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“This is Kennedy. Kennedy Barnes. From Turn the Page? When I stopped in to get my coffee this morning, Derek gave me your number and said you were looking for me…”
CHAPTER2
WHITE CHALK
KENNEDY
As much as I needed the week off, there’s so much I have to do now that I’m back.
Invoices to pay, orders to make, stock to go through… and I’m not doing any of that anymore.
Instead, pacing behind the narrow cashwrap, nervously playing with the skirt on my sundress, I’m watching all of the passersby on Main Street, willing the little bell over my door to jingle as it opens.
I thought I handled the phone exchange pretty well. After I confirmed that the book Shannon had a question about wasthebook I’ve been dying to get my hands back on, I offered as casually as I could to buy it from her if she no longer wanted it.
If only it was that easy.
She didn’t want to return it, or sell it back. Instead, she wanted to ask me where I got it from.
It seems as though the book snared her attention as much as mine. And while I couldn’t answer that question, I did take the opportunity to ask her to bring it in and I could “double-check” for her.
Shannon said she would. That was about half an hour ago, and I haven’t been able to focus on anything else since.
A customer would be a great distraction right about now. Of course, with my luck, it’s no surprise I don’t get a single one after I hang up with Shannon—which is probably why I jolt in place when the door finally opens.
It’s Shannon. She has her long white-blonde hair pulled back in a high ponytail, her toned arms on display courtesy of her tank top. As she waves at me, I notice the large sunflower tattoo on her upper right arm before my gaze is immediately drawn to the oversized, leather-bound book she’s got tucked at her side.
“Hi!” I hope my smile isn’t too deranged. I fist my hands to keep from snatching the book from Shannon. “I didn’t expect you to stop by so soon.”
Because, yeah, my luck’sneverthat good. I might have invited her to bring the book by so that I could get a look at it, but I never expected her to drop what she was doing to take the walk over from her apartment.
Even if I’m stoked that she did.
Shannon’s one of my best customers. From our frequent conversations as she’s milling around the store, looking for another off-the-wall romance to buy—like me, she loves them—I learned that she lives in one of the apartment complexes a few blocks away from Main Street. Also like me, she’s perennially single, but she calls it “in between boyfriends” while I’m sitting here, waiting for the “one” to make me forget all about Tyler.
Of course, unless he’s a reader and he finds his way to Turn the Page, I’ll probably be waiting forever…
After exchanging some more pleasantries, I realize that Shannon is as happy to hand the book off to me as I am to take it. Meeting me at the cashwrap, she hefts it onto the counter, sliding it across it to me.
A spark shoots through my fingertips the second I touch it. In an instant, I know that this was meant to happen. I was meant to get the book back.
Now I just have to figure out a way to keep it.
Shannon raps her hands anxiously on the counter as I pick up the book.
“So,” she says, “what do you think?”
Though I already know the answer, I scan the barcode sticker I had slapped on the book when I first realized it didn’t have one. Like I told her on the phone earlier, some of my stock has to be inputted into the POS with a dummy SKU. A way to ring it up at whatever price I think it deserves. I usually reserve that for out of print books that aren’t in the system, or books so old, they don’t have a UPC printed on them.
The worn leather of the book’s binding had put it in the second camp. There was no copyright page with any of its printing information, either, so while I have no idea when it was first bound, its yellowed pages and embossed cover scream “tome”.
Or, like I teased the day I sold it Shannon, a “spellbook”.
The scanner beeps, but just like I expected, there’s no information coming up on my screen. Not that I would have told her if there was, but it’s better this way. After all, I’ve never been a good liar or an actress.
Oh, no. That was allHallie.
And while I admit that I might have ulterior motives when it comes to this book, I am telling the truth when I say, “I’m sorry, Shannon, but I guess I sold this to you before I put it in the system.”
