Ink and Shadows(Secret, Book, & Scone Society #4)(28)
“Me too,” Jed said. There was a pause, and when he spoke next, his tone was frosty. “Just so you know. I’m not leaving until she’s okay. Like she’s back home and feeling one hundred percent okay.”
Jed wanted to pick a fight. Nora knew that he wasn’t mad at her, but at himself. After all this time, he was still filled with self-loathing for starting the fire that had injured his mother. Nora had given him a list of books to help him heal, but he’d refused to read it. He repeatedly told her that he didn’t need bibliotherapy or any other kind of therapy. He just needed to work as hard as he could so that his mother received the best possible care.
“You’re a good son, Jed.” Nora tried to infuse every word with tenderness and warmth. “Your mom will probably recover twice as fast because you’re there. Can I do anything for you while you’re away? Check on your house? Stop by your neighbor’s and see how Henry Higgins is doing?”
Jed exhaled into the phone. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m too distracted to think right now. I know there’s a big festival today, and you’ll be crazy busy, so go sell a billion books. My mom’s nurse is heading this way. I’ve gotta go.”
Nora opened her mouth to tell Jed to take care, but he was already gone.
“Sell a billion books,” Nora repeated. After last night, there was nothing she’d rather do.
*
She entered Miracle Books to find that Sheldon had already brewed coffee, arranged the book pockets, and straightened the shelves. He was cleaning the reading chairs with the hand vac when she tapped him on the elbow.
“Any signs of vandalism?” she asked when he put down the vacuum.
Ignoring her question, Sheldon enfolded her in his arms. “I won’t ask why you’re here when you could have slept in because I already know the answer. You needed to be among friends. Jane Austen, JRR Tolkien, and Sheldon Silverstein Vega.”
Sheldon’s bear hugs were magical. When Nora laid her cheek on his shoulder, she smelled peppermint and wool. With Sheldon’s arms around her, she felt safe. For someone who’d never been much of a hugger, Nora would accept one from Sheldon any day of the week.
When he released her, he wasn’t smiling. “Before you believe that your troubles went away just because I squeezed you like Charmin, you’d better take a look in the stockroom.”
The devils! Nora pictured Celeste’s statue and Marie’s sign as she hurried to the stockroom. When she saw a pumpkin sitting on the mailing counter, she moaned in relief.
Whoever transformed the pumpkin into a devil hadn’t put much effort into it. They’d used black marker to draw a malicious face and pointy beard on the gourd’s surface. After poking a pair of devil horns on either side of the pumpkin’s stem, they’d left it for Nora to find.
“Where was it?” she asked Sheldon.
“In the front planter. The marigolds are totally flattened.”
Nora studied the pumpkin. “I can use this.”
“You’re going to put it back out there?”
Nora grabbed a can of black spray paint from the supply shelf. “After I make some improvements.”
All the parking spots on Main Street were taken by the time Nora put the last of the food-themed paperbacks on the sidewalk table. The table wouldn’t be staffed, but Nora found that the presence of other people tended to discourage shoplifters. She also expected shoppers to stream in and out of Miracle Books all day long, so she decided to use the planter to prop the front door open. No one entering the bookstore could miss her newly improved pumpkin.
After covering the pumpkin with two coats of black spray paint, Nora had written a quote across the glossy surface with a white paint pen.
When she carried the finished product to Sheldon, he put on his glasses and read the text out loud, “‘You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food.’ ” He looked at Nora. “Who said that?”
“Chef Paul Prudhomme. He’s the jolly bearded guy on the Magic Seasoning labels. We have some of his cookbooks on the display table. Louisiana Kitchen is a classic. I thought it was a good quote for a farm-to-table celebration.”
Apparently, her customers agreed. Most people smiled after reading the quote and many took photos of the pumpkin.
A woman wearing a T-shirt that said I LIKE MY COWS AND MAYBE 3 PEOPLE asked Nora if she could leave a stack of paperbacks at the checkout counter.
“I want to get more from that sidewalk,” she said. “My town doesn’t have a bookstore or a library, so this is my chance to stock up. Cool pumpkin, by the way.”
Nora pulled Louisiana Kitchen from the table and slid it into an acrylic stand by the cash register where everyone could see it. She touched its cover with the tenderness of a mother caressing her child’s cheek.
Once again, a book had come to Nora’s rescue. The person who’d made the devil pumpkin had wanted to insult or scare her. However, thanks to a short but charming quote by a chef and cookbook author, the pumpkin that was meant to hurt her was generating sales and social media posts. It was setting a positive tone for everyone entering the shop. Nora wasn’t hurt or scared. She was delighted.
Books had saved her the last time she’d been scared too. After someone had thrown a brick through her front window, Sheldon had come up with the brilliant idea to turn the shattered window into a banned books display.