The Bookshop of New Beginnings: Heart-warming, uplifting – a perfect feel good read!. Jen Mouat

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СКАЧАТЬ and sulky.

      ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ Emily scolded, swatting him, smiling as if she really had no idea how annoying she was being.

      Noah met Kate’s gaze with a resigned expression and something flared between them: an immediate kinship. Kate could sense his relief at having her here – someone to talk to who wasn’t a Cotton

      ‘Why do you ask?’ Noah addressed himself to Kate, ignoring Emily completely. ‘Did you have something in mind?’

      ‘Yes.’ Kate glanced briefly at Emily. ‘We could really use some help.’

      ‘We can manage,’ Emily said.

      ‘Emily, we can use his help.’ Kate looked reproachfully at Emily, her tone steely. ‘We’re going shopping,’ she told Noah. ‘We need to go and pick up wood for some shelves for the bookshop.’

      Noah nodded. ‘I can help with that. And I can build shelves.’

      ‘So can we,’ Emily said tersely.

      Kate looked at her. ‘Really? Can we?’

      ‘Well, we can figure it out,’ Emily qualified. ‘You can learn anything from the internet.’

      ‘Sure,’ Kate agreed. ‘But are we really going to turn down the help?’

      ‘I suppose it would keep him out of trouble,’ Emily mused.

      Kate bridled at her admonishing tone, but Noah only rolled his eyes.

      ‘You know, if you’re buying wood you’re going to need better transport than Jasper. I’ve got a mate in the town owes me a favour. I can get us a van if you want.’

      ‘That sounds great. Can you drive it too?’

      ‘I’ve got my licence. I learned to drive on the farm. Of course, Dan never lends me his truck and since Emily appeared on the scene Jasper is always spoken for. But I’m a good driver.’

      ‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ put in Emily. She may have been trying for humour, but her sarcasm fell woefully short of the mark. Kate sighed as Noah set his jaw.

      ‘You don’t have to come,’ he said to Emily in a tight voice. ‘If you have other plans, Kate and I can manage.’

      Emily frowned; she knew she had gone too far, but was loath to apologise. ‘Of course I don’t have other plans. I guess it would be good to have the use of a van, and if you want to come along that would be helpful.’ She was less than magnanimous.

      ‘We could use the muscle,’ Kate said, to make up for Emily’s waspishness, and Noah flushed with pleasure.

      ‘I’ll give my mate a call and I’ll meet you guys back here with the van in a while. Okay?’

      ‘That sounds perfect. Doesn’t it, Emily?’

      Emily gave a non-committal grunt. ‘You need to check with Dan, make sure it’s all right. You can’t just leave him in the lurch. He’ll sack you.’

      ‘Like that would be a hardship,’ Noah said, and he disappeared out of the room before Emily could retort.

      When Noah exited the kitchen, he left behind a tense silence. Emily wore a buttoned-up look that did little to encourage Kate in overtures of conversation; she sipped her mug of tea, picked up a newspaper – which, Kate noticed, was several days old – and began to read with great deliberation. She might have preferred a novel but, none being to hand, a newspaper would suffice; to Emily, reading anything was always preferable to not reading at all. Kate felt awkward, having observed the perplexing exchanges and felt the earth shift beneath her feet again – her Emily of old was warm, funny, loquacious: sometimes impulsive, often abrupt, but never unkind.

      She watched Emily until she could bear the silence no longer and had to speak. They had been reunited not twenty-four hours – yesterday everything had seemed so exciting and strange, every moment budding with possibility. Now it was different, strained.

      ‘So,’ Kate said cautiously. ‘I think it will be good to have Noah’s help. And, of course, it will be nice for me to get to know him properly.’

      Emily barely looked up from the pages of her newspaper. ‘Mmm.’

      ‘I thought you were a little hard on him before, to be honest.’

      Emily’s head snapped up and she set aside the newspaper. ‘You don’t know,’ she said, not harshly, but it still stung. ‘I mean, he was expelled from school, Kate. And everything … everything’s just been such a mess.’ She ran a hand through her hair, working at its knots and tangles.

      Kate knew Emily was not only talking about her brother. She nodded slowly. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I suppose it must be tough for you all, Noah’s expulsion, and Lena … but everyone seems to be on Noah’s case. That’s just my opinion. As an outsider, observing.’ She held up her hands and surrendered with a small smile. She wasn’t here to upset the apple cart, unless it needed upsetting – perhaps that was her purpose after all.

      Emily sighed with a long-suffering air. ‘You’re not an outsider,’ she said. She didn’t argue with the rest of Kate’s assessment ‘The thing is …’ She paused. ‘Look, it’s not my place to tell you about Noah. I hope he’ll tell you himself. Mum and Dad sent him to Dan to get him away from all the unpleasantness, but he won’t talk to any of us. He needs to talk to somebody, but it obviously isn’t going to be Dan or me. I think maybe it could be you.’

      ‘I hardly know him,’ Kate objected. ‘I haven’t seen him since he was a kid.’

      ‘Yes, but you and he had a bond.’ Emily looked bleak. ‘You know, sometimes I think you were a better sister to him than I was.’

      Kate shook her head, exasperated. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re his sister. You just need to let up on him a bit.’

      Emily didn’t say anything for a while. When she did, her voice was small. ‘Well, I was still hoping that you could speak to him.’

      ‘I will, if you think it will help. But only if Noah wants to talk to me.’

      ‘If you hear the full story, perhaps you’ll understand why Dan and I are so anxious about him.’ She stood quickly. ‘I’m going to see Lena,’ she said ‘To check on her before we leave.’

      Kate was left alone in the kitchen with a mug of cooling tea she didn’t want, a pile of unwashed dishes surrounding her and the creeping knowledge that when she had clicked that link on the airline website to book her ticket, she really hadn’t had the first idea what she was getting herself into.

      *

      Half an hour later, Noah reappeared in a beat-up van. Kate was enjoying the pale gold of the morning sunshine and a moment of solitude, as she allowed the world to settle down a bit after her hasty hurtle across the Atlantic and the revelations of disquiet at Bluebell Bank; sitting on a bench outside Bluebell Bank in front of the gravel drive where Jasper was parked alongside her shiny rental car. The gravel gave way to grass – much too unruly to be called a lawn – which thickened and СКАЧАТЬ