“Water’s fine, thanks.”
“Ice?”
“No thanks.”
“Penny?”
“Same.”
Dad gestured to the small dining table. “Have a seat.”
As they settled in, Dad brought their waters, followed by a basket of dinner rolls and a tossed salad. Mom brought the casserole to the table and scooped hearty helpings onto four plates.
Eagerly, everyone dug in.
“This is so good,” Daniel said. “Totally hits the spot.”
“You had a very long day,” Mom said. “What was it like for you, working at the bookstore?”
“Busy, relentless, and surprisingly fun.”
“Fun?” Mom asked. “Do tell.”
“I like learning new things, and today, thanks to Penny, I got a taste of what it’s like to work in a bookstore. I also met several readers of my books, which is always nice.”
“Daniel was a total trouper today,” Penny added. “We had four shipments and he got every single book unpacked and shelved before we locked up.”
“Good job, young man,” Dad said.
Daniel smiled.
“You know,” Mom said, “today’s a big day for us, too. It’s not every day that a best-selling author joins us for dinner.”
“Your latest book has done exceptionally well,” Dad said. “Books like that don’t come along often. It’s been out for … going on two years?”
Daniel nodded. “I’m very grateful the book has done so well.”
“What’s striking is how consistently strong the sales have been. It’s not something we typically see.”
“It means that people are reading your book and telling people how much they love it,” Mom said.
“I hope you’re right,” Daniel said. “Holly and Gabe told me that you opened The Tattered Page more than forty years ago?”
Mom and Dad looked at each other and smiled.
Here we go, Penny thought with a surge of affection. The bookstore’s founding was part of the family lore,a tale that her parents never tired of telling and that Penny never tired of hearing.
“It was a beautiful fall day, forty-three years ago,” Dad began. “The air had that wonderful smell of autumn.”
“Forty-three years,” Mom said with a laugh. “I can’t believe it was so long ago.”
“We’d driven up from Boston to see the fall foliage.”
“The leaves were so beautiful, so rich, so incredible.”
“By chance, we stopped to stretch our legs in a town we’d never heard of —a tiny town called Heartsprings Valley.”
“He thinks we stopped by chance, but it wasfate.”
