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I give him a small smile. “Where’s the birthday girl?”
He thumbs over his shoulder. “In the jumping castle. I haven’t been able to get her out since we got here.”
Emelia joins us, smiling. He wraps his arm around her waist. I’ve bumped into her around town and chatted a few times. She’s a lovely person and an Echo Lake transplant. Since she and Elliott fell in love, she’s moved here permanently.
The three of us chat for a minute before I get the uncomfortable feeling pressing against my skin that I often do these days. The one that tells me I’m forcing the pretense too hard and my mask is in danger of slipping at any moment.
At the first break in conversation, I ask, “Where can I put my present?” I hold up the gift wrapped in Barbie paper.
Ansel gave me the tip that Baylor is big on Barbies right now.
“There’s a table against the wall over there.” Emelia points off to her right. “I can take it for you.” She moves out of Elliott’s arm and holds out her hands.
I follow her line of sight and locate the table. “Oh no, I’ve got it. It was good to see you. Thanks again for having me.”
The second I’m past them, the smile slips from my face.
I walk over to the present table and set it down on the pile of others, then I circle back around and take in the room. Everyone is talking and laughing as the children run circles around them. Peals of delight echo out of the bouncy castle. Everyone here looks as if they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
God, I’d kill for just feeling neutral right now. Would love to not feel as if every step forward is weighed down by a thousand pounds pressing on my shoulders.
“I think I saw Nina with Jacob over near the bouncy castle.”
Dottie stands next to me. We bonded over being transplants in Echo Lake the first time I went to her diner, Hollow Pine Café.
“Oh, thanks for the heads-up.” I give her a smile that I hope doesn’t appear practiced. “How are you?”
“Better than you, I’d say. You look like you could use one of my maple pecan cinnamon rolls. You should swing by the diner after this.”
“Oh, I just didn’t sleep well last night.” What I don’t tell her is that I don’t sleep well any nights anymore.
For the first six months after he passed, I woke up in the middle of the night convinced I’d heard someone banging on my front door, reliving the night with Ansel banging on my door. The next six months, I couldn’t roll over without the empty bed reminding me it’s all mine now. And lately, it’s been insomnia, lying awake wondering if I’ll ever find myself again.
Dottie looks me over with a skeptical eye, red-stained lips twisting. “Even so, swing by some time. I don’t see much of you anymore.”
“All right, I will, I promise.”
“Good, now that that’s settled, I’m off to go flirt with Deacon. I love making a burly man blush.”
I chuckle. “Last time I saw you, you told me you had to leave Las Vegas because your husband was hooking up with a coworker and refused to give you a divorce. Should you be flirting with another man?”
“Did I?” She tilts her head with a thoughtful expression. “Must have misspoke. I had to leave because all that dust in the desert was awful for my allergies.” She winks, turns, and walks away.
I chuckle under my breath.
Dottie always makes up different reasons why she left Vegas. No one in town actually knows the real reason she left and landed here.
Looking away from Dottie’s retreating back, I turn toward the jumping castle in search of Nina. When she moved to town, I met her at the bank, and we hit it off right away.
I spot her dark bob through the crowd and keep my eyes focused on her, not granting anyone else attention.
She smiles when she sees me coming and draws me into a hug when I finally reach her. “Glad to see you here.”
“Ansel convinced me to come.” I shrug.
“Ansel?” She arches an eyebrow, and I tell her what happened with the smoke detector. “Well, I, for one, am happy to see you. You can save me from making small talk with all the other parents hovering around the jumping castle, telling kids to move away from one another and not jump so high. Let’s be honest, each of them is going to come out crying at least once.” She hooks her arm through mine.
“Has Jacob been in there the whole time?”
