Page 7 of Ella and the Enchanted Bookshop

Mazy sighed. “I was hoping you would have said that handsome young man had bought it for you.”

I did my best to keep my face neutral as I directed Bill while he climbed up the steps and onto the horse. Little did she know her wish had been granted. But there was no way I was telling them that. If I did, it would be all over the gossip chain by the next morning. Asher, if he were still in town, would probably be embarrassed, and Casey would use it as another excuse to tell me I wasn’t doing enough around the ranch.

No thank you.

By the time the hour was over, I felt much lighter than I had since coming home. The seniors had kept me in stitches, and the sunshine had done its magic, calming me with a heavy dose of vitamin D.

Unfortunately, I still had lots of work to do, unsaddling the horses and getting them back in their stalls. Casey never appeared again, and neither Harper nor Jaelyne came to help either. But, I told myself, that just meant I got to crank my favorite music up in the barn and sing to my heart’s content. After all, the horses never complained that I played my country music too loud.

By the time I finished putting the horses away and tidying up, it was nearly nine at night, and I was ravenous. In my annoyance at Casey, I’d forgotten to eat, and the cupcake I’d eaten on the way home from the bookstore was long gone.

But the fridge held little relief. Casey hadn’t gone shopping yet, and I hadn’t had the time. And though Casey had spoken the truth, and there was a miniature Funfetti Happy Birthday cake on the top shelf, three-quarters of it had been eaten. A streak of rebellion shot through me, and I did something I hadn’t done in years.

It was my twenty-third birthday, darn it. And I was going to eat my cake in peace. Cake for dinner it would be.

Snatching the last tiny piece of cake, I headed back to my bedroom. I would pay for it tomorrow when I had to wake up at the crack of dawn, but right now, I didn’t care. So I took an Epsom salt bath, changed into my favorite fuzzy pajamas, and plopped down on my bed with my cake and my new books beside me.

In search of escape, I started with the regency book Asher had bought me. But to my annoyance, I couldn’t focus on the plot or even the words on the page. Instead, I found myself thinking over and over again about the man who had bought it for me.

He was an officer in the Air Force, and I was pretty sure he was in his mid-twenties. Twenty-six or seven, maybe? It made sense that he would visit now that he was stationed in Utah. But what did his dad do? Buying the chalet couldn’t have been cheap. The place was gigantic. So the man had to have money. I could only assume he was going to start the resort up again, but there was no way to know for sure.

After trying three times to read the same page, I gave up on the Regency and put it on my bookstand, determined to enjoy it later when I wasn’t so tired. I would need to go to bed soon, as the horses would need tending again in the morning. But first, I decided to peek at the book Miss Margaret had given me as well. It would just be a quick look, I promised myself.

When I lugged the giant leather tome onto my bed, I was hit once more by the sheer size of the thing. And by its age. The book smelled deliciously old. Upon first glance, it looked like a traditional fairy tale book. It even had a blond girl on the front page wearing some sort of medieval dress. She was standing with two people I assumed were her parents. There was intricate filigree at the corner of each page, and a beautiful painted background of a green countryside with an ancient manor behind the characters.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Ella. She was the child of a wealthy merchant, living with her parents in their house in the countryside. Ella had a happy life, playing in the fields by day and listening to stories her mother told the family at night.

I smiled. Miss Margaret had known just what kind of comfort read I needed. But then again, I wasn’t surprised. She just knew these kinds of things.

Sadly, Ella’s mother took sick one day and died not long after. Her father, desirous of finding a mother to raise his poor child, remarried a wealthy woman who had two daughters of her own. But not long after the marriage took place, he died as well.

My throat grew thick as I read these words. They weren’t new. Cinderella had been my favorite story since I was a child. At first, I had loved it simply because I shared the heroine’s name. But since my own parents had died, it had become even more special–a beacon of hope, in a way, for the life I was living.

I turned the page to read the second chapter. But to my surprise, the page was…

Blank.

There were no pictures. No words. Not even filigree in the corners. Just… nothing.

Confused, I went back to the page before and tried to see whether the pages had stuck together. But it wasn’t that either.

I thought back to when Miss Margaret had given it to me. What was it that she had said? Something about loaning the book out to people who needed it.

Who needed to borrow a nearly blank book with a single chapter?

A knock sounded at my door, startling me as my stepsister walked in.

“Harper.” I shut the book. “What’s up?” I glanced at the wall. “It’s kind of late.”

She frowned at the dirty plate on my bed. “Did you eat the rest of the cake?”

I blinked at her. “There was only one piece left.”

She put her hands on her hips. “And you ate it?”

“Your mom said it was for my birthday.” I sat up. “I thought you’d already had some.”

Harper rolled her eyes. “Jaelyne must have eaten my piece. Look, Mom said to tell you that she emailed you the specs for that horse she wants to buy. She wants you to look at it. Let her know what you think.”