Page 13 of Book People

I can’t think why it does, because she’s nothing I want, yet she needles me all the same.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since that moment in her shop, when I leaned in and caught her scent andsaw the crystalline glint in her eyes. Which was when I realised this dance we were doing was dangerous and that I needed to stop before one of us pushed too far, and everything came crashing down.

So when she changed her front window, I didn’t change mine. I left it and tried to ignore her looking in my direction every time she came out of her shop, as if she was waiting for me to respond. Waiting for me to change my window too.

I didn’t give her the satisfaction.

I put her out of my head.

And I thought I’d succeeded.

So I don’t know why I now say, ‘Wait.’ Because I can’t seriously want to tell her about Blackwood Books, can I?

Her hair is loose around her shoulders, all golden curls, and in her dress with its wide belt around her hips, she looks like a Woodstock escapee. I want to touch that hair, bury my hands in it.

Christ, what a bloody cliché I am.

She hesitates, her drink in her hand.

I don’t want her to sit, I don’t. And I can’t tell her I’m also angry because she’s beautiful. I can’t tell her that she’s ruining my business, that her fiery temper and her bright, pretty smiles make me want to take her to bed and keep both of those things all to myself, and I’m furious about it.

I’m furious with myself for being such a basic male animal.

I’m furious with how out of control I feel around her, because if there’s one thing I hate it’s being out of control. I felt the same way when Dad told me that Mum was very sick and that there was nothing the doctors could do.

But I have to get some control somehow, because even I don’t like my own behaviour. Being repeatedly rude to her isn’t the way, especially not when the rest of the village think she’s somekind of goddess descended from the heavens to dispense joy and sunbeams to the population at large.

They already think I’m aloof and distant, and since that’s better than them feeling sorry for me, the poor little mite who lost his mother so early, I let them think that. But I can’t have them also thinking I’m rude. That would be a killer for the business.

‘My great-grandfather first opened the shop,’ I say, giving her a grain of truth. ‘He opened it in the thirties, so it’s been in the village for over eighty years.’

Her fair brows draw together and she’s still for a second, clearly weighing up whether to stay or go. And I want her to go. Yes, very definitely I want her to go.

But she doesn’t.

She continues to sit at my table and she puts her drink back down. ‘My great-grandmother used to live here. She probably knew him.’

‘Kathryn Jones,’ I say. That’s well-known history here. ‘They say she didnotlike my great-grandfather.’

Kate leans back in her chair and a spark of amusement glitters in her eyes. ‘Can’t say I blame her. If he was anything like you.’

My muscles tighten at her humour, at the way she looks at me, but I fight my physical reaction and ignore the comment. ‘So are you Kate or Kathryn?’ I ask, mystified at myself and why I even care.

‘Kathryn,’ she says. ‘But everyone calls me Kate.’

It’s not lost on me, the significance of being named after our feuding great-grandparents.

‘You didn’t know anything about Wychtree, then?’ I pick up my scotch and take a healthy sip. I can’t believe I’m actually having a somewhat normal conversation with her, not when everything inside me feels so tight and hot.

‘No. Mum never talked about it. The first I knew of it was after she died and I inherited the shop here. Apparently my grandmother owned it before that, and she died in 2018, so Mum only had it a few years herself. She didn’t do anything with it, just let it stand empty.’

‘Yes, I remember. That shop has had various incarnations over the years, but nothing ever stuck.’

Anyway, it appears we have something in common. We both lost our mothers. I feel an odd tug at that, but ignore it.

‘Why books?’ I’m unable to sound anything but challenging.

‘Because I’ve always loved reading.’ She gives me a little half-smile, as if she wants me to share in something, but I don’t know what she wants me to share in and smiling at her is dangerous, so I don’t. ‘It was actually a dream of mine to open my own bookshop, but I never got around to it. I had a publishing job in London as an assistant editor instead.’

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