Page 8 of The Sugar and Spice Bookshop Bakery

Then it occurs to her. Down in the old bakery, there’s a coffee machine.

She grabs the milk from the fridge and, still in her dressing gown and PJs, traipses down the stairs.

It’s quarter past seven. Back home in West Ealing, the streets would be bustling with commuters, but here in Applethwaite, there’s only a distant dog walker. She makes a beeline for the door of the bakery.

Once inside, she adjusts the slatted blinds, and the place is instantly illuminated with the warm glow of the morning sun. She rights the chair that she’d knocked over the previous night and goes in search of a dustpan and brush to sweep up the broken sugar bowl.

Then she slips behind the counter and flicks the switch on the coffee machine, half expecting this to trigger another power cut, even though she knows that’s silly. It was sheer coincidence that the power went off at the very moment she plugged that mixer in. The coffee machine springs instantly to life, as if it had been waiting for her. It’s simple enough to operate, not like some of the more modern ones that you practically need a PhD for. Steam begins to emerge and drops of hot liquid drip into her mug.

She sits down at the table in the window of the bakery and takes a sip of the coffee. Delicious, but what it really needs is a slice of ginger cake to go with it.

There’s only one person on the planet who makes ginger cake that tastes exactly like her grandmother’s, and that person is Louise.

Before she can stop herself, Louise is in the kitchen, flicking on the oven. She finds a pan and some scales and measures out butter, sugar, syrup, treacle and milk. She turns on one of the rings on the huge gas cooker and begins to gently warm her ingredients, stirring slowly. When the butter mix has melted, she measures out flour. She adds just the right amount of ground ginger, before adding the warmed mixture from the pan. She beats in an egg, adds some bicarbonate of soda mixed with a little milk, and then the batter is ready for the oven.

Once it’s in, Louise returns to the front of the bakery and makes herself a fresh coffee. She’s going to have to tell Elizabeth that she isn’t here to take over the business. She loves baking, but it’s a hobby. She cannot see herself working here.

Not unless…

She glances around her. The space is so familiar, yet she sees it now with fresh eyes. Her mother wants her to run a business here, but does it have to be a bakery? What if she were to pursue her childhood dream and turn this place into a bookshop?

A bookshop!

Louise closes her eyes, imagines how the place would look if the walls were lined with shelves laden with books.

It’s ideal, isn’t it? No job. Empty premises that just happen to be owned by her mother. If one of her authors had written this as a plot, Louise would have put a note in the margin saying no, far too convenient. No reader is going to buy that one! It’s too easy.

Although it wouldn’t be plain sailing, she suspects. Running an independent bookshop can be tough.

There’s a knock at the door. It opens and a head peers round.

Jack’s head.

‘Do I smell proper coffee?’

Louise’s heart thumps in her chest. Here she is in the old family bakery and the handsome stranger is back again. If this was a scene in a romance novel, she’d edit it so that she wasn’t sitting here in her PJs and her tatty old dressing gown.

‘Would you like a cup?’ she offers.

He beams. White teeth – but not in an artificial, Instagram kind of way. Just clean, healthy teeth. A perfect smile, in fact.

And he’s a little closer now and she can see that those eyes are not only the exact shade of horse chestnuts, but they’re kind eyes too. The sort of eyes that make you melt under their gaze.

Eyes that make you want to—

No. She’ll enjoy his company, and maybe even a little flirtation, but that’s as far as it will go. Real-life romance is never as good as the stuff you find in books. Best stick to fiction where matters of the heart are concerned.

‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ he says.

‘It’s the least I can do,’ she says, standing up and walking over to the coffee machine. ‘After all, you did come to my rescue last night.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t actually do anything,’ he says.

‘That’s true, you didn’t. Make your own coffee.’ She throws him the packet of beans, which he catches.

He laughs, then joins her behind the counter. She hears him inhale, and remembers she hasn’t had a shower yet this morning, but it’s the scent of the coffee that he’s interested in.

‘Mmm. I love coffee. Typical Italian.’