Page 45 of Winter Nights at the Bay Bookshop

LARS

My face was already aching from smiling and I’d only been awake for an hour. A message from Lily had been the perfect way to start a new week, although I had a feeling there was something I was never going to live down.

From Lily

Last night was my favourite Christmas prep night ever. Thank you for being my Christmas elf, for being so honest with me, for the best kisses ever and for being you. Can’t wait to see you this morning. Not sure whether to sign off with a kiss or a salute x

She’d added a saluting emoji after the kiss, which made me laugh.

I reread the message, particularly noting the mention of me being her Christmas elf.

How close she was! It was nearly time to change the branding on my socials to the Christmas Paperback Pixie.

As for being totally honest with her, when would the time be right to reveal my secret identity?

As I drove into Whitsborough Bay for the start of my shift, I replayed last night over and over.

We’d dealt with some seriously heavy issues but I also hadn’t laughed so much in ages and I marvelled at how Lily had refused to let that difficult confrontation with Justin put a dampener on our night.

I believed her when she said she was relieved to have pushed him out of her life, but I was conscious it might hit her at some point later and I’d be there for her whatever she wanted to do – reminisce, vent, cry or a combination of all those things.

I’d hesitated at the top of the stairs last night, ready to rush down if Lily needed my support.

Not that I thought I was a knight in shining armour and she was a damsel in distress.

Lily was a strong, determined woman who didn’t need my protection but Justin was a big bloke who’d clearly been drinking so I’d been ready to intervene if he’d become aggressive.

After the way he’d treated her, nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to physically eject him out onto the street.

But Lily had maintained her cool and, as I’d told her, I was cheering her on, in awe of her refusal to be manipulated.

When she’d said she was going to help Justin, I thought she might hand him whatever cash she had in her purse and send him packing and I certainly couldn’t have blamed her for doing that, but I’d jubilantly punched the air when she’d told him her only assistance would be finding helpline numbers.

As well as deepening my admiration for Lily, overhearing her conversation had done something else for me.

It made me reflect on my relationship with my own parents.

I’d allowed Mum’s flakiness to define our relationship and that needed to stop.

It was too late for her to be a mother to me and Nanna had already stepped into those shoes, but there was room in my life for her to play a different kind of role.

And if she didn’t want that, I’d let go. I wasn’t going to keep chasing a ghost.

Pabbi was different. He wasn’t flaky but he wasn’t present either.

I knew I carried some of the blame there but I had been a teenager so he needed to cut me some slack for that.

I wanted him in my life and it wasn’t just because I loved Freyja, Kára and Ari.

I loved my Icelandic roots and I didn’t want to lose that connection. It was part of who I was.

Emotional conversations weren’t my family’s forte but they were long overdue.

I couldn’t mutter tetta reddast and leave it to resolve itself.

If I wanted to keep my family, I needed to take action.

Mum would be harder to pin down but I could commit to spending some time in Iceland with my paternal family.

Like I’d told Freyja previously, I wouldn’t be able to confirm a date but I could tell her I’d definitely visit instead of leaving it as a possibility.

* * *

Even though I was desperate to see Lily, I couldn’t help pausing by the window display.

The scene was a winter’s night in a miniature version of Bay Books.

We’d attached strips of black card to the inside of the window to look like panes and had sprayed snow at the bottom of each.

A mixture of festive titles and new releases were displayed on small bookshelves and in piles on the floor.

A boy mannequin sat on a little burgundy tub chair absorbed in a book while a girl decorated a Christmas tree hung with bookish ornaments.

The boy had blond hair and the girl was brunette and we’d commented last night how they could have been us as children.

The door opened and Lily poked her head out, grinning. ‘Admiring your first full window display?’ she asked.

‘I can’t help it. It looks so good. I can’t believe I was involved in it.’

‘Definitely plus points for creativity. And, as I discovered last night, there’s something else you’re pretty good at too. Or are you? Hmm. My memory’s fading.’

I followed her inside and took her in my arms, kissing her passionately until we both broke apart, panting and laughing.

‘Definitely ten out of ten,’ Lily said. ‘Twelve out of ten. Twenty!’

‘Same to you.’

‘Cassie rang me first thing, by the way. She’ll be back at work today. They kept Lesley in overnight but it was just precautionary with her hitting her head. They don’t think there’s anything to worry about.’

‘That’s great news.’

‘I didn’t tell her about us. Would you mind if we keep the focus on Lesley for now? I’m not trying to hide anything. It’s just a timing thing.’

I took her hands in mine, appreciating her honesty. ‘I don’t mind at all and I agree with you.’

The delivery arrived shortly after we opened so we set about unpacking it.

‘Do you still fancy The White Horse for tomorrow night?’ I asked Lily when we’d finished. ‘I can book a table during my break.’

‘How about tonight instead? I won’t be seeing Justin anymore.’

‘How are you feeling about it?’

‘Still surprisingly upbeat, although you might have had something to do with that.’

She smiled at me so tenderly that I couldn’t resist leaning across the counter to kiss her, hoping the door wouldn’t open at that moment.

‘Do you think you’ll hear from him again?’ I asked.

Lily shook her head. ‘He’ll have got the message and, because I refuse to give him any money, I’m no use to him.

It does make me wonder if he only kept me in his life because he knew that, one day, he’d want something significant from me.

That makes me sad, but it also makes it easier to walk away. ’

When Cassie arrived a little later, she was all smiles. ‘Lesley’s fine. She’s been discharged.’

Lily rushed up to her and gave her a hug. ‘I’m so relieved. What was wrong?’

