“So, Anthony.” Cadence propped her hand on her chin as June wrapped up her song and took a bow. “What brings you to town? On vacation?”
“Oh, no.” He shook his head. Diana liked the little threads of silver in his hair, she decided. They made him look distinguished. “My daughter and I have just moved here, actually.”
Despite herself, and no doubt encouraged by Cadence’s stunt with her own ring, Diana glanced down at the man’s hand. No ring. So divorced, then, perhaps widowed.
Notthat she had designs on this man, handsome or not.
“Oh yeah? Our friend June, who just finished singing, she has a son, and my husband and I have a daughter. They’re six. How old is yours?”
“Ten,” Anthony said. “Her name is Eloise. She’s actually having a sleepover tonight, so I’m trying to be sociable and meetpeople.” He gave a tiny, self-conscious chuckle. “And I guess I did, so thank you both.”
There was a tiny lull, and Cadence kicked Diana under the table, then gave her a look that urged her to speak.
Ow, Diana thought.
Out loud though, she said, “So what made you choose Magnolia Shore? Do you have family in the area? Or did you come for work?”
There weren’t a ton of big companies in the area, the kind that a person might relocate in order to work for, but there were a few.
He shook his head. “Nah, we just needed a change. We were living in Cleveland before this. I’m actually an accountant, but I do freelance work, not with an agency. So I can work anywhere. Would you believe that we ended up in Magnolia Shore because I found it on a list of nice places to live?”
He said this last bit with a sheepish look.
“Actually, we would totally believe it,” Diana said. Something about his bashfulness made her own worries about embarrassing herself abate. “Our friend Eleanor did the exact same thing.”
“No way!” Anthony laughed. “Maybe we should write a nice email to the author. They give good recommendations.”
“Yeah, and you’re in luck too,” Cadence chimed in, “because, as far as I know, we don’t have an accountant in town. And one thing about this town is that everybody is really loyal to staying local, so you should be able to get business. Diana here owns a small business herself, actually.”
“Oh yeah? What kind?”
For the next twenty minutes or so, Diana found herself getting lost in conversation with Anthony. He was remarkably easy to talk to. After a few minutes, sensing herself extraneous,Cadence slipped out of the booth to go talk to June, who welcomed her over at the performer’s table.
“I do not know how you can eat those things,” Diana said with a shudder as she watched Anthony take a bit of a jalapeño popper. “How is your mouth not on fire?”
“It’s not that bad!” he protested. “There’s cream cheese inside and breading on the outside. It’s barely even spicy at all, when you consider all that.”
Diana gave him an intensely skeptical look. “I feel like it is actually still very spicy,” she said.
“Try one,” he urged, holding out one of the last remaining poppers. “You’ll see.”
“Ugh,” she said. “I am torn between loving a challenge and wanting to be able to taste things the rest of this week.”
“It’s not that bad!” he repeated. “Seriously.”
Her desire to be brave won out. With tentative fingers, she took the breaded pepper from him, and nibbled the tip.
Immediately, she started to cough, and her eyes started to water.
“Betrayer!” she accused, even as she laughed through her pain. “This is very much that bad!”
“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry,” Anthony said, although he too, was laughing. He pushed a glass of water in her direction. “Here, drink this. It’s not as helpful as milk or bread might be…”
She gulped the water and when, indeed, it did not help very much, she turned to the last, lonely mozzarella stick and shoved it into her mouth.
Ah. That was so much better.
“Milk and bread,” she said with a laugh when she could feel her tongue again.
