The Little Bookshop of Love Stories: A gorgeous feel good romance to escape with this summer!

by Jaimie Admans

‘He’d been playing around with illustrations from Pentamerone for a while. As a distraction after his sister’s death, a way of remembering a book she adored, a way of keeping himself busy … All of the above. He’d told me about the publishing deal he’d lost before, and I thought there’d be a gap in the market for a modernised Pentamerone, so I offered to pay him to sit there and finish the book he wanted to illustrate. He refused any money, of course, but he offered to help anyway. I knew he’d be the perfect person. That he’d keep to himself but he knew the shop well enough to answer any questions you had, and that he’d help if you needed it.’

  ‘Then why does Drake Farrer know everything there is to know about the shop?’

  ‘Because Drake Farrer hacked into my computer a few months ago.’

  ‘It’s Windows 98, it doesn’t take much hacking.’ I shake my head. ‘I mean, what?’

  ‘The cheeky blighter must’ve been watching the shop, and as soon as I went upstairs to answer a call of nature, he slipped in and got into the office. I’m not exactly speedy on the stairs, but I came down to find him sitting at my computer, feet up on the desk as bold as brass, laughing at me. And I know it’s my own fault for not locking up, but I trust people. I think people are generally good, and no one’s going to do anything untoward in a bookshop if they find it unattended for a few minutes, but unfortunately Drake Farrer is the exception to normal human decency.’

  ‘Why is the company called Farrer and Sons then? Plural sons?’

  ‘Because his father is a nasty bully who couldn’t accept that one of his sons might not want to follow in his corporate footsteps and tried to manipulate them both from a very young age into believing that they had no choice but to join his company. You can’t honestly have thought that Dimitri was going behind your back like that? Dimitri. He’s the sunniest sunshine pot of personality. He hasn’t got a dishonest bone in his body. I had to do some persuading to get him to go along with my plan because of that. He wasn’t too happy about it.’

  ‘Why didn’t he just tell me that?’ I say, more to myself than to Robert. ‘The other day in the shop when I found out. Why didn’t he say anything?’

  ‘Are you sure he didn’t?’ he says in that way of a gently leading question that makes you think about the answer even if you didn’t intend to.

  ‘A little bit,’ I stutter. ‘He did say some of it, but I thought he was rambling because he’d been caught. Why didn’t he just come out and say you’d sent him?’

  ‘Knowing Dimitri, it would’ve been because he didn’t want you to feel undermined. He didn’t want you to think I doubted your abilities or left you with a “makeshift babysitter”, which is how he put it when he was trying to talk me out of it.’

  ‘So he’d rather let me think badly of him than admit you thought I needed help in the beginning? He would rather walk away from what we had than admit you had doubts about leaving your bookshop to someone completely unprepared?’

  ‘I didn’t have doubts, Hallie. I’ve never once doubted you, only your own belief in yourself. I worried that you’d feel overwhelmed and walk away, and Once Upon A Page needs you as much as you need it.’

  An unexpected sob escapes my mouth and he reaches over to pat my hand. ‘Dimitri doesn’t do things without thinking them through first. He’s very calm and he takes his time over things, and he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t raise his voice to be heard over a crowd. He probably thought you needed space and went away to work out the best way to explain things.’

  All qualities I love about him. I keep going over all this in my head. It changes things a bit. But does it? He still lied to me. He still told me he was working on that book for a reason, although he’s been so vague about his deadline that I have to question whether I ever really believed him in the first place. He’s helped me so much, but now I don’t know if that was only because he was fulfilling some obligation to Robert.

  ‘It wasn’t that well planned out,’ Robert says when I put it into words. ‘It was a casual arrangement between friends. I asked him to go to the bookshop as often as he could …’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘No, not every day. He never came in every day. Has he been coming in every day with you?’

  ‘There are too many “every days” in that sentence.’

