The island bookshop, p.1
The Island Bookshop, page 1
the Island Bookshop
Coral Island
Book Five
Lilly Mirren
Contents
About The Island Bookshop
Read The Series In Order
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
Also by Lilly Mirren
Cast of Characters
About the Author
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About The Island Bookshop
Eveleigh’s Books is a staple on the island and has been for years, but a newcomer to the island might bring the shop’s downfall.
Evie’s book club friends are the people in the world she relies on most. But when one of the newer members finds herself confronted with her past, the rest of the club will do what they can to help, endangering the existence of the bookshop without realising it.
When Charmaine’s past comes calling, she reverts to her old way of living — running and hiding. She’s not used to having friends. But on Coral Island, everyone is a friend. And this time Charmaine will find that being part of a close knit community is the one thing that will save her.
Penny and Rowan are newlyweds, but their new lifestyle comes with challenges neither one of them is used to facing. Can their marriage withstand the tension or will it be over before it’s really begun?
Dani brings her boyfriend home to the island to meet her family, but he’s not the sort of son-in-law Beatrice ever imagined she’d have. Will she be able to welcome and accept this stranger into her family, or will she inadvertently push her daughter away?
Please note: this book is written using Australian English. Some words, spelling and phrases may be unfamiliar to you.
Read The Series In Order
Coral Island
The Island
The Beach Cottage
The Blue Shoal Inn
Island Weddings
The Island Bookshop
An Island Reunion
One
The room was dark. Only a vague reddish light showed the images coming to life on the paper held beneath the liquid’s surface. Eveleigh Mair used a small pair of tongs to pick up the photography paper by the edge and lift it from the tray. She held it aloft a few moments as the excess fluid dripped back into the tray, her eyes squinting behind a pair of clear plastic goggles. Then she raised the image over her head and pegged it by one corner to a thin line of rope.
She must’ve been the only person on Coral Island who still used a film camera. She did it for artistic reasons — she loved the way photographs looked using film. She’d grown up taking photos with her mother’s SLR and couldn’t shake the habit, even though digital photos these days were so much easier to use and had amazing clarity. There was something special about the process of taking photos the old-fashioned way and developing them in her own darkroom behind the bookshop.
Her entire family thought she was crazy. Her mother had updated to using her phone for every captured memory years ago.
“Why go backwards?” she’d asked when Evie questioned her about it. Suddenly Evie had felt as though she was the oldest person in the world. It was a good question. Why? But she’d kept it up anyway because she enjoyed it. And these days, she didn’t have many hobbies. Most of her time was spent running the business, a quaint old bookshop called Eveleigh’s Books. She’d rented and fitted out the space with the nest egg she’d saved over many years. Another crazy initiative. Most people asked her why she didn’t simply accept that people shopped online these days and read ebooks on their phones, but she liked holding on to the past. To her, tradition meant something, and she fully intended to maintain doing what she loved for as long as she could.
The photographs hanging above her head looked fearsome in the morbid lighting, but they were happy images — beachscapes, birdlife, the dock where ferries came to rest after bringing tourists to the shores of Coral Island on a daily basis, and then taking them back to the mainland again after sun-filled days in a tropical getaway.
Her clients were people like her—they loved to take film photographs, and since there were few studios with a darkroom in northern Queensland, they’d mail their film from near and far for her to develop on their behalf. It was a small but thriving niche business and she enjoyed the artistry it sometimes took, especially when developing old film canisters like the one Beatrice had found in her cottage’s kitchen wall cavity. Maintaining the integrity of the images had been something of a challenge, and Evie had loved every minute of it.
Finished, she flicked the red glowing safe light on, and the bulb burst to life with a low hum. Then she set about packing everything away. With one last look of appreciation at the images, she picked up a basket full of items to take back to the kitchen with her — dirty coffee mugs and plates, a half-eaten bag of chips, an empty wine bottle for the recycling bin and the latest book she was reading.
As she pushed the darkroom’s door shut with her behind, she heard a pounding sound coming outside the bookshop. With a frown, she considered ignoring it since her hands were full and she was exhausted after a long day of work, but in the end, she realised it might be a delivery of books. She was waiting on several boxes of the latest releases to put up in a display over the weekend, and she couldn’t very well leave them sitting outside all night long.
The knocking had stopped. Hopefully, the delivery man had left the boxes on the porch. She hated when they pushed a card into the door and expected her to drive to the post office to pick them up after only missing them by a few seconds. Determined not to add to her to-do list the following day, she quickened her steps along the narrow corridor and through the small kitchen, then into the bookshop.
