“And he talked to you,” Cadence clarified. “Like, with words?”
“Well, he didn’t do skywriting!” Eleanor exclaimed with a laugh. “I don’t know why you’re acting like this is so remarkable. He was just being neighborly.”
“For one, Garrett Wilder is not your neighbor,” Diana pointed out. “It’s not a big town, but it’s not that small. I think he lives a little bit further out from the center of town.”
“He does,” June confirmed. “He gave me some scrap lumber he had at his house once when I needed to fix Benjamin’s sandbox. He’d have to drive another five minutes past Eleanor’s house, coming from town.”
Diana gestured at June as if to say,see?
“For another,” she continued. “Garrett Wilder doesn’t do ‘neighborly’ even with his actual neighbors, especially not when they’re attractive, single women. If you were an old man with a stooped back, maybe. A kid with a flat bike wheel, sure. You? Cute and young and fun? Nah, that’s not Garrett’s area of expertise.”
“Well, far be it from me to tell you to stop complimenting me,” Eleanor said, “but I think you might be overestimating my charms.”
June shook her head. “It’s not you. It’s Garrett. About ten years or so ago, his fiancée ditched him, like,rightbefore they were supposed to get married. Ever since, he doesn’t date, doesn’t flirt, none of it.”
“Which is a darn shame, if you ask me,” Miriam said sourly. “Handsome, handy guy like that? Kind to his elders? Makes a good living? Could make some woman a very nice husband, don’t you think?”
Eleanor did not like the sidelong look that the older woman was giving her.
“Oh no,” she said, holding up her hands. “I just stopped having a husbandliterally yesterday. I am not in the market for a new one.”
Miriam did not look convinced. To Eleanor’s alarm, neither did any of the other women.
“Well,” Cadence said, “it would be nice to at least go check in on him, see how he’s doing. Since you brained him with a shelf and all that.”
“You too, Cadence?” Eleanor demanded with mock outrage.
Cadence shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a meet-cute.”
“That’s my girl,” Miriam said approvingly.
“It’snota meet-cute,” Eleanor insisted. “Besides, I thought you were all into suspense and drama these days.”
Cadence’s smile bloomed. “Oh! I didlovethat book you gave me, now that you mention it.”
Eleanor seized upon the conversational diversion. She wasnotin the market for a love life, and, unless she was very,verymistaken, the scowling hardware store guy was not thinking about her like that either. So what if he was beingunusuallyneighborly when he had stopped by her house? Maybe he’d felt his good deeds quota was running low and he wanted to get hisnumbers up. She didn’t know. She just knew that their line of thinking was wrong. Super wrong. Very, ultra, mega wrong.
“Okay, did you finish?” she asked. “Because I did, and, no spoilers, I didnotsee the ending coming.”
“Ooh,” Cadence said. “No, I’m maybe forty pages from the end? But I was so sure I had it figured all out, so now I’m doubting that. Maybe there’s another big twist waiting for me.”
“Excuse you,” Diana said. “But spill the title, please! We want to know about the twisty fun book!” She gestured at herself, June, and Miriam.
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Eleanor sent the title to their group text thread so that they had it all written down. “There it is. If you guys are going to read it, Cadence and I will be even more mum about potential spoilers.”
Miriam, who was impressively tech savvy, especially for a woman of her age, was already looking at the title on the local library’s e-book app. “Hm. Looks like there’s not enough kissing in this book,” she said.
“It is a bit less romantic than your usual fare, Miriam,” Cadence confirmed.
With a theatrical flourish, Miriam pressed the button to borrow the book.
“I will survive,” she said grandly. “I don’t want to miss out on the book talk.”
“Me neither,” said June and Diana in unison before turning to one another and laughing.
“Miriam ‘Lightning Fingers’ Landers got to the e-book copy before we could, though,” June said. “I guess we’ll have to be the uncool kids who have to wait.”
“Oh, you can borrow my copy,” Eleanor volunteered.
