Sophie slowly came out of her foggy sleep as Matthew gently shook her shoulder from the driver's seat. "Sophie? Sophie, we're here. We're at Fairfields. Sophie?"
Sophie shook her head to clear the cobwebs, and then smiled gratefully at Matthew. "Thanks for the nap – I really needed that, though it feels weird to take a nap at 8:30 in the morning! I hate these overnight flights – it usually takes me a day or two to get acclimated again."
He smiled in return, then opened his door to begin retrieving her luggage as Sophie struggled out her seatbelt, then clambered from the car into warm sunshine and a cool breeze coming off the impossibly green fields around her.
Her eyes immediately shot to the old farmhouse, her belly tightening in excitement. It looked exactly the same as when she was a child, she thought, as she practically danced from foot to foot waiting for Matthew to catch up.
She vividly remembered exploring every nook and cranny of the house, running through the back garden yelling at the top of her lungs, and climbing the fences that separated the house property from the fields surrounding it.
She and Matthew struggled to the front door with suitcases between them, where Matthew extracted a set of keys from his pocket and opened the door before handing them to Sophie with a shy smile. The same familiar smell washed over Sophie as she practically scampered into the house, a wide smile lighting her face. She remembered Auntie Barbara once telling her the farmhouse was built in the early 1700s, and being boggled that it was still standing in such pristine condition.
The upstairs featured bright bedrooms filled with books, the downstairs boasted a huge tiled kitchen, a lovely family room, and Sophie's favorite place in the entire house – a glassed in conservatory that flooded with sunshine and was filled with overstuffed chairs perfect for reading. She couldn't wait to dig out a well worn novel from one of the bedrooms and flop down with her feet up…
Sophie giggled in delight as she found the house exactly as she remembered, turning around and smiling at Matthew. "It's like I remembered! I love this place…" She breathed as she hustled into the conservatory, grinning up at the sunshine pouring in.
"I hope you enjoy Fairfields, Sophie," Matthew said kindly. "Even if it will take you four weeks to unpack," he said with a teasing grin.
Sophie squawked in mock protest, but gave him a winsome smile. "Thanks for everything, Matthew. The ride, the help with the luggage, not making fun of my snoring…I can't wait to start working with you."
"And I you, Sophie," Matthew said warmly. "As long as you don't change TOO much around the shop…"
Sophie smiled reassuringly. "Not for at least a day or two…"
Matthew blanched a bit, and then shook his shoulders. "I should let you get settled in. Your Auntie Barbara said that you are welcome to use her car as your own, to help yourself to anything in the kitchen – I went ahead and bought a few staples for you – and to rearrange anything you like in the house."
"Um…" Sophie began, her eyes downcast. "Can you do me a favor?"
"Of course," Matthew agreed instantly.
"Can you pick me up for work tomorrow?" Sophie asked bashfully.
Matthew cocked his head to the side, confused. "I can, but why? Don't you drive?"
"The whole 'other side of the road' thing freaks me out. I'll drive…eventually, but I think me, a different car, and a 'wrong side of the road' thing while I have jet lag might just be a recipe for disaster. These roads are pretty small around here."
Matthew nodded his assent. "You know, you may be right. I'll be here at eight o'clock, if that's alright with you. We usually open around nine."
Sophie nodded quickly. "Perfect. I'll be ready. Thanks for everything, Matthew. You've been a lifesaver today – really sweet."
Matthew smiled, his cheeks flushing from the compliment. "You're…you're welcome. And please…call me Matt. Matthew sounds too…stuffy. My dad is Matthew…I'm just…Matt."
Sophie smiled and nodded. "Just Matt. Got it."
After saying their goodbyes, Sophie waved from the front door as Matt drove away, and then spun on her heel to further explore the house. She opened the refrigerator in the kitchen to find that Matt had indeed bought some staples – milk, eggs, bread, a few yogurts, a wedge of cheese, a bottle of wine, and some cold cuts. She smiled at his thoughtfulness – he seemed like a really sweet guy, though a bit introverted compared to her.
She struggled to remember him from her childhood visits to Hay, and had a vague recollection of a quiet, shy boy who tended to play alone in the sandbox while she ran headlong into any organized game the village children had going. He still had the same tousled dark hair and sweet disposition, though clearly had some reservations about her arrival and plans to change things at Belletristic, the bookshop Auntie Barbara had bought and opened nearly forty years before.
Matt clearly was a man stuck in the present, or even the past, rather than looking to the future. In some ways she envied that he had always lived where he was born, had always had roots, but also wondered what he had missed out on by never leaving the tiny village. Auntie Barbara and told her that Matt was frightening smart, but refused to go to university – he claimed he could learn more from the books in the shop than he ever could from a professor's lecture.
In some ways, Sophie could relate. The times she had spent in Indiana University's Main Library seemed much more valuable than some of the lectures she had sat – and sometimes slept – through.
And obviously, her dissertation progress – or lack thereof – reflected that.
Still, she also knew that Matt was single-handedly taking care of his parents, who were in their advanced years, while working full time to provide for all of them. Auntie Barbara had said that he didn't appear to have a girlfriend, had a small circle of friends, took his role as parental caretaker very seriously, and was freakishly good at keeping the books at the store. Sophie already had plans to break him out of his shell, one way or another, she thought with a grin.
Sophie took a quick swig of milk out of the glass bottle (oh, how she missed those, instead of the big gallon plastic jugs in America), then nibbled on a hunk of bread as she made her way upstairs to the master bedroom. She barely undressed before tumbling into bed under a feather duvet, the sun casting shadows throughout the room while she slept without moving.
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