  Robert ignores my ignoring of the question and that beam breaks across his face again. ‘If he’s been coming in every day it’s because he likes you as much as I knew he would. I always wanted you two to meet. I suspected you’d get on well. I kept trying to get you to come in when I knew he’d be there, but it never worked. And whenever I tried to get him to stay, he’d scarper. This was for him too, Hallie. I was worried that he’d go back to hiding away inside his ghost house after I left, never venturing into the outside world, alone with his grief. He wasn’t in a good place, and I knew Della would want me to keep an eye on him. His father is a bitter, twisted, lonely old man, and people still think he lives in that big old mansion on Bodmin Lane. Dimitri needs to throw off those shackles, not withdraw further into them. He’s got the strength of character to go against what his father wanted and to stand up to his brother, but he’s stuck in this mansion full of beautiful ghosts. He needed someone to get him back into life, to make him want to live again, and if there’s anything that can shake up a life, it’s falling in love.’

  ‘He’s not in …’ I realise it doesn’t matter. I am in love with him, and every word Robert says makes me realise that I’ve got this all wrong. Another sob escapes and I try to disguise it with a hiccup but end up choking myself. I suddenly need to talk to him so desperately that I feel like I could teleport back to Buntingorden through sheer willpower alone. ‘Do you have his number?’

  ‘It’ll be somewhere in my address book …’ Robert gestures vaguely towards the flat behind us. ‘Now where did I put it? Let me think …’

  It’s too long. It’ll take too long.

  ‘Mum!’ I say suddenly, making both Robert and Heathcliff jump. ‘She’s got his number!’

  My phone is at my ear in such record timing that it’s a miracle I didn’t drop it. ‘Mum!’ I shout the second she answers. ‘You’ve got Dimitri’s number, right? I need you to phone him, give him my number and tell him to phone me back immediately. Have you got that?’

  ‘Ooh, Hallie, where are you? I ventured down to the shop today so see how your sister was doing and if there were any men browsing the Relationships section—’

  ‘Mum!’ I cut her off. I’m desperately trying to undo the biggest mistake I’ve ever made and she’s still going on about the Relationships section. ‘This is important. Can you please phone Dimitri, tell him I need him to call me right now! I’ll give you full credit for playing matchmaker!’

  I hang up before she gets a chance to ask any questions.

  It takes all eternity for my phone to ring. By the time it does, I think Robert’s collected another week’s pension, Heathcliff’s faded into old age, and I’ve got seventy-five per cent coverage of grey hair instead of the few pesky ones peeking through I had before. In reality it’s about five minutes, and when it does ring, it makes me jump so much that I nearly drop it into the lily pond in the corner of the garden. Knowing my luck, it’ll be a telemarketer saying, “Have you had an accident recently that wasn’t your fault?” Sometimes I start telling them about the accidents I’ve had recently that were my fault – they soon hang up.

  Mum’s number flashes up on the screen and I feel myself deflate.

  ‘I couldn’t get hold of him, Hal. I’ve tried three times but his phone rings out and then goes to voicemail. I’ll text you his number so you can try, I’m sure he won’t mind.’

  I hang up, and save the number she texts me, but I get exactly the same response when I try to call it – ringing and then voicemail.

  ‘Hallie, why don’t you sit down and take the weight off your feet?’ Robert’s gently thumbing through the copy of Pride and Prejudice now and he pats the bench beside him without looki
ng up. ‘I’m sure he’s busy and he’ll answer when he can.’

  ‘I should go. The last train’s at four, but if I leave now, I could get the earlier one and still have time to get over to his house tonight. I need to see him. I need him to explain all this in person. I need to apologise. And you. He needs to know that you’re the man who made his mum so happy.’ I try his number again but only his voicemail picks up and this isn’t something that can be left on an answering machine.

  ‘Hallie, I really think you should stay awhile. Look at this place. Isn’t it beautiful? Being this close to the ocean has a way of washing away all of life’s greatest troubles.’

  ‘I need to get back. The ocean will always be there, Dimitri won’t.’

  ‘Heathcliff needs a rest.’ Robert picks up the goldfish bowl and holds it protectively on his lap. ‘You can’t go yet, he hasn’t had time to recover his strength.’

