Page 1 of Strawberry Moon

CHAPTER ONE

“I’ve wasted my life on you. It’s outrageous that you’re making me the guilty party.”

The words echo through the closed office door and around the thankfully empty bookshop.

Clutching my handful of books, I glance beyond the corner of a bookshelf and watch two shadows play across the office’s frosted window.

“You’re never going to be anything more than just a fucking bookshop owner,” the same voice shouts with its usual air of supreme arrogance. “What the hell was I even thinking?”

“Wanker,” I whisper fervently.

A cough sounds from behind me, and I freeze. I turn reluctantly around and then sag in relief when I see the old man observing me with a look of disapproval. It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.

“Grandad,” I hiss. “You scared me.”

He gives me a knowing look. “Scared you, or interrupted your eavesdropping, Clemo?”

I roll my eyes. “It’s just Clem, Grandad.”

“I use your proper Cornish name, lad, and I always will. Budge over.”

“What are you doing?”

He winks at me. “Joining you. What’s happening?”

“It’s James,” I say, squeezing up against the bookshelf so he can join me.

He grunts. “What’s that idiot done now?”

I put my books down on a nearby table. Let’s face it, I won’t be doing any more shelving for now. “He was unfaithful.”

“What? To Harry?”

“Exactly. Who the fuc—?” He raises one eyebrow. “Who the fudgicle would be unfaithful to him ?”

“Well, it stands to reason that he’s not everyone’s cup of tea.” I glare at him, and he puts a hand up in defence. “No one,” he mutters. “No one in the entire world would overlook that man.”

“That’s the truth.” I eye the two shadows and note the distance between their bodies approvingly. “It’ll be hard for James to worm his way around Harry if he can’t shag him,” I whisper. “James relies on sex to cover up his personality defects.”

He clears his throat. “It doesn’t sound like Harry wants to go that route.”

“Oh, James will still try but not yet. He’s at the ‘how dare you catch me out in infidelity’ stage of the proceedings. This is the gaslighting section.”

“Now, you did explain gaslighting recently. But Countdown was on, so I wasn’t listening.”

“ Grandad .”

“It was either you or Susie Dent. There’s no competition I’m sad to say.”

“Well, gaslighting is getting someone else to blame themselves for something you’ve done.

This is exactly what James is doing to Harry at the moment.

Apparently, it’s all Harry’s fault that James stuck his dick in someone else.

Or someone stuck theirs into James. I’ve never been interested enough in him to find out. ”

“Disgusting behaviour. If you’re done with a person, treat them with dignity and respect. Leave, but do it in a way that reflects the love you once had.”

I look at him admiringly. There are very few men better than my grandad.

I grew up in Fowey in Cornwall as the youngest of a very loud and close family, and even though I left to go to university, I headed back as soon as the ink dried on my graduation certificate. Like a very sparkly homing pigeon, my nan always says.

“I’m leaving ,” a shout comes from the office. “And you can’t stop me.”

A voice murmurs in reply, and then the office door bangs open so hard that it hits a box of books.

Sadly, it just avoids rebounding and smacking James in the face.

I sigh. You can’t have everything. He marches through the shop, his jacket flapping behind him, his handsome face contorted into its usual spoilt expression.

“Spying again, Clem?” he sneers as he passes us.

Grandad bristles, but it’s water off a duck’s back for me.

“Shelving actually,” I call after James. “But I wouldn’t expect you to recognise that. The closest you come to anything book-related is the paper you wipe your arse on.”

My grandad snorts, and James whirls to face me. “Enjoy my sloppy seconds,” he hisses.

I raise my eyebrows. “I have no idea what you’re on about, but I wouldn’t touch your sloppy bits if the good Lord came down and commanded me to take the extremely minuscule handful.”

My grandad sighs.

James’s eyes flare as he starts to spew another insult, but a quiet voice comes from behind him. “Enough, James.”

I look up as my boss appears, and honestly, I’m not sure why an angel choir isn’t serenading him down the aisle.

He has thick, wavy, dark hair and his eyes are a translucent green, like the glass that my sisters used to forage for on the beach.

He’s tall with wide shoulders and long legs.

He’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

Okay, that’s a bit of hyperbole on my part, because his nose is crooked, he has a permanent furrow between his thick eyebrows owing to the fact that he’s constantly squinting at books because he won’t get glasses, and his lips are a bit on the thin side. But he’s beautiful to me.

I’ve worked here since I was at university.

And it’s Harry’s fault that I’ve had the position for so long.

