Winnie felt an uncomfortable clench of envy in her stomach.
Eleanor Ridley had breezed into town earlier that spring and had, practically in an instant, found herself with a big group of friends. Winnie almost winced just thinking about it. She knew that life wasn’t fair, and that it was horrible to even think in those terms, because it wasn’t as though she wished that Eleanor didn’t have any friends.
Winnie knew how hard it was to be alone. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
But Eleanor had only been in town about two weeks before she’d made a bunch of friends. Close ones too. Winnie seemed to see them all together, all over town. Practically every day. She would turn around and there they were, happy and pleased just to be together.
It was hard to watch that and not wish that she had something similar for herself. That was all.
But that was something that had never been in the cards for Winnie, it seemed. Oh, she’d had friends as a young child, back when everyone was friends with everyone, needing nothing more than proximity and a suitable diversion.
But then she’d hit middle school, and she’d been the nerd who loved history. She’d had braces and a… pretty unfortunate haircut that she’d thought would look the same as what she’dseen in a magazine, but really, really hadn’t. All of this had contributed to make Winnie a popular target for tween bullies.
Eventually, her family had moved to Magnolia Shore… but it had been too late. Winnie’s confidence had been shot. She’d responded to this self-doubt, combined with the ‘new kid’ pressure, by focusing her attention on pleasing her teachers.
At the time, it had seemed like a good idea. Adults were more predictable than teens. All she’d had to be was polite, neat, and bam. They’d liked her.
In hindsight, she should not have been surprised that it hadn’t made her popular. Even when she’d gotten a better haircut and finally gotten her braces off, she hadn’t seen any uptick in her social status. Sure, sometimes she’d get called pretty, and she didn’t flatter herself in thinking that was true. But she’d remained friendless, not to mention stubbornly single.
And maybe her high school years had been some kind of critical period for learning how to socialize properly, because even though Winnie was now an adult, she still hadn’t mastered making friends.
No, instead she’d just doubled down, however unintentionally, on the reputation that she’d had in high school. Winnie Burnett was standoffish. Picky.
An irritation.
The thing was, she didn’t entirely know how to stop. This was the only way she’d ever done things.
After all, she hadn’t even really meant to make Eleanor mad when she’d first pointed out the problems with her store. Those were just the rules, and it was Winnie’s job to share them. So she had.
But Eleanor had seemed to think it was personal. She’d acted like she thought Winnie was trying to personally mess with her. As if rules were personal! They were for everyone’s benefit! That was their whole purpose!
But if Winniehadlearned something since those awkward teenage years, it was that people didn’t tend to react well when she gave her explanations.
So she just ducked her head over her phone and didn’t try to make eye contact with Eleanor, Diana, and Cadence. She just waited for her drink, and when it arrived, hurried quickly back to her office.
She would just have to accept her lot in life. It should be easy.
After all, she’d been doing for as long as she could remember.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Hey, Eloise, you good?”
Anthony grinned over at his daughter where she was reading a new installment in a chapter book series she liked. He didn’t normally like to drag poor Eloise into his office, let alone on a Saturday, but things were a little chaotic, what with the move and getting his local accounting clients in place. At least today he’d had to drop off some completed paperwork at Sandy Paws Pet Shop. Eloise had squealed so loudly at the sight of all the kittens that Anthony was pretty sure he’d never hear properly again.
The owner had grinned at where Eloise had planted herself, cross legged, in front of the kitten enclosure.
“You do realize that’s how people end up with pets, right?” she asked. “They bring their kids in here, thinking they’re just going to ‘take a look’ and boom! They have a new puppy.”
“I have a new house!” he complained laughingly. “And a new town! Can we take a pause on new for a little while?”
She shrugged. “You can try, but I’ve found that kids are surprisingly persuasive about these things. It’s why you, as an accountant, will note that my advertising budget iswaylow.”
“I did see that,” he said, chuckling.
“Now you know my secret. And, to sweeten the deal, youtechnicallywork here, so you get free grooming.”
She gave him a winsome smile just as Eloise turned in his direction.
