Wishing for Wonderful (Serendipity #3)(5)

Eleanor





John hasn’t told his daughter about us yet. He doesn’t see it as a problem, but I’m not so sure. He claims Lindsay is an open-minded person who’ll be happy for us. But I’ve come to realize kids don’t always take kindly to their parents remarrying. Ray Junior had a conniption when I told him.

I invited him and his wife to dinner that evening, thinking a pleasant visit and a full stomach would make hearing the news a bit easier. It sure didn’t go like I thought it would. Before I finished explaining what a fine man John is, Ray jumped out of his seat and started peppering me with questions like he was the lead prosecutor in a court case.

“Don’t you see he’s after your money?” Ray kept asking. I told him I didn’t have any money for John to be after, but then he switched over to badgering me about John taking over our house. I was tempted to tell him it’s my house, not our house, but I held my tongue.

Finally I couldn’t take any more and lost my temper. I looked Ray straight in the eye and told him John and I were planning to sell both houses and buy a place of our own. Well, that opened up a whole new can of worms.

“Ah-ha!” Ray shouted. “You’ll sell the house, hand over the money and that’s the last you’ll see of that buzzard!”

A fat lot he knows. John is not the kind of man who’d even dream of doing such a thing. I tried to explain that to Ray, but he wasn’t willing to listen.

Traci is Ray’s wife, so because she’s a woman I thought maybe she’d jump in and give me some support. But that didn’t happen. She sat there silent as a stone with her face scrunched into an expression that made me think she had a sour pickle stuck sideways in her mouth.

After two hours of such nonsense I told Ray he’d better go on home and get used to the idea because like it or not, I was going to marry John. When Ray stomped out the door, Traci followed along. At the last minute, she turned back and mumbled, “G’nite.” That was the only word she’d spoken since the first mention of John’s name.

I’m praying Ray will simmer down and come to accept the idea. I’d like him to be happy for me, be glad I’ve found somebody, be glad I won’t grow old sitting here alone. Right now he thinks the worst of John, but I’m betting he’ll have a different opinion once he meets him.

Kids might think their parents are too old for love, but I can say for a fact it’s not true. John makes me feel something I haven’t felt for years. When he kisses me and traces the edge of my cheek with his thumb, I get a tingle that goes clear down to my toes. He feels exactly the same. I know, because if we’re apart for even a single afternoon he calls to say how much he’s missing me. Ray’s daddy never did that, not even when we were first married.





Cupid

Mistakes & Misconceptions





Lindsay is not at all like her mom. Bethany was a practical woman who looked at life and saw it for exactly what it was. At the end of each day Bethany packed her troubles into a closet of forgetfulness, and the next morning she awoke to a new day and another chance at happiness. Lindsay, well, she’s another story.

After her breakup with Phillip, she moved through the days like a person without reason to live. Tuesday through Saturday she left her apartment at the same time, stopped at the same Starbucks and worked at the bookstore from nine until six-thirty. Day after day she returned home carrying an armload of books. In the evening she read until her eyes were weary; then, when the words grew fuzzy and sentences ran together, she’d close the book and go to bed. On Mondays when she didn’t go to work, she cleaned the apartment then went right back to reading.

You might think that after centuries of dealing with humans I would be accustomed to their peculiarities, but certain ones, like Lindsay, still boggle my mind. The end of a love affair is always cause for a certain amount of despondency, but this girl carried it to the extreme.

While she was at the bookstore Lindsay spent most of her time meandering from aisle to aisle, looking for books that had nothing to do with love. She avoided the romance section and took to browsing the exotic cuisine and travel shelves, even though she had little appetite and nowhere to go. One evening as she staggered in with an unusually large armload of books, Walker, the building doorman, lifted several from the top of the pile and followed her to the elevator.

“Thanks, Walker,” she said. “I think they were about to fall.”

He nodded. “Seems you’re doing a lot of reading these days.”

“I am,” she replied. “It helps to pass the time.”

“Pass the time?” He set his pile of books down on the foyer bench, then took the remaining books from her arms and placed them beside the first pile. “Why would a girl pretty as you need books to pass the time?”

“It’s a long story.” She gave a sigh that came from the pit of her stomach and swirled through her chest. “I had this terrible argument with Phillip and…”

“I know,” Walker said. “I heard the commotion. When I went to take a look at what was going on, I spotted him scooping his stuff off the street.”

“We’re through. He won’t be back.”

Walker smiled. “Good. You deserve better.”

“I do?”