Olive’s father was not in the picture whatsoever. Depending on her mood, Emma found that state of affairs either far more simple or much more complicated.
Most of the time, she thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to deal with Kevin Hollis on the daily.
Sometimes, though, she couldn’t help thinking how much easier her path would be if she had someone else to help carry the relentless parenting load.
Kevin would have been a lousy father. She knew that. Emma hadn’t wanted to let her child anywhere near him and she had been relieved when he had signed away his parental rights, though it certainly complicated things for her.
Day care shouldn’t be as much of a problem in Wood Briar, especially if she could bring Olive along with her to the bookstore sometimes while she worked. Besides her mother and grandmother to help out on occasion, she still had friends in town, including one of her best friends, Josie. She was a stay-at-home mom with a daughter around Olive’s age as well as a baby boy. When Emma told her she was coming home for the summer, Josie immediately offered her babysitting services. Yes, it would still be day care but in a homier environment.
Somehow, the office was even less appealing than the rest of the bookstore—windowless, cluttered, with dingy carpet and acres of dark paneling.
Emma pulled out her phone, opening a new note she labeledPossible Changes.
Beneath that, she typed in big letters,Redecorate.
The place needed new lighting, new flooring, new paint and a whole hell of a lot of elbow grease. She definitely had her work cut out for her.
You’re going to screw this up, like you screw up everything else.
She tried to push away the negative voice in her head. She didn’t screw upeverything. She had already accomplished far more than she ever expected during those hard years when she only cared about her next fix.
“Ready for a tour?” Rosie asked.
Emma nodded, filled with renewed resolve. Her mother was counting on her to do a good job. More than that,Olivewas. Her daughter deserved a better life than the one they left behind. If she could prove herself at the bookstore, perhaps she could figure out a way to convince her mother she was capable of more.
She simply had to use the same stubborn determination she inherited from both her mother and grandmother, the grit that had pushed her this far.
Sylvia opted to stay near Olive in the play area, so Emma followed her mother through the crowded aisles, jotting copious notes as they went.
The store was mostly empty except for a few customers and two employees, one at the checkout counter and one stocking books. She saw one customer looking at magazines and a couple of teenage girls giggling over what looked like a paltry collection of romantasy titles.
The comforting, familiar smell of ink and paper surrounded them, along with something musty and old.
“As you can see, your grandmother has let a few things go,” her mom whispered.
Had it been hard for Rosie to turn over the operations of the bookstore to Sylvia?
Emma could remember how excited her mother had been when she purchased The Rainy Day Bookshop. When Rosie wasn’t helping Emma’s father at Lucas Construction, she had worked here part-time for the previous owner, a crusty old man who had been certain the future lay in renting out videotapes and CDs.
With big dreams and bigger ideas, Rosie had purchased it from him only a few months before the accident. Before everything had changed for all of them.
Now her mother ran the construction company alone and Grandma Sylvia dabbled in managing a floundering bookstore, between juggling her active social life and apparently roller skating.
Her mother was introducing Emma to the employee shelving books, a studious-looking boy named Ethan with shy dark eyes and a nervous smile, when Olive’s voice drifted to them from one aisle over.
“My name is Olive. What’s yours?”
A deep male voice answered something she couldn’t hear. It was possible Emma listened to far too many true-crime podcasts, but her mind immediately went on stranger-danger alert.
In midconversation, she walked away from her mother and Ethan to hurry around the endcap to the next aisle.
There, she found her daughter chattering away to a gorgeous guy in a snug T-shirt and jeans.
Unlike Emma, her three-year-old seemed to excel at finding hot guys.
“Olive, honey, I thought you were sitting with your grandmother in the play area. She was reading to you.”
“She fell asleep. I wanted another book. One about dogs.”
