Shaking her head as Sylvie opened her purse, she practically forced the drink into her hands. “No, none of that! If you get to give everyone free samples constantly, then this is the least I can do. No arguments.”
“No arguments,” Sylvie said as she accepted the cup and took a sip, but there was a twinkle in her eye that Diana wasn’t quite sure she liked. She sighed in contentment. “Thanks, Diana. Just what I needed.”
“Well, it was hard to go wrong when the lemons were so amazing,” Diana replied. “Please pass along my thanks to Gale – there’s no way I could’ve done so well without them.”
“I’ll let him know,” Sylvie said. “But the lemonade would’ve been great either way.”
Diana leaned in, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “The secret… is sugar. Lots and lots of sugar.”
“Now, why didn’t I think of that?” Sylvie laughed. “You learn something every day.”
Diana laughed with her. Despite being a more or less lifelong resident of Girdwood Springs, until recently she’d never known Sylvie as anything more than the friendly face at the bakery that Diana tried not to go to too often, lest she spend every last dime on cake. But last year she’d made friends with the new local vet, Chloe, and through her had met Sylvie and a number of other locals whom she now considered dear friends.
She’d already loved Girdwood Springs and the community here, but she’d always been a bit of a homebody outside of work time, devoting much of her time and attention to her son, Ash. He, after all, was the reason she’d come back here – while Ash’s father, her ex, had dreamed of the big city and success in business, all Diana had wanted to do was make sure her son had the happy childhood she’d had in this small mountain town.
No, perhaps it wasn’t glamorous, and perhaps now that her ex, James, was apparently a big deal and making money hand over fist in the tech business she could have had a pretty sweet deal as a Silicon Valley trophy wife.
But it just hadn’t been her. And so, when Ash was two she’d returned to where she grew up, hoping to give him what she’d had as a child. But she’d remained on good terms with James and he was still involved in Ash’s life – he wasn’t a bad guy, after all, it had just turned out that they wanted totally different things in life.
She’d known she’d made the right decision, even if being a single mom wasn’t exactly easy. But she had a job she loved, and Ash filled her days with love and laughter. Now that her social life had opened up more, it felt like the last piece of the puzzle had been fitted.
Well, more like the second-to-last piece. There was still the question of maybe resuscitating her completely dead romantic life at some point, but Diana still wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.
Despite her and James having parted amicably enough, the whole process had been exhausting. She was happy with her little family of two for the time being.
And any little voices in her head that whispered that maybe she’d like to meet a new man were automatically squashed beneath her metaphorical heel. She just didn’t have the time or the mental energy for dealing with the complications of a newrelationship right now. Ash was her main priority. He was ten now and seemed to be getting smarter every day – sometimes, she struggled to keep up with him and his new interests.
“Thanks for taking Ash in this afternoon, by the way – I really appreciate it,” Diana said, giving Sylvie a warm smile. “You’re sure he’s not giving you too much trouble?”
“None whatsoever,” Sylvie said with a grin. “I wouldn’t have even known he was there if you hadn’t told me.”
Ash had been manning the lemonade stand this morning, carefully serving up lemonade and counting out people’s change, stiffly saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, but Diana had cut him free once the day had started getting hot enough that her little battery-operated fan was struggling to keep them cool. It didn’t seem fair to make him spend his summer vacation out in the heat raising money for the playground.
Luckily Girdwood Springs hadn’t really changed that much from when Diana had been a kid – she had tons of memories of running free in the woods all day, her parents barely knowing where she was or what she was up to. While she wasn’tquiteso carefree in her own parenting style, she knew that she could trust Ash to not get into trouble, and the people of the town to keep an eye out for him.
Not that there was any chance of him running off into the depths of the woods and swinging from the trees. He’d told her that he was going to take their faithful golden retriever, Bella, for a walk, then sit with Bella at Sylvie’s bakery and do some crosswords from his puzzle book.
My son the hoodlum,Diana thought with a smile.
“Anyway, I should be heading back,” Sylvie said. “Emily is covering for me at the moment, but you know how I love to be in the thick of things.”
Dianadidknow – besides being known for her generosity, Sylvie was also an infamous workaholic, though shehadsettleddown somewhat since the birth of her daughter, Lily, nine months ago.
Still, she was back in the bakery three days a week now, and clearly thriving. Her three biggest loves in life were obviously her work, her daughter, and her husband – though not in that order – and it seemed like she had found a balance that was working for her.
“Gale has Lily for the day, does he?” Diana asked, as she surreptitiously topped up Sylvie’s drink.
“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” Sylvie said, even as she drank it down. “But yeah, he does. They came in for a visit for five minutes earlier today, and in that time that little rapscallion managed to get into a sack of flour, knock over a chair, and tip a bag of choc chips onto the floor.” She looked baffled. “She doesn’t even know how to stand up by herself yet! How can she be such a terror?!”
“That’s kids for you,” Diana said sympathetically.
“I dread to think what she’ll be like when she turns two,” Sylvie said, though her put-upon expression was somewhat undone by the laughter that was clearly fighting its way through. She doted on little Lily, and it wasn’t hard to see why – she was definitely a sweet-natured kid, and her innocent, cherubic smile could melt the coldest of hearts.
Sylvie tipped back her cup, draining the last dregs. Finishing up, she smiled. “Anyway, gotta go. See you ’round!”
“See you later!” Diana said, waving as Sylvie headed back up the road.
She looked down… and frowned.
