Chris went back to his stool and leaned on the bar, staring at his phone, a distant look on his face. After several minutes passed, he hopped down and said, “I’ll be back. I need to make a call.”
He touched Natalie’s back as he walked past, a somber expression on his face.
“What’s that all about?” Grace turned and watched Chris leave the bar.
Natalie shook her head. “I swear I have no idea.”
Chapter Fifteen
Fred Lattimore was greeting shoppers as they came into Wyndham Beach Reads on Saturday morning. He was wearing his usual khakis with a neatly buttoned shirt—which Liddy figured someone else had buttoned for him—and a tan bucket hat with a few fishing lures fastened on.
“Come on in. Nice to see you brought the kids. We have a whole section of children’s books, sonny,” he told one little boy, who ignored him completely in his race to the back of the shop for story time. “Slow down, little fella!” Fred called after him. “No running!”
He later complained to Liddy and Evelyn: “Why are all these kids in my shop? This is a bookstore, not a playroom. What are these parents thinking, letting those kids go off on their own like that?”
“Ah, Fred, they’re thinking the kids might like to hear a story,” Evelyn told him.
“Well, that’s what bedtime is for. Bedtime stories,” he grumbled. “And what’s with all of ’em crowding into the back of the room like that?”
The back door opened, and in walked Grace in her Mary Poppins dress and hat, holding Daisy by the hand. The kids who’d already gathered grew animated and excited at the sight of their story reader.
“And who the devil is that?” Fred demanded. He started to totter toward the back of the shop, and Liddy stopped him.
“Fred, we do a story hour every Saturday. People bring in their kids and we have someone”—Liddy nodded in Grace’s direction—“read a book aloud to the children.”
“Well, I’ll put a stop to that.” He tried to get around Liddy, but she blocked his way.
“Fred. It sells a lot of books.”
“Huh?” He stopped fighting her for a moment.
“We sell a ton of books on Saturday because of the story hour. People bring in their kids or their grandkids, and the kids listen to a story. Then nine times out of ten, the kids love the story so much they want to buy a copy of the book to take home so they can read it again.”
“They do?”
Liddy nodded. “They do. And while their parents are here, waiting for the story hour to end so they can take their kids home, they wander around the store and pick up books for themselves.”
“Well.” Fred stood stone-still while apparently trying to process this information. “Well then. All right.”
Carl showed up five minutes later to take his dad home. By then, Fred had forgotten how lucrative the children’s story hour was, and he complained to Carl about his shop being overrun with kids.
“I hate what’s happened to Fred,” Evelyn told Liddy. “He was the best guy to work for. It’s so sad to see him like this.”
“It is, for everyone. I don’t mind him coming in and thinking he owns the shop. But I’m not gonna lie—I would mind if he started chasing people out, the way he was going to chase out the kids earlier.”
“Yeah, that would be bad,” Evelyn agreed.
“Bad for the store’s reputation, bad for our bottom line.”
A few stragglers came in and raced to the children’s section. The last one in was JoJo.
“Did Grace start reading yet?” Tuck asked.
“No, but she’s just about to,” Liddy told him.
“Hurry, then, Jo. Go on back.” He shooed his granddaughter along, then leaned an elbow on the counter and gave Liddy a smile. “How’s your day going so far?”
“Good. But it’s early.” She found it easy to smile back.
“How about you and me—” Tuck was interrupted by a furious JoJo, who hit his legs like a torpedo.
“I want to go home.” Angry tears poured down her face. “I . . . want . . . to . . . go . . . home.”
“Jo, you just got here. Grace is going to read you all a story,” Tuck told her.
“No! I don’t want a story. I want to go home now!”
Liddy came out from behind the counter and knelt next to JoJo, who was sobbing, her face hidden in the side of her grandfather’s leg.
“JoJo, what happened? Tell me and we’ll—”
“No.” She mumbled something else, and Tuck gave up.
He lifted her in his arms and said, “All right, Jo. I’m taking you home. But can you tell us what happened?”
She shook her head and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
“I’ll talk to you later,” he told Liddy, and left the store with JoJo in his arms.
Liddy walked back to the children’s area, mystified. What could possibly have happened in the few seconds JoJo had been in the back of the shop?
When Liddy rounded the corner, the source of JoJo’s despair was clear as Liddy looked upon the scene through JoJo’s eyes. Another little girl was in her place on Grace’s lap, turning the pages.
Another little girl was Grace’s special friend, too.
It had never occurred to Liddy that JoJo would see Daisy’s presence that morning as a betrayal of the special bond she’d thought she and Grace shared, that the coveted place on Grace’s lap was hers and hers alone.
“Well, damn,” Liddy muttered, drawing a disapproving glance from a father standing nearby. She pulled her phone from her pocket and called Tuck’s cell, and left a message. “I think I figured out why JoJo was so distressed. Give me a call when you can.”
Maggie came into the shop around one, looking for Grace and Daisy.
“Grace said she and Daisy were going to have lunch at Beach Fries,” Liddy told her.
“That’s nice they’re getting to spend a little time together.” Maggie paused at the shelf where the new biographies were displayed. “How are your book clubs doing? I keep meaning to ask, but then when I see you, we get to talking about something else, and I forget.”
“They’re doing really well. Almost too well. We’ve had so many show up for the mystery group we’re splitting off thrillers as a separate group. And romance has already splintered off women’s fiction. Nonfiction is growing, and I may have to start a second group for just biographies.”
“Wow, it sounds great. So much interest in town.”
“Well, it’s not all sunshine, Mags. Some members of the romance group seem to think it’s true-confessions night. Like when someone commented on a particularly hot scene, LeeAnn said something like, ‘If you think that’s hot, let me tell you about the time . . .’”
“She did not.” Maggie’s eyes widened.
“Oh, yes, she did. She just went on and on, no one saying a thing. I mean, you could have heard a pin drop in this place. You could hear her all the way up here, and everyone in the shop just stopped in their tracks. I don’t know if the other ladies in the book club were too shocked to speak or if they were living vicariously through LeeAnn. Either way, it had a lot of people talking.” Liddy reflected for a moment. “Which could result in more readers showing up next week.”