Page 14 of Love Walked In

CHAPTER TEN

Mari

After six days of bed rest, my body wasn’t on strike anymore, but I had about as much stamina as a ninety-year-old. I still hauled my ass out of bed, got dressed and put on a mask, and made my way down the bookstore stairs out of pure stubbornness and boredom.

Now I was trying to resist the urge to sit down on the bottom step and put my head between my knees. But what the hey, no one was looking. I plunked myself down and sighed.

As I tried to pull together the fragments of energy that were buried six feet deep, my brain returned to its new favorite fixation.

Leo’s gentle hand on my back, the soft nonsense he’d crooned when I’d sobbed into his sweater. His thumb rubbing my tearstained cheekbone.

Of course I’d had so much of other kinds of touch, been skin-to-skin with near strangers. If you’d asked me before I got to London, I’d have said I knew plenty about intimacy.

But what Leo had offered had been another thing entirely.

Something selfless.

I’d been like the remnants of a bad dinner at the bottom of a pot, scorched with fever and raw with pain, and he’d soothed me. The gentleness, the care. I’d felt… safe . No one had touched me like that since…

Since my mom died.

“Mari? Are you all right? Maybe you should have waited another day to come down?” the man himself asked, crouching in front of me so we were eye-to-eye.

I gaped at his serious face for a minute, then shook off the realization. No more being vulnerable. I was here and had a job to do. “Did you want me to climb out the skylight and shimmy down the drainpipe?” I joked.

“Now, that would have caused some serious issues with health and safety.” He paused, the corner of his mouth crooking up. “If you had been able to climb, of course, what with the superhuman strength flu’s known to give.”

“You are such a smartass,” I said, half laughing.

“Insults? Now I’m certain you’re feeling better,” he said without any heat. He held out a mug that I hadn’t noticed. “Would a smartarse bring you a coffee with oat milk?”

My fingers flexed, but I didn’t immediately reach out to take it.

It wasn’t the first little gift he’d given me in the last week.

He’d come upstairs to check on me each day, and every visit there’d been something: homemade vegetable noodle soup from Judith, carrot-orange-ginger juice from the café around the corner, a Saturday newspaper to keep me entertained.

Leo’s humor was as sharp as cactus needles, and he wasn’t one of nature’s optimists, but he was thoughtful, too. Maybe even sweet.

I knew from my history that I needed to keep sweet at arm’s length. But who would it hurt right now to have a little taste when I was weak and exhausted?

“Maybe,” I said, taking what he offered. I turned the warm cup in my hands, looking at it instead of his face. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” After a moment he continued more briskly, “I’ve got you set up at the main register with a comfy chair.

I told Judith about our festival idea and she said she’d pop by when you were well enough with some of Alexander’s mementos, see if that sparks anything for us.

” He looked me over. “Tell me if you need to go rest and I’ll get one of the others to take your spot. ”

I opened my mouth, but he shook his head. “Sorry, I forgot to whom I was speaking. Please, could you tell me if you need to go rest? And then actually do it?”

He was sassing me, so why was a goofy smile spreading across my face? I guessed that after a week of tending me, he’d have my number. “Yes, Leo,” I singsonged.

“Cheeky thing,” he muttered.

“Insults, huh?”

He sighed dramatically. “Come on, then. I won’t offend your pride by offering to help you stand up.”

But he hovered as it took me two tries to get vertical, and as I headed to my desk for the day, I felt his gaze on my back.

I settled into the cushioned chair and picked up the piece of notebook paper that said “To Do for Mari” at the top.

For someone so neat, his handwriting sprawled and piled up like dirty laundry.

When I decoded the scrawl, I smiled, then opened the two publishers’ catalogs he’d emailed me and started marking new books for the fiction section.

No Regency romance yet, I didn’t want to push my luck, but I snuck in some Mhairi McFarlane and Emily Henry with the literary fiction.

Once I’d done that, I dug through my laptop’s files and found all the preparations I’d made for the small book festival I’d organized with Suzanne a few years ago.

We’d run events in the store and in a few other places around the Loch Gordon town square, drawing in locals but also tourists who’d come to enjoy the gorgeous May weather in the vineyards and stayed to hear from the collection of wine writers and chefs, poets and novelists we’d put together.

Now I studied the old paperwork, writing my own action list of what Ross & Co.

would need. I found myself settling into the comfort of spreadsheets and schedules.

When Suzanne had first tried to teach fourteen-year-old me to use Excel and Bookmanager, I’d resisted, protesting that I hated computer science at school and didn’t want to have to do it in my happy place, too.

But Suzanne had said firmly that dreams opened a bookstore, but systems kept it running, and I’d quickly come to appreciate the sense of certainty that came from every piece of data in its right place.

As I worked, the others stopped by to say hello and check on me, lighting up when I told them about the idea of a festival in April. Even Catriona half smiled, though more in the aren’t-you-cute way than in the that-sounds-exciting way.

I was googling authors who’d talked about Ross & Co. when a waxy brown bag dropped next to my elbow. Butter stained the paper, and I smelled sugar and cinnamon.

“Can’t imagine you’ve eaten much lately, being ill and all,” Graham said above me, leaning against the counter.

My stomach growled. “Hello to you too, and your imagination is accurate. What is this, a custard tart?” I asked as I pulled the pastry out. It was larger than the desserts I’d had at dim sum restaurants with Suzanne, and the top of the custard was caramelized in spots.

“A pastel de nata. The Portuguese bakery around the corner from my flat bakes them fresh every day.” He hesitated. “I also wanted to say sorry for not coming to see you upstairs. Tim has asthma and I didn’t want to risk bringing a nasty lurgy home to him.”

I nodded. “Don’t worry about it. Leo was checking on me, so I wasn’t going too insane with boredom.”

Graham’s mouth curled up. “He told us. I was surprised you let him. You two didn’t exactly hit it off.”

I shrugged a little. “So was I. But he’s grown on me some.” I pulled my mask down and took a bite out of the pastry, and a wave of sweet spiced richness hit my tongue. “ Fuck, that’s delicious,” I managed once I swallowed the bite. “You can give me one of those anytime.”