  ‘Yeah, he really exerted himself when that whippet chased its ball on the sand just now,’ I mutter, wondering why he’s so keen for me to stay.

  There’s a wooden park bench against the wall of his flat and I go over and flop down on it, resting my head against the back and turning my face to the sun, trying to let it warm me because everything inside me feels cold even though it’s a warm June day.

  It isn’t long before Robert puts Heathcliff’s bowl down in the shade of the parasol and comes to sit next to me. He starts telling me about Della and how they bonded over their love of books, how it was actually her who read the first book inscription out loud and how it made him start actively seeking them out, how much he always wished he could find some of the writers and receivers of these books lost in this house of time, and it’s easy to lose myself for a while, only pressing redial every five minutes and getting the same response from Dimitri’s number.

  Robert keeps surreptitiously checking his watch when he thinks I’m not looking, and I’m convinced he had plans that he’s cancelled because of me. I think about starting to move, but when I suggest there’s still plenty of time to catch the two o’clock train, a look of worry crosses his face. ‘How about a nice walk on the beach? I can’t go far these days, but you can. Why don’t you collect some seashells for your next summer-themed window display?’

  I don’t bother questioning how he knows that. Dimitri must’ve told him. Which is comforting in a way. It kind of proves that it was Robert he was reporting back to, not his brother.

  I’ve given up on trying to guess why he’s so keen for me to stay. Maybe he’s lonely here? Maybe he misses Buntingorden and his little shop more than he lets on? If I stay much longer, I won’t have a hope of getting that earlier train, but even the four o’clock one will get me back to Buntingorden at ten. It won’t be too late to walk out to Bodmin Lane, and the beach does look tempting. It’s been ages since I was on the coast and until now, I’ve been too tense to appreciate it, but as I get up and walk to the end of the garden and take a deep breath of salty sea air and feel my lungs fill and my shoulders droop as I exhale, I think it might not be such a bad idea. ‘Fine.’ I sigh. ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘Take your time,’ he calls, sounding oddly victorious. ‘Heathcliff and I are going to read together.’

  I kick my shoes and socks off to leave them inside Robert’s gate and step out onto the sand. It’s a normal workday so the beach isn’t too crowded, and most people are down by the water’s edge, not this far up the sand, and I curl my toes into it, feeling the sun-warmed grains under my feet. I tell myself to relax. I’ve done everything I can for the time being, and apart from carrying on trying Dimitri’s number, there’s nothing I can do until I get home.

  I see why Robert came down here. The waves are breaking gently in the distance and looking out at the ocean makes me feel small and free, like it’s okay if I mess things up sometimes and make mistakes and drop things that aren’t meant to be dropped. It doesn’t matter if we’re all specks of nothing in the grand scheme of things. Coasts have a way of making you feel philosophical.

  I’ve only walked for a few minutes when I spot a very familiar figure coming towards me. I recognise the long limbs and stance. But it can’t be him. How long has it been since I last went to the optician? I take my glasses off and scrunch my eyes up before putting them back on again, like it might somehow reset my eyesight. The figure is still there in the distance and he’s looking around like he’s searching for something. And it still looks like him. ‘Dimitri?’ I call, expecting to be ignored because it must be a complete stranger, but he stops at my shout and puts his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun.

  And it’s definitely him. Or I’m hallucinating. The hallucination is more likely. I start running towards him, a bit like Bridget Jones chasing after Mark Darcy in her knickers while ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ plays encouragingly in the background. But thankfully with trousers on. No one wants to see me running around in my knickers, not even in times of romantic crisis.

  ‘Dimitri?’ I repeat in confusion when I get near enough not to shout, almost certain that the horizon is going to waver at any moment and he’s going to disappear like a mirage in a movie.

  His hair is sticking half up and half down, looking like it’s been worried by fingers pushed through it over and over, just like he does in the shop when he’s hunched over his sketchbook trying to get the perfect curve to an ogre’s claw.

