Free The Bookshop on the Corner (A Gingerbread Cafe story) by Rebecca Raisin

their chairs, the girls plied Missy with questions.
    I watched them talk animatedly, and thought there must be nothing as special in the world as having friends like these. And I giggled to myself, because they’d forgotten all about my date with Ridge, leaving me time to think about what it all meant, and how I really felt.
    The girls’ chatter fell away, and suddenly all eyes were on me.
    “Don’t think you gettin’ away with not tellin’ us everythin’,” CeeCee said, using her particular brand of stare-down tactic.
    Hand on chest, I said, “Who — me?”
    “Let’s hear it, honey,” Missy said. “I need my beauty sleep, and I want to know
all
the details before I go.”
    Their gazes bored into me, and I knew they wanted me to be open to the idea of love. I’d put up so many barriers, and made so many excuses, but they could see through them.
    “When I close up tomorrow, he’ll be there to whisk me away to the woods, so let’s hope this is more of a romance and not a horror story, don’t you think?”
    Lil laughed, and said, “Maybe it’s more of an erotic story — you ever think of that?”
    I blushed to the roots of my hair. “If I had a cushion I would lob it at you now.”
    She giggled. “And that’s exactly how I know it’s crossed your mind. When you become Sarah shot-putter.”
    “You know me so well…” Our words floated off into the moonlit night, like stars.

Chapter Eight
    When I arrived at the bookshop the next morning, it was blanketed in darkness. Pre-dawn there was a bite to the air. I peeked through the window as I always did to try and catch the books fluttering about.
    In the shadows the shop looked asleep, no movement, no color. It was a beautiful sight, made even more perfect by the fact the books were mostly second-hand and had that loved feel about them. Hardbacks with brown leather covers looked like austere grandparents perched alongside a pile of colorful paperback chick-lit books.
    I opened the door, and let the musty scent of the shop wash over me. Old book scent, it should be bottled. Treading quietly, I scanned the shop to see if there’d been any changes since I’d left the day before.
    A thin dog-eared novel hung slightly over the edge of one of the shelves, as if it wanted to be found and read again. As if it needed more love after a lifetime of its pages being turned and bent by the pads of so many fingers.
    Most booksellers frowned upon dog-earing a book, but that was how you knew it was special. It had lived, and been reincarnated again with another owner; there were notes on the margins, and words highlighted. With a book like that, when you gently pried open the cover you could hear whispers from the past float out from the pages.
    I took the little book that craved another reader and popped it in the front bay window, to read once I’d made some coffee.
    Shuffling through to the kitchen, I switched on the kettle. A steaming cup of coffee and a few chapters would do just fine until the sun rose. Quiet time, when the streets were deserted, and the birds still slumbered, was like a panacea for me. Time to revel in reading and fire up my blood with caffeine before I became bookseller Sarah, and not so much whimsical Sarah.
    The kettle whistled for attention, so I filled up the coffee pot and wandered to the front of the shop and set myself up in the bay window. Sipping my coffee, I rested against old pillows, and had just opened my book when a movement out of the corner of my eye startled me.
    Shrugging down so I couldn’t be seen, I glanced out of the window. Holy moly. It was him. The sexy reporter. What was he doing…running? His athletic frame whizzed by one side of the street and back down the other. Was something chasing him, or was he doing that for fun? Earplugs sat inside his ears; he certainly looked kitted out for exercise: shorty shorts, vest top, and sneakers. His man bulges pumped on opposite sides to his stride, and when I say man bulges, I