The Wild Lavender Bookshop

Book 2: Someday Valley

by Jodi Thomas

Genres: Siblings

Synopsis

From beloved New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas, a slow burn romance that’s the epitome of comfort reading. Perfect for fans of Robyn Carr and Susan Mallery!

Return to the unforgettable world of Someday Valley, Texas, in this tender, uplifting novel of hearts in search of second chances.

The trees that circle Someday Valley near Honey Creek are dressed in their fall finest, providing a pretty backdrop for the local businesses—including the little bookshop loved by schoolteacher Cora Lee Buchanan. There, under the watchful eye of owner Noah O’Brien, Cora Lee and her sister, Katherine, meet each Wednesday. Their talk mostly revolves around one subject: their father, known to everyone in town as Bear.

Both Cora Lee and Katherine worry about Bear Buchanan. They’ve no idea Bear has a secret life of his own. As for the sisters, Katherine, beautiful and self-absorbed, is in search of her third husband, while Cora Lee is in love for the first time. On warm nights, she climbs up to her building’s roof to chat with Noah and listen to the melody of the water below. Yet there is more intrigue afoot in Honey Creek . . .

Andi Delane has arrived in town to hear the last wishes of the father she never met. She was shocked to get a letter from lawyer Jackson Landry, and she has few expectations—of this mysterious will, or of Deputy Danny Davis who’s been assigned to protect her. But fall always brings changes, and this year there will be enough to alter not just the lives of those who call Honey Creek home, but the future of Someday Valley itself . . .

Release date: April 23, 2024

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 224

Sample

Monday

Noah O’Brien stepped out of his bookshop to greet the first light of dawn rising over the main street of Honey Creek. He dusted off the little red tables and chairs he’d set out front for the sunrise coffee drinkers.

Of course, he had chairs inside along the windows for reading with a cup in hand, but there was something special about watching the day start.

“Another day in paradise,” he thought. Let the rest of the people in the world hurry about and argue and plan for a better life. He’d found contentment here at thirty-three years old in this Texas valley.

Three little towns were nestled between farms and ranches. Honey Creek, the county seat. Clifton Bend, a college town full of ideas and energy. And then his favorite, Someday Valley, which was almost a town. Honey Creek was organized, cute. Clifton was a beehive, busy, while shacks were scattered like marbles among the rocky land of Someday Valley.

On his day off he sometimes circled the valley. He lived in Honey Creek, often went to lectures at Clifton Bend, but he relaxed when he drove through Someday Valley.

It was an interesting mix of locations, all within shouting distance. Honey Creek, the biggest of the towns, gave that proper small-town feel and was settled by families who wanted the small-town lifestyle. Clifton Bend was full of youth, dreams, and laughter and was originally settled by artists and creatives whose spirits still infused the place. Someday Valley, in contrast, was first inhabited by fishermen. Salt of the earth with a great work ethic and independent mindset. The valley still smelled of fish, beer, and time, as if history dwelt there. An eclectic smattering of people for sure, but Noah thought somehow the towns fit together.

Noah stared at the town square lined in old elms covered in autumn leaves.

“My valley, my home, my life,” he whispered. There was balance in the world here, Noah thought. An order that settled his soul.

As he prepared the shop for morning customers, he smiled at the view out his bookshop windows. The big county courthouse watched over the park on one side. Half a dozen tiny stores faced the square from another side. This strip of brightly colored awnings shaded an ice cream parlor, a café, a great bakery that sweetened the dawn air, and a flower shop that accidentally gave Noah the idea for the name of his store. Wild Lavender Bookshop.

On the far side of the square stood a lonely two-pump gas station run by three brothers. Old tires formed a fortress around it. As far as Noah knew, the gas pumps never closed. The decrepit station was banked by vacant lots, usually empty except for a few wrecked pickups that had been parked there since the nineties. The owners never came back to get them. The rusty old trucks had morphed into almost art. No matter what time of day or night, one of the Edwards brothers was sleeping in a wooden rocker in the shade of their DOWN TOWN EXXON sign.

The last side of the square block was Noah’s favorite. It was his nest. One long three-story building of red brick stood against the wind off the creek. The bookshop and a few other stores were on the first floor and above were apartments. No matter what window he looked out of, he saw a peaceful view. The town square shined from the front of the building, with manicured walks between the trees and benches. But from Noah’s back windows he saw the creek that had broken off from the Brazos River that wiggled over eight hundred miles across Texas.

The locals liked to say that the stream splashed and waved as it flowed. Some folks claimed the water giggled now and then as it passed.

The three-story building Noah lived and worked in was called “Bear’s Mall.” Everyone called the big man who owned it Bear. He ran a repair shop that shared Noah’s south bookstore wall. All was quiet when Bear was gone farming, but when he was open, noise always drifted through. Folks said Bear Buchanan didn’t live; he just worked.

On the ends of the first floor of the mall were Sandy’s Beauty Shop and Kandy’s Card Shop. Sandy never stopped talking, Kandy never stopped laughing, and Bear never stopped running when he saw them coming in his direction.

When Noah moved into one of the old, dilapidated apartments above the businesses, the rent was right and Bear was usually there to help if something broke.

