Breaking the Ice

Chapter 4

4

“I’m getting a tattoo,” Sam announced as soon as Bec picked up the phone .

“So… your fear of needles has improved then?”

“I am not frightened of needles.”

“You fainted when you took Jess to the hospital for her stitches last year.”

“It was a big needle.”

“And tattoos aren’t?”

“No. They’re little needles.”

“Lots of little needles.”

Samantha gulped as her forehead grew uncomfortably warm. Just breathe. You can do this, you can do this. “Sounds like you don’t approve?”

“I approve wholeheartedly. Good on you I say. Maybe just a little puzzled as to why suddenly you would do something so… out of character.”

“I’ve just had some time on my hands to think lately and I realized that I’ve been so busy having a career that I’ve missed out on life a bit.”

“A bit? Sam, the world could have exploded into a massive fireball and I doubt you’d have noticed. Haven’t I been telling you you’ve needed a life for years?”

“Well yes… you have… which is why I’m taking your advice and living a bit. I mean, where has working hard got me? Replaced by a moronic yuppie twenty-two-year-old, with a string of beige boyfriends to my name. I’m boring, Bec. Time to make some changes.”

“Sing it, sister!”

“I’m making a to-do list.”

“Imagine my surprise,” Bec mocked good-naturedly.

Samantha knew what Bec thought of her obsessive list keeping but she couldn’t stop. It gave her the control and direction she’d craved during the unsettled years of her childhood.

“What’s on it, then?”

“Just the tattoo so far.”

“One thing is not a list, babe.”

“I know. But change isn’t going to happen overnight.”

“Okay, okay,” Bec sighed. “So… what sort of tat and where?”

“Something small.” Very small. “Maybe a butterfly on my ankle.”

“Or your shoulder?”

“Maybe a hip.”

“You could be really adventurous and go for a boob. Something that just peeks out from your bra a little.”

Samantha gulped again. Just talking about it was making her sick. “The appointment is in three days so I have time to ponder.”

“Bravo. I’m proud of you Sam. How’s the job hunt going?”

“Apparently I’m too over-qualified for temp jobs and I’m not interested in anything too permanent. I want to be able to go when Bob comes crawling back.”

“Of course. For what it’s worth, I have a good feeling about today. I bet you’re going to walk out your door and the perfect job is just going to fall into your lap.”

Samantha stopped and stared at the transformation to Birdie’s shop as she exited the building. It had been boarded up for the last three weeks and Nick had been nowhere in sight.

Trepidation had twisted her insides at the construction noise that could be heard daily.

What was he doing?

Didn’t he know the charm of the place was its old worldliness? The musty smell of the pre-loved paperbacks, the rickety metal shelves, the beanbag corner, the lurid shag carpet that Birdie had installed after floods from the seventies had ruined the old one. Surely, he wasn’t going to modernize it? Make it all shiny and new?

Birdie had a cult following; women came to her place for a dash of yesteryear. They came because they were romance junkies and searching through Birdie’s shelves never failed to turn up a gem. Birdie’s was addictive.

What if he wasn’t going to continue with selling romance at all? What if he went totally modern and refused to stock them? What if he was some kind of literary snob who poo-pooed the genre and was only going to sell new stuff? Was he going to totally alienate Birdie’s faithful customers and ruin her wonderful legacy?

And, as she stood before the newly unveiled shopfront, all her doubts of the last few weeks were confirmed. It was horrible! The simplicity of Birdie’s clear glass had been replaced by the sophisticated elegance of a sleek dark tint.

The simple painted sign that had adorned the window for fifty years and read Birdie’s Second-Hand Romance Bookshop was now a garish neon creation in ice blue. Beneath it more neon. Coffee , it read. And, Welcome .

Oh God! He’d turned it into one of those horrible modern places where people did coffee while they discussed high-powered deals. Traded futures. Hired and fired.

The books were superfluous.

