Page 58 of The Spotted Cottage By the Sea
Six years, was it? Maybe seven years since a man had seen her as anything resembling an object of desire. Seven years since she’d felt the warmth of affection?
It was embarrassing. No wonder it had taken her so long to admit it to herself. Russell probably had women throwing themselves at him all the time.
A woman in every port – or airport. Whatever the modern equivalent was. Beautiful models in bikinis with glowing, tanned skin and impossibly long legs laid out on white sand beaches.
Nothing like homely Sheila, who spent her time running to the grocery store, scrubbing burnt-on sauce off pans, and dragging the garbage out to the curb. Her life wasn’t the stuff of romance movies or picture-perfect Instagram pages.
“There’s no way her life can really be that happy all the time…” she would mutter to herself as she scrolled by another blissful smiling woman before uploading another picture of lemon raspberry cookies to her own page.
Despite promising herself she wouldn’t, Sheila went online and searched for information about Russell. There were many pictures of him with his stunning ex-wife, which she’d expected, but what she was really looking for was his own social media account, preferably on Instagram where he followed and flirted with dozens of models and actresses and proved her suspicions right.
Oddly, no such account existed. It seemed like he had no online presence at all, let alone one that proved him to be a lecherous creep.
Sheila slammed her laptop shut. She was projecting onto him. She had no idea what went on in his head, and she wasn’t going to flatter herself into thinking he actually liked her.
The facts were obvious. He was a famous, handsome actor. He had tried to kiss her. It had happened, and she had reacted poorly.
The rest was less obvious. She didn’t know if he’d only tried to kiss her because there were no other single women on the island. She didn’t know if he was a playboy. She didn’t know why her heart fluttered in her chest when he looked at her, or how to get herself to stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss his neck.
These were the things that would continue to keep her up at night.
There was only a week left before the big reopening for the tea shop and the cottage was overflowing with excitement.
Patty was busy making three new recipes a day for the menu. Eliza had enlisted the help of her sisters to get an online presence for the tea shop by posting pictures, making adorable videos of Patty explaining the teas and the offerings, and promoting their first grand event: an open mic night.
Before Sheila could shoot the idea down, Eliza listed her as the headliner.See Sheila Wilde in her first performance in seven years!
“Eliza,” Sheila hissed when she saw the pile of fliers on the kitchen table, “No one knows who I am, and I’m not going to headline the –”
“People remember you! When I posed this online, we got almost a thousand likes.”
Sheila raised an eyebrow. “What? Why!”
“Because you’re unforgettable,” Eliza said with a wave of her hand. “Anyway, it makes us look cool to have a headliner.”
As much as Sheila loved Eliza’s revived spirit, she did not appreciate being a target of it. “Okay. As long as I don’t have to sing.”
Her smile fell away. “Mom. You have to sing.”
“Eliza…” Sheila rubbed her face with her hands. “I’ll host, but…”
“Please? Just one song. For me, Mom?”
Who was she to say no? Sheila was a sucker. She knew she was a sucker, and she’d never not be a sucker for her kids. “All right, one song. But only because I love you.”
Eliza shrieked and threw her arms up for a hug. “I love you too, Mom!”
Before she agreed to anything else, Sheila disappeared upstairs to her bedroom and shut the door. What she really needed to do was finish Russell’s taxes and budget.
She’d avoided it in an attempt to avoid thinking about him,but the least she could do was finish what she’d promised.
She sat down at her desk and opened the folder he’d given her. She filtered through the papers and added whatever she found to her slew of spreadsheets – income, payments, obligations.
There was a pile of papers clipped together with a Post-it note simply titled “Divorce.” She poured over this, surprised to see he had declined alimony from his fabulously wealthy ex-wife. He’d also given up their Los Angeles home and agreed to sell their Minneapolis home.
In return, she’d left him a few assets. An old Jeep. A retirement account they’d both paid into. A company constantly referred to as only MMFL.
Sheila didn’t remember him mentioning any companies. Was it a movie studio they’d started? The flower shop she’d always wanted? It seemed to still be in his possession, and it was draining money from him. There were large payments made for repairs, payments for taxes…
