Chapter One
“Not a good one.”
Jax Sutherland pulled the books out of the carton and put them on her cart. “Don’t say that. You haven’t even read it.”
“Not a good one.”
She glanced up at Ramon and sighed. “You’re being so judgy.”
“Time for a snack.”
“In your mind, it’s always time for a snack and no.”
The large African gray parrot huffed loudly, sounding amazingly like Jax’s mother when she was annoyed, then flew out of the stockroom and into the store. Jax turned her attention back to the book Ramon had dissed, running her fingers across the beautiful floral cover. While she could never admit it to the parrot or anyone, she’d read an advanced copy of the novel in question and well, he was right. Despite the glowing reviews and the upscale advertising campaign, it really hadn’t been a very good story.
“But it will be someone’s favorite,” she told herself as she wheeled the now-full cart into the main store. “Because there’s a person for every book.”
She steered toward the New Fiction section, careful to avoid bumping into the dozens of customers browsing, reading and talking, and the construction crew working by the east wall. The Painted Lady Bookstore was a vibrant part of the local community here in Port Palmas, California. The glorious three-story-plus-basement Victorian mansion had started life in the late 1800s as a family home. Over the past hundred and fifty years, it had been a speakeasy and a boardinghouse, then was briefly abandoned in the 1960s before being bought by her grandparents in the early 1970s and turned into a bookstore. There were three stories of retail, including the basement, with the former bedrooms, living and storage spaces hosting a genre and complemented by appropriate decor. The mystery room had faux murder weapons on display, as well as a very nice painting of Sherlock Holmes done by a local artist. The fantasy room had a four-foot crocheted dragon, complete with very detailed wings. The basement housed both a horror section and games room, while the smallest upstairs bedroom was painted to look like a jungle scene and belonged to Ramon. He had a perch with his potty tray and his three-sided covered cage where he retreated to spend the night.
On the third floor was a spacious two-bedroom apartment with a full kitchen and a widow’s walk that offered unobstructed views of the ocean. Since the end of her marriage, Jax had lived there on the alternate weeks she wasn’t with her two kids.
Ever since she’d first walked into the Painted Lady Bookstore when she was ten years old, she’d loved everything about the place. She adored the tall ceilings, the big windows, the way the staircase creaked and how when a storm raged outside, the old house always made her feel safe. She belonged here—she always had.
As she put out the new books, pausing to answer questions about when a favorite author would have a new release or toschedule an appointment to discuss a charity event, she reveled in the happiness that was her life. Despite the divorce last year, she was doing great. Everyone she loved was happy and healthy, which was kind of amazing.
“Hey, Jax, can we talk?”
She turned as her ex-husband approached, pleased she’d reached the place where the sight of him didn’t dredge up a bucket of negative emotions. The split had been relatively amicable—if she ignored how stunned she’d been when he’d announced he wanted out of their marriage. One second they’d been an averagely happy couple, at least from her perspective. The next he’d been packing his things and moving out.
It had been a Thursday night, she remembered. The kids had gone to bed and she and Harris had been discussing the very sad funeral they’d attended that afternoon. They’d lost a friend, Kim, who had been about their age—something that had shocked them both. Only instead of sharing how badly he felt, Harris had said he was leaving her.
He’d walked out before she’d had the chance to catch her breath, leaving her to explain to their two children why their father wasn’t joining them for breakfast.
But they’d gotten through it and the kids were thriving, so yay them. They’d both moved on. Harris a little more than her, what with him dating nearly every single, semi-age-appropriate female in a fifty-mile radius, while she’d yet to even consider going out with a man, but that was just a teeny-tiny detail that mattered to no one.
She glanced at the large wall clock that had once graced the wall of the San Francisco train station. It was barely after one in the afternoon.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for a game?”
Harris was the baseball coach at Port Palmas High School. Spring was the height of his season.
He followed her gaze to the clock, then nodded. “I only have a few minutes but I wanted to speak to you. Can we go into your office?”
“Sure.”
She left the cart in what had been the original kitchen and now housed cookbooks, along with a nice selection of kitchen gadgets, aprons, spices and canister sets, and led the way to the back of the store where they squeezed into her small, cluttered, windowless space. Seconds later Ramon flew in and settled on one of the tall bookcases.
“Hey, my man,” Harris said. “How’s it hanging?”
Jax held in a groan. “Stop saying that to him. You know he loves to repeat everything we say.”
“He’s a guy. It’s an appropriate question.”
She shut the door and they sat on opposites sides of her desk. In the second it took him to start talking, she wondered if he wanted to change weeks or was thinking about where to take the kids on vacation this year. Since Xander, their youngest, had turned five three years ago, Harris had started a tradition of taking both kids to a different ballpark over the summer. Last year they’d driven to Cleveland where they’d spent a week exploring the area and going to baseball games.
“I want to amend the parenting plan.”
What he said and what she’d been thinking were so at odds, she needed a couple of breaths to process. Her first instinct was to say absolutely not. They’d worked hard on making sure they had everything in place to give their children the best possible life. Harris, the child of divorce himself, had hated going back and forth between his mom’s and his dad’s places and had wanted something different for their children. It had taken Jax a few days of internet research to come up with the idea of leaving the kids in what had been the family home while she and Harris alternated weeks when they were with them. Although it had taken them a few months to settle into the new routine,now it was simply how things were. When she wasn’t with her children, she lived in the bookstore.
