Page 55 of Meet Me at the Christmas Cottage
If he’d only ever had one, that meant…“Bree?” Bronte’s stomach dipped. She shouldn’t have said anything. Dani had told her Jonah would kill her if he found out she’d told Bronte about Bree. Would Jonah really be mad at Dani? Bronte wasn’t good at this friend thing.
But Jonah just let out a chuckle. “I shouldn’t be surprised you know. Who told you about Bree?”
“Dani.” Bronte ducked her head. “Please don’t hate her. She was just…” But Bronte didn’t know why Dani had decided to tell her about Jonah’s ex.
“I should have known.” Jonah pushed out a chuckle and ran his hand down his face. “This town is so small, nothing gets by anyone.”
Biting her lip, Bronte considered dropping the subject, but her curiosity won out. “What happened?” Why would anyone give someone like Jonah up?
“We had our whole lives planned out. We got engaged right out of high school, we were going to have six kids, all with names starting with J?—”
“Oof, that’s a little excessive, don’t you think?”
Jonah grimaced. “Yeah, well, we were engaged forever, never really setting a date, and when I came home on a leave about seven years ago, she let me know that things had changed and she’d decided she didn’t want a family. Or to be married to a military man. And she wasn’t interested in waiting until I got out.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“That had to be hard.”
“It was for a while, but after things calmed down, I realized that we were young when we made those plans.” His shoulder rose in a shrug. “Maybe I was still holding out for the six kids—not with names all starting with J—but Bree changed her mind, and that was okay. I guess we just weren’t meant to be.”
Even if he seemed nonchalant about it, Bronte still heard the underlying hurt in his voice. She regretted she had ever questioned that he never felt true pain as she had. “Still, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks, but I’m good now.”
He said that, but Bronte heard something in his voice. Regret, maybe?
Chill bit Bronte’s cheeks as she tucked further into her coat. The sun started disappearing over the water. Maybe they should have taken Liam up on his offer of a ride back, but then they wouldn’t have gotten ice cream, and Bronte would already be back to work. She’d enjoyed the break and wasn’t ready for this day to end.
“Question.” Bronte took the last bite of her ice cream and tossed the empty cup and spoon into a nearby trash can.
“Shoot,” Jonah said, finishing the last of his ice cream and disposing of his trash as well.
“You said that if you weren’t a surgeon, you wanted to open a bookstore on the island.” Jonah stiffened next to her, so she hurried on. “So if you could put the bookstore anywhere here, where would it be?”
They paused at the end of the sidewalk. Jonah considered her for a breath before grabbing her hand. “Come here.” He pulled her farther across Jonathon Boulevard and down Main Street.
Bronte squeaked in surprise but followed. They didn’t stop until they’d made it to the other end of Main Street, stopping in front of an empty shop. Jonah held his hand toward the dark store. “This would be my bookstore.”
Bronte narrowed her eyes at him, a grin on her face. The letters on the window that’d once spelled outIsland Bookstorewere peeling and half gone, spellingI l nd Boo stoinstead. She pressed her face to the window and looked inside.
Empty shelves lined three of the walls. A dark chandelier hung down in the middle of the room, a broken couch under it. There looked to be a good layer of dirt and dust on the wood floors, but with a little elbow grease, they would be stunning. A wooden counter stood off to the side, and Bronte could imagine Jonah in the space, recommending books, face lit up when he talked about his favorite ones.
“Jonah, this is perfect!” Bronte jumped back from the window.
Jonah grinned. “Yes! This used to be one of my favorite shops as a kid. It started having trouble when Mr. Johnson—that’s the owner—had a heart attack, and then the lack of tourism just drove it into the ground, and well—” Jonah shrugged his shoulders.
“I think this would be amazing.” Something had come alive in Jonah’s eyes as he’d shown her the bookshop. “I agree with you. The island needs a bookstore.”
“Yeah? I’ve been thinking about giving Mr. Johnson a call and seeing if I could work out a deal with him. There are even a couple of little apartments over the top. It probably needs a lot of work, but it’d be cool.”
“No, Jonah, it’d be amazing. I really think you should do it.” Bronte clutched his arm.
“I don’t know. It would be great, but I’m supposed to be the island doctor, which, let me remind you, is a very stable job. Being a business owner is tough. At least the clinic is already established. How am I supposed to support a family on a dream? I don’t know if I even have the business sense to make an indie bookstore work. Maybe if I called Oliver…”
Bronte frowned. “Who’s Oliver?”
