The left side of the store was dominated by a well-lit glass case that held gleaming fountain pens. A locked display case for pens? Wasn’t that a little over the top? She’d only ever seen them in jewelry stores. Not that she’d spent much time in jewelry stores since she didn’t wear much jewelry and none of her relationships had ever made it to the point where she would have wanted to buy a ring.

A floor-to-ceiling shelf along the right wall was filled with notebooks, school supplies, and writing pads of all colors and sizes. Large reels of colorful paper and racks of glittery cardstock hung behind the cash register, which was located on a counter at the other end of the room. One corner of the store held pencils, erasers, highlighters, bottles of ink, quills, nibs, and items that Susanne didn’t recognize.

Who the hell needed all this stuff in the age of smartphones? No wonder her uncle was close to bankruptcy.

Since they had just opened, no customers had found their way to the store yet, but a short woman looked up from the leather-bound notebooks she’d been arranging on an island display that dominated the middle of the room.

At first, Susanne thought she might be an intern or a university student who worked for her uncle part-time, but as she took a moment to study the woman, she realized that only her slight build and her large eyes, which seemed almost too big for her delicate face, made her look younger than she was. The faint lines around her eyes and her mouth revealed that she was probably closer to Susanne’s own age—thirty-eight—than to thirty, and she had made no attempt to cover them with makeup.

She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense of the word. Her hair was too dark to be blonde and too light to be brown; too wavy to be straight but not wavy enough to qualify as curly. Mostly, it looked windblown.

Not Susanne’s usual type for sure. But there was something about her that drew her gaze anyway. If Susanne hadn’t been so pissed off, she probably would have found her cute.

But cute or not, this wasn’t the look she had expected from a saleswoman. Didn’t her uncle enforce a more professional dress code? The woman was wearing blue jeans and a white blouse, for Christ’s sake! Admittedly, she looked good in them, but that wasn’t the point.

“Good morning.” The woman’s voice had a surprisingly husky depth for someone so small. She directed a friendly smile at Susanne. “How may I help you?”

At least the saleswoman wasn’t rude to potential customers. There might be hope for her yet. Susanne walked toward her.