  ‘Hallie? Oh thank God, at least I’m in the right place. I thought I was going to wander right to the edge of the British Isles before I found you.’ He speeds up, his boots sinking into the sand as he ambles towards me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I got lost. I took a wrong turn from the train station and somehow ended up on the beach. Robert said his apartment was right on the sand so I figured I’d eventually find it if I came this way.’ He’s quiet for a moment before he lets out a nervous laugh and his cheeks flare red. ‘You mean in Cornwall, not on the beach itself, don’t you?’

  It makes me giggle, possibly with a slight edge of hysteria creeping in. ‘I’ve been trying to call you.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t mean to worry you. Your mum texted that she’d given you my number so I guessed it was you, but I was already on my way, and on the phone in the middle of a crowded train carriage wasn’t the place to say everything I need to tell you.’

  ‘Did Robert know you were coming?’ I ask as things slot together in my head. The hushed conversation earlier, the constant checking of the time, and why he was so keen for me to stay.

  ‘Of course. Robert made me come. He phoned early this morning to say you’d spoken to one of the attendants in his building and were on the way down, and he had something he needed to tell us both, so I got the next train. I needed to see you, Hal. I’d been to the shop before that but it was early and you weren’t answering. At least now I know why.’

  ‘Robert’s spent the past hour trying to stop me leaving to catch the earlier train so I could get back to you quicker. And now I know why too.’

  I lose myself in his eyes and smile as we stand there staring at each other. My arms are sort of hovering in mid-air, about to hug him when I realise we do actually need to talk. The sight of him and the surprise of him being here has wiped everything else out of my mind and I can barely remember what went wrong between us in the first place.

  I stutter a few times but I can’t manage to get any words out, and Dimitri opens his arms and like most things lately, hugging him seems to be the answer to most of the world’s problems, so I jump on him and, dodging all the laws of the universe, he manages to stay upright. His arms close around me so tightly that it would probably be painful if it was anyone else, and he lifts me up as my arms tighten around his shoulders and I bury my face in his neck.

  ‘Are you crying?’

  ‘No. Yes. I don’t know, I’ve been in some permanent state of half-laughing and half-sobbing since I got here.’ I involuntarily do a demonstration and have to inhale and exhale slowly, knowing he
can feel every shudder of my breath.

  ‘I know everything, Dimitri.’ My voice is muffled against his sun-warmed skin when I can speak again. ‘I’m sorry for getting it so wrong. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I should’ve had more trust in you rather than waiting for the inevitable bad luck to follow me. Everything always goes wrong for me, and rather than enjoying the good things that were going right, I was waiting for the inevitable moment my luck ran out, and I thought that was it and I shut down.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Drake. I thought you’d never talk to me again if you found out. I know I should have told you who he was at the first moment you mentioned his name, but I missed my chance, and from then on, it got weirder and weirder that I hadn’t told you. It looked like I was up to something even though I wasn’t, and then he came into the shop that day when I was there, and I thought that would be it, but he didn’t say anything either, making it look like we were in it together. Which was exactly what he wanted. It gave him something to use against me.’

  His arms tighten and he spins us around, still defying the odds and managing to stay upright. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. I was head-over-heels and he knew it. Came over the night before the opening day and threw his weight around, tried to blackmail me into giving up my half of the house in exchange for his silence. I’ve had enough bullies in my life to have grown out of giving in to them, so I told him where to go. I was trying to find the right moment to tell you the truth, but it was so busy, and with the news people and the note writers who kept turning up …’

  ‘I know,’ I murmur, thinking back to all the times he did keep trying to tell me something.

  ‘I didn’t mean for you to find out like that. I didn’t think he’d do it because he’d be giving up the leverage he had over me. I thought I’d still have time after the opening day, and at least you’d finally know the truth even if you hated me for it.’

  ‘I get it, Dimitri,’ I say as close to his ear as I can get. ‘And I wouldn’t have hated you. I mean, it might’ve taken me a few days to think it through, but … I do know you wouldn’t do something like that.’