The Bookshop on the Corner (A Gingerbread Cafe story) Read Online Free Page A

Corner blog will be born!”
    Missy sipped her coffee and then said, “The possibilities are endless. You can do a monthly book club, or monthly discounts, book bundles, all sorts of things…”
    I inched forward on the high-back chair in the reading room. “Guest authors, interviews, I’m in heaven just considering it.”
    Missy stood, and kissed my cheek. “Let me know when it’s up, sugar, and I’ll send it out to my veritable treasure trove of online friends.”

Chapter Three
    The Bookshop on the Corner blog took off moments after I sent the link to clients old and new and my friends in Ashford. It seemed people loved to read about daily life in a second-hand bookshop. Within a month, I had over three thousand followers, and the numbers grew daily. I’d met a community of other book bloggers who were supportive, and funny, and felt like real friends.
    Orders poured in for vintage Harlequin romance books, so I’d been busy scouring my usual sources trying to find more. I was as busy as I’d ever been, and this new venture had given me a major confidence boost. Women emailed me daily with stories about their lives, and how books had been there for them when times were tough. It reminded me of the Ernest Hemingway quote, ‘There is no friend as loyal as a book.’ And this new cluster of online friends made me cherish our shared passion, always and for ever — reading. I’d found people who were just like me, and it made me feel as though I could do anything, and be myself and that I was enough. It changed me almost overnight, giving me a sense of self-assurance I’d never had before.
    The cloud of feeling lost that had hung over me the weeks before had vanished as quickly as it had come. For the first time in ages I was invigorated, and felt that the world — albeit virtually — was opening up to me, as I tried to open up to it.
    ***
    After scheduling my blog post for the morning I gave into temptation and settled behind the counter with my book, promising myself I’d only read for ten minutes. Twenty if I finished on an odd-numbered page. Thirty if I was stuck halfway through a chapter. OK, I’d stop when a customer walked in.
    A silhouette loomed through the open doorway blocking out the last vestiges of the summer sun. The half-shadow seemed rugged, masculine. A second later, a man stepped over the threshold of the bookshop dipping his hat. The girl held her breath, hoping the stranger would be as handsome as his powerful saunter implied. She gulped as he stood in front of her; the orange glow of the overhead light lit up his face, highlighting his chiseled cheekbones, and piercing gaze, making her mute with desire…
    “Excuse me, miss?”
    The book fell from my hands as the presence of a man startled me. There he was, the rugged stranger with chiseled cheekbones, and a look in his eye that screamed
take me to bed
!
    It took a moment for my brain to unscramble and realize I was not in fact living out the scene I had just read. Actually, it took
far too long
for me to understand that I was staring at him, my eyes wide, jaw hanging open, like some kind of fool. Gathering my thoughts, I coughed, clearing my throat, and donned my professional bookseller face.
    “Can I help you? Let me guess, you’re looking for a book on…” I took in his appearance: tight denim jeans, casual white tee shirt, tight around the bicep region — I mean, wasn’t that uncomfortable? The sleeve of his tee looked as though it were practically cutting off the blood supply. I dragged my eyes back to his face, and my breath caught. I hadn’t seen a man so good-looking except in my imagination.
    “On…” he prompted, raising an eyebrow.
    Damn! No more romance reading during work hours.
    I coughed again, this time more forcefully, to pull myself together and focus on the job of selling books. “Right, a book on, er…” It was a gift of mine to be able to garner what book a person was looking for just by their dress, and