At nine o’clock, she walked down to the Mercantile on Main Street and bought four of their large red poinsettias, two for each of the big Plateglass windows, along with two boxes of miniature white lights, and two nine foot extension cords. She carried everything back to the bookstore, removed the lights from the packaging and laid them out in a straight line along the base of the window, and then added the flowers and then took the books she’d found, putting three in each side.
At ten o’clock on the dot, she turned the sign over in the door, switching from Closed to Open for the first time in almost three years. Rachel felt a little frisson of excitement as she stepped behind her counter, eager to see what the day would bring.
*
The doorbell jingled as it opened and Rachel looked up from her computer with a smile, ready to greet her first customer. But it wasn’t a customer, it was just Atticus back to torment her some more.
Her smile faded. “Can I help you?” she asked stiffly.
“I brought you a celebratory scone from Java Café,” he said, carrying a paper bag and tray with coffees to the counter. “Not sure which you’d prefer so I bought all three varieties, pumpkin, lemon, and cranberry.”
She refused to be charmed. He’d pretty much ruined yesterday afternoon and she wasn’t ready to forgive him. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“It’s your first day in business. Of course we need to celebrate.”
She lifted her chin and squarely met his gaze. “If I celebrated, it would be with a friend. You, Atticus Bowen, have firmly been placed in my nemesis category.”
“Is that a category on your spreadsheet?”
“I’m astonished you even have friends. You’re rather unbearable.”
He grinned lazily and plucked a coffee from the paper tray and placed it in front of her. “Pumpkin spice latte to sweeten you up.”
“Atticus.”
“Yes, Rachel?”
“Why are you here?”
“I can’t possibly be happy for you? Excited to share in your grand reopening?”
Rachel prided herself on her self-control but she had a sudden vision of herself dumping her pumpkin spice latte over Atticus’s head and watching it drip down his handsome face to collect in his sweater. Just the thought alone gave her immense pleasure. “In that case, have a look around. Maybe there’s a book or two that will catch your eye. And if not, I do hope you’ll have a wonderful day.”
He reached for the other coffee from the paper tray, lifted the coffee in mock salute and strolled away, carrying his briefcase.
Rachel watched him for a moment before she forced her attention back to her computer. She had work to do. She wasn’t about to let him distract her, and she reached for another book and began her research all over, only it wasn’t the same as it had been before because Atticus had seated himself in an overstuffed chair near the window and was pulling a small table close to his side. It aggravated her that he’d chosen a spot in her line of sight and she could see him pull out his laptop and open it up and prepare to work.
He was wearing a blue cashmere sweater and dark trousers, a black leather belt and black leather shoes, and with his hair combed back, he looked annoyingly well put together. And then, just when she thought he couldn’t look more sophisticated, he drew a pair of dark framed glasses from his briefcase and slid them on his nose. She’d never met a man so stylish, or sure of himself, and she wondered what his office in Houston was like, and if the lawyers and administration were as stylish as he.
And then she didn’t want to think about him anymore, and she lifted one of the boxes of books from the back room and placed it on the counter to block him from her view. It was then, and only then, that she could settle enough to concentrate, and she was finally managing to get some work done when Atticus’s deep voice broke the silence.
“Rachel, you’re going to need to look into getting internet. Your customers will expect it, and the only way I can get a strong signal on my phone in this building is to step outside.”
She slid the box over a couple inches so she could see him. “Feel free to step outside,” she said cheerfully. “It’s probably the best place for you anyway.”
“I won’t take that personally.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I’m thicker skinned than that, darlin’,” he said with his easy grin as he collected his paperwork and then put away his laptop.
She felt a prick of guilt when he closed his briefcase, and then her gaze fell on her coffee which she’d sipped when she’d thought he wasn’t paying attention. She hadn’t been very nice to him, and now he was leaving, and some company was better than no company. “Do you need to use my hotspot?” she offered. “I can share if what you’re working on is important.”
“That’s very generous of you, but I’ll just head back to the Graff. I have a conference call at noon so I should get ready for that.”
“Thank you for the coffee and scones,” she said, as he headed to the door. “It was a nice gesture. I appreciated it.”
“My pleasure, Rachel. Hope you have a good first day.”