Noah’s roomy bookstore smelled of mahogany and coffee, and when the door opened, a hint of lavender. A simple sign hung above the door: TRAVEL BETWEEN THE COVERS. Ordinary posters of book covers through the ages were taped to the wall and a cash register rattled and bumped his stomach every time it opened.

No colorful displays in the windows to catch the interest of folks walking by. The second floor was the same. Plain apartments with long windows and floors that creaked. There was a third floor on the mall; it was cluttered and dark. The owner claimed the ghosts of the first pioneers rested up there and secrets were hidden beneath the dust.

Almost three years ago, Noah O’Brien had driven into Honey Creek and decided to stay. Being an only child, he’d been pushed by his parents since he came out of the womb. He learned to read by four, played every sport, made straight A’s, got into the best college, worked to climb the ladder of success and still wasn’t happy. He even bought a starter house, intending to move up every five years according to some nameless, faceless plan that meant nothing to him.

He’d played their game until, on his thirtieth birthday, he just couldn’t do it anymore. Or in his parents’ words, lost his mind. He quit his boring IT job, sold that starter house he hated, emptied all his bank accounts, packed his car, and ran away from his life. Then he drove around the country until he found where he wanted to live.

On his second day in Honey Creek, he wandered into a dusty old bookstore. When he noticed a faded FOR LEASE sign, he knew this was that place.

Noah cleaned up the old store, kept the dusty books, and bought more inventory. He learned to make great coffee for a buck a cup. He bought sweets from the bakery a block over and sold them at cost. Then at dusk, he would lock up and feed the leftover scones to the ducks while walking the river’s bank.

Within a month he knew he’d found paradise.

His favorite thing to do in this little town was listen to the locals’ conversations. At first, he was just trying to understand the Texans’ accent. But, between the gossip and “what was wrong with the government,” they talked of what they wished they’d done.

Noah could almost see sorrow behind aged, watery eyes as they told of adventures they’d only read about, paths they’d never walked, choices they’d never made.

In the big cities Noah noticed people talked of what they planned to do or listed what they’d accomplished, but here they talked of what they’d never gotten around to doing.

Sometimes he looked behind their wizened expressions and imagined the goals and untraveled roads, the love affairs they hadn’t risked, and the fears they never revealed. The customers who walked down the aisles of his shop seemed to be looking for something. An adventure? Some secret they might find? Maybe a road map to another life?

Noah promised himself that when his time came, he’d have no “wish I’d done” list.

Once in a while he caught a spark of excitement in people’s rambling, and sometimes that longing stared back from the mirror. He was proud he’d left home to live his own dreams, but had he gone far enough?

The mailman tapped a handful of mail on the open doorframe and brought Noah out of his thoughts. “Morning, Noah.”

Noah grinned. “Morning, Tim, how is business?”

“Fine. Running late getting started. Everyone seems to stop me and talk.”

Sealing his lips, Noah waved goodbye.

Noah looked over the mail. The first two envelopes were bills and the last one was handwritten to him from New York.

He tossed it into the trash without opening.

The mailman said from the doorway, “I thought that one might be important.”

“No, my parents’ attorney writes now and then like he’s one of the family,” Noah said, more to himself than to the mailman. “The first year I left New York they begged me to come home where I belong. Second year they tried to demand it, and lately they’ve been threatening me. But I’m not leaving. I love it here. It makes me smile when someone wanders into the stacks and now and then finds just what they are looking for. A good story, or a tender tale that makes them cry, or dark stories that make them afraid. Whatever they read, they feel more alive and a smile drifts over them.”

But best of all, he listened and watched as they learned. Noah loved hearing his visitors say, If I could only do . . . They had desire hiding inside for bigger bites of life, but the courage to make any changes seemed dried up.

Sometimes they’d admit they were content in feeling safe. All Noah could do was wish with them. Slowly he was learning the difference between a goal and a dream. Each had its place.

He was a mute cheerleader, silently yelling from the stands.

Some of Honey Creek’s residents were living in heaven and others wished they could run away. Heaven seemed to have a different address for each.

Every night Noah climbed to the roof of his apartment two flights above the bookshop and wrote down the conversations he had heard. He’d log what they might become one day because of the books he had encouraged them to read. He’d see a smile after they’d encountered adventure between the covers of a book.

He’d never wanted to be a mind reader or a fortune teller, helping folks find their way. He simply wanted to walk invisibly among them and observe. He knew he was one of those people who watched life unfold, yet never got into the game.

“I’ll write about a town where individuals long to live their dreams,” he thought, “knowing if they don’t, they will become mindless chatterers drinking coffee and nothing more.”

They’d be like Bear’s daughters, who came in every Wednesday to have coffee and complain about their father getting older. Noah mentally corrected his thought. Katherine complained. Cora Lee, the younger daughter, usually just nodded.

The question he’d try to figure out would whisper inside him, Would they be happier if Bear Buchanan changed his life? Would it matter or would they just find something else to complain about? Was it even about Bear at all, or just how they communicated as sisters with nothing more in common than their father?