Just as she passed the register, her foot broke through the floorboards, and she went plummeting down with a squeal of fright. She landed on her rear end with one leg dangling through the floor. The basket she’d been carrying went flying across the room and landed with a disheartening smashing of china against the far wall.
Her eyes squeezed shut as pain shot up her leg. She squeaked in dismay and then gingerly felt along her limb as she slowly pulled the leg out of the hole. If it was broken, it would be a complete disaster. She had the busy season coming up — the winter months were when most of the tourists arrived on Coral Island. The delightfully warm weather and brilliant sunshine throughout the colder season was the perfect opportunity for holiday makers to fly north for the winter to escape the ice, driving rain and falling snow in the southern states.
Satisfied that she hadn’t broken a bone, she studied the floorboard that had given way.
“What on earth?” It had rotted through. She’d known there was movement in some of the boards—she had noted it a few times and had seen some customers give the floor a questioning look every now and then. But it was an old building. Surely older buildings like this one always had a few rotten boards in them, but she’d had no idea that might mean she’d one day fall through and almost end up spread-eagled on the concrete foundations. Just thinking of the nasties that might be hidden below her timber floor sent a shiver up her spine. She could’ve landed feet first in a rat’s nest, for all she knew. Although she did her best to make sure there were no rats beneath the bookshop, she supposed you could never be certain, and and apparently, you couldn’t be certain that the ground wouldn’t open up beneath you either.
There was another knock at the front door, this time a quiet tapping rather than the thunking of a fist that’d come before. Surely the delivery man had given up by now. She’d never known him to give more than a cursory thump before skedaddling down the stairs and back into his vehicle. He was always in a hurry, and she supposed that made sense given how much the postal service had cut back on staff in recent years. But it still frustrated her at times, and because of that she’d rushed to answer the door and fallen through her floorboards.
“Just a minute!” she shouted as she worked her leg out of the hole, grimacing at the pain in her knee.
She’d scraped her leg badly down the shin and the calf as well. She hobbled to open the door, then steadied herself by leaning against the wall briefly before pulling it open.
“Hi… sorry for the wait. I fell… Oh, you’re not the postie.”
A man with brown curly hair and dark brown eyes stood on the landing, both hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans.
“I’m David Ackerman, the new principal at the primary school across the street, and I thought I’d come check out the local bookshop. I’m an avid reader, and I’m passionate about getting kids into reading. Are you closed? I’m sorry—I’ve probably come at the exact wrong time.” His face registered alarm. “Is that blood?”
& nbsp; “I was expecting the postman,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “Huh? The postman?” He bent to examine her leg. “You’re definitely bleeding. What happened?”
She blinked. “I was trying to get to the door, and I fell through the floor. It’s rotten and I’ve been meaning to get the boards fixed, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I should’ve made it more of a priority, but you know how these things go — you’re juggling so many urgencies as a small business owner, it’s hard to know which one to give your attention first.”
“Lean on me, and let’s get you inside,” the man said, reaching for her arm and looping it around his waist. He was tall, and she felt tiny next to his looming frame. She did her best to hobble back into the bookshop, but within seconds, he’d swept her up into his arms and was carrying her across the shop and past the hole in the floor to the small kitchen, where he gently lowered her into a chair.
“Is this okay?”
She nodded silently. He’d picked her up as though she were a twig. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d been carried. She was forty-six years old, and no one had picked her up since she was a child. It felt nice to be taken care of, but it caught her by surprise. She hoped he wasn’t a serial killer or a robber—not that she ever kept much in the way of cash inside the shop. She tucked her red curls behind her ears.
“Thanks,” she said.
He pulled a second chair towards her and raised her foot onto it, cradling it with tender hands. “You’re welcome. Let’s take a look and make sure nothing’s broken. This is a pretty nasty cut.”
“I don’t think it’s broken. Probably only bruised.”
“Bruising we can deal with, although you may need a tetanus booster.”
She clenched her teeth. “I hate needles.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not so bad. And we have no idea what kind of gremlins are in those floorboards. You might’ve been nicked by a rusty nail as well.”
“You’re probably right. Thank you for your help. I do appreciate it, although I’m sure you have much better things to do with your time than helping a middle-aged woman who is apparently now prone to falling.”
“Middle-aged? I don’t know about that. I’m forty-six, and I’m clinging to my youth by ignoring the progression entirely.”