Birdie would be rolling in her grave. Her precious books had been the one and only focus – she hadn’t needed neon or coffee. The books sold themselves. None of this power-lunch crap. You didn’t need a business suit and a wallet full of cash to be welcome at Birdie’s. Second-hand books were cheap and dressing down was practically mandatory.

Nick appeared at the door and gave her a cheery wave. He was wearing fashionably tatty jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Despite her anger at him she felt the pure masculinity of him reach out and touch her through the glass .

For the love of all that was holy.

Pity he’d just desecrated something sacred because, good looking or not, he’d definitely blown it in her eyes. He may be God’s gift to women but he obviously had no soul!

He posted a help-wanted sign in the door and came out to join her, whistling a happy tune, a huge grin splitting his face, deepening the cleft in his chin and twinkling in his eyes. “Look straight to you?” he asked with a dazzling smile.

Yikes. How many hearts had he broken because he just didn’t know how to switch that thing off? Luckily, after five years of witnessing a parade of women come and go during his brief visits home, she was immune to his charms.

“Ahh, sure,” she said, her gaze drawn to the utterly lovely upward curve of his mouth.

“So.” He spread his arms. “What do you think?”

He was proud, that was obvious, but did he truly not realize the sacrilege he’d committed?

“I liked it better the old way.”

“Oh dear. Do I detect a note of hostility, Sam?”

He turned teasing brown eyes on her and once again she felt overwhelmed by his pure masculinity. She gave a little sniff. “ Disappointment. Birdie will be rolling in her grave.”

Oh, God. She sounded so stuffy! But if Nick thought he could look good and smile and all would be forgiven for the travesty in front of her, then he was wrong.

“Oh don’t be such a fuddy-duddy,” he said with a laugh then grabbed her hand as he pulled her toward the shop. “Come on, I’ll show you round.”

The bell over the door dinged as it always had. It was a comforting, familiar noise and Samantha was slightly mollified.

“Ta-da!” he announced as he slowly pivoted her around to take in all his renovations.

She saw an antique coffee machine popular in tea houses back in the twenties and a fat, squishy, beat-up, leather couch taking pride of place in the window. There were scatter cushions, beanbags, antique beaded lamps and art deco coffee tables in what looked like an old-fashioned common area.

The space was a mishmash of pre-loved fixtures and furniture and looked so inviting she just wanted to grab a book and throw herself among it. Samantha watched the people rushing by outside and loved that she could see out but they couldn’t see in. It was like a secret world where you could indulge your romance book fetish without fear of ridicule or recrimination.

“Oh…” She breathed out on a pent-up breath. “It’s… wonderful.” She’d been wrong. Birdie would have loved this.

Samantha turned to the back and noticed a new computer system set up on Birdie’s old counter which had been sanded and revarnished but was definitely the same mahogany piece that she’d sat behind every day of her life.

There was even a bowl of mints sitting beside the computer.

And then there were the books. He hadn’t changed a thing with them. Oh sure, they’d been rearranged to make the best use of the available space and the bookshelves were now sturdy wood, but the books were the same. Thousands and thousands of spines jutted out, their booky smell lost among the newer aromas of leather, sawdust and varnish.

Hopefully it wouldn’t be long until their distinctive aroma permeated the entire store again as it had in Birdie’s day. Because that had always been the best part of walking into the shop – the almost tangible aroma of aged ink on weathered paper.

She could feel her fingers starting to tingle and recognized the familiar feeling she always experienced in Birdie’s. She wanted to walk around the shelves and find something to read.

A couple of newer shelves near the counter caught her eye and she wandered over to them. They were chock-full with Westerns. Vintage, paperback Westerns.

She selected one and looked at it. “Branching out?” she murmured, turning to him.

“You can’t beat a good Larry and Stretch ,” he said with a grin.

She looked at him dubiously. “You’re seriously going to stock Westerns?”

“Why not?”

“How about because 99 per cent of your customer base are women and they come here for books written by women about women.”

Surely, he had to know that? What was he even doing here if he didn’t know that…