The Little Bookshop Of Promises. Debbie Macomber

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 he led her into the buildings he knew were safe, Lucas described the search Travis and Nell had undertaken, which involved interviewing descendants of Bitter End’s residents, going into newspaper archives on the Internet and piecing together an antique story quilt.

      When Lucas and Annie finished exploring, they sat in two rocking chairs placed on the boardwalk outside the mercantile. The scene was a pleasing one. Annie could imagine what it must have been like 130 years ago, and her thoughts slid pleasantly back in time.

      They sat in companionable silence for a while, the subject of Bitter End apparently exhausted. Lucas glanced at her and said, “I hope my girls haven’t made pests of themselves. They’d be at the bookstore every day if I let them.”

      “Pests? Heather and Hollie? Never!”

      “They like you.”

      “Well, I like them. I hope you’ll let them come as often as they want.” She wanted to add that he was welcome, too, but didn’t.

      Lucas chuckled. “I don’t think I could keep them away.”

      Annie recognized the girls’ need to be noticed and nurtured and loved. As a motherless child, that was what she’d sought herself. Whatever she could do to comfort them, to assuage their sense of loss, she would.

      Lucas looked at his watch. “We should probably think about heading back.”

      Annie knew he was right, but she hated to leave the tranquillity of Bitter End. Nor was she ready to give up this time with Lucas.

      By tacit agreement, they returned to the truck. Lucas walked ahead of her, assisting her as she made her way carefully up the embankment. When the terrain became steep, he reached for her hand. She smiled her appreciation and was rewarded with a lazy grin, which unaccountably sent her pulse skittering. Friends, he’d said, and she’d agreed—yet it seemed somehow that they’d already gone beyond friendship.

      She was well aware that Lucas was a handsome man, especially when he smiled. But it wasn’t his good looks that impressed her. Billy, her ex-husband, had been known as a heartthrob in their college days. But unlike Billy, Lucas Porter was a man of character, a man of inner strength. When his wife became ill, he hadn’t turned his back; instead, he’d remained steadfastly at her side. When she’d died, he hadn’t handed his children over for others to raise, but had uprooted himself and moved to Promise to be closer to his parents. This was the kind of man who would accept her scars. A man who wouldn’t turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble. Friends, she reminded herself. That was all they’d be and that was fine by her. Wasn’t it?

      As they traveled back to town, they talked about the old families—the Westons and Pattersons and Frasiers—who’d left Bitter End and come to Promise. Truly a place for new beginnings, they decided. Lucas parked behind Tumbleweed Books and walked her up the stairway that led to her small apartment above the store.

      She unlocked the door and was about to invite him in when he said, “Thanks, Annie, for a very enjoyable afternoon.”

      “Thank you.” She held her breath, hoping he’d ask her out a second time right then and there.

      He didn’t. Instead, he tucked his hands into his pants pockets, nodded and walked away.

      Apparently the interest she felt wasn’t mutual.