Bear had inherited the strip mall when he came home from the Army. He was also a farmer who talked of his crops from spring to fall. The man who folks said never stopped working seemed to be happy. When he was in his workshop, Noah often heard him whistling.

Noah pondered over his wild thoughts when the first people hurried in just as the coffee was ready. They doctored their cups with sugar and cream, then rushed to the red chairs outside.

If Noah ever shared his theories on life with this crowd, they’d think him insane. If he said nothing, no one would notice or change. Life would just move on as it always had. Dreams were dreams, and life was reality that rolled over them; words and ideas didn’t really matter.

Noah knew that he was simply a tall, thin bookstore owner who had no goals, no lovers, and not one dream. A constant watcher more out of habit than desire.

Until one day, Noah decided he’d become a writer. Then he’d live, he told himself. He’d ride the wind as Steinbeck did or enjoy adventure as Hemingway did when he fought in faraway wars. He would create worlds like George Orwell or push the boundaries as J. D. Salinger had.

Noah almost laughed. Salinger said he wasn’t like the people around him.

“I’m not either,” Noah said to himself.

His voice rose. “I’m not wasting time. I’m incubating a dozen ideas, then I’ll live my dreams, soon.”

The moment his words died, Noah thought he heard laughter, but when he turned around no one was there.

“Probably a visiting ghost from the third floor.” He gazed at the empty aisles. “You know, I don’t believe in ghosts so just go on back to the third floor where everyone claims all the ghosts hang out.” He smiled. “Haven’t you ever heard of ‘ghosting’ someone?”

Suddenly Harry Pratt darted through the door, waving his cane like a sword. “Mr. O’Brien, take this crime down before I forget the facts!”

“Got it, Harry, but maybe you should walk down the street and tell the sheriff.”

Harry raised his voice. “I might forget a detail. There is no time to waste. Write the facts down!”

Harry paced as he started. “I, Harry Pratt, swear I saw a crime committed on Main Street today.” He looked at his watch. “At nine twenty today, sharp.”

Noah held up a pen. “Harry, you said today twice.”

“Then mark one out, Noah.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t care. I’m trying to report a crime.”

Noah tried to look serious. “What did Earl do this time?”

“He scratched a car parked right on Main with the oldest printer I’ve ever seen.”

“Maybe you should tell the sheriff or one of the deputies.”

Harry frowned. “The sheriff said to report any crimes to you if his car wasn’t out front of the station.”

“What!!! I’m not a cop.”

Harry yelled back, “Sheriff Pecos said he’d deputize you if you want him to. He said my writing looks like a first-grader who’s failing ancient Greek.”

Noah gave in. “All right, Harry. Give me the details. What car did he scratch?”

Harry cleared his throat and prepared to testify. “Earl scratched a blue Ford parked in front of your store. A 1988. Big scratch, worse than the one he made last year with his toaster on the roof of the same car.”

“What?” Noah lowered his voice. “Are you telling me Earl dropped his own printer and scratched his own car?”

“Toaster last year and printer today. It won’t be long till he’s parking junk cars on the street.”

Noah figured if he could act calm for the next minute he should move to Hollywood and become an actor. He felt laughter all the way to his toes.

“I’ve got the facts, Harry. I’ll type them up and get the report right to Pecos. Thank you for your service.”

An hour later Noah emailed a very detailed three-page report.

The sheriff responded almost immediately. THANKS.

Noah smiled. He knew that one-word reply contained lots of snark, and he wasn’t sorry he caused it. If the sheriff insisted on dragging Noah into this game, he’d play.

Ball’s in your court, Barney Fife.

Monday

Bart “Bear” Buchanan locked his repair shop on Main and headed out before his two daughters showed up to take him to lunch. Whenever his oldest, Katherine, wanted money, or needed anything from him, she always fed him first. His youngest, Cora, got dragged along for the event just like he did, because if there was anything Katherine loved it was an audience. While Katherine insisted on pretending she was concerned about his health, what she was really concerned about was his bank account, and right now he cared more about finding a very large cheeseburger than listening to her whine.

“Morning, Bear,” Noah shouted from the bookshop entry as he stepped toward the tiny tables. The bookshop owner set little bud vases with a bit of lavender on each table. “You headed out for an early lunch or would you like a cup of coffee this morning?”

Bart, who everyone in town called Bear, growled at the question, but he managed a one-sided smile. He knew he was a size bigger than most folks, with hands rough and scarred and more powerful than a man half his age. Some said his hands should be registered as weapons, but Bear just grinned as he waved at Noah O’Brien. The bookworm might be shy and a few months overdue for a haircut, but Bear saw him as an old soul. He was interesting, yet cautious. As if he wanted to sink into the woodwork rather than be noticed.

Bear slowed to talk to the kid and no matter how busy he was, he put in the effort to connect on some level. He’d learned years ago if you take the time to talk about nothing, a neighbor will be around when you need him.

“Nope, no coffee, Noah. Not even an early lunch. I’ve got to go pick up a broken refrigerator out on West Road. May take a while. I’ll try to fix it out at the farm so I won’t have to haul it in. If anyone needs me, have them leave a note and I’ll call them when I can.”

“Will do, Bear,” Noah said as he stepped bac. . .