Book, Line & Tinker: A Steamy Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Shopping for Love in Cataluma), page 1
book, line & tinker
A STEAMY SMALL TOWN ENEMIES TO LOVERS ROMANCE NOVELLA
SHOPPING FOR LOVE IN CATALUMA
MARYANN CLARKE
Book, Line & Tinker
Copyright © 2023 by Mary Ann F Clarke Scott
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental. MaryAnn Clarke Scott holds exclusive rights to this work.
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-988743-52-3
KDP print book ISBN: 978-1-988743-53-0
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www.maryannclarkescott.com
maryann@maryannclarkescott.com
contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Thankyou
The Reporter’s UNLIKELY Reunion: Sample Chapter
About the Author
Also by MaryAnn Clarke
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one
JONATHAN
As an author, he might have guessed that in order to find yourself, you first had to get hopelessly lost, but that had never been the reality of his blessed existence until he found himself alone in Cataluma.
“What have you done to me, Cici?" Jonathan whined in the dim light of a strange old lady’s bedroom, his eyes resting on the huge mauve peonies adorning the frilly duvet on the bed. Jonathan Waverly, cool, suave, best-selling–but currently down and out–author of edgy, social realism and man-lit, leaned against the coordinating floral wallpaper of the strange room, on his cell phone with his literary agent and de facto babysitter Cici Levinson. He couldn’t bring himself to sit on any of the alien furniture.
“You cried for help,” Cici insisted. “Most pitifully, Jonathan, if you recall. You said, ‘Get me out of here, Cici, now! I can’t stand another second with this harridan. I can’t stay here and I have nowhere to escape to.’ When I said I had nothing to offer you, you only cried louder and screamed, ‘Fix this!’ So I did. It’s what you pay me to do. You’re welcome."
True enough. The next time he moved, it wouldn’t be for a woman, and it wouldn’t be into her house. He’d have his own place now til the day he died, he swore.
“But where am I?” Jonathan said. “I arrived here at dusk two days ago, barely got the key to work in the rickety back door and have been hiding out ever since in some granny’s bedroom above the shop, eating nothing but energy bars. And oh. My. God, Cici, what I saw of the place… It’s like a ghost town! It has a Gilmore Girls crossed with Gunsmoke vibe.”
“I’ve heard it’s a darling little town. Look around a bit before you judge. Maybe it’ll inspire you.”
“It’ll take a helluva lot more than a kitschy fake little stage set from some old television series to inspire me,” Jonathan grumbled. It’d take an actual fucking miracle, the way he felt right now. His eyes rose to the stained ceiling. Pity God apparently wasn’t on his side at the moment.
“It’s not. It’s the real thing. I heard it’s a thriving community. And there’s a big strawberry festival in a couple of weeks. It’ll be fun!”
Fun! Ha! “From whom did you hear such lies?”
Cici sighed and responded in a clipped tone that made Jon suspicious. “Never mind who. A reliable source.”
“Whom. Did someone pay you to stick me here? Am I some kind of unwitting extra on a reality show? The Stars Come Crashing Down? Is that it?”
“Stop being so negative, Junior,” Cici scolded. “And FYI, you paid for the privilege. Check your bank statement.” She cackled. “I got you a good deal though,” she added sweetly.
“But I don’t want to be here. I want my old life back.”
“Your old life blew up in your face. If you don’t want to lose your publishing deal, this is your life for the foreseeable future.” He’d meant his old life in New York. His life before the alluring and evil Freya had captured his imagination and his soul, drawing him into her world of high-powered movie producers and the beautiful actors that hung on them like baubles.
Jonathan moaned, resigned to his fate. Cici had a point. Thus far he’d been constitutionally unable to write a new book. And it had become clear that living with Freya in LA was at least part of the problem. That situation was so long past its expiry date that it was starting to smell. “How long?”
After a few beats of silence, Cici cleared her throat and came clean with the admission. “Five months. No longer. If you get an outline and a half dozen decent chapters to Diva Diane earlier than that… And she likes them, I can negotiate a good advance and you can spend the rest of the year anywhere you like. A rental on Long Beach. A room at the Ritz-Carlton for all I care.”
“Thank you very much. You’d never know you built your successful agency on the back of my work the way you abuse me.” But then, he’d have never navigated the cutthroat world of publishing without Cici steering the boat these past ten years. When he secured his first publishing deal with the big house, he’d been wet behind the ears, a green twenty-two-year-old college grad. They’d have eaten him alive if he weren’t lucky enough to meet Cici at a college event. Especially his editor Diane, who was indeed scary.
