Saving the Single Dad's Bookstore
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Nicole Lam
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Chapter One
When Gianna Marchesi walked into Tang’s Terrific Tomes at eleven thirty on a Saturday morning, she didn’t expect to find it full of men in hard hats and yellow vests. Nor did she anticipate seeing the tall Asian man leaning against the counter with confident ease. He was giving orders to the workers and seemed to be eyeing the bookshop for a renovation, or worse, a complete teardown.
The store opened at noon on the weekends, and only she and the owner had the keys. But today, unfamiliar men with tape measures swarmed Tang’s familiar curved bookshelves, which she had lovingly arranged into neat alcoves with comfy chairs. Workers in steel-toed boots trampled the colorful rugs in the nook where children sat for reading hours. Worst of all, someone was standing in the place she always occupied, leaving Gianna in a state of confusion.
Tang’s owner, Philip, had passed recently, but she had fond memories of the older gentleman. He had always brought her tea and often invited her to dinner with him and his wife. However, despite plenty of speculation from Crabtree’s citizens, no one knew who the shop had passed to. Was this the new owner?
The thought made her heart do an unsettling flip.
“Excuse me.” Still standing in the doorway, Gianna cleared her throat when the man didn’t hear her. “Excuse me!”
She marched toward the counter in her sensible block heels, which brought her height up from a diminutive five foot three to a respectable five foot six. After she reached the checkout counter, Gianna rang the bell reserved for customers. It got his attention, and he turned to look at her, pivoting away from asking a worker about the height of the ceiling.
“How can I help you?” He was handsome: unruly black hair, sharp jawline with a hint of scruff, well over six feet and with dark eyes that seemed to observe far too much. Or maybe it was because she’d come into the shop on a Saturday expecting far less clamor and commotion. His presence seemed to fill the entire space of the cozy bookshop.
“I’m the manager here. I came to open the shop, but I see you’ve already done that, Mr....?” If this was one of Philip’s lawyers, Gianna would have to tread carefully.
“Dominic Tang.” He extended his hand, giving her a polite smile. “I’m Philip’s grandson.”
“Gianna Marchesi.” She smiled back, her expression tight as she shook his hand. Come to think of it, he looked familiar. Remembering her manners, she gave him her genuine condolences. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Philip Tang’s recent death had been a shock to everyone in the town. He had been a regular at Gianna’s parents’ Italian-Chinese fusion restaurant and had been known to sit in the town square feeding the birds. He’d always had a kind word for everybody. The man had been a clear embodiment of God’s love to all of Crabtree.
“Thank you.” Dominic cast an appraising eye around the bookstore. “You’ve managed the shop well.”
Gianna straightened. “Yes, I’ve been in charge of redecorating the place and ordering new inventory. We host many town events here—reading hours for children, literacy programs and even arts and crafts. Would you like me to give you a tour?”
“There won’t be any need for that. I’m going to be gutting the store and leasing out the space in a matter of weeks,” he said.
She felt the blood drain from her face. “G-gutting the store?”
Had she heard him right? Was Philip Tang’s grandson going to be tearing down Crabtree’s most beloved bookstore?
“Yes,” he said; his tone sounded like he was answering a question about the time of day or whether the sun was shining. “Do you have any objections to that, Miss Marchesi?”
“Yes!” Before she could say something rash, Gianna took a deep breath. “This store is a fixture of this town! Everyone in Crabtree Point loves the place. I love this shop, and I’ve never worked anywhere else. You can’t just waltz into town for five seconds and then destroy one of its landmarks! Tang’s is... It’s everything.”
Her voice caught on the last syllable, and she realized she had said far too much. Tang’s was not merely a place of business to her, but almost a second home. It was where she’d worked for years. While her other classmates had moved on to big-city jobs in Edmonton or Calgary, Gianna had poured her heart and soul into this store.
Apparently, she ought to have prayed for the right words to say because sentimentality didn’t seem to convince Dominic Tang. He looked like a calculating man of business, even as he wore that cordial smile.
“Miss Marchesi, if your concern is for your future, I assure you, you’ll get a glowing reference and a generous severance package from me.” Dominic rolled his shoulders back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to work.”
Was he dismissing her so soon?
“I came here to work.” She coughed, not wanting to show him the tears that were close to welling up in her dark eyes. “I’m the manager.”
“I own the store now,” he said. “I inherited it in my grandfather’s will.”
“But I’ve been working here for five years,” Gianna murmured. Even if he didn’t care about the town, didn’t he care about his grandfather’s employees? “I took this job straight out of high school. There’s nowhere else for me to go.”
His gaze seemed to soften at her words, but it may only have been wishful thinking. “Miss Marchesi—”
Hoping to convince him, she blurted out, “Call me Gianna.”
“Gianna, my decision has been made. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing you can say to convince me.” His deep brown eyes were resolute. Perhaps even sorrowful, but still...stony. Steely. Implacable.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and perspiration formed on her palms. If she didn’t convince him to keep the store, where would she go? The only place she’d worked besides the bookstore was her parents’ restaurant, which was a fusion of her mom’s Chinese and her dad’s Italian backgrounds. Crabtree being a small town, job opportunities were few compared to bigger cities in the province, and she didn’t relish the idea of moving away from her family and friends. The only place she could go was Marchesi’s, and hot, sticky summer nights spent bussing tables and packing to-go orders didn’t appeal to her.
