ll figure out what’s going on and fix it.”

“Is it going to be expensive?” Her voice thrummed with tension. “Sorry to ask, but the shop’s having budget issues.”

He sat back on his heels. “It won’t be cheap. But it’s not going to get better if you don’t fix it. I’ll have a look and give you an estimate.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “Thanks.”

He went out to his truck and returned with some tools. Then he spread out a drop cloth. “This is going to make some noise,” he said. “Want me to wait until your grandfather’s up?”

She shook her head. “He’s really hard of hearing until he gets his hearing aids in. Do what you have to do.” She went to the main counter and turned on some lights and a computer. “And thanks for showing up,” she added.

9

As Mr. Peach Gallagher got to work, the energy in the shop shifted in some subtle way. Silhouetted by the light through the front display window, he moved with a curious grace, reaching and measuring, searching for flaws. Natalie kept catching herself sneaking looks at his faded jeans and tight black T-shirt, baseball cap, ponytail, and big, battered hands. And—it had to be said—the physique of David. The hammer for hire.

When he noticed her staring, he looked back with something a bit warmer than friendship, which she didn’t much like. He had a wife and kid.

Maybe she was reading it wrong. Maybe he was being nice because she’d had a breakdown on the sidewalk this morning. He probably hadn’t expected to start his day like that, but he’d taken it in stride. In fact, he seemed to be a pretty good listener. For a guy. For a hammer for hire.