Outside, stars twinkled in the blue-black night. “That’s the plan. I’ll leave a list of instructions for Sophie. Missy’s going to drive me to the airport, and I’ll get on my first ever plane!” I felt like a child on Christmas Eve. Without the anchor of my friends, my town, who would I be?
He blew out a breath. “How can you…ah…do you need…”
I smiled. It was always awkward when we discussed money. Ridge, ever the hero, wanted to help out when I had financial woes, but I wouldn’t allow it. “Sophie is paying me a small wage, because she claims her shop will be so busy, there won’t be a minute for me to rest, let alone read. In return, she will treat her visit to Ashford like a holiday, and enjoy the deadly quiet that is my bookshop these days. She will live at my place, and drive my car, and vice versa.”
“So, after Indonesia, I’ll join you there?” The question in his voice took me by surprise.
I rolled onto my back, and ran a hand through my hair. “Of course! We’re going to stroll to the Arc de Triomphe. Meander through the Louvre. Read in the Luxembourg Gardens…” There was so much to see and do in the short time Ridge would be there, and I knew our desire to be wrapped around each other would take over. But part of me delighted in the fact that I’d have months to meander through Paris, and discover who I was when I was out of my comfort zone. It was all at once thrilling, and scary, in an electrifying way.
He let out a guttural moan. “You, me, and a bottle of Cote De Rhone. In the birthplace of French panties.”
I giggled at the lusty hint in his voice. “And French kissing.”
He gasped. “How am I going to wait so long to see you? Remind me again why I’m in some fusty hotel a million miles away from you?”
I laughed. “Because you’re a workaholic. As much as I love reading you love writing, so what can I say?” What a pair we made. When Ridge worked, head bent over his laptop, I snuggled next to him on the sofa, happy to read the day away, content in being close to him, the silence a comfort as we both did what we loved best.
I’d had sporadic relationships in the past, where the guys in question didn’t understand my voracious need to read. Some called it a waste, or said I lived in a perpetual daydream. Others that my bookworm state made me almost catatonic. The clamor of the death knell rang out loud and clear in my mind when they’d talked like that and I’d sworn off men unless I found a guy who loved me for who I was, foibles and all.
Ridge was happy to snuggle alongside me, and do his own thing, and also spent a fair amount of time with his nose pressed in a book, so I thanked my lucky stars for that.
“True,” he said. “But lately…that buzz, it’s waning. Work takes me from you, it’s sort of like this annoying kid brother I have to humor.”
“Well, how about when you get to Paris, you just say no when the next big story gets waved in front of you?” He wouldn’t though. It was too hard to resist – a new place, a fresh twist, the way he’d spin the story. I respected him for the way he worked, his ethics. Intrinsically, he wanted to do the right thing, report honestly, when so many others concocted a headline that would sell, not a headline with the truth. Ridge had integrity, and was building a name for himself because of it.
“I promise, Sarah. When I get to Paris, it’s you and me, for a few weeks at least. Enough time that you’ll get sick of me, and push me to go back to work.”
“Yeah right, Romeo. Just try me.”
I wanted to clutch his hand while we strolled along the cobbled streets of Paris, the wind whipping my hair around, while Ridge whispered sweet nothings to me. The river Seine flowing languidly beside us as we walked without purpose, perhaps stumbling into the warmth of a bistro, where sensual French chatter would wash over me making me feel like I was living inside my own dreams.
“Oh I plan to try everything, at least once.”
I smiled into the quiet of the night. “Good…I need a tour guide after all, and you’re the man for the job.” Ridge had spent a few summers in Paris, working for a French newspaper. He spoke the language fluently, and knew a lot about the city.
“Tour guide?” he said huskily. “You’re not going to see much except the inside of the bedroom, for the first few days at least.”
My lips parted in anticipation. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
“Fly safe, and call me when you arrive?” he said.
“You too. Be careful in Indonesia.”
“I love you, Sarah Smith.”
“And I you, Ridge Warner.”
***
Before dawn draped its golden orange ribbons across the sky, I was at my bookshop, enjoying the quiet, relishing the long goodbye. The lull before the town awoke. Soft yellow lamp light spilled through the shop, the novels basked sleepily in the warm glow.
Leaving my books would be like leaving a piece of me behind, just the thought made me catch my breath, as though I’d done something audacious even considering it. I ran my fingers over their covers, murmuring farewells. How many would be missing when I returned? Their voyage into someone’s home, someone’s life, completed without me. There’d be no time to wish them well.
There was a slight rustle, a whisper-quiet mewling. I pivoted, hoping to catch a book moving, but I was too late. The stacks stood solemnly, fat with pride and perhaps a touch of melancholy. Did they sense I was leaving? I wanted to lock the front door, and let them all languish until I returned…
Would Sophie’s shop be this alive? With stacks of leather bound books peeking from a wooden shelf so high, I’d need a ladder to investigate? Or hidden hutches piled with old letters and diaries, penned by some of the writers who’d escaped from their lives and scribbled away there, their words flowing in such a famous place. Would I arrive and hear whispers from the past? The murmur of authors long since gone from this world? Their ghostlike presence hovering in the place they wrote their very last masterpiece. The place they were happiest – a haven for word lovers.
I wanted that…that feeling of being wholly alive, surrounded by likeminded souls. Bibliophiles who re-read a book because it was so damn good – it had become a friend, one you turned to for comfort. The intimacy, the quiet, where words washed over you and made you smile again.
And to befriend other bookworms whose lives were left in tatters after falling in love with a fictional character. Unable to eat or sleep, and sad that you’d never met him, because he wasn’t real, except in your mind. But you still looked for him in faces of people on the street anyway, you’d recognize him anywhere. It would take weeks, sometimes years to stop yearning for that character who’d virtually jumped from the page and smothered you with kisses. Would I find people like that in the bookshop on the Left Bank where the cherry trees stood?
With a nervous flutter in my belly, I said goodbye to my books, and silently wished them well, hoping that if a customer stumbled upon them while I was absent they’d be cherished.
The sun bobbed in the blue sky, making me squint. For October, it was warmer than I’d expected, more so than Ashford. It was as though the city of love had pulled out all the stops on my first morning here. The air was fragrant with promise. I rifled through my backpack, searching for sunglasses. My face was split with a cheesy grin.
I was really here! Paris!
And so far, I’d hadn’t been snatched, mugged, or even scammed, as Mom had warned me about four million times before she kissed me goodbye. Rolling my suitcase along, stifling a yawn, I made my way to a ticket booth