“Abuse?!” Cici countered, in no way cowed by Jonathan’s scorn. She was used to it. “You’re lucky to have me covering your skinny ass most days, is what, Junior.” She’d always called him that since he’d been junior to her senior in college when they first met. She knew it irked him still.
Jonathan sat in silence for a minute, pondering his fate. How did he end up here? Was this his own doing, really? Or did the universe have it in for him at last? Karma was a bitch. The self-pity was real. His life looked as dim and smelled as off as the strange bedroom where he squatted.
“It smells like… talcum powder in here, Ceec. And I detect a note of cabbage.”
“So… Have it cleaned.” He could visualize her signature shrug. “Redecorate if you like. I don’t think she’s coming back anyhow. It’s your home for the time being, so make it work.”
Jon didn’t know why he was still dishing out snark to CiCi when she was only trying to help. She was just doing her job as she’d always done. The truth was that the recent move, the sudden changes in his life, and the lack of clarity and direction about his next steps disoriented him. He was frustrated with himself, whoever he was supposed to be now, and his inability to figure that out and move on. He reset his attitude. “Thanks, Cici.”
“For…?”
“For bailing me out. For having my back.”
“Aww. Thanks, Junior.”
“So I’m supposed to actually run the bookstore while I’m here? When will I have time to write?” As if he was eager to resume getting up every morning to stare at a blank page and a blinking cursor. He just couldn’t get that scathing review in the Los Angeles Times Book Review out of his head where it circled like a vulture ready to pluck out his eyes. The words were so sharp, so cruel, and he feared, so true.
“You wouldn’t be the first scribe to pen a book while flogging them as a day job. Be thankful it’s a little bookstore in a little backwater town. You’ll have plenty of time. I thought it was the perfect gig for you. Being surrounded by all your favorite authors will remind you why you do this.”
“Hah.” Jonathan doubted that very much. He’d had a look around downstairs, checking the bookshelves with his cell phone flashlight in the middle of the night. The selection didn’t impress him much. “I’ll have to restock to make that happen.”
“So restock. For the next five months, it’s your store. Your home. Your life. Make of it what you will. Get your act together, Jonathan Waverley, before the world forgets your name.”
CONCHA
Concha Maria Dolores Diaz propped one scuffed motorcycle boot on the concrete foundation of the post under the porch outside La Espiga Dorada Mexican bakery on Prospector’s Row, in Cataluma, CA. Or main street, as the locals always called it. The street of small shops, many with apartments over, was where most anything that happened in Cataluma occurred. Not counting the old school and recreation zone or the strip mall across the ugly bridge on the highway side of the winding Luminita River.
She gnawed on her lip, considering the facts as presented by her friends, and took a sip of the tall dark coffee she liked to start every day with. Uncle Roberto, the original proprietor of the traditional bakery, always gave her this, along with her namesake concha bun. It was so rich with butter it saturated the paper bag, resembling the yellow stained-glass rose window over the altar in the old church, murky but translucent, glowing with the Californian sun. Her friend Sequoia, the café’s recent new owner, carried on with the tradition. With these morning gifts, Roberto had always given his blessing with a smile and a wink, saying, “I gotta take care of Diego’s little girl. He’s watching me.”
He’d been saying this to her ever since her dad died five years past and she figured he’d keep on saying it until he was gone to join his brother in heaven. Neither blessings, nor gifts, could be refused, even though she couldn’t bring herself to eat the bun, and invariably gave it away to someone more willing to clog their arteries with fat.
She huffed. “Why should it be me?” she finally asked her friends.
“Because you’re the closest neighbour to the bookstore,” answered Sequoia.
“And you’re closest to Elena,” added her cousin Mickey, stroking her hand down Sequoia’s muscled and tattooed arm. Concha scowled. She was still getting used to her two closest friends being a couple now. Having grown up together in Cataluma, it was odd to her to have these two in a newly formed romantic duet. Sure, they alternately flirted and fought all their lives, but this was on another level. “And you care more than anyone what happens to her bookstore, Prima.”
That was the truth. “Elena is coming back, of course,” Concha countered with a frown. “As soon as she’s feeling herself again.” Concha couldn’t imagine Cataluma without Elena. The wise, sassy septuagenarian had been a fixture in town since they were all school kids. She’d been especially supportive and dear to Concha after her own mother left.
Mickey trapped her lips between her teeth and pulled a sympathetic face, noncommittal.
It’s true Elena’s stroke had been as devastating as it had been sudden. But Concha held out hope her dear friend, like a second mother to her really, would recover and return to town to run her beloved bookstore. Concha wasn’t ready yet to admit that might not happen.
“Anyway, someone would have told us if the store were sold to a new owner,” she argued. “There can’t be a new proprietor yet. It’s too soon.”