“I’ll give you an ultimatum!” she said frantically. “Please. Hear me out.”
He arched one dark eyebrow at her, looking painfully unimpressed. “Go on.”
“The town’s annual fair is coming up in two months.” She took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts into some semblance of a functional plan. “Why don’t you work with me in the store until then? Consider it a trial run. You’ll get a feel for the place, see how it’s run, how much it brings to the community and how profitable it is. If you don’t see its value by the end of two months, then you can do whatever you want with it.”
He cocked his head to one side. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Gianna.”
After sending the workers out of the bookstore and deciding to close it early, he’d given himself the rest of the day to think about his next career steps. For now, though, he let himself take a deep breath. Dominic inhaled the fresh mountain air as he walked up his parents’ driveway. Nestled in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, Crabtree was about an hour’s drive from other mountain towns like Banff and Jasper. The houses resembled log cabins more often than not, and the streets were named after wildlife like caribou or grizzly bears. Local townsfolk prided themselves on the close-knit community, the abundance of churches and the plethora of restaurants.
Though it should’ve been a relaxing reprieve from the bustle of Toronto, the city where he’d spent the last seven years, the quiet atmosphere of Crabtree was a reminder of the financial reasons he was here. He’d only spent a few days back in his hometown, but they had been far more emotional than expected. Dominic hadn’t realized how much being in Crabtree would remind him of the past—particularly the woman who had left him and their son. After seven years, those memories no longer pained him; they were a glimmer of loss for the family he and Emmett might have had.
His heated disagreement with Gianna Marchesi hadn’t helped him relax. On top of that, he’d just lost his job last week due to new management at the accounting firm where he’d been working for the last five years. Therefore, this trip was less of an impromptu vacation and more of a desperate effort to get back on his feet.
“Daddy!” Emmett ran at him, leaping into his arms the second Dominic stepped onto the porch of his parents’ home.
He bent down and embraced the seven-year-old boy.
“Hi, Emmett,” he said, ruffling his son’s hair. “How are you? I hope you didn’t tire out your grandparents too much.”
“Nope! Me and Grandpa were playing Chinese checkers, and he taught me tai chi. Then Grandma made me help her in the kitchen, and we made scallion pancakes, but I ate them all.”
Dominic didn’t bother correcting his son’s grammar, knowing his mother—a former substitute English teacher—would have done so already. “Sounds like you had a lot of fun, buddy.”
The mouthwatering aroma of oil sizzling in a wok wafted toward him as they went through the all-too-familiar front door, a wreath of pink flowers circling the peephole. It mingled with the lemongrass candles that his mother burned, which would always remind him of Crabtree. Well, that, and Marchesi’s, the only place in town where one could have a proper meal, according to his parents.
“Did you get everything done at the bookstore?” his father asked. “You were out for longer than I expected. Your mother was worried.”
“The manager put up a bit of a fight.” He ran a hand through his hair, the other hand on Emmett’s shoulder. His mother still decorated the foyer with porcelain figurines and delicate vases, and he wouldn’t put it past his son to show off his karate and parkour skills to his grandparents. “I guess she objected to my emptying out her place of employment, which is understandable, if inconvenient. I’ll have to stick around until the annual fair to work through that.”
Gianna Marchesi had thrown a wrench in his plans to gut the store, turn it into office space and then head back to Toronto to find another job. Inconvenient was putting it mildly. Yet there was something about her that he couldn’t help but be intrigued by. Why did she care so much about the old bookstore?
“Dominic!” His mother came out of the kitchen when she heard his voice. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her last night when he’d driven up from Calgary, but she was acting like it had been years since they’d reunited. It had been almost a decade since he’d set foot in Crabtree, but his parents had flown east to see him in the intervening years. “Oh, I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re home.”
He let go of Emmett and wrapped his arms around his mother, or rather, responded instinctively to the tight embrace she was giving him. Dominic chose his next words with caution, not wanting to lie. It was good to be back with his parents, but he couldn’t say the same for the rest of the townspeople. “Emmett and I are happy to see you and Dad, too.”
“Now, what’s this you said about employment?” asked his mother, a petite woman with more wisdom and tenacity in her littlest finger than most people had in their whole body. “I hope you were only joking about tearing down the bookstore, Dom. Your grandfather loved that place. It’s the heart of the town, right after the church and Marchesi’s.”
He wanted to avoid disappointing his mother with further discussion about his plans to gut the bookstore, so he changed the subject.
“I’m staying in Crabtree...for now. Speaking of Marchesi’s, I’m starving.” Dominic crouched down, turning to Emmett, who was practicing a dangerously high kick that nearly toppled the nearby entry table. He grabbed his son’s arm and kept him from destroying the furniture. “Are you hungry, bud?”
Emmett nodded frantically, despite having just confessed to eating. He possessed the ravenous appetite of all seven-year-old boys. “I could eat a whole entire elephant.”
Dominic chuckled at his son’s exaggeration. “Why don’t we all talk about Tang’s over a good meal at Marchesi’s? It’ll be my treat.”
“That sounds great, son,” his father said. “You can tell us how it feels to be back.”
During the past seven years, he’d been lonely. Hurt. Lost. But God had redeemed him and would carry him through this. He just had to make it to the end of summer, and he could go back to his life: him and his son, with the gossiping, meddling townsfolk of Crabtree nowhere in sight.
