Page 8 of The Pumpkin Pie Book Nook

Mrs. Bishop: And tomorrow we’ll open the first clue!!!!

Robyn shook her head at Mrs. Bishop’s use of exclamations, but still replied: Can’t wait. Looking forward to it.

Her friends Madison, Kit, Zoe, and Emily soon chimed in with their enthusiasm. They were all Maple Falls locals, women Robyn had known in one way or another for years through holidays, summer visits, and her sister Krista’s ever-expanding circle of friends.

Madison, Zoe, and Emily had always felt a little old for her when Robyn was a teenager… because, well, they were older. Just by a few years, but it felt much wider when she was younger. Robyn had been quieter back then, usually tucked off to the side with Meg and with Lily Hawthorne, Jackson and Liam’s sister, trading books and inside jokes while the rest of the town moved around them.

But adulthood had a funny way of closing those gaps. Now they were all friends in their own right, pulled together by the strange gravitational force of Maple Falls.

Meg, of course, had been Robyn’s best friend longest of all. She’d understood the bookstore part of Robyn’s heart before anyone else did.

Robyn was still waiting to hear back from her sister, Krista. She’d snapped a picture of the manuscript earlier and sent it to her, but hadn’t heard back yet. That wasn’t unusual. Krista was traveling Europe with her boyfriend, Joe, and it was probably late at night there when Robyn had sent it.

That was the one downfall to her sister’s absence—she couldn’t tell her everything that was happening in real time. Soon, they’d have to have a real conversation, one where they drank cups of coffee in their respectable time zones, and she could fill her in on everything: Tyler, the bookshop, Great-Grandma Isabel’s story. Christmas couldn’t come fast enough.

Robyn also thought of her grandmother Alice. She was Isabel’s daughter and a book lover too, but Alice and her grandfather Walt were currently downstate visiting her sister for a few more days now that Alice’s hip was doing better. It was odd not having them in town. Robyn was used to popping in every other day, helping out where she could. She cherished those moments and would miss them when she was back at Yale.

Robyn would be sure to fill her in when they came back on Wednesday. Alice would be delighted by the discovery of the manuscript, Robyn was sure of it. Just like she knew she’d join the book club too, on her good days, anyway.

Robyn’s gaze drifted to the manuscript resting on the side table beside her. Isabel’s ribbon-tied book looked fragile in the lamplight; it had been waiting a century to be touched again.

She picked it up and opened it to the first page. She’d started to read it earlier and promptly set it back down, her nerves getting the best of her. What if she didn’t like it? What if her great-grandmother was a terrible writer? Or an amazing writer who made Robyn doubt her talent and everything she’d ever written?

But now the first meeting of the book club was tomorrow, she couldn’t procrastinate any longer.

Robyn studied the manuscript; the loops of the handwriting were neat and confident. The voice on the page was gentle and vivid at once, setting and mood stitched together perfectly. Isabel had done a brilliant job with the sensory details. She could picture everything, the story pulling her right in. Robyn could feel herself in it. As if some part of her had come from these pages.

She meant to read only a chapter or two, turn in early, but the story drew her in completely. It was a cozy, witchy romance threaded with a hint of danger. The heroine forced to overcome a curse in a town humming with secrets.

By the time Robyn looked up again, the hot apple cider she’d poured earlier had gone lukewarm on the table.

Her eyelids felt heavy.

She should go upstairs. She should wash her face, lock up properly, climb into bed in Meg’s apartment above the bookstore.

Instead, she shifted deeper into the chair, pulled the blanket higher, and rested the manuscript against her stomach.

The twinkle lights blurred softly as her eyes drifted shut.

And sometime between one sentence and the next, Robyn fell asleep with a story in her hands and warm, coffee-colored eyes on her mind.

The man she always pictured in the quiet hours of the night. The one whose approval had started to matter more than she ever wanted to admit.

FOUR

TYLER

By ten, the house had settled into its familiar nighttime hush. After dinner, homework, a video call with his parents, watering his garden, and the usual flood of WhatsApp messages from the family group chat—most of them courtesy of his two brothers—the night was finally his own.

Emma was asleep down the hall—door cracked open, a slip of light spilling into the hall from the small constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars scattered across her ceiling. Tyler had checked on her twice already. A habit that stuck with him through the years, back when she was a toddler and would wake him up throughout the night. But she wasn’t a toddler anymore. She was in second grade, and her life was growing bigger than him every day. And yeah, that terrified him, too.

He shut the door to his office with a soft click and exhaled, leaving the worry behind. He wasn’t the first father to realize his daughter was growing up too quickly.

This room was his—his one adult space in a house that otherwise belonged to stuffed animals, school projects, and the plethora of presents she’d got last month for her birthday. Tyler had long ago learned that there were certain benefits to being the first and only grandchild in the family.

The office was all dark wood and clean lines with a heavy walnut desk, a leather chair, and shelves packed with hardcovers. A single desk lamp cast a warm pool of light across his keyboard, leaving the corners of the room in shadow.

Tyler wore navy linen pajamas with thin white stripes and leather slippers that somehow made him feel like a man who had his life together. Even if his sink currently held an abandoned dinosaur-shaped bowl from dinner. His glasses sat on the desk beside the laptop—he didn’t need them during the day, but at night, after hours of screens and manuscripts, they were a must. He’d decided long ago there was nothing heroic about eyestrain.