“And my copy, which used to be Eleanor’s spare copy, as soon as I’m done,” Cadence chimed in.
“Ooh, and then we can have a little book chat. Fun!” June exclaimed.
“I think what you’re describing there is a book club,” Miriam said with a teasing smile. June playfully stuck out her tongue.
Eleanor found that she really liked the idea, wanted to latch on to it more than the joking atmosphere indicated.
“You know what?” she said. “Yeah, let’s do a little impromptu book club! We’ll figure out a time that works for everybody, and then that’ll give me a deadline to get at least one of the rooms in my house in order. Then we’ll gather, christen the place, have snacks, and talk spooky thrillers. We could call it… the Coastal Book Club. What do you think?”
Nobody even had to pause. They all agreed at once.
As they finished up lunch, Eleanor found the idea filled her with a new energy. She might not know where the rest of her life was heading. She might not know how to fix a shelf properly.
But she could host a book club meeting, and she intended to do just that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Garrett rolled his shoulder muscles to get out the kinks that he inevitably got whenever he did a fiddly job like the one that he’d done today, when he’d re-cemented a bunch of Mrs. Long’s patio pavers. It wasn’t the lifting that got to him, usually. He was pretty strong, if he did say so himself, and he knew how to protect his back when heaving heavy objects to and fro.
It was thebending. His back had, around aged thirty-five, taken up a fairly strong anti-bending stance. Now that Garrett was properly in his forties, his shoulders had taken up the cause. Anything that involved bending, hunching, or craning, and his back, neck, and shoulders would protest for days.
Part of him was tempted, as he got into his truck, to just head home. It was just past four in the afternoon, which meant it wasn’t really worth going back to open the store today. Nearly all of his customers came in the mornings, as they were very often retired people who had taken up building in their spare time. Anybody who needed something in an emergency knew how to get a hold of him… not that this ever transpired.
Even so, he thought of his empty fridge and bare cupboard shelves. If he went directly home and got into the hot shower he was so keenly craving, he would end up being furious withhimself in about an hour, when he had to leave the house again so that he had something to eat.
He groaned as he turned his truck toward Country Corner Market. Man, being responsible and reasonable and smart was theworstsometimes.
He repeated this thought to himself several minutes later when he looked up from the grocery list that he kept on his phone just in the nick of time to stop a large bag of flour from crashing down atop his head.
He caught the bag in one arm, the little puff of white powder that escaped out the top tickling his nose.
“What the heck?” he growled. This kind of carelessness was not at all like the proprietors of Country Corner Market.
“Oh, no,” said a low voice.
Wait a minute. He knew that voice.
He peered around the end of the shelf and saw the woman from Piedmont Street, Eleanor, looking back at him sheepishly.
“Hi,” she said, cringing, face flushed bright pink with embarrassment. “I amsosorry. I was trying to reach that case of sparkling water up there.” She pointed. “And I couldn’t grab the handle and I kind of lost my balance and I think it pushed the flour through to the other side. I’m really, really sorry.”
She spoke quickly, a bit breathlessly.
Garrett reached up, grabbed the case of water she’d indicated with one hand, and laid it on the floor. Eleanor watched all of this without comment.
“Now that I’ve done that,” he said, tone coming out flatter that he’d intended it to, “are you going to keep trying to kill me every time you see me?”
Her eyes went wide and her cheeks flushed an even deeper pink. Garrett had to banish the wordcutefrom his vocabulary.
“Okay, I really am sorry for that, too,” she said, face twisted apologetically. “I… I was going to come by and apologize, checkin that you were okay. Well, I hadn’t decided yet if I was going to actuallydoit, but I definitely knew that Ishould. Except then I didn’t know if you wanted to see me, so I didn’t want to intrude, to, you know, add insult to injury or whatever. But I obviously made that decision not knowing I was almost going to crack you over the headagain?—”
“It's fine,” he said, cutting her off. Yes, her flustered attitude was adorable, but she was going to pass out if she didn’t pause to take a breath.
Fortunately, his interruption made her do just that. She inhaled slowly, paused, and then exhaled. The blush faded, which was less fortunate, in Garrett’s opinion.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “You’re sure.”
“Yes,” he said. Then, more as a reminder to himself about why he ought to keep his distance from this woman, he added, “But maybe let your husband take care of some of the odd jobs, huh? Just to avoid any further accidents.”