*
It was a quiet first day, so quiet that Rachel found herself hoping Atticus would drop in again, just so she’d hear a voice. But he didn’t return and she stood at the door now, gazing out onto Main Street. Twilight was falling and the tall old-fashioned streetlights were coming on along with the white lights that formed part of the holiday decorations marking the street. At the Mercantile she’d seen flyers about the annual Marietta Stroll, happening on Saturday. She wondered exactly what the stroll was, and where it actually took place. She ought to find out since she’d be here.
But standing inside her store looking out, she wondered if she was making a mistake. She didn’t feel as if she belonged and she was missing the structure of her job in Irvine. The lack of routine was making her restless, and the long silent afternoon wore on her. She was happiest being busy, happiest doing what she did best—playing with numbers, calculating taxes and deductions, tackling complicated problems. Entering old books into a spreadsheet wasn’t exactly high-level thinking.
But it’s only the first day. She left her vigil at the door to walk around the store, going through the travel section to the local history section, where she paused to examine a shelf of books on Butte, and the history of copper mining in Montana. She pulled out a book on the Pleasure Gardens of Butte before sliding it back between other old books, and moved to another shelf featuring early Montana emigrants, cattle drives, and one room schoolhouses. Lesley had collected a lot of interesting books. Did people even know what she had?
Finally at six she returned to the front door and locked it, before turning the sign to Closed. She turned off the overhead lights, leaving on the little white lights in the windows, before going upstairs where she turned off all but one, and continued up to the apartment to make a simple pasta dinner.
She ate as she scrolled through the Wall Street Journal on her phone, and was studying the Dow Jones when a big bang came from downstairs.
Rachel straightened, and went still, listening intently. What was that?
The loud bang seemed to come from the floor directly below her, but what would make a sound like that?
The front door was locked—she’d made sure of that—and she should be the only one in the building.
Heart thudding, she crept halfway down the attic stairs and crouched on the steps, peeking through the bannister. From where she stood, nothing looked out of order. Night had fallen and the darkness pressed against the windows, a contrast to the sole light she’d left on.
She couldn’t see anything out of order, either. Everything looked tidy, and the woodwork glowed, still smelling of the citrus-scented polish she’d used earlier.
She crept down another couple of stairs, and that was when she spotted the big, thick hardback on the ground, lying in front of one of the narrow bookshelves. The book was most definitely not on the floor when she’d been clea
ning earlier. So how did it get there? Her glance swept the room, looking to see if anything else appeared out of place, but there was no other noise, or movement. The rest of the second floor was just as she’d left it.
She told herself it was nothing, but she was spooked and she suddenly didn’t want to go back upstairs, either, not on her own. Rachel hurried downstairs, grabbed her coat from the coatrack, unlocked the front door and ran out onto the curb.
Her pulse was racing as she tugged on her coat and zipped it closed. Stepping off the curb and into the street, she warily eyed the windows on the second floor. What made the book fall? And it was just a book, so why was she so scared?
It was silly, really, to be afraid because she didn’t believe in ghosts and there was no way Paradise Books was haunted. For one, Lesley would never gift her a building that was haunted, and for another, Rachel was too pragmatic to think all those TV shows about paranormal activity was real.
And then it crossed her mind—what if someone was upstairs?
What if someone had somehow entered the bookstore and was hiding on the second floor, or maybe was now in the attic space? There was access to the store through the door to the alley, as well as the front door, and she’d thought she locked both, but someone could have entered when she wasn’t paying attention.
She was still trying to decide what to do when she heard Atticus call her name, and she turned around to see him in his SUV, window rolled down. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Why are you in in the middle of the street?”
“I got spooked, so I ran out. I’m trying to decide what to do.”
“What happened?”
She opened her mouth to try to explain and then realized it would sound foolish. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”
He parked the car in one of the angled spots in front of the store before rolling up his window and stepping out. He was wearing a dark brown sheepskin coat, dark denim jeans, and what looked like a pair of pointed cowboy boots.
“You’re all dressed up,” she said, not adding that his coat didn’t appear to be the practical rancher variety, but the kind worn by Hollywood celebs when they went to the Sundance Film Festival.
“Is that a compliment?” he asked, smiling.