Page 87 of All Inn Thyme
The woman shakes her head. “No. No, I’m not. I’m sorry. I’m just having a really hard day.”
Beth waves her over. “Come on over and join us. I’m Beth.”
The woman looks at us tentatively, then nods. Allie pulls out a chair for her and she sits, letting her bag drop to the floor with a load thunk.
Allie looks down. “Geez, what do you have in there? Bricks?”
“No, books. I have my ‘reading now,’ my ‘just read,’ and a few back-up ‘emergency’ books.” She wipes her eyes again.
Beth leans forward and says to us, “She’s in,” then she turns to the woman. “I’m an author. I get it. Books are everything.”
The mystery redhead, who looks like a real-life Merida fromBrave, now smiles even though she’s clearly distraught about something.
“What happened?” Allie says, looking concerned.
“I just got to town and I leased a building for my bookstore. Apparently, it was all a scam. The scammer took my money and ran.” She sniffs. “Now I can’t open my shop here in town.”
“Wait, do you own the new bookstore? Turn the Paige?” Beth asks excitedly.
“Yes, but now I can’t open it thanks to this jerk. I put everything I had into that bookstore. Every last dime. I have no way to make a living now and nowhere to go.”
“We could ask Preston to look into it,” Beth suggests to the group.
The woman looks at us in disgust. “Preston Steele?”
“Yeah…?” Allie says, confused.
“He’s the jerk who bought the building I rented!”
“Whoa,” Beth says. “There must be some mistake. We can talk to him.”
“You know him?” the desperate woman asks.
“Yeah,” Allie says. “It doesn’t sound like something he would intentionally do.”
“Where are you staying?” I ask. While I’m usually the quiet one of the group, for some reason, I know I like this girl and I want us to help her.
“I have to put my inventory in storage. I’ll be in my van until I can figure out a job and a place to stay while I save up again, file all my permits and find a new place to lease.”
I mouth “garden shed” to Beth. She smiles and taps into her phone. I’m guessing she’s texting Evan.
“Let’s get you a sandwich and drink. My treat,” Allie offers. “What would you like to drink?”
The woman sniffs and smiles. “I wouldn’t turn down a vanilla latte. Thank you.”
“Coming right up.”
Beth’s phone pings with a return text and she smiles. “You can stay in our garden shed. There’s a little apartment on top of it. It’s yours if you want it until you can get things sorted.”
“You guys are doing too much. I want to say no, but honestly, I have nowhere to go.” She looks desperate and sullen.
“We’ve all used the garden shed for a safe place to land from time to time. It’s not far from here, at the Golden Gable Inn. Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah, I grew up here. My grandfather raised me. He lives in the Freedom Valley Assisted Living facility now. I moved back to open my shop to be near him.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Beth says, rubbing her belly, leaning forward for a cookie.
“I don’t know how I’m going to open my shop now. This feels like it’s over before it even began,” Paige says, defeated.
“Don’t worry, we’ll talk to Preston,” Beth says confidently.
