“You think I don’t know that?” Zara glared at her brother. “I meant, her grave is in LA.”
Andrew sighed, wishing he was better at this whole single dad thing.
For the past three years, they had all been in survival mode. He had felt pulled in a dozen different directions while he tried to juggle the kids’ school and sports schedules, his book deadlines, publicity tours for his two books that had come out since Tracy’s death, as well as the movie that had been made of his first book, released at Christmastime.
It had left little room for him to think, breathe, grieve for his wife, who had died two years after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia.
A year ago, he finally felt as if things were coming together. And then everything had gone to hell.
“We will still make trips to LA to put flowers on her grave,” he promised.
“It won’t be the same,” she muttered.
He wanted to tell her that was an inescapable part of being human. Everything changed. Life was a constantly evolving river, ever reshaping its banks.
He didn’t bother waxing philosophical. It only annoyed his kids and they were pulling up to a convenient parking space near the bookstore anyway.
The Rainy Day Bookshop had a charming facade, but unfortunately that was about the only charming part about the store. The interior was cramped, dark, dingy. Utterly unappealing.
Still, it was the only game in town and did carry a nice selection of kids books and esoteric research books.
Finn was first out of his seat belt. He opened his door, jumped out of the Range Rover and raced for the entrance to the bookshop.
“Slow down,” Zara snapped. She unfastened her own seat belt and rushed after her brother, slamming the door behind her.
Andrew followed more slowly, feeling as if he were a decade older than his forty-three years.
Some days his kids exhausted him. As much as he adored them, they had boundless energy and they seemed to expend most of it bickering with each other.
Andrew didn’t really consider himself an older father—he had been thirty-three when Zara was born, thirty-seven for Finn—but there were definitely times when he wished he and Tracy hadn’t waited five years after they married to start having kids.
He pushed open the bookstore door to be met by the musty, delicious, addictive smell of dusty paper, old wood and possibilities.
If he closed his eyes, he would probably enjoy the vibe of The Rainy Day Bookshop more.
Books were cluttered everywhere, stacked sometimes two or three deep on shelves. Finding the exact book you wanted in this bookstore would be like trying to find a single star in a sky full of countless flickering lights. It would require patience, dedication and more than a bit of luck.
Still, it was a bookstore.
As long as he could remember, Andrew had always felt most at home in the world when he was surrounded by books.
Finn must have found his way to the bathroom. Zara, he saw, was already looking through the books about horses, her favorite subject right now. If he had purchased a ranch in Montana instead of a crumbling mansion in Oregon, she probably would have been much happier.
She looked up as he approached. “You said I could get two books, right?”
“That’s right.”
She sent him a sidelong look, obviously calculating how far she could push. “What if I find three?”
“We can talk about it.”
Both of them knew Andrew was a sucker, especially when it came to books. He had a hard time saying no to his kids, which he knew wasn’t helpful for any of them.
He could certainly afford three books for his daughter, if that would make her happy. His success and the subsequent movie and licensing deals had been lucrative beyond anything he might have imagined in his wildest dreams when he first decided he wanted to become a writer.
“I think I want to get two books about horses, one fiction and one nonfiction, and then maybe that new book in the Castle Door series.”
“Okay. Maybe you can help Finn find a book, too.”