Javier, owner of The High Sierra Pot Shop a few doors down, added, “But Mom mentioned there was a new business license application at Town Hall.” Javier’s mother was the town Mayor, Millie Fernandez, who ought to know. If she weren’t mad as a hatter lately. “Explain that.”
Concha couldn’t, but it worried her, and she continued chewing her lip.
“What about the pile of mail Serena is holding at the post office? Addressed to J West…Westerly or something, care of Levinson Literary Agency. Who could that be?” added Sequoia. “Sounds bookish to me.”
Concha shrugged, again unable to pose a reasonable explanation. Added to that was the tiny light she herself had seen flicking and flashing around inside the bookstore in the middle of the night as if someone were exploring. Or searching for a light switch or breaker. She’d nearly called the sheriff but decided to wait and see. There was definitely someone in there.
“What’s the big deal?” Mickey asked. “Just knock on the door. If there is no answer, check around back.”
Concha nodded. She could, yup. If she wasn’t so afraid of the answer. She’d also seen and confessed to seeing a U-Haul box truck pulling into the back lane late yesterday. Two burly guys moved some furniture and stacks of boxes in, and a few of Elena’s things back out. That really worried her. What if Elena really sold the shop? Her dream of taking it over would go up in smoke.
“I should just give George a call. If Elena is really giving up the store, and her apartment, her son would know, right?” She scowled in the direction of the shop that had been like a second home to her, willing things to go back to the way they were supposed to be. George should have called her already, though she knew his mom’s care preoccupied him.
“Just do it, already,” Mickey chided. “You’ll set the door on fire with your laser vision the way you’ve been glaring at it all day.”
That she had.
“Hey, hey!” Mickey suddenly whispered, elbowing her in the arm. “Look.”
Sequoia turned to look over her dark head. “Someone’s come out.”
Concha turned to look, blinking into the bright morning sun. There was indeed the silhouette of a man stepping out from the front door of The Little Luminita Bookshop. His tall, broad-shouldered form was in shadow, the lazy competent way his long leg stepped away, and turned, sent a warning fizz shooting through her. Of all things, she wasn’t expecting to see a man. A younger man, by the looks of it. And the interloper was definitely not the squat George Pappas, Elena’s son. Who the hell did he think he was, anyway, messing with Elena’s store?
“Now’s your chance,” Mickey said, shoving her off her roost. “Go, go!”
two
JONATHAN
Squinting in the low morning sun, too bright after hiding out inside for several days, Jonathan strode away from the front door to the middle of the road and turned back to scrutinize his new business, resigned to his fate. Tilting his head upward to take in his new temporary establishment, he had to admit it was a genteel sort of heritage building, with its two-story facade, its well-proportioned windows with elegantly curved headers, and cream-coloured siding with white trim. Not so fake as he’d first imagined.
The letters high on the fancy parapet, however, read Kellogg’s Hardware, established in 1898. The bookstore itself had only a tiny sign on the door and faded white paint on the glass pane of the old front door. He’d have to do something about that or nobody would ever find the damned place and buy books. If he had to do this, he might as well do it in style.
Glancing up and down the dusty main street, he took in the signs and storefronts along both sidewalks. There was the weed shop, High Sierra–that actually made him smile–a tattoo parlour, the cafés, and a few others whose signs he couldn’t read from this distance. The bookstore fit in fine, but though it was a little bigger, it didn’t stand out. He’d have to do something to make it special.
At this early hour, there was little traffic on the main drag, but for a cluster of parked cars down at the other end of the block where he’d spotted a café that seemed popular. A group of local hicks lingered outside the bakery halfway along, takeout coffees in hand. Gathered for a chinwag, he supposed.
Just as Jon visualized a classy new sign for the bookstore, while simultaneously supposing he hadn’t the budget, the time nor the commitment for it before he’d escape this hell-hole and return to his life, or some edited version of it, one worker loitering by the café broke away and strode towards him.
Loath to stare or, God forbid, actually invite conversation. From the corner of his eye he registered the languid sway of female hips, and the clomp of heavy boots as they approached.
Despite himself, he turned to watch a young woman approach, unable to tear his eyes from her bouncing brown hair, or the determined swing of her lean, tanned arms, until she halted a few feet from him, boots planted wide.
Oh, hello! She may be dressed like Ellie May Clampett, in her dirty coveralls with their arms tied around her waist, and a tiny white t-shirt, but she was stunning. He was suddenly struck by the dark-ringed amber eyes in her beautiful face, and couldn’t look away.
She cleared her throat, the dark slash of her left eyebrow arching upward, and he felt his face flush, abruptly tearing his gaze from hers, his stomach aflutter. What the hell?
