A tiny gasp behind Paul’s knee. “I am!”
“Please come with me. I’d like you to meet someone special.”
Paul followed the woman deeper into the store with Josie in tow.
“You saw the fiction section. Here’s nonfiction.” Miss Girard’s arm drew figures in the air, and she walked quick and light, her toes turned out, her full skirt swinging around her knees. She rounded the last bookshelf and stopped, pointing her foot and circling it behind the other, like a dancer at the ballet. “Voilà! The children’s section.”
The same jumble of books but more colorful and with a low green table in the middle.
“Very nice,” Paul said. “Josie, would you like to look at the books?”
She clung to his leg.
Miss Girard pressed up to the tips of her toes—just like at the ballet—and rummaged through a box on the shelf. Then she spun back and effortlessly dropped to her knees before Paul.
She held one hand across her chest, topped by a papier-mâché puppet. “Josie, this is my friend Monsieur Meow. He is very shy.” The puppet quivered against her shoulder, and the young woman patted its back. “There, there, Monsieur Meow. This is Josie, and she’s a nice little girl.”
Paul stared down at the bookseller, her hair pinned up in front and tumbling in waves to her narrow shoulders. He’d never met anyone like her, so ... ethereal. He’d never used that word in a sentence, but no other word fit.
Josie peeked from behind Paul’s leg.
Miss Girard kept stroking the puppet’s back. “Perhaps, Josie, if you pet him like this, he won’t be so shy.”
Josie eased out and rubbed the puppet’s gray-and-white striped head. “There, there, Monsieur Meow. I think you’re a pretty cat.”
The puppet lifted its head, turned to Josie with outstretched paws, then turned to Miss Girard’s ear.
“Is that so?” Miss Girard gave Josie a nod. “He thinks you’re pretty too.”
Josie giggled.
“Hi, Josie. I’m glad you came to my store,” Miss Girard said in a funny voice. “What stories do you like?”
“Everything.” Josie talked straight to the puppet. “My daddy reads to me every night.”
Miss Girard flicked a smile up to Paul, then addressed Josie. “I’m sure your mommy reads to you during the day.”
A slash of pain, and Paul braced himself against it.
Josie shook her head. “My nanny does.”
“My wife...” Paul cleared his raspy throat. “Her mother died almost a year ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Miss Girard looked up to him, her gaze penetrating, understanding, feeling his grief, his loneliness. For one moment she seemed to bear the burden of his pain on her slight shoulders.
For one moment Paul breathed more easily. “Thank you.”
Miss Girard returned her attention to Josie. Her smile wavered. “Monsieur Meow would like to pick books for you to look at. Would you like to sit at the table?”
Josie climbed into a little chair and stroked the table as if it were an enormous emerald. “It’s so green.”
Miss Girard darted around, collecting books. “That’s because my store is called Green Leaf Books. See?” She flapped a book open and pointed to a bookplate. “Each has a green leaf inside.”
“Pretty,” Josie said.
Miss Girard left a stack of books for her, and Josie opened the top volume.
Paul didn’t want the bookseller to return to selling books yet. “Which came first? The store’s name or the bookplates?”
