AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I never hated you,” she said, her expression soft. “I was never able to have children, so I’m not good at the warm and fuzzy stuff.”
“Your love language is acts of service.”
She furrowed her brow, the softness gone. “What?”
I walked back over to her, sitting in the empty chair at the desk next to hers. “There’s a book about it, and therapists use it all the time. People have love languages. Well, everyone other than my ex, but let’s not go there. I think there are five.” I mentally tallied them, then counted them off on my fingers. “Words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, gifts, and acts of service.”
She frowned. “I don’t buy into all that new age hippie mumbo jumbo.”
“No, there’s something to it. Like when someone has a death in the family and you make them a casserole. That’s your way of showing you care.”
She sniffed, her gaze back on her computer screen. “It’s just the right thing to do, that’s all.”
I’d had a lot of time to think about things since getting to the Beard, and I’d learned a lot about myself. I needed to own my part of Bess and me getting off on the wrong foot.
“I think,” I said, pausing to find the right words, “that when I got here, I didn’t appreciate how important the Chronicle is to the community. I just thought of it as an asset, and I didn’t know anything about Pete and how he devoted his life to this place.”
Bess turned to face me, nodding. “Exactly. You thought we were all just a bunch of small-town hicks. You looked down on us.”
That was taking things a little too far.
“I didn’t look down on you,” I said. “But I did judge you. I judged…well, everything. But this has been a humbling experience for me. I’ve learned a lot. And you’ve been the one to teach me a lot of it.”
Bess’s eyes flooded with tears and she made a shooing motion with her hand. “Oh, stop that nonsense.”
“I mean it. I couldn’t have kept this place going all this time without you.”
She swiped at the corners of her eyes. “Of course you could have. You’re a smart, hardworking young woman. It’s no wonder Grady’s head over heels for you.”
I shook my head, wanting to laugh. “That’s so not true, Bess. We decided to be friends, but that’s it.”
She rolled her eyes and focused her attention back on her computer monitor. “You two are ridiculous. Deny it all you want, but I’m nobody’s fool and when you go back to sunny California, you’re going to miss him more than anything else here.”
Her words were a direct hit to my heart. It was true—I’d grown very fond of Grady. I’d also come to appreciate the newspaper my uncle left me and the community it served. But this road had to come to an end. I lived in San Diego, and I had a job and a life waiting there.
The job was a grind, and the life was a tiny apartment and a best friend who only seemed to have time for me when it suited her, but it was my life. My parents had settled in California when I was a kid and I’d lived there since. I loved beaches, oceans, and sunshine. Piña coladas. Walking outside without a parka and a ski mask on.
I had to sell the Chronicle. But I didn’t relish it like I thought I would when I got here.
“Avon, you’re looking well,” Max Morrison said that afternoon when I walked into his office.
I smiled. “Do you mean I’m looking more appropriately dressed for the Beard?”
He chuckled at that. “Yes, exactly. You’ve got the right idea with that nice, long coat.”
“Thanks again for letting me use yours until I bought one.”
“No problem at all. That’s what we do here.” He slid on his reading glasses and looked down at the papers on his desk, then back up at me. “I’ve got good news for you.”
My stomach rolled nervously. This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for.
“We have a preliminarily interested buyer,” he said. “It’s a company based in New Jersey that prints and distributes shoppers all around the country.”
“Shoppers?” I asked, wrinkling my brow in confusion.
Max met my gaze over the rim of his glasses. “It’s like a small newspaper, but it’s only ads. The prospective buyers said they’d use your existing ad customer list and try to bring them on board the shopper.”
I sat back in my chair, my excitement slowly deflating. “Are you saying they don’t want to continue with the Chronicle?”
His eyes crinkled at the corners in a look of fatherly concern. “Right. They only do shoppers. They’d be buying it for the press, really. Those things cost a mint. They plan to use the office space as a distribution hub for shoppers in the northern region. They’d like to talk to all of your pressmen about working for them.”
