“I put the coffee on,” Hunter said, standing in the bedroom doorway on her way to work.
Shelby sat up in the queen-size platform bed. The guest room was all neutrals, with white walls dotted with framed black-and-white photos of seascapes. On the nightstand beside her, a moss green ceramic bowl from Simon Pearce was filled with white and gray stones from the beach. And from the window, there was a view of the Atlantic. She only wished she felt as tranquil as her surroundings looked.
“Thanks again for letting me crash here,” Shelby said. “I’m sure I can go back to the apartment tonight.” Outside, the sky was clear and blue. It was almost enough to make Shelby feel better about the situation: the shop would dry out. The books could be replaced. Her feelings for Justin would pass.
“No rush,” Hunter said cheerily. She had a thick manuscript tucked in one arm and a stuffed tote over her shoulder. Shelby wished she could have confided in her last night about Justin, her uncomfortable, inconvenient desire, but she knew it was a sensitive topic. No matter how healed their friendship seemed to be, she’d never bring up Justin again.
When she left, Shelby turned on her phone and saw a bunch of missed calls: three from Pam Miller, and one from Colleen. Pam left a voicemail about engineers headed to the shop, and damage estimates, and a bunch of other things. She called her right back.
“Shelby,” Pam said. “Colleen told me you did a good job getting to the store quickly, so thank you. Are you in the apartment?”
“No.” She’d only spent a few minutes packing up her laptop and a change of clothes by the light of her phone. “It lost power. I slept at Hunter’s.”
“Okay. Engineers are heading over in an hour or two. You should probably go pack all your things. It could be a while before you can stay there.”
Shelby looked around the room, running her hand through her hair. She hadn’t anticipated that. “Of course. What else can I do?”
There was a pause.
“You’ve done what you can. And we appreciate it. Colleen does, too. But we’ve made the difficult decision not to reopen.”
Shelby felt her stomach drop. “You mean...for the summer?”
There was a pause. “No,” Pam said. “We’re selling Land’s End Books. It’s time.”
Shelby closed her eyes for a minute. “Pam, are you sure? I can help. Maybe there’s a temporary space—”
“Annie and I have discussed all the options, and we feel this is the right decision.”
“What about Colleen?” Shelby said.
Another pause. “She’s taking it hard. But she’ll be okay. She’s got bigger things to think about right now.”
When Shelby got off the call, she immediately dialed Colleen. It went straight to voicemail.
So that was it. She’d come to help with the bookstore, and it was a failure. Not her fault, but a failure all the same. Now what? She didn’t have any reason to stay in town. Her book was written. Colleen, as Pam said, had bigger things to worry about. Really, that only left Anders. She’d take the trip with him to Boston, and then figure it out from there. She had mixed feelings, but mostly a sense of relief. She’d shown up for one friend, and mended things with two others. What more could she ask of one summer?
There was just one piece of business left. And she couldn’t leave without taking care of it.
Hunter was anxious to get Duke’s thoughts on the domestic thriller. She’d emailed him a copy and they were set to talk about it at the morning editorial meeting. But when she showed up at the office, Duke wasn’t in a work frame of mind.
“I heard about the damage to Land’s End,” Duke said, dressed up in a pink-and-blue pin-striped button-down and navy linen pants. His face was sunburned, probably from a weekend out on the water. His blue eyes were especially bright and vivid. “Have you spoken to Shelby or Colleen?”
“Shelby stayed at my place last night,” she said, unpacking her laptop on her desk. She set her creased copy of the manuscript pages beside it.
It felt good opening her home to Shelby. Of course, it didn’t change the fact that she’d slept with Anders Fleming. But maybe that wasn’t an issue after all; Shelby didn’t mention him once. “I haven’t spoken to Colleen, but I’m sure it will be fine. This house flooded once, right?”
He shook his head. “No, not a flood. Leaky roof.”
Same difference. And she didn’t want to waste time on weather-damage small talk.
“Did you get a chance to read the novel?” she said. She was eager to call the author of the thriller before someone else did.
He nodded, picked up the manuscript from his desk, and said, “Let’s discuss.”
They moved to the armchairs near the bookshelves where they had their editorial meetings. Hunter knew it was going to be good news. If he hadn’t liked it, he would have just put it back on her desk with a Post-it note reading Pass.
She opened her laptop so she could take notes on his feedback. Duke had very good editorial instincts and, if she was being honest with herself, he reminded her she still had a lot to learn.
