Page 16 of Christmas By The Book

Seth had set to work on the book fair, it seemed like, as soon as he got back from dinner, and he’d stopped by the store that morning to let me know that I would need to attend the local council meeting to get permission to have book stalls out on the street. I had begged him to do it for me, but he’d told me that they would take the request a lot better coming from someone the community already knew. Though he had promised he would be there with me, it was nearly seven, nearly my turn on the agenda, and he was yet to turn up.

I was starting to freak out. This high school was the one I had attended when I was a teenager, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bring back a rush of memories that I would rather have forgotten of greasy bangs, acne, and band practice. It wasn’t exactly helping in making me feel any calmer, as I tried to gather myself enough to get up there.

I clutched a list in my hand of all the reasons why they should let me go ahead with this, and I was trying to convince myself of it as much as I wanted to convince them. It was just an average request, and I could see no reason why they would turn it down, but, with Wharton at the head of the committee, I couldn’t help but feel nervous.

I hadn’t told him yet that there was no way I was going to let him buy the store from me. I wasn’t going to talk to him about it, I had decided. No need for me to go stressing myself out like that. I had to focus on this book fair, first and foremost, and I had the help of someone who really seemed to know what they were doing. Seth had been making calls, getting stuff set up, calling in favors for me, and I couldn’t have been more grateful.

Though, I kind of wished he had a little more free time so we could spend it together. But that wasn’t important right now. What was important was—

Wait! Was the heel on my shoe loose? I felt it stutter slightly against the tiles as I drummed my foot, and I reached down as casually as I could to check. These shoes had been pinching my feet all night, the only thing I could find to go with this blazer and skirt, but it looked like they were in the process of giving up on me right then and there. Sure enough, the heel was loose. Oh crap, what if I fell on the way to the stage? It felt like the entire town was here, and the ones who weren’t would hear about it from the ones who were.

But, before I could launch myself down that spiral of overthinking, someone slipped into the seat next to me. And, when I looked up, I found Seth smiling back at me. Those blue eyes caught the light from the fluorescent bulbs above, the scent of his aftershave filling the air.

“Hey,” he murmured. “Sorry I’m late.”

“That’s okay,” I whispered back, and I got a sharp look from Tanya, owner of the little craft store down the street from me, for my troubles. Seth noticed it and raised his eyebrows, pulling a face, and I had to bite my lip to hold in a laugh.

He lowered his voice, shifting away from everyone else so he could speak to me.

“You okay?” he asked. He must have been able to sense my nerves.

I gestured toward my heel and shook my head. “Not really,” I admitted. “My heel broke.”

He peered down at my feet, and then held out his hand. “Here, give them to me.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“Give me your shoes.”

I paused for a moment, not entirely sure I was happy about this, but then, I pulled off my shoes and handed them both to him. He snapped off the heel that was already starting to give from them, and shuffled the other one around in its stitching until it came loose. When it was free, he pulled it away, and handed them back to me, now a pair of flats.

I slipped them back on again. Okay, now at least I wouldn’t have to worry about falling on the way to the stage. I thanked him, but before he could say anything back, I was called up. He reached out and grabbed my hand as I rose to my feet, giving it a squeeze, as though silently letting me know that it was going to be okay.

I tried to ignore the anxiety in my chest as I made my way to the stage. I could feel everyone staring at me, probably judging me. My legs still felt shaky, like they might give out underneath me despite the fixed shoes. At least if I’d had a wobbly heel, I would have had an excuse for taking one hell of a tumble.

But I reached the small stage, where the council was lined up in the front row. Wharton stared up at me, his eyes unreadable and hard.

“Uh, so, I would like to put in a request to use the street in front of the Mastin Bookshelf for a book fair,” I began, forcing myself to go through everything that I had planned in my head for this occasion. I had run through it a few times in the mirror before I had come out tonight, and I found, once I was up there, that the words came flowing out of me with more ease than I had expected.

I kept my gaze fixed on Seth as I spoke, and it was almost like I was talking directly to him, like there was nobody else in the room. He grinned at me and gave me a thumbs-up as I spoke, and, soon, I was all wrapped up, breathing a sigh of relief that I had managed to get through it without something dreadful happening.

The council was made up of seven people, and they would vote on whether or not they wanted to grant me the permit for the book fair. If they shut it down now, there would be no way we could go ahead with it. Sure, we could have held it inside the store, but what would have been the point of that? We wanted to get out into the streets, to make it so people could actually see the product and be inspired to buy something, for themselves or someone else. Or, at least, was what Seth told me, and he seemed to have a far better business mind than I ever did.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Wharton announced bluntly, turning to the rest of the council. “Setting up stalls on the street, at this time of year? It could be dangerous.”

Of course he was against it. No doubt he could see it for what it was, a last-ditch attempt to make some more money and keep the store open. He would do everything in his power to stop it in its tracks, and push me into a corner where I would have no choice but to give him what he wanted.

“There are plenty of ways to make sure the sidewalk is safe,” Olivia, another councilmember, replied, waving her hand dismissively. “We had a Christmas market in town every year, and that’s never caused any problems. I can’t see why this would.”

I held my breath as they went back and forth. Every time someone seemed to be on my side, Wharton would cut in with another reason why it was a bad idea. I kept glancing over to Seth, but he didn’t seem worried, leaning back in his seat and listening in to the conversation as though he was totally confident in the way it was going. Should I have felt the same way? Wharton had such influence in this town, it was hard to believe that everyone would go against him like that, especially when it was my first time at one of these meetings myself.

“Maria would love it,” Iris, another one of the women on the council, announced with certainty in her voice.

Wharton wrinkled his nose. “Maria?” he replied.

I bristled with irritation. He didn’t know who my grandmother was, but that didn’t mean he had to talk about her like that.

“My grandma,” I cut in, sudden confidence overtaking me. “She was the one who opened the bookstore. She was an amazing woman.”