Free The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald Page B

sugar? Though I don’t actually know if I’ve got any milk.’
    â€˜Doesn’t matter,’ he said quickly. ‘I can have it black too. It’s no problem.’
    â€˜But you normally have it with milk and sugar?’
    â€˜Sometimes I do.’
    â€˜I’m going to guess you like both,’ she said.
    â€˜Yeah … It’s probably not so much the milk, though I must admit I usually go for cream, or the sugar as having to choose, if that makes sense?’
    She knew all too well what he meant.
    â€˜Sometimes I just think there are too many choices in life,’ he continued. ‘It gets tough.’ He turned towards her, and said: ‘Sometimes I almost wish I could get sick just so I could lie in bed all day. Not have to do a thing. No decisions for days.’
    â€˜That’s what books are for,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘The perfect excuse to do nothing. Make no decisions.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Sure. Do you want to borrow one?’
    Sara had meant it more as a joke, but he answered her seriously and slightly hesitantly. ‘A book?’
    â€˜Yeah, a book.’ It wasn’t actually such a bad idea, Sara thought.
    â€˜The one you’re reading, is it good? Could I borrow it?’ he asked, adding quickly: ‘Not ’til you’ve finished it yourself, I mean.’
    â€˜I’ve already read it a few times.’ A few times more than she wanted to admit. She must be up into double figures by now.
    â€˜A few times? It must be good then.’
    She held it out to him with conflicting feelings. She hoped it wouldn’t put him off reading for good. She would just have to suggest something tougher next time. A hard-boiled thriller, maybe. Michael Connelly, nothing but dark manliness and violence and alcoholic policemen. Or maybe not Connelly, then. But when she thought about it, it would be hard to find a manly thriller which didn’t involve alcohol problems.
    She glanced at him. He was hardly a Jack Reacher. Still, Reacher never drank more than a beer now and then, which might be OK. She would just have to keep thinking about it.
    George touched the book doubtfully. On the cover, Bridget was curled up on a windowsill, smoking. One of the early paperback editions, before the films were made.
    â€˜Keep it,’ she said.
    He placed it uncertainly in his lap. ‘Do you need a ride anywhere?’ he asked, as though one favour immediately demanded another, which was illogical since he had already been driving her around without asking for anything in return.
    â€˜George,’ she said slowly. ‘There’s one thing you could do for me. The gas stove.’
    He looked at her uneasily. ‘Is there something wrong with it?’
    â€˜I don’t know how it works.’
    He seemed relieved. ‘I do,’ he said, and went ahead of her into the house.
    After having revealed the mysteries of the gas stove, George drove Sara into town to buy food to cook on it. He dropped her off by the hardware store along from Amazing Grace and strolled off for his third coffee of the day.
    The Hardware Store had earned its name because it had, at one point in time, sold the kind of tools and machines that every self-respecting man and farmer needed, and every self-respecting boy wanted. Now it was more like a supermarket which also sold hammers.
    A little bell jingled when she opened the door and the man behind the till looked up. She hesitated for a moment in the doorway – as though she was waiting for some sign from Amy, a vision of some kind that would show her what to say or do. Then she nodded nervously at him and entered the shop.
    The place was nice, in its own way. Aside from various tools, nails, screws and old fishing rods, there were refrigerators stocked with dairy products and a bit of meat, a few shelves of bread and cakes, a shelf of canned goods and a sparse selection of ice cream and candy. She walked