Page 44 of Love Walked In

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Mari

Catriona extended her long fingers, sparkling with gold-and-silver-striped polish. “Register’s all set up for both tickets and books, sound system and mics are good, greenroom’s set up with TCMF for the speakers…” she said, tapping each fingertip.

“TCMF?” I asked, suddenly confused. There seemed to be an infinite number of new acronyms and abbreviations in British English.

It had felt like learning a new language for the last few months.

But like when I’d learned Spanish in high school, my brain’s blanks and stutters when it came to life and vocabulary in London had given way to a kind of flow.

“Queuing” and “pavement” and “bin” now sat comfortably in my brain alongside “lining up,” “sidewalk,” and “trash can.” I still had no idea who Bob was or why he was my uncle, but now I understood that the phrase was like magical punctuation at the end of an explanation.

And the last time I’d taken the Tube and someone had cut me off at the ticket gates, I’d said “Excuse me” with just the right amount of contempt.

Another life shimmered in front of me like an old-time movie projected on a sheet.

Powering down a crowded street on the way to work at Ross & Co.

Cheering at a soccer game with Jamie and the boys.

Going home every night to Leo’s quiet smiles and hungry kisses, falling asleep so tangled in each other that my dreams were his, his mine.

But it was a life that would disappear the second I turned the lights on. Real life was California, real life was relying on myself, the way I’d always done.

“Tea- and coffee-making facilities,” Graham filled in now with a smile.

“Cool,” I said, nodding away the fantasy. “And all the speakers are on track?”

He nodded, putting his hands in the pockets of his blue dress pants and rocking back on his heels. “Yeah, I’ve been watching the shop email, and no one’s dropped out.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” I’d had it happen at the last festival I ran, and the schedule shuffle had been a total nightmare.

But all the organization for the Ross & Co.

hundredth anniversary had gone smoother than a jar of Skippy.

Leo had warned me that there was always a possibility of sudden train strikes or Tube breakdowns or any number of snafus that happened when you had one of the most elaborate transport systems in the world.

Catriona checked a battered rose-gold watch on her wrist. “Audience should be arriving any time now.” She looked at me and gave me one of her rare smiles.

“We’ve done it. It’s actually happening.

Unbelievable.” She shook her head. “You know, I thought you were spouting absolute rubbish when you got here. That we had no chance at all. But we needed someone from outside to see what was possible.”

I smiled back at her. “You guys weren’t twiddling your thumbs before I showed up. It’s hard, when you’re demoralized, to see a way out. But you’ve been amazing.” I tilted my chin at her and Graham. “Both of you have.”

We’d have the festival, and in two days I could fly home to California, go back to Suzanne and tell her I’d achieved what I’d come to London to achieve.

That I’d successfully turned the shop around, and that I’d be a good steward for Orchard House when she retired.

I’d learned all there was to learn, seen all there was to see.

Hadn’t I?

A gray, empty feeling washed over me. I liked it here, and I was leaving.

I liked being part of a crew, working together in the store.

I liked exploring new places whenever I had a day off, submerging myself in history and culture.

I liked walking everywhere, taking in the details of the world at a slower pace.

Most of all, I liked waking up with Leo in that crappy Airbnb bed, sipping coffee and talking about books and movies and art, before he’d take my mug away, run his hands over my skin and light up every single one of my synapses until they sparked and fizzed like the city at night.

If I were being honest, the word “liked” didn’t hold all the feeling I had for those moments, the sweet and the hot.

Too timid, like Leo had said all those weeks ago.

It didn’t encompass how warm and safe I felt when he was nearby, or the tug I felt to find him in the shop when I hadn’t seen him for more than an hour, if he hadn’t found me first.

“Are you all right, Mari?” Graham asked. “You looked far away for a moment there.”

I shook off thoughts of a very different l-word from “like.” “Just distracted for a second.” I looked more closely at him and Catriona, the way that they were oh-so-very-slightly leaning toward each other. “Though I have to say, I’m confused,” I said innocently.

Graham’s head tilted. “Confused?”

I gestured between them. “You’re not arguing. It’s too quiet. Is the world about to end, and no one told me?”

The result was even better than I’d hoped.

