Page 40 of The Cotswold Christmas Bookshop

‘Great!’ He made to go after his daughter, but stopped, paused and turned awkwardly to address Isla. ‘Hey listen, Isla. This is a bit awkward, but I’ve been wanting to say something since we first ran into each other again.’

‘Oh…’

‘Yeah, I wanted to say sorry, actually.’

‘Really? What for?’ she asked disingenuously, knowing there was only one thing he could possibly want to apologise for.

‘For the way I treated you back in the day.’ He appeared uncomfortable. ‘You were my first love and that’s pretty special, isn’t it? I have nothing but fond memories of our time together. But when I got the opportunity to go away to university, I was just overwhelmed by the sense that I should make the most of every moment and⁠—’

She butted in, more to save his embarrassment and awkwardness than anything else.

‘And a girlfriend would have cramped your style!’

‘No! Yes…’ he added, looking sheepish. ‘I probably handled it in the worst possible way.’

She nodded her agreement. She wasn’t about to pretend that it had been any different, before softening her response with a smile.

‘It was a long time ago, and we were both very young.’

‘It doesn’t excuse the way I treated you. I was telling Sophia about it, how I broke up with you so abruptly, without any real explanation and without giving you the opportunity to talk about it. She couldn’t believe it, said I acted like a complete idiot. I realised she wasn’t wrong.’

The more Isla heard about Sophia, the more she grew to like her. In other circumstances, they might have been friends.

‘I was pretty devastated at the time, I must admit, but it was good character-building stuff,’ she added with a wry smile. She could have told him how she’d cried herself to sleep at night for months afterwards, how she’d held out a hope for years that they would get back together again, but none of that mattered any more. They’d both moved on in their different ways. ‘Thanks for the apology, though.’

‘Thanks for being so magnanimous, Isla. I appreciate it. I wanted to clear the air because it looks like we might be running into each other a bit more these days and I didn’t want there to be any bad feeling between us.’

‘None whatsoever,’ she said, surprised that she found herself really meaning it too. Perhaps all this time, Isla had simply needed some closure.

‘Isla! Would you come and help me choose some sticker books, please?’ asked Amelia, who’d returned to the counter with something special in her arms.

‘Oh, Amelia, would you put the cat down,’ said Charlie in an exasperated tone. ‘He doesn’t want to be manhandled by you.’

‘Of course I can help,’ said Isla, thinking that Heathcliff looked more than happy to be carried around, as she escorted them both back to the children’s section. Amelia and Heathcliff settled on the cushions while Isla brought some books to the table for the little girl to look through. Isla dropped down on her haunches to leaf through the pages with Amelia. It was something of a revelation to discover that children weren’t completely scary if you could find some common ground with them. Seeing the joy and wonder in Amelia’s eyes as her gaze scanned the pages of the books, appreciating the illustrations and reading the words aloud, resonated deeply with Isla. She had once been that little girl who had been so easily transported to other worlds through the magical properties of books and it filled her with excitement to think that Amelia might nurture that same love of reading as she grew up. For Isla, books had provided a huge sense of comfort over the years. They represented an escape from her own everyday existence into other worlds entirely. She had travelled the globe through her reading matter, met characters who would remain lifetime friends and had made sense of her own life through the events unfolding within the pages. On reflection, it had probably given her an unrealistic expectation of love and the man she hoped to meet and spend her life with, but was that really a bad thing? Admittedly, she was unlikely to meet a Canadian NHL player on the Tube to work, or a billionaire boss, but it had taught her that she didn’t have to put up with any questionable behaviour and probably explained why most of her first dates in London hadn’t progressed any further. She kept in mind though that there were some good guys out there. Like Charlie. And Guy.

‘Come on, Amelia,’ Charlie said after a good fifteen minutes had passed. He was growing impatient, but Isla sensed that the little girl might have been happy to stay there all morning browsing the books. In the end, Amelia followed her instincts in making her selections. She quickly discarded the ballet bumper book of stickers, but chose the marine life sticker book instead, plus a fashion design sketchpad and a book about woodland animals, which she clutched to her side so tightly that Isla couldn’t imagine anyone being brave enough to try and prise it out of her hands.

‘Can I take these ones please, Daddy?’ she said, looking up at him imploringly.

He gave Isla a look of defeat, and she could only shrug her shoulders in return. She was definitely Team Amelia.

‘Come on then, shall we get these paid for and you can take them home to Grandma,’ encouraged Isla.

‘This is the best kind of shop,’ said Amelia in a heartfelt exclamation, when Isla handed over the bag of goodies. ‘It has books. And puzzles. And a cat. When I grow up, I want to be just like you, and work in this bookshop.’

‘I’m extremely lucky,’ said Isla, feeling the hairs on her arms stand to attention as she said the words aloud.

On their way out, Charlie and Amelia almost bumped straight into Guy, who came rushing through the door, clearly in a hurry.

‘Oh sorry,’ he said, standing back to open the door wide to let Charlie and Amelia through. It occurred to her as Charlie gave a cheery wave over his shoulder and Guy greeted her with a wide smile, that the snapshot of that moment in time represented her past and her present. Whether or not it might represent her future too, she had no idea.

‘Hi, good to see you,’ he breezed, and Isla couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across her face. Those feelings, the ones she’d once had for Charlie, were there too, but this time they weren’t tinged with disappointment and regret; they were only filled with a mix of excitement and anticipation, causing flutters in the top of her chest.

‘A couple of things,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow night, round at mine, seven o’clock for dinner? How does that sound?’

‘Sounds great,’ she said, swayed by his warm self-assurance, as though there could only be one possible answer to that question.

‘Good, I’m looking forward to it already. Secondly, Jon has asked me to drop this off today.’ Guy handed over a sealed brown envelope. ‘Apparently, he’ll be in later to collect it.’