Page 12 of The Glass Dolphin

“For Christmas morning, I used to make bacon-wrapped cocktail sausages for my boys,” Julia said. “I made those, and they’re in the oven caramelizing right now.”

“With sugar?” Clara asked. “Or maple syrup? In Vermont, they put maple syrup on them.”

“Brown sugar,” Julia said. “That’s how we made them in New York.”

Eloise’s stomach rumbled, because she hadn’t eaten breakfast in her mad dash to get out of the house that morning. The bus had been late, and Eloise refused to leave before the girls were off to school. A late bus led to a late Eloise at the grocery store, and then her being late for the ferry.

Ferries didn’t care about buses or long check-out lines at the supermarket. She’d missed the ferry, and even now, her fingers had just started to warm.

“Did we get the heaters on outside?” She glanced toward the windows beyond Clara, who nodded.

“They’re running,” she said. “Check-out went well. We’ve got the majority of the inn staying over another night, so the two rooms checking in tonight should be easy.”

“Easy,” Eloise echoed. So much of what she’d done here at Cliffside had been easy, but so much had not. She’d worked and worked andworkedfor what she had now, and she’d almost lost it more than once.

She’d almost lost herself for a while there. She wasn’t going to go there again. She didn’t want the inn if she couldn’t have Aaron, Billie, and Grace.

And maybe a baby.

Her hand wandered to her belly, but even if she was pregnant, she’d be three weeks along at most. As she’d aged through her twenties and into her thirties and never married, Eloise had slowly let the hope of motherhood leak out of her. It had gone slowly, like the last rays of sunset surrendering to the inevitability of night.

She hadn’t realized it at the time, but she’d clung to that hope for as long as she could, but no matter what, darkness always overtakes the daytime.

But the sun rises again each morning, and Eloise glanced up and pulled in a breath when she realized she’d fallen into her own thoughts. “Okay,” she said as she exhaled. “Everyone will be here soon. If the inn is humming along, I’m going to go get my dip made. Can you guys get the tables set up?”

“Absolutely,” Julia said. “I’ll get the tables out.” She didn’t normally come in until lunchtime, but she’d been invited to the Friendship Feast—as Eloise had started mentally calling this new tradition she and her friends had started a couple of years ago when a tsunami had brought dozens of people to the inn for shelter.

Eloise had lost track of who was coming. She knew her core group—Robin, Alice, AJ, and Kelli—would be there, as well as her husband. Clara and Julia, obviously, but she wasn’t sure if Madeline Lancaster would make it, and she didn’t remember seeing a text from Laurel either.

Her memory sparked, and she realized Jean and Kristen would be coming together, with Jean’s new baby girl. She and her husband had been able to adopt a little girl a few months ago, and Eloise’s mind ran away from her as she melted together cream cheese, mayo, sour cream, and a couple of cheeses.

Perhaps she and Aaron should consider adopting if they wanted a baby. Eloise wasn’t sure how she felt about that, and she didn’t have the energy today to sort through complicated feelings. Then, she’d have to bring Aaron’s feelings into the conversation, and as she squeezed the water out of the frozen spinach and chopped it up, that was a conversation Eloise didn’t really want to have.

She folded the spinach into the cheesy mixture, then added the drained artichoke hearts. Now, all she needed to do was heat this through and get out the water crackers and chips for it.

“Hey, my love.”

She abandoned her cooking in favor of smiling to Aaron, her gorgeous husband. They hadn’t been married for two years yet, but Eloise fell further in love with him with every single day that passed. Today, he held up a white pastry bag and said, “Guess what Gina had?”

“If that’s an apricot tart, you’ll be my hero.” He already was, and Eloise couldn’t believe she’d somehow caught the eye of this single dad. The Police Chief here in Five Island Cove. A boy she’d had a crush on as a high schooler, and who’d been available thirty years later when she’d returned to her hometown.

Aaron grinned from ear to ear, but he shook his head. “Guess I fail today, then.” He set the bag on the stainless steel table while Eloise’s curiosity spiked. “She was out of apricot. You have to get there before seven to get those.”

“So I’ve heard.”

With his hands free, he easily wrapped Eloise in a hug and bent down to kiss her hello. “I left too early this morning.” He was warm and wonderful and safe, and Eloise loved everything about him. Maybe not the snoring that happened when he finally got a day off and took sleeping pills to catch up on his rest. Maybe not some of the brusquer language he used with the girls when he felt like Billie was getting fresh or going out with the wrong boys.

She put an inch between them and said, “What did Billie say about the Christmas Ball?”

“She’s going with a group of friends,” he said, his eyes darkening. “Stag.” He didn’t believe in going to dances stag, especially when she’d been asked by a reasonable, respectable young man. His words.

He didn’t understand Girl Code, but Eloise did, and she’d supported Billie in her decision not to go with Ian Coldwater to the ball. Her best friend liked him, and Eloise wondered if Billie had said anything to Ian about asking Addie to the dance instead. Sometimes, once a girl went out with a boy, the magic of it seeped away, and perhaps then Billie and Ian could go to something in the future. Billie didn’t really care, because she wasn’t the one with the crush on Ian.

Eloise pushed her step-daughter and her dating and friendship issues out of her mind as Aaron’s hand slid up her back, bringing her closer to his chest. “Are you ready for the feast?”

“I need to get the dip in the oven,” she said.

“Don’t mind me,” Julia said loudly, and Eloise and Aaron broke apart. “I just need to get the cocktail sausages out of the oven.”

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