Page 72 of A Novel Summer
It was hard to ask forgiveness if you couldn’t give it yourself.
Fifty-One
In the morning, Shelby went to the hospital right after a quick room-service breakfast with Anders. She found Doug standing outside Colleen’s room looking pensive. He was dressed in a polo shirt and khaki pants and was pale despite his tan. She wondered if he was sleeping at the hospital or going back and forth between there and Hunter’s apartment.
“Hey, Doug,” she said gently. She was half-hidden behind the towering fruit basket she’d picked up at a gift shop near her hotel. It was filled with pears and pineapple, Colleen’s favorites.
“Shelby?”
Why did he look so surprised? Hadn’t Pam and Annie given them the green light for visitation?
“How’s she doing?” Shelby shifted the basket and reached forward to give him a hug, but he pulled away from her. She stepped back. “Is this a bad time?”
Before he could answer, Colleen called out, “I want to talk to her!”
Doug put a hand on her shoulder. “Please don’t let her get worked up. I’m going for coffee. It’ll give you time to talk.”
Confused, Shelby inched into the room. It was sunny and bright and more cheerful than she expected. “Hey,” she said, setting the fruit basket on the windowsill. “How’re you feeling? You look good.” Her hair was loose and lustrous, and she seemed flush with new energy. Shelby walked around to the side of the bed to hug her, but Colleen shrank away. What was going on?
“I read your book,” Colleen said. The expression on her face made Shelby’s stomach drop.
“Okay,” she said, sitting in the nearest chair.
“You took the hardest summer of my life and turned it into story material,” Colleen said.
Shelby was taken aback. “Colleen, the book isn’t about you! It’s about a bookstore, but there are a lot of bookstores. And the heroine isn’t pregnant. If anything, she’s more like me. I wrotemyexperience this summer. The love interest—”
“Bullshit, Shelby! The main character might lose her family bookstore because of her health issues. It might as well be titledColleen Miller Loses a Bookstore.”
“Colleen, absolutely not! I would never—”
“The new bookstore in town...the flood. All of it! You know, I was the one who defended you to Hunter. Now I see she was right. She was right all along.”
Shelby’s eyes filled with tears.This couldn’t be happening.“I thought you’d like the bookshop setting. It’s homage. It comes from my deep feelings for my summers working at Land’s End. And my heroine saves her bookstore in the end. She triumphs.”
“But in real life, ‘she’ doesn’t,” Colleen said.
“Colleen, if there was anything I can do to help convince your parents not to sell, I’ll do it. I could stay longer and—”
“It’s too late. Kate Hendrik made an offer on the bookstore.”
“What?” Shelby said.
Colleen shifted and seemed to wince slightly. “Yes. So, you finished your novel without knowing the ending of the story. My story.”
Shelby tried to imagine the wooden Land’s End sign replaced with one that read Hendrik’s.
Her phone rang with a call from Hunter. She sent it to voicemail.
“Just go,” Colleen said dully.
Shelby was too stunned to move. Her phone vibrated with a text.Are you still in Boston? I need to talk to you. ASAP.She ignored it, turning back to Colleen, who’d moved onto her side, facing away from her with pillows supporting her enormous belly.
“Shelby, I think you should leave,” Doug said from the doorway.
She didn’t want to go, but she wouldn’t argue with him. She stood awkwardly and walked to the door. Maybe that was why Hunter was trying to reach her: she wanted to warn her. Or admonish her.
“And take that with you,” Colleen said. Shelby turned around, and Doug handed her the gift basket.
