Page 47 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

Ross sat in front of the glowing stove, but all evening he had been unable to relax in its soothing warmth. He held his phone in his hand. Still no reply to his text. Was she sulking? No, that wasn’t like her at all. Was she so deeply distressed she was left without words for him? God, he hoped not but—he realized with a fist-clench of guilt around his heart, if she was, it was because of him. He replayed their conversation in his mind on a punishing loop. It had been less of a conversation and more a monologue from him, he thought bitterly; on reflection, he had been telling her how he would like the world to be. He had selfishly put his own priorities first: for her to represent him with this new work, for them to end their relationship because—well, absolutely not because he wanted to—but because his terror of repeating past mistakes had made even relinquishing one of the most precious things in his life seem a price worth paying.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

He texted her again. Just a question mark this time. A nudge to remind her of his earlier text, simply asking if she was okay.

Then, despite it being—of course—a rude and unwelcome imposition, he called her. With his phone on speaker, he sat staring at her name on the screen, listening to the ringtone, willing her to pick up.

It rang out. Not even a mailbox message. Not even a chance to hear her voice.

So she wasn’t okay. Obviously.

He held this thought painfully in his head for a few minutes. And then he stood, despite having no clear plan other than going down to Capelthorne’s to hammer on the door and insist that she speak to him face to face. Even though her silence made it very clear that he—the cause of her distress—was probably the last person on earth she wanted to see.

Striding down the main street, he was surprised to see Flo standing by the door to Capelthorne’s with Digger at her feet. Even from a hundred yards away, her anxiety was visible.

“She’s not with you, then?” Flo called, recognizing him as he approached.

“No,” he told her as he arrived at her side. “What do you mean? You’re looking for her too?”

“I arranged for her to dogsit while I was at choir practice,” Flo explained. “She always does it on a Thursday night, the lovely girl. He gets separation anxiety and becomes destructive, so I don’t like to leave him. It’s just not like her to forget.”

“What have you tried?” he asked.

“Knocking . . . phoning . . . but—nothing. No sign of her.”

“Could she have gone out?” he suggested. “Perhaps to get something to eat? She sometimes meets friends in the pub for a drink, doesn’t she?”

“Only on Fridays, generally,” said Flo. “And I’ve been in and spoken to Freya. She hasn’t seen her this evening either.”

“Maybe the supermarket over the bridge?” he said, almost as if he were talking to himself.

“What, for an hour and a half?” said Flo.

“You’ve been here that long?” he asked curtly, looking at his watch. Nearly half past nine. The little supermarket had been closed for half an hour already, and it was only a five-minute walk.

“Then she must be in the flat,” said Ross. “Something’s definitely wrong . . . Do you have a key?”

“I didn’t bring it,” admitted Flo. “I wouldn’t have needed to, but I was wondering about driving back to Middlemass to get it.”

“No time,” said Ross, assessing the door critically. The lock on it looked pretty robust, but he could break one of the glass panes and reach in.

“There are bolts top and bottom too,” said Flo, following his gaze. “If you’re planning to break in, I think your best bet is to go around the back.”

She was already walking away, assuming he would follow.

On Flo’s instruction, Ross clambered over the wall into the little courtyard garden at the back of the shop, then extracted a brick from below a terra-cotta planter and used it to smash a window in the back door. As Flo had promised, he made quick work of gaining entry.

Not pausing to assess the damage to the door, Ross ran up the stairs to the flat, his pounding heart being only partly because of the exertion. He searched the rooms upstairs rapidly, throwing open doors and not allowing himself to think of the horror of finding Petra slumped on the floor, unconscious. Or worse.

“She’s not here,” he barked, as he rejoined Flo outside. “And she doesn’t have her phone. It’s on the table. Is there anywhere else you can think of that she might have gone to?”

“There’s no Write Club or Beach Reads tonight,” said Flo. “And, in any case, that would mean her being in the shop . . . I did wonder if Jess was meeting up with her to talk about the literary festival this evening, but I bumped into Jess in Middlemass this afternoon, and I happened to mention the dogsitting. If she had plans with Petra tonight, she would have said so then.”

They stood silent, at a loss, for a few seconds, both looking up and down the street as if willing Petra to approach by sheer force of determination.

“Could she have decided to go and see you?” ventured Flo at last.

“I was thinking the same,” said Ross grimly. It wasn’t impossible. He could quite imagine Petra coming to the cottage, having decided to give him a piece of her mind for his selfishness. It was just about conceivable that she could have gone another route, missing him as he walked down to the shop.