‘Blood tests showed she’s slightly anaemic. That’s what made her faint so she’s got some iron tablets and a list of iron-rich foods to get into her diet. I’m so sorry about letting you down last?—’

‘You didn’t let me down,’ Lily said before Cassie could finish. ‘Family has to come first.’

‘Thanks.’ Cassie looked around the room. ‘It’s looking spectacularly Christmassy in here. Did you do it all on your own?’

‘No. I had help.’ Lily smiled at me. ‘It was a good evening.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Cassie cried. ‘You two kissed at last! Don’t even try to deny it.

The air’s fizzing!’ She fished an envelope out of her bag and handed it to me.

‘An invitation to my wedding, although I could have saved myself the effort with the calligraphy as it looks like you’d have been coming anyway as Lily’s plus one. ’

I glanced at Lily and she shrugged, laughing.

Cassie held her hands up to her eyes like a pair of binoculars. ‘As I told you very recently, I’m the all-seeing, all-knowing. I’m going to make some drinks and when I come back up, I expect details.’

I felt my cheeks flushing as she looked back and forth between Lily and me, grinning.

‘ All the details,’ Cassie emphasised as she ran down the stairs.

‘Aw, you look so adorable with your cheeks all pink like that,’ Lily said, her eyes twinkling. ‘So it looks like that plan to keep things quiet lasted all of thirty seconds. I was daft to think she wouldn’t notice straightaway.’

She returned to the other side of the counter and I ripped open the envelope, removed the invitation and did a double-take at the contents. ‘It’s for the full day. I thought it would just be for the evening do.’

‘You know what this means?’ Lily asked. ‘That friends list of yours is getting bigger. And Cassie’s not the only one on the team who likes you. They all think you’re great.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. People like you, Lars. People like you for being you.’

In my weeks working at Bay Books, I’d never once worn a mask.

I hadn’t at the library either and I’d been as welcomed there as I had been here.

Why hadn’t I realised before that being surrounded by books and people who loved them as much as me would feel like home?

It seemed such an obvious connection now.

* * *

The manager at The White Horse in Little Sandby told me she was expecting a few work parties in but could squeeze in a table for two so I booked that and arranged to pick up Lily from home.

Her parents’ house was an ivy-clad Victorian detached property set on a large walled and gated corner plot, although the metal gates were open for me to drive through onto the block-paved drive.

The annexe Lily lived in was tucked behind a row of conifer trees to the left of the main house and I parked beside her car, smiling at a wooden pub-style sign with the name ‘Green Gables’ on it surrounded by white flowers.

I was ten minutes early so I’d been planning to stay in the car in case she wasn’t ready, but the annexe door opened and Lily poked her head out and beckoned me over.

‘I might not look anywhere near ready,’ she said, indicating her dressing gown, ‘but I promise I am. Hair and make-up are done so I just need to put on my dress and shoes, but first I need to do this.’

She placed her hands on my cheeks and gave me the gentlest kiss on my lips.

‘I’d better leave it at that,’ she said, ‘or I’ll never get ready.’

‘I like your hair.’ She’d pinned it up at the back but had loose curls hanging round her face and neck.

She gave me a dazzling smile. ‘Grab a seat or have a look around if you like, not that there’s much to see.’

The annexe was L-shaped and I’d entered through the bottom of the ‘L’ with a tidy shoe and coat stand to my left and a bathroom on the right.

Ahead of me was a kitchen/dining area with base and wall kitchen units on two sides into the corner, and a square dining table with two chairs.

To the right was a lounge area with a two-seater sofa, armchair, a writing bureau and a wall-mounted television, and Lily’s bedroom was beyond that.

It was small but perfectly formed and beautifully decorated.

Lily had said she’d picked out the colours and furniture herself and she clearly had a talent for it.

Nothing really matched yet somehow it all looked like it belonged together.

I wandered over to a tall shelving unit packed full of books and smiled at one shelf completely devoted to the ‘Anne of Green Gables’ series with several paperback and hardback versions of each book. A metal sign was propped up against a boxset and I picked it up to read it:

Dear old world, you are very lovely and I am glad to be alive in you.

‘It’s from the first book,’ Lily said, joining me, ‘shortly before Anne admits to Gilbert that she’s forgiven him for calling her Carrots and they agree to be friends.’

I placed the sign back on the shelf and turned to face Lily, my eyes widening and my heart pounding.

‘Wow!’

She was wearing a pair of high heels and a dark red dress. I’d never seen her dressed up before and she took my breath away.

‘Is it too much for The White Horse?’

‘No, you look incredible!’

She brushed her hands down the skirt. ‘I saw it in a shop window a couple of months ago and it was love at first sight but I refused to buy it because I never go anywhere I can get dressed up. Plus, I was determined I didn’t want to meet anyone, but the dress kept calling to me and eventually I gave in.

It must have known that you were going to walk back into my life and that I’d be willing to take a chance on the first man I loved. ’

She gasped and her cheeks turned the colour of her dress. It was the first time since our school days that I’d seen her look uncertain.

I took her hand in mine and brushed my lips against it. ‘You didn’t mean to say that, did you?’

‘No.’

‘But you did mean it?’

‘Yes. I mean, I was young and…’ She shook her head. ‘Yes. Even though you didn’t even want to be my friend, teenage me kept hoping you’d change your mind.’

I cupped her chin and lightly kissed her. ‘Teenage me loved you too and regretted my Gilbert Blythe-style Carrots moment every single day.’ She smiled at me and the smile widened as I added, ‘And I don’t think I ever stopped.’

Her eyes searched mine, unshed tears sparkling in them. ‘Neither did I.’ And next moment she was in my arms, her lips on mine, and being a little bit late for our meal didn’t matter.