Free The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

over.
    â€œReally, I have to get back,” she said. “Well done again, though.”
    He stood up as she put her coat on and moved to leave. She gave him a half smile as they stood waiting for a parade of strollers to squeeze past them.
    â€œNina,” said Griffin, suddenly emboldened as she finally moved forward.
    She turned. “Yes?”
    â€œNow that we’re not working together . . . now that we’re no longer colleagues and I broke up with my girlfriend . . . will you come for a drink with me? You know. Just a drink? Please?”
    She looked at his pale, anxious face and felt suddenly awkward, and slightly more determined. For just a second she hovered, thinking. Then she decided.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. “I have to . . . I have to call a man about a thing.”
    She walked past the strollers and the shopping bags and thesteamed-up windows and the schoolchildren throwing things at one another and the crumpled bags of sugar and discarded plates and greasy cups, and she pushed open the door and walked into the wet street. Then, pulling up her hood, she pulled out her phone, knowing that if she didn’t do it now, she never would.
    â€œAlasdair,” she said as he picked up. “Thank you for your incredibly kind offer. Yes please.”

Chapter Seven
    E ven Surinder’s enthusiasm for the plan had started to evaporate now that Nina had called around the authorities and been told that to get a license to sell from the van would be difficult bordering on impossible. Apparently it would be much easier if she just wanted to flog burgers and cups of tea and dodgy hot dogs.
    She had pointed out to the man at the office that surely it would be much easier to accidentally kill a member of the public with a dodgy burger than with a book, and he had replied with no little snippiness in his voice that she obviously hadn’t read
Das Kapital
. She had to admit that she hadn’t and they didn’t get much farther than that.
    But still, here she was on the bus again, armed with the
Lark Rise to Candleford
trilogy as well as the entire
Outlander
series to sink into on the journey.
    It turned cooler the farther north they went, but it was still clear, that astonishing eastern light making Edinburgh glimmer like Moscow as they passed through. The great bridge feltonce more like an astonishing gateway into the unknown; then farther north and north again, the cities and towns and traffic and people falling away, leaving long lazy red trains swaying alongside the twisting roads; tiny villages, endless birds soaring through valleys, and sheep everywhere in the lush green grass, under the long rays of the late-setting sun.
    She ate cherry Bakewells from the service station as she lost herself in the pages of her book, and when she finally alighted at Kirrinfief, she felt like she was coming home, something absolutely reinforced by Edwin and Alasdair’s smiling faces when she pushed open the door of the pub.
    â€œThe book girl!” they said, pleased, and Alasdair poured her half a lager without waiting for her order. He must have noticed her struggling with the local beer last time. “What have you brought us?”
    Nina had, of course, come well prepared, and unzipped her case to bring out a selection of thrillers and crime novels, which the men fell upon happily.
    â€œSo,” said Edwin finally. “You’re really going to fill this truck full of books?”
    Alasdair was happily rooting around for the keys to the van. Nina had handed over the check that, when cashed, would represent, more or less, her entire severance payment.
    â€œThat’s the idea.”
    It hadn’t been too bad going to work now that she had a plan. She had a few weeks’ notice to work out, but nobody was going to care very much if she took long lunches, or came in late, or carted home trunkfuls of books every night, which she was doing. She felt as though she was