Page 51 of Once upon a Summer Night

“Someday, someone will show you your worth, Eleanor Rose. And when he does, all these negative thoughts will disappear. I won’t pester you about your gentlemen callers, but promise me that you will try more than one date, with more than one man.”

“You are insane,” Ellie informed her, though she said it with a small smile.

“Promise me, darling, or I’ll continue to bother you and Mrs. MacWilliam.”

“Fine, I promise to try.”

“That’s a dear. Boston is so…interesting. I’ve only been once and I remember not being able to understand its residents. Good night!”

Winnie disconnected the call, leaving Ellie laughing at the silent phone in her hand. Personally, she enjoyed the Boston accent, though Colin didn’t really possess one.

“What’s so funny?”

Speak of the devil.

The kind, charming, so-handsome-it-hurt-to-look-at-him, untouchable devil.

She gestured to the phone. “My aunt. She has a wicked sense of humor.”

“Hmm. Perhaps someday I’ll see it. I heard something fall.”

Ellie blinked rapidly. “Oh. That was my suitcase.”

He glanced at it on the bed, then snickered. “Liar. Did you trip on the rug or walk into the door?”

“Fell off the suitcase,” she admitted. “I’m all right.”

He guffawed. “Good God, Ellie. Never change. When you’re ready, come on downstairs and we’ll head to my parents’ house.” He grabbed her suitcase and gave her a small salute before heading back downstairs, chuckling to himself.

Ellie absently rubbed her tailbone and realized with a start that she wasn’t embarrassed. In fact, she had a rather strange feeling in her chest, and it took her a moment to realize what it was.

Acceptance.

Sure, she was clumsy. And maybe a bit shy around new people. And maybe even a little reserved around those she did know.

And perhaps that was all okay.

“Let’s go, Ellie! And try not to trip down the stairs. I really want pancakes, and hospital food is terrible!” Colin hollered up to her.

She smiled.

Yeah. It was okay.

“So you’re heading back tonight?”

Colin poured a disgusting amount of maple syrup over a tall stack of pancakes and bacon. “Yep.”

James O’Rourke, Colin’s elder brother, sat at their mother’s table, eyeing the plate of food in front of Colin. “That’s a heart attack on a plate, you know.”

“Good thing there’s a doctor in the house,” Colin repliedaround a mouthful of food. He nodded towards Ellie. “Help yourself, there’s always more where that came from.”

“It’s true, I always have extras warming in the oven,” Evelyn confirmed to Ellie. She asked James, “How was California, dear?”

“Hot,” James replied, buttering his toast. His cell phone rang, but he silenced it without looking at the caller. “Very brown. The drought is really something out there.”

“How’s Hail…okay, I guess I’m not supposed to ask about your wife?” Colin asked, confused, as his mother made frantic shakes of her head and slicing motions at her throat.

“Subtle, Evelyn.” Connor O’Rourke, the family patriarch, sighed and folded his newspaper down.

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