The Little Bookshop Of Promises. Debbie Macomber

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СКАЧАТЬ in the area. She remembered that shortly after the Civil War, disaster had befallen Bitter End and driven all the inhabitants away. They’d established a new settlement, which they’d named Promise, and the town had flourished from then on.

      Their lunch hour flew and almost before she was aware of it, they discovered it was time to leave.

      They continued to talk as he escorted her back to Tumbleweed Books. Reluctant to part, they found their steps slowing as they reached the store.

      “I had a great time,” Annie told him at the entrance. “I only hope we lived up to the rumors Louise Powell’s been spreading about us.”

      Lucas grinned. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”

      Annie smiled, too. Poor Louise was destined to be disappointed.

      “I’m kind of surprised myself,” Lucas admitted, looking mildly guilty. “I had a good time, too....”

      “Ah, so the truth is out. Enjoying yourself came as a shock, did it?”

      They stood smiling at each other until Annie finally broke eye contact. “Thanks again, Lucas.”

      “Thank you,” he said. Then, as though it was an afterthought, he leaned forward, and in full view of anyone who might be watching, kissed her cheek.

      A kiss on the cheek. Fair enough, since they’d decided they were friends and nothing more. “Bye,” she told him quickly, starting inside.

      “Annie.” Lucas stopped her, his voice urgent. “Would you...are you willing to do this again?”

      She nodded without hesitation.

      “When?”

      She gave a little shrug. “What works for you?”

      “How about now?” he asked. “I’m working tomorrow evening, so I can take the afternoon off. Just let me call my assistant first.” He paused. “You said you’d never been to Bitter End. Would you like to go?”

      “I’d love to! Give me ten minutes to change clothes and talk to Gina.” Because she was a high-school senior, Gina’s class schedule allowed her to work at the bookstore two afternoons a week. The teenager was perfectly capable of tending the store for the rest of the afternoon. Besides, Annie was intensely curious about Bitter End.

      She still remembered reading Jane’s long account of her own initial visit to Bitter End, and the eerie feeling she’d experienced when she first stepped onto the main street. As Annie recalled, Jane and Cal had had quite an adventure, complete with dramatic rescue. It was Jane who’d discovered a badly injured Richard Weston hiding out there.

      * * *

      “I’m assuming Jane told you about her experience in Bitter End?” Lucas asked as they headed out of town in his truck.

      “She wrote about finding Richard Weston there, nearly dead after the staircase in the old hotel collapsed on him.” That particular letter had been riveting. If Jane and Cal hadn’t arrived when they did, Richard would surely have died. “You’ve been there?”

      “A couple of times,” Lucas told her. “Wade McMillen’s held church services out there the last Sunday in August for the past two years. Speaking of Wade, did you know Joey McMillen was born in Bitter End?”

      “Really? A preacher’s son... Didn’t a preacher’s son die there a hundred-plus years ago? Wasn’t that the story?”

      Lucas told her what he knew of how a preacher’s son had been hanged by a group of drunken men. When the preacher discovered what had happened, he’d placed a curse on the town. In time, everyone who’d settled in Bitter End was driven away by plagues and disasters, and Bitter End had been virtually forgotten.

      Lucas parked the pickup, then led Annie through a field of bluebonnets toward a worn pathway. Holding her hand, he guided her down an embankment. Because of her injuries from the car accident, Annie proceeded cautiously, watching her step. When she looked up again, she went abruptly still at the sight of Bitter End nestled below. Two rows of buildings, mostly stone and some of wood, cut a swath through the heart of the town. A church and cemetery stood at one end, a large corral at the other, with hitching posts and water troughs. For its age, the church, which was the most prominent building in town, seemed to be in good condition. The hotel, with its second-floor balcony, appeared in the worst shape, leaning precariously as if ready to topple at any moment.

      Annie stared at the colorful array of rosebushes in bloom. She took in the other plants, some in window boxes and others in flower beds that bordered the buildings and splashed bright colors against their drab exteriors.

      “I remember Jane told me about this—but I still can’t believe it,” she said, astonished at the vivid flowers everywhere she looked.

      “Frank mentioned once that the town used to be completely dead,” Lucas said as he slowly navigated their way down the embankment. “A genuine ghost town. He said it was really something, what happened after Joey McMillen’s birth. Some folks think that having a preacher’s son born in the town is what broke the curse. Others—of a less romantic bent—talk about an underground spring breaking free.” He shrugged. “For whatever reason, everything started to grow again.”

      “What an incredible story,” Annie said, awed. “Did anyone think of restoring the old place and making a tourist attraction out of it?”

      “Apparently there was quite a debate about doing that,” Lucas told her, “but the council voted it down. On the other hand, no one wanted to let the place deteriorate, either. The history of Promise is rooted in Bitter End.”

      “So what happened?” She gestured around her.

      “Frank told me that slowly, one by one, families started visiting the old town. Soon they were making improvements. The steeple on the old church got rebuilt. That’s where Pastor McMillen holds the annual service. The church has been cleaned and the pews straightened. A couple of the buildings, like the hotel, are boarded up because they’re unsafe, but the old stone structures are still solid.”

      “Everyone’s done a wonderful job.”

      He nodded. “The last time I was here, I noticed that a number of families have put furniture in the buildings—stuff that was handed down to them from their grandparents and great-grandparents.”

      “I imagine Savannah planted all these roses,” Annie said.

      “She was the one who started it all, you know. It was her search for old roses that brought her to Bitter End. Soon after, others came, and later when word got out about Richard hiding here, people got really curious. Bitter End was what originally brought Travis Grant to Promise.”

      Annie proudly featured his books at her store, and he’d already come to speak once. Travis wrote bestselling children’s books as T. R. Grant and had written two blockbuster adult novels as Travis Grant. It’d been a thrill to meet him, along with his wife, Nell, and their children, including a pair of adorable two-year-old twins.

      “Nell and Travis were the ones who solved the mystery,” Lucas went on to explain.

      Annie had known that, but she hadn’t heard details.

      As СКАЧАТЬ