.

      Would I go to yet another wedding unaccompanied? At nearly thirty I couldn’t keep up the pretense that love was just around the corner. Maybe some people were destined to be alone. But, I reminded myself, you’re never alone if you read. I had my books; they took me to extraordinary places without having to leave the comfort of Ashford. Nope, I wasn’t lonely, I was just minus a plus one. I was never good at maths, anyway.

      We watched them for a beat, before Damon finally stepped off the curb, and headed to his own shop.

      “Can you imagine,” I said, “how beautiful their wedding will be?”

      Missy rubbed her hands together. “And even better, Lil said I’m allowed to cover her face in gloop, and put a host of overheated hair-torture devices near her scalp — her words, not mine.”

      I raised my eyebrows. “She’s going to let you do her hair and make-up? That really will be a Christmas miracle!” Lil’s wedding was taking place in December, the perfect time for a winter wonderland setting. But Lil wasn’t a fan of make-up or torturing her hair, as she saw it. Classically beautiful, she didn’t need to primp and preen, but I was glad Missy was going to help on her big day.

      “She’s going to look as pretty as a picture. All that blonde hair, and those bright blue eyes of hers…” Her words trailed off as they often did when Missy was caught up picturing how a person would look after she got through with them.

      Missy was the only hairdresser in town, aside from a barber who was purely for men. She had a steady business, but, like most of us, could always be busier.

      “Are you flat out today?” I asked, thinking about my bangs, which seemed to grow overnight, prickling the tops of my eyebrows each morning.

      “Not really, but I’ve got Rosaleen and her daughter in first up.” Missy rolled her eyes. Rosaleen was the town gossip. Every town had one, ours just happened to be particularly good. “Wonder what tidbits I’ll find out today,” Missy said. “I thought hairdressers were meant to be the ones who gossiped like crazy.”

      I laughed, and shook my head. Missy would never get into a game of Chinese whispers, but I guess she was inadvertently privy to it when people like Rosaleen patronized her salon. “Tell her gossip makes your hands shake, and you’d hate to lop off an extra inch or two of those purple curls of hers.”

      “You know, that just might work!” She laughed and picked up a lock of my hair and scrutinized it. “Come by later. I’ve been thinking of a new style for you, and I can sort those bangs of yours out.”

      “You read my mind,” I said with a smile. “But you only just gave me this style.” I indicated my bobbed hair.

      She held her hand up. “Trust me, you’re going to love it,” she said, silencing my concern.

      “OK, OK, a new style, why not?” I wasn’t a person who took change well, preferring the rhythm of what worked, but Missy had a way of making me step out of my comfort zone with her dynamic personality.

      “Until then…” she air kissed me “…I better go see about a little sugar to start my day. You want anything from the café?”

      Missy claimed she needed sweet treats to keep her curves voluptuous. She was more fifties screen siren, with a saunter that accentuated her figure. “I might pop over later. I can’t keep away from the chocolate truffles. Sometimes I wish I’d never suggested the chocolate festival.”

      Over Easter I’d orchestrated a chocolate festival in Ashford. Lil and CeeCee from the Gingerbread Café had been the focus but all of the shops along the main street had been involved, including my bookshop. It had been a huge step for me to jump out of the shadows and try and woo some new faces into town, but our businesses had needed a boost, so with that in mind I’d pushed the fear of failure out of my mind and set to work. It had been a lot of fun, and made me appreciate our small town once again, and how well we worked when we banded together.

      Missy glided to the front door, and turned to me. “That was the best weekend of my life! I’m still paying for it though.” She grimaced as she surveyed her hips.

      “Hardly,” I scoffed, watching the way Missy exaggerated her saunter, indicating the weight she’d supposedly put on.

      “Stop past at lunch, sugar,” she said with a backwards wave.

Chapter Two

      “The Bookshop on the Corner.” I cradled the phone with my shoulder, and glanced at my watch. Almost time to head over to Missy for my appointment.

      “Who am I speaking with please?” asked an elderly voice.

      “This is Sarah. Can I help you with anything?”

      “Sarah…” He spoke my name slowly as if he was trying to place who I was. “I’m Gerald. I herald from Chicago way.” Gerald’s voice was squirrelly with age, and tinged with something…sadness perhaps? “I have a business proposition for you, Sarah, if you have a moment to discuss it?”

      Intrigued, I replied, “Sure, Gerald. Fire away.”

      “I have a wonderful library full of books that I think you might be interested in. They’re special books, very special indeed…” It wasn’t unusual for me to receive calls from people wanting to sell their book collections because I advertised far and wide in an attempt to find stock, though lately I’d reined in my budget a little out of necessity.

      “Any first editions?” I asked, thinking of my out-of-town clients who collected them.

      “No, nothing like that. You see, these books are extraordinary, but maybe only to folk like you and me. Most of them are brown with age, and their covers are spider-webbed from use. But they tell a story, you see. They tell our story.” He paused as if weighing up where to begin.

      “My wife, Gloria — Glorious Gloria, I called her — spent a lifetime acquiring this collection. Books written in various languages, books so old the pages are loose, but she loved them. The scruffier the book, the better.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “A lifetime, she sought out books to add to her shelves. Like some kind of mysterious algorithm, she chose books based on what? I never knew. There was no rhyme or reason. There are books about boat building, and gothic horror — they’re so varied, I sometimes wonder if even she knew why a certain book appealed to her. Sixty-five years spent on this hobby of hers. Finding bookshops that were tucked down narrow alleyways, or great big houses converted into a book lover’s paradise — I’ve seen them all.”

      It sounded like bliss to me.

      Gerald continued: “Do you believe in magic, Sarah?”

      I replied instantly, “In the magic of books? Yes.”

      “So did Gloria. If only I could explain how she looked when she found the book she would take home. Her eyes would light up, she’d speak in this beguiling hushed tone, her face full of wonder like a child on Christmas morning. It was like she was finding something priceless each and every time, yet to anyone else they would be nothing but a book destined for the penny bin out front of these small shops.”

      It was as though I knew Gloria, understanding the happiness of stumbling across a book as though it were burnished gold. How lucky she’d been to find a man who was obviously besotted by her. But he spoke about Gloria in the past tense and tears pricked my eyes when I realized I’d never get to meet her, another person who lived to find lost and forgotten books and give them a new lease of life.

      “I know exactly how she felt,” I said. “There’s a certain pull books have on a person if they listen hard enough.”

      Gerald chuckled. “I have found the right place, then,” he said. “You know, Sarah, we visited The Bookshop on the Corner a long time ago. I wonder if you remember…”

      Closing my eyes, I thought back for a moment. Surely a couple