After he’d eaten, he took a shower then went back to the outside table to call into his office in San Francisco. Talking through the day’s priorities with Lisa, he flicked between his calendar and the app he used to manage his projects.
“Have you made any progress with the Austen development?” Lisa asked once they’d gone through the most pressing questions.
He sat back in his chair and considered the view in front of him. Part of that scenery was Wagner land, but he might need more if he was going to do anything substantial with it. Although there was a baseline return needed on any investment, he always aimed higher.
“Not yet,” he said. An image of Avery flashed into his mind, cranky and beautiful on the riverside path. “I think I’ll stay a bit longer. Can you cancel the New York trip for now? Tell them I’ll reschedule when I’m in the clear.”
“Sure,” Lisa said. “Oh, and the reporter from Finance Today magazine called again. She wants to include comments from you in the article, but she said they’ll run with what they have if you’re not available.”
He knew the reporter was already profiling several other people in the piece she was writing about self-made millionaires under thirty, so he’d hoped that if he maintained a firm “no comment” stance, she would move on to an easier subject and leave him out of it. He had no interest in becoming a personality in the financial media, or anywhere else. But she was obviously too good at her job to be put off by his passive obstruction.
“They can publish without anything from me,” he said. “Commenting will only give it oxygen.”
“Okay.” There was a pause, and he imagined Lisa making a note in the tracking app she used to manage her day. “Have you got everything you need there?”
Did he have everything he needed?
Until yesterday, he would have insisted that he did. But now, back in his hometown, sitting by himself in this palatial house just along the river from the girl he’d left behind, he wasn’t so sure.
Chapter Four
Avery was pinning up the last blanket in the closet under the stairs when there was a knock at the door. She ducked a little as she came out, to avoid hitting her head, and went to see who it was.
She opened the door to find Cece and Birdie dressed like extras in a BBC production, both in empire-silhouette dresses accessorized with gloves and bonnets. Birdie’s was pale blue, and Cece’s was white with tiny sprigs of flowers.
“Oh, my. You look very…authentic.”
It was exactly the right thing to say. They glowed with pleasure.
“How very kind of you to say so,” Cece said demurely as they came in. “We’re on our way to book club.”
Avery thought she detected a certain Britishness in her aunt’s pronunciation. “You’re still Jane Austen fans then?”
It seemed inevitable that there’d be a Jane Austen book club in a place that shared a name with the legendary author. According to the local historical society, the town’s founder, George Bunzel, had been determined to name it after himself. Fortunately, his wife Ida—who was a Jane Austen fan herself—convinced him otherwise. If not for George’s devotion to Ida, they might now be living in Bunzel, Oregon. Which didn’t have quite the same ring to it.
“Oh, yes.” Cece produced a fan out of nowhere and flipped it open coquettishly. “We’re even having our first ever Austen festival here in town next weekend, and showing Pride and Prejudice on an outdoor movie screen. We’ve been planning it with our book club and the chamber of commerce for ages.”
“It’s going to be called ‘Austen in Austen,’” Birdie said. “That was Lila’s idea. Even though she’s not here, we keep her up to date with book club news.”
“Oh, Lila. How is she?” Avery asked. Lila Marshall was the founder of the book club. Everyone in town knew she’d had ups and downs in life, and the local bookstore, Pemberley Books, had been her retreat and comfort. But when Theo Rutherford arrived in Austen—Professor Theo Rutherford, complete with velvety English accent and gentlemanly manners—bookish Lila found her life turned upside down again. In a very good way.
“She and Theo are in Vermont now,” Cece said. “And they just had a baby!”
“A little boy,” Birdie added. “Isn’t that lovely?”
“It really is.” Avery smiled at their enthusiasm, and at the thought of Lila finding such happiness. “And the festival sounds like fun. Maybe I’ll come back to visit for that. I have to sort out Dad’s things anyway.”
She hadn’t made any kind of start, so the house still felt like he might walk back in at any moment. And she still needed to deal with all the legal stuff—the will, and the financial details. It felt like too much right now, but she knew it had to be faced.
“We’ll help you with all that,” Birdie said. “Don’t worry.”
“Thank you,” Avery said. Then she had a thought. “Is the store not open today?”
Her aunts had run a small store—named Persuasions, as a nod to another of Jane Austen’s books—on the main street for as long as she could remember. It stocked an eclectic collection of gifts and home decor, and it was very popular with locals and visitors alike despite the aunts’ slightly haphazard approach to opening hours.
“Our part-time sales assistant is looking after things while we go to morning tea with the book club,” Cece said. “We’re reading Pride and Prejudice again, in preparation for the festival.”
“She only wrote six books, so we’ve been rereading for a few years now,” Birdie explained. “Thank goodness we got Mansfield Park out of the way last month. It’s not my favorite,” she confessed.
“Ah,” Avery said. “I see the difficulty. So you still only read Jane Austen?”
Cece shook her head behind her fan. “No, not at all. We also read Austen-related books. Maeve at the bookstore—you know, your friend Emma’s aunt—gets them for us. Reimaginings, sequels, fan fiction, biographies…” Her voice trailed off as she looked over the fan at something behind Avery. “What are you doing there?”
Avery turned to see Ace grinning at them from the closet, sitting comfortably on the blanket she’d just pinned up. “Oh, Ace.” She tugged at the blanket and he reluctantly moved off it. “I’m trying to make a soundproof studio where I can call in for the radio show. It’s lucky the stairs are so steep.”
Her aunts looked impressed. “Well, isn’t that fancy,” said Birdie. “When you called this morning to say you were staying longer in town, I didn’t know you’d need a special room and everything.”
Avery shook yellow dog hair off the blanket and draped it over her arm. “It’s pretty low tech, but the blankets should keep it quiet and dull any echo.”
“Will you take the phone in there?” Cece asked.
“No, I can call in via my computer, using a headpiece, so I’ll take that in with me. And Ace, probably. Hopefully we’ll be able to squeeze in okay.”
The canine in question was leaning against her, one paw on her foot as he listened attentively.