Page 42 of A Novel Love Story

Neither of which Rachel Flowers wrote in abundance. Too bad she hadn’t written a hot priest romance. That could’ve really come in handy here. No, instead she wrote a grumpy, handsome man in a bookstore. What an abysmal waste.

Will made breakfast, and afterward I decided to get out of their hair for a while and go explore Eloraton. Do all the big stops—the clock tower, the jewelry store that was only open when Mercury was in retrograde, Sweeties (again), the art gallery, the old movie theater, the waterfall …

Anders’s sharp gaze flashed in my mind, and the sound of the slap, and I winced.

Or maybenotthe waterfall …

It was so frustrating—why would he care if I went there or not? Or was his character flaw the curmudgeon who didn’t believe in true love? The worst that could happen, if I went, was … what? I’d get wet? I’d stand under the waterfall alone and wish I had someone to kiss, just to see if the magic worked on people outside of fiction?

But even if it did, I had no one to kiss.

The magic would be wasted on me.

Speaking of Anders, what had he been doing, sneaking around in the rain? I descended the steps out back into the garden, taking a to-go cup of coffee with me. Junie and Will had gone to get dressed, and get started on painting for the day, so I was sure I wouldn’t be followed.

The pergola sat unassuming at the back of the property, almost hidden between the overgrown rosebushes.

I had begun to pick my way through the garden, when something caught the corner of my eye. Across the street, in front of the butcher shop, Lily stooped to pick up the pages of her book again. A few of them had fluttered out into the middle of the road. I glanced back to the pergola.It could wait, I figured, and I hopped the side fence in the garden and crossed the road to her. I picked up the pages in the street. They were hazy, the illustration blurred, like the menu at the café. Another thing half-imagined.

I handed them to her.

Lily thanked me, and shoved them back into their proper place. “I keep losing them,” she said with a frustrated huff, and then squinted at me. “You’re Uncle Andie’s friend, aren’t you? The weird girl who almost ran him over?”

“I guess I am,” I replied dryly, not surprised atallthat Anders had slandered my name even to an eight-year-old. “That book looks really well loved.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“What are you doing out here?”

She shrugged. “Mom had to go tend to the bees again, so I had to go get Maya to open the shop. Apparently, the bees want to murder the queen.”

“I’m sure your mom will stop them.”

“Or the bees will raise a new queen in secret, and when she’s old enough, the hive will rise up and kill the old queen.” She gave it a thought. “I feel bad for the new queen. Well, the old one, too, but especially the new one. What if the new one also does bad? Then the hive’ll raiseanotherone and then the new queen’ll be killed by the same bees that raised her. They’re ruthless.”

“When you put it like that …” I muttered, thinking that maybe this kid needed to read about unicorns and princesses a little more. Or maybe tardigrades.

“Bees can form a hive in three months, and start making honey in forty-five days,” she went on matter-of-factly, and looked down at her book, keeping it so tightly closed her fingers were turning pale. “And I can’t even fix my book.”

“To be fair, books are hard to fix.”

Lily frowned, squinting up at me in the morning sun. “How do you know?”

“Because I’ve done it.”

“You have?” She sounded skeptical.

I couldn’t blame her.

“Sure.” I shrugged. “I’ve done it plenty of times.”

Lily eyed me suspiciously. “If Uncle Andie couldn’t do it, how can you?”

“Because I might just be better than Anders.” I tried not to soundtoosmug.

She narrowed her eyes. This kid really was a tough sell.

I held out my hand. “Here, can I see it?”

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