She laughed. “We’re the same age, then.”
“How about that?” His eyes twinkled. “I noticed the front door was hanging a little crooked on its hinges too, if you’re getting things fixed.”
She slapped a hand to her forehead. “This whole place is falling apart. It’s in dire need of a facelift. I’m no good with tools, I’m afraid.”
He scratched his chin. “I could fix the door, but you probably need more work done than that. It’d be a good idea to at least work on the floor. We can’t have you falling through the boards regularly.”
“I know I should do it, but it costs a lot of money, and besides, when? I work here all day every day.”
He raised both hands as if in surrender. “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but please be more careful or I’ll be forced to come check on you daily to make sure you’re still alive.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry. This isn’t your problem to solve, it’s mine. I’m being very rude.”
She was horribly indecisive at times. It was why she never changed her life— instead, she just kept living exactly the same day over and over again because she didn’t know how to make a change, and there was no one in her life to force her into it.
There was a sadness to her voice and it lingered in her throat. Was she living perpetually in Groundhog Day? Would she one day reach the end of her life and wonder what might’ve been, or what she could’ve done differently? She wasn’t like Taya. Her friend amazed her with the way she’d seized hold of life as though it was one big adventure. Taya hadn’t always been like that. She’d been frozen in grief and then in the busyness of motherhood for a long time. But now, she was blossoming into the woman Evie had always known she could be. But Evie felt stuck, as though she’d been left behind.
There were times when she was happy and confident as a single woman and entrepreneur, and at other times she wished she had a life partner — someone to talk to, to help make decisions, to sit and watch a movie or take a trip for the weekend.
“I don’t mind at all,” David said. “I’m great at input. Sometimes I give far too much—at least my sister says so.”
Evie laughed.
“The postman left several boxes on the landing. I’ll bring those inside for you.”
She sighed. “Thank you — that would really help.”
“Sit and rest.”
Before long, she heard David bringing the boxes in from the front porch. She hobbled to the bench and set the kettle to boil. The least she could do was to have a cup of tea waiting for him when he finished.
One of the things she loved most about Coral Island were the relationships she had with the other residents. Having spent most of her life there, she knew almost everyone. They were salt-of-the-earth folks, people she could rely on in a time of need. She knew that, and the knowledge warmed her heart. And now a man she’d never met was helping out in her bookshop. He was clearly destined to live on the island—he’d fit right in. The people of Kellyville would love him. She wouldn’t exchange her community for any amount of money. It was priceless.
As the kettle finished boiling, she sliced a pineapple upside-down cake and set pieces on two plates. Her phone rang, and she fished it out of her pocket. With the phone hugged to her ear by one shoulder, she answered without looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Hi, honey. It’s Mum. How are you?”
She poured water into the teapot then shuffled back to her chair, lowering herself into it with a groan. “I’ve been better.”
“What’s wrong?” Mum asked immediately, concern making her tone abrupt.
“I fell through a rotten floorboard and grazed my leg pretty badly.”
“That darned building—I told your father just the other day that it’s going to fall down around your ears if you don’t do something about it. Won’t you let us help?”
Evie rubbed a hand over her face. “Thanks, Mum. I appreciate it—really, I do. But I can handle this.”
“Will you, though? I can’t stand the idea of you living in that place with it coming apart like that. I’ll be worried every moment. I won’t be able to sleep.”
“Don’t worry, Mum. I promise, I’m going to take care of it. The landlord isn’t local and is utterly hopeless. So I’ll figure something out myself. I’m going to have to hire a contractor. My friend Bea has a great one, and I’m sure I’ll be able to get him to come in and make everything brand new again.”
“Well…if you’re sure. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to come get you. You could stay with us a while, have a little holiday.”
“Don’t do that, Mum. I’m fine. Really, I am.”
“Okay, good. In that case, I have a favour to ask.”
Evie had walked directly into that one. She inhaled a breath and held it in her lungs, waiting.
“Your sister is home.”
She exhaled. It wasn’t a mystery where the conversation was headed once she knew Emily was staying with their parents. Now she understood the invitation to come and stay with them — they wanted her to keep Emily occupied. Without Evie to help, they wouldn’t want her to be there for long. They’d push her on Evie, claiming the two of them needed to reconnect.
“She’d love to see you. She misses you so much. She’s your twin, after all. Aren’t twins supposed to have some kind of spiritual connection? And yet you act as though you don’t have a sister. She feels rejected, Evie.”