Someone else owned the shop when I first began to work here in my uni holidays.

I love books with a passion, so a bookshop was an easy and enjoyable way to earn some cash.

When I was coming up to twenty-one, the owner told me regretfully that she was selling up, so I’d made excited plans with my friends to get a job in St Austell at a busy restaurant where, apparently, they had the most gorgeous Spanish chef.

I’d walked into the bookshop ready to give my notice and found Harry bent over the till, struggling with changing the receipt roll.

He was wearing old jeans, Vans, and a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his corded forearms. The sun shone through the window, highlighting his sharp cheekbones and thin face. When he looked up at me, I was lost.

“Can I help you?” the dreamboat had asked.

“Just like Heathcliff ,” I breathed, eying his wavy hair.

When he looked at me in confusion, I held out my hand. “Clemo Pascoe, to be known henceforth as Clem. Your assistant,” I added, gladly washing my hands of the Spanish chef without a second thought.

When I finished uni, I immediately took the full-time job Harry offered me.

My family are tied to the sea like so many other families in Cornwall.

My grandad was a fisherman, and my dad and two brothers still are.

I’m pretty sure no one in my family expected me to join them, as I get seasick on the pirate ship at Flambards Theme Park, but even they were a bit surprised when I immediately took the bookshop job.

Everyone had expressed loud concern that I wasn’t working in an area that would propel me up the career path.

Everyone apart from my grandad, who’d taken one look at Harry and rolled his eyes at me.

That evening he’d instructed everyone to lay off me with their plans for my future and that I had it in hand.

I’d very much like to have had it in my hands, but I’m positive that wasn’t the future my grandad had in mind.

But here I am, and I can’t move on. I’ve had offers of other jobs from bookshops in Truro, but I stay here, caught like a particularly fabulous fly in amber because of Harry.

He’s so lovely. He’s clever, and funny in a very dry way. He treats me with respect and fondness, even though I’m a very loud twink who’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I’m gossipy, nosy, and favour tight jeans and sparkly jumpers that wouldn’t go amiss on a senior citizen’s cruise wardrobe.

I shouldn’t pine over him. I’m trying not to.

I’ve been on more dates than someone on Love Island , and I try really hard, but my dates don’t talk about books with me or discuss my Jack the Ripper theories.

Other men don’t interest me. The truth is, I gave my heart to my boss, and he doesn’t know.

If he did, he would hand it very gently back to me and then try to find himself another boyfriend who would unfailingly be more of a diva than Mariah Carey.

I drag myself from my thoughts as the shop door slams behind James, and Harry walks towards us.

“Jowan,” he says, greeting my grandad with his kind smile. “How are you?”

“Better than you, I reckon,” my grandparent says cheerfully.

“Grandad,” I hiss.

“Clemo, it’s perfectly obvious we were eavesdropping.” He grins at Harry. “I daresay at my age I should be ashamed of myself, but I find old age improves immeasurably if I just stick to things that society disapproves of.”

Harry chuckles, his eyes warm if a little sad. “You’re an inspiration.”

“Aye, well I expect I am.” He tips his head towards the door that James just slammed out of. “So, you’re not with him anymore?”

“Is grandadicide a thing?” I enquire.

Harry smiles in reassurance. I get lost in that smile for a second, gazing winsomely at him.

Grandad clears his throat, and Harry startles before smiling at him. “I’m not with James anymore, no.”

“Are you sad?”

“Are you nosy?” I ask. They both ignore me.

“Not really,” Harry says after a second’s consideration. “More mortified.”

“Oh, you don’t have to be,” I immediately protest.

He looks at me, one eyebrow raised. “Really?”

“Absolutely not. It’s not your fault that your ex has the personality of a pickled onion.”

He laughs. “Well, I won’t really miss that. Only…”

“What?” Grandad asks.

“Oh well, we were due to go to my family for a couple of days. It’s my cousin’s wedding and they were going to meet James for the first time.”

“You were introducing him to your parents ? Was it that serious?” My heart sinks.

“Oh no. It’s not that.” He hesitates.

I look at him encouragingly. In my family we talk about everything, so it’s a familiar expression.

He finally says, “It’s just that my family have encountered some of my previous men, and it hasn’t gone well.”

“Did you introduce them to Claude?” I ask sympathetically. “Fisting was the only subject he really got enthusiastic about, and I bet that didn’t translate well to after-dinner conversation.”

“People were rather reluctant to shake hands afterwards.”