Page 11 of Book People

Except, he wasn’t rigid leaning over my counter with fire in his eyes, furious about my bookshop, furious at the threat to his livelihood. He’s protective of it, that’s clear. I guess it was pretty cheeky of me to open my bookshop directly across the road from his, and perhaps I’ve been in denial about that.

I want to explain. I want to tell him why I did it, that it’s been my dream to own my own bookshop, and that opening one here, in the building my mother left me, is the only way I could afford to do it. Yes, I truly did think that it wouldn’t affect his sales and that readers drew the same lines in the book sand that he and I do, but . . . well . . .

I was naïve, clearly.

I turn to the bar and order myself a gin and tonic from Tom, the publican, and then, when it’s ready, I turn back to the snug where he’s sitting. But just as I’m starting to rethink talking to him, because he really does look very grim and I don’t want to interrupt anyone’s reading, he looks up from the pages of his book and his gaze meets mine.

His eyes are ridiculous. The colour of them is astonishing. I see something flare in them, something I can’t name because it’s gone too fast for me to figure out what it was. It’s also too late to alter my course, to go sit at another table. I don’t want him to think I’m afraid of him, or embarrassed to be caught staring, or too chicken to talk, so I brace myself and head towards the snug determinedly.

With extreme deliberation, he slips a bookmark into his book, closes it, and puts it down on the table, and by the time I arrive, the book has been somehow obscured by the pub’s menu. Which is annoying in the extreme, because now I’m desperate to know what he was reading and what put that expression on his face.

‘Yes?’ he asks, in that ridiculously deep voice of his, somehow managing to make the question sound bored, annoyed and challenging all the same time. ‘Can I help you, Miss Jones?’

He doesn’t invite me to sit, so I’m left standing awkwardly with my gin and tonic. If I was still the me I was back in London, I’d give him an apologetic smile, take his tone as a rejection, and slope off somewhere else.

But I’m not that me, and so I think to hell with it and sit down anyway, putting my drink down on the table between us, a declaration of intent.

‘What are you reading?’ I ask, like the excellent bookseller I am.

‘A book.’

‘What book?’

‘None of your business.’

Off to a great start then.

‘I want to talk to you,’ I say.

His gaze touches on the book obscured by the menu. ‘I’m reading.’

‘So?’

‘If I wanted to talk to someone, I wouldn’t be reading.’

‘But you put your book down.’

‘I was being polite.’

‘Were you? Is that even possible, Mr Blackwood?’

This time his gaze isn’t on his book, but the dress I’m wearing. It’s a lightning-fast glance, but I catch it all the same, just as I see how his mouth hardens. Does he like it? Does he disapprove? Do I care?

‘What do you want?’ he demands, all impatience, and desperate for me to leave.

Naturally, I decide to settle in for the evening.

He’s turning me into a bloody-minded, stubborn arse, and I find I quite like the experience, especially since I was always giving in to Jasper.

‘I told you what I want.’ I pick up my gin and tonic and take a sip. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Why?’

‘To explain why my shop is where it is and that I didn’t intentionally set out to take your customers.’

‘I don’t need an explanation, nor do I want one.’

‘Too bad. You’re getting one.’

---