The Happily Ever After Bookstore by Bernadette Marie

Author:Bernadette Marie [Marie, Bernadette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781631122835
Publisher: 5 Prince Publishing

* * *

Pulling out a chair, Price sat down at one of the tables closest to the back of the store. Charlie and Sadie finished cleaning up before turning off the lights over the counter.

Price sipped his strong coffee, wincing at the taste. Well, he hadn’t come for coffee. He’d come for a conversation.

Charlie pulled a chair from the table for Sadie, and as she sat, she looked up at him with love in her eyes. Price noticed that Charlie’s eyes reciprocated that same love.

Lacing his fingers together, and resting them on the table, Charlie looked up at Price. “When did you meet my grandfather?”

Out of habit, Price picked up the coffee and took a sip. The coffee had grown cold and bitter. He swallowed hard, hoping his face hadn’t reacted.

“I met him when I was in my early twenties. I was on a train headed for the coast to audition for a scholarship. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember how we even got talking. But we sat together in the observation car for hours. During that time, he told me about his wife and how they’d met and ran off to get married, taking the train until the end of the line.”

Charlie smiled. “That’s the story my grandmother always told me.” He reached for Sadie’s hand and interlocked their fingers. “We got engaged after having known one another for two days.”

Price couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “That’s priceless. After meeting your grandfather, his story stayed with me. When I met Fiona, I proposed to her two days later.”

Charlie and Sadie exchanged glances. “Really?”

Price nodded. “When I’d met your grandfather, he’d been married to your grandmother for forty years. He was as smitten as you are. I wanted that too. When I met Fi—Fiona,” he corrected, “I knew she was it. She said yes, but it took us three years to get married.”

“It appears that my grandparents have touched a lot of lives with their story.”

“I’d have to agree,” Price said, lifting the cup to his lips, then remembering how it tasted, he set it back down. “That’s why I’m here. Fiona is embarrassed, and worried, about the book she wrote about your grandparents.”

Sadie bit down on her bottom lip. “Ms. Gable said she’d never met Charlie’s grandparents.”

“She didn’t. I gave her the story, just as your grandfather told it to me. I insisted she use the names and descriptions I gave her. At the time, I didn’t tell her where I’d gotten the story. Sure, she embellished and wrote the other parts, but the story of their short love affair and elopement, that came from Charlie himself.”

“So the story is their story?” Charlie asked.

“It is.”

“Wow,” Charlie let out a breath. “We thought it was coincidence.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it. That book gave Fiona her start. It got her agent, her first book deal, and was a bestseller when it came out. Admittedly, I was just trying to give the woman I loved a muse to follow.

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