“You definitely don’t have to share everything if you don’t want to,” June advised the other woman quietly.
Eleanor waved a hand. “No, I think I’m at the stage where talking about it might help, to be honest. The whole thing is… almost funny, in a horrible way. You see, I thought we were going out to dinner to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, and my ex had planned the dinner at the mostromantic restaurant in town to let me know he was in love with someone else.”
Miriam outright gasped.
“That… that scoundrel!” she exclaimed.
Eleanor grinned. “Okay, your word choice makes me think maybe we have some reading material in common.”
“Two words for you: dashing dukes,” Miriam replied with a wink.
Eleanor laughed. “Yes, we will have more to say about that later. But, yeah, it was… not the best night ever, to put it mildly. But when I told my son, Jeremy, who is away at college, what had happened… he wasn’t even surprised. Sad, but not surprised. And that made me reevaluate a few things.”
Cadence had felt tension creeping into her shoulders as the topic turned to troubled marriages, but now she felt a flicker of curiosity along with her stress over her own uncertain relationship. Were others surprised when she and Tyler had split, or had they, like Eleanor’s son, long since seen the writing on the wall? It was a question for another time, however, as Eleanor kept speaking, clearly needing the outlet.
“Anyway,” Eleanor continued, voice already growing lighter, “I thought about whatIreally wanted for this next stage. And the first thing I came up with was that I wanted to live by the water. So I searched for places. And when I came across Magnolia Shore, it just felt right.”
“That’s because it was right,” Diana said, slapping her knee to punctuate the statement. Eleanor wouldn’t recognize it, Cadence knew, but this was a powerful endorsement from Diana, who often took a little time to let people in. “You’re one of us now, just like Miriam said.”
“I am known for my wisdom,” Miriam said with false modesty as she took a sip of her mocktail.
Cadence, her mind still on her estrangement from Tyler, found she suddenly needed a topic change.
“Okay, but let’s circle back,” she said, gesturing with the piece of chocolate in her hand. “Eleanor. You’re a reader?”
Eleanor beamed. “Oh yeah. When I was packing up my stuff to move it was… maybe half books?” she said with a laugh.
“Rookie numbers,” Miriam teased. “You’re going to have to pick up the pace if you want to have a proper library by the time you reach my age.”
“Talking about dashing dukes makes me think you’re a romance girl, like Miriam,” June said.
“I certainly read a lot of romance,” Eleanor agreed, “but really, I like everything. I’m recently very into mysteries, especially the ones where little old ladies in small towns solve crimes.”
“That willnotbe happening here,” Miriam declared, gesturing at herself as if to say she was the little old lady in question and she simply forbid it.
“Hm,” June said. “Too close to home for me. I like my books to help me escape. Give me your rom coms set in the big city or space voyages.”
“You can have romance in space,” Miriam pointed out. She was devoted to her genre of choice. She and Cadence often swapped books, but Cadence was feeling a bit… worn out on romance recently. It didn’t take a psychologist to say it was because of her own relationship woes.
“Have you tried cozy fantasy?” Eleanor asked June eagerly, causing Cadence’s ears to prick up. That sounded intriguing. “It’s fantasy, but less battles more, oh I don’t know, making potions in a little shop.”
June tapped her chin. “Okay, I’m intrigued. Tell me more…”
As Eleanor leapt into the description of a book that, to everyone’s amusement, included a sentient, talking plant,Cadence felt herself finally relax again. Her troubles could wait. For now, she was going to bask in the good feeling of knowing that she had been responsible for helping bring a new, wonderful friend into the fold.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Eleanor looked at her dwindling stack of boxes, then at the abundant space in her house. Then back at the boxes, then at the space again.
Who would have ever thought she’d be sorry that she was almost done unpacking?
The problem was that the house still felt awfully big, even with all her stuff filling it. Or, rather, notfilling it.
The first floor was where the space was really an issue. There was the kitchen, of course, but there was also a dining roomanda parlor. Plus, there was a bedroom on the first floor, as well as a half bathroom. Upstairs, there were another two bedrooms and a full bath, but that had been more easily filled… especially when Eleanor had simply closed the door to the spare bedroom and decided to leave it for later.
Her new home was, in the end, actually a bit smaller than the house she’d shared with Brian and Jeremy in Indianapolis. What Eleanor had neglected to consider, however, was that she was only one person, not three. And that she didn’t have twenty years’ worth of accumulated possessions to occupy the space in this echoing expanse of a house.
“Okay,” she said, ignoring how her voice made the house evensoundempty. “First things first.”