Swaggering, cavalier Graham blushed so hard he looked like he’d catch fire, and quiet, shy Catriona’s smile was sheer smugness.

“I’m going to do one last check on things,” she said, her voice relaxed.

She nudged Graham’s shoulder lightly as she went out of the room.

His hands twitched like he wanted to reach for her, and his eyes on her retreating back were dark and hungry.

“Should I say congratulations?” I asked dryly.

“We’re that obvious?” he said.

“Uh-huh. Come on, tell me what happened.”

“God, you’re going to be a proper pain-in-my-arse older sister, aren’t you?”

I couldn’t help but relish the warm feeling this new bond gave me. “Try and stop me. Spill, little brother.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know how I was so thick, but I finally understood what you’d told me at the café.

That I needed to get off my arse. So when we were finishing up last night after you and Leo left, I told Catriona that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, that she was all I could see, and I wanted to be hers, if she’d have me. ”

I couldn’t help myself, I clapped at the sheer poetry of it. I loved a good grovel. “Then what?”

His giggle was almost hysterical. “She told me that if I really meant it, I’d get on my knees…” He shut his mouth with an audible click. “And that’s all I’m going to tell you, because you’re my bloody sister .”

“That’s probably wise.” I whistled. “But damn, son. Well played.”

“Thanks very much.” He said more seriously, “I don’t know where we’re going from here. We’ve started this way before, and it’s all ended in tears. But all we can do is try again, right?”

“Of course.” Not that I was qualified to say that, given that the last time I’d tried, I’d ended up being cheated on and lied to, with a little bit of gaslighting for good measure.

But that had been seven years ago. I’d had time, and distance.

And Leo had given me a taste of what it would be like to trust someone and have that trust repaid with long hugs and held hands and listening ears.

I could have that again, if I wanted. Leo Ross had given me that confidence. I just had to carry it back with me into real life.

“Is this the festival?” a young guy asked, sticking his head through Ross & Co.’s front doors.

Graham and I both grinned, and Graham said, “You’re in exactly the right place, mate. Come in, come in. First event starts in thirty minutes, but feel free to have a browse while you wait.”

Waves of people arrived, and the rooms filled with excited chatter and the occasional camera flash.

Graham and I split up, him chatting with the audience members and directing them, me corralling our first speakers.

Tommy arrived in a taxi, and I led him to the greenroom and sat him in the armchair Catriona had found on Gumtree.

Leo seemed to be running late, but it’d be OK if he got here by the time the first event started.

We’d slept in our respective beds for the first time in weeks, him saying he needed to spend some time with Mog and with Gabi and Sophie, that they’d been wondering where he was.

I rubbed my face a little. Without Leo’s warmth I’d tossed and turned for an hour after I’d switched off the light, unable to fall asleep until I’d grabbed a pillow off the sofa and bundled myself around it.

A light touch on my arm, and I jumped a little. It was Jamie, looking shy, a canvas tote bag over his shoulder. “All right, Mari?” he asked.

“All right,” I replied after a second.

He held his arms out, and I let myself trust that reach, and more quickly than before, I hugged him.

When I pulled back, he looked me up and down. “You look lovely all dressed up and with your hair like that.”

I was trying a new hairstyle, half in its usual braid, half down and flowing over my shoulders. I told myself I looked a little bit like a warrior princess. “Thanks, Jamie,” I said, warm with his kindness.

“And everything looks terrific.” He soaked in the bustle of the festivalgoers, the decorated piles of books, the blown-up pictures of Ross & Co.

’s history. “I don’t know why I haven’t come here more often.

Got lazy with online shopping, I suppose.

But there’s nothing like a really good bookshop, is there? ”

I smiled. “There really isn’t. It’s like you walk in the doors and nothing bad can happen while you’re here.”

“A refuge,” he said simply.

A flicker of warm recognition. “Exactly.”

“I like that.”

Before we could slide back into shyness, I asked, my voice high, “Are Tim and Danny with you? Or Annika?”

He immediately shook his head. “No, just me today. I wanted to come by myself for this.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m so sorry about the pileup at the house last week. I should have put my foot down with Mum and the others, told them that they could meet you when you were ready.”