Page 32 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

Monday was Petra’s day to do all the shop admin: the ordering, cleaning, and decorating the shop window. Today, she was preparing her Easter window display, and she was glad Ross—not able to face more writing that day—was giving her a hand.

“How are you going to fit all these in?” he puffed good-naturedly enough as he delivered a galvanized pail of daffodils and a tray of blooming primroses in gorgeous terracotta pots that Petra had ordered from the florist up the road.

“It has to look abundant,” Petra smiled. “I can’t do an Easter egg hunt window without spring flowers. Just keep thinking of that coffee and pastel de nata I’m going to get you from Finn’s shop when you’re done,” she told him.

She had borrowed Flo’s lovely wicker shopping basket to fill with chocolate eggs, and she was also running an Easter bonnet competition, with the short-listed entrances going on display in the window too. There was a danger that there wouldn’t be room for the books.

“Do you want some moss?” asked Ross. “There’s loads on the ground in the little woods by the cottage. I can only take a little bit, of course. And maybe some big pebbles?”

“Nice!” exclaimed Petra. “Look, I’ve got the sweetest little fluffy yellow chicks that I can dot around too. Look! So cute . . .” She waved the basket at him, causing one of the bright yellow fluff balls to leap out and fall on the floor.

Ross rolled his eyes, picking it up, but she knew he was loving the whole endeavor, really. “We should go for a walk on the beach later,” he told her. “It’s beautiful out there.”

“Honestly? I’m going to be so busy until this evening,” she admitted apologetically.

“Early evening walk then,” said Ross. “And if you’re good, I’ll buy you fish and chips for supper.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Petra, her mouth watering at the thought.

An hour later, Petra was satisfied with her work. There were piles of books artfully stacked around baskets of chocolate eggs that were wrapped in jewel-bright foils. The Easter theme could be pretty broad, she had decided, mixing children’s Easter stories with egg-focused cookbooks and a whole load of spring-themed crafts from yarn bombing to basket weaving. She wanted them all herself, and she only hoped her customers would think the same.

Portneath really did come alive in the spring, with vacationers pouring in as soon as schools let out for the Easter holidays. The local population—never a ghost town in the winter, but definitely quieter—must have tripled since she arrived in January. Sales had been fine so far, she thought. Flo had been reassuring, and she would know. And as a woman who professed to have her finger on the pulse of the publishing world as a literary agent, she herself ought to know what a provincial bookshop should be selling. Let’s hope she was right.

“So, where’s the man in your life?” Flo asked, apropos of nothing that Saturday. The two women were just sipping tea in a brief lull, as the shop had been pleasingly busy that morning.

“Whoa!” protested Petra. “Where did that come from? What if I said there is no man in my life?”

“Pity,” said Flo reflectively. “Beautiful, clever woman like you . . . how old?”

“Twenty-eight, why?” she shot back guardedly.

“Hmm. Not getting any younger,” continued Flo, ignoring Petra’s expression—a mixture of outrage and amusement.

“Where’s the man in your life?” Petra retaliated.

“Touché,” laughed Flo. “I’m definitely not getting any younger, and—since you ask—I left Graham in bed this morning. He’s not an early riser, bless him.”

“Does he live with you, then?”

“God, no, I couldn’t abide that. We hook up most Fridays, though, and he often stays over. But anyway, back to you.”

“Goodie,” muttered Petra, under her breath, but secretly impressed—and a little depressed—that this woman in her eighties had a more dynamic love life than she did.

“Impertinent of me, I know,” Flo went on.

“Don’t let that stop you,” breathed Petra, just loud enough for Flo to hear. She was ignored.

“It’s simply that it would be a tragedy if you weren’t a mother one day,” Flo continued, undaunted. “You’re so beautiful and clever. Imagine how utterly amazing your children would be. That’s my only thought. You owe it to the world to reproduce. Not that you even need a man for that nowadays, of course.”

“Do you have children?” Petra asked her, in another attempt to get the woman off her private life, which she would rather keep private, if it was all the same to Flo.

“Yes and no,” said Flo. “I’ve raised two girls, but neither were mine. Maggie—she’s in her fifties now, was my sister’s child, and then I ended up more or less raising Jules as well—Maggie’s daughter—because poor Maggie was not a natural parent. Mainly because she was far too young . . .”

“That’s the Jules who owns the shop now?”

“Yes, that’s right. Jules who has just married Roman. He’s so handsome,” said Flo, starry-eyed, “and thoroughly delightful despite being a Montbeau. Really, the whole pairing was ridiculously unlikely, and yet—when I saw them both together—I simply couldn’t imagine any other outcome, especially after the fire.”

“Fire?”