Page 15 of The Sugar and Spice Bookshop Bakery

Elizabeth laughs. ‘I’d like to think I’m your friend as well as your mum.’

‘Of course, you are,’ Louise says. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

Jack is watching her. Her mother and her friends are watching her.

‘And you must be Giacomo,’ Elizabeth says, then addresses her friends. ‘You know, Richard’s son.’

‘Of course!’ Heather wrings her hands together gleefully. ‘We heard you were home. How is your dad?’

‘He’s doing okay,’ Jack says. ‘They’re doing some tests.’

‘He’s a strong ‘un,’ Hazel says. ‘He’ll be okay.’

‘And in the meantime,’ Janet says, ‘you and Louise are both home in Applethwaite at the same time. Fancy that! You must be a similar age too. You could show him round, Louise?’

Louise feels her cheeks reddening. ‘There’s not exactly much to show. I’m sure you’ve found the pub and the corner shop already, haven’t you, Jack?’

‘Thank you, I have,’ he smiles.

‘We’ve heard all about you,’ Magda says. ‘Your dad is very proud.’

Jack shifts his weight from one foot to the other and forces a smile. ‘I can see you’re busy,’ he says to Louise. ‘I’ll pop by another time.’

She feels a pang of disappointment that he’s going already, but she understands. Louise wouldn’t hang around to be grilled by her mother’s friends either. Not if she had a choice in the matter.

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’d like that.’

She moves towards the door, opening it to let him out.

‘Jack,’ she whispers, as he’s about to leave. ‘I asked her. About the bookshop. She said yes.’

‘Brilliant!’ he whispers back. ‘When I first came in, I thought perhaps you’d given up on the dream.’

‘Definitely not.’ Her eyes meet his. ‘Mum just wanted one last little coffee morning with her pals. The dream is very much alive and kicking.’

He reaches for her hand and gives it a little squeeze. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Very glad.’

She watches as the door closes behind him, then she goes over to the table, picks up a teaspoon and clinks it against a coffee mug. Somehow Jack’s brief visit has galvanised her into action.

‘I have an announcement to make,’ she says. ‘Mum might have told you this already, but I’m going to re-open this place as a bookshop.’

‘But it’s a bakery,’ says the woman whose name Louise can’t remember.

‘It was a bakery,’ Elizabeth says. ‘But Louise wants a bookshop.’

‘Your family have run a bakery here for generations,’ Magda says.

Just two generations, Louise thinks. It’s not like the bakery’s been here for centuries.

‘It would be a new chapter, for the building and for me,’ Louise says, doing her best to inspire some enthusiasm. ‘Mum and Gran ran a bakery here, and now I’ll be running a bookshop. Three generations of women – Gran, Mum and me – all pursuing their passions between these four walls.’ She pauses for effect. ‘You all love reading, don’t you? Wouldn’t you enjoy having a bookshop in the village?’

‘I buy my books on Amazon.’ Magda clearly isn’t going to be a future customer.

‘I go to Skipplewell library,’ says the nameless woman.

‘I’m sure it’ll make a lovely bookshop,’ Janet says, but before Louise can thank her, she adds, ‘it’s just that everybody in Applethwaite loves the bakery.’

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