Page 41 of The Spotted Cottage By the Sea
Sheila nodded. “You won’t convince her to change it, so don’t even try.”
“I won’t. I’m actually thinking we should set up an online shop to sell them. It’ll take more time, though.”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea!” Sheila said.
Eliza nodded. “Should we eat outside? This paint smell is making me dizzy. I found the cushions for the chairs.”
“Sure,” Sheila said. “Is that okay with you, Russ?”
“Fine by me.” He smiled. Only his friends called him Russ. He liked the idea of Sheila becoming his friend.
Or maybe something more.
He stopped walking. It felt like something had popped in his chest, like a pilot light coming to life. He could feel his heartbeat quickening and his chest growing warmer under the bright blue flame.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said, walking toward the bathroom.
He needed a moment to himself to process that thought, the literal spark he’d just felt.
Inside the small, poorly lit bathroom, he locked the door. Patty had decorated this to look like the inside of a red telephone booth. There was a picture of Big Ben on one wall and a tiny version of the London Eye collecting dust near the sink.
Russell braced himself on the edge of the sink and tried to understand what had just happened, taking a few deep breaths and looking at himself in the mirror.
Sheila’s comment about him deciding he was good-looking flashed in his mind, and he smiled.
His chest was still burning. He hadn’t felt anything like this in years. For so long, he’d been happily married, and the idea of being attracted to anyone else seemed so foreign, so impossible…
This was new territory. Somewhere he never thought he’d be.
He turned the water on. At first it was a few drops, then it turned into more of spray.
Something else to look into fixing.
The water was cold, at least, and he splashed it onto his face. There was no need to rush this feeling, no need to spook whatever this spark was. No need to question it out of existence.
For now, it was enough to know he could feel something again. He dried his face and walked outside to join them.
Eighteen
It was easy to forget Russell’s stardom when he was in a ratty t-shirt scrubbing floorboards or painting walls. Now, watching him walk out of the tea shop in his black bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses, he looked very much like the celebrity he was and Sheila felt exposed.
Overexposed, actually. Why had she babbled so much? He didn’t want to hear her life story. He was just being polite. Or maybe he was researching a new role, learning to play a boring accountant, and that’s why he was spending time with an old widow and her progeny.
Thankfully, Eliza had about a hundred questions for Russell, so Sheila could sit back and be quiet. He’d played a rather convincing spy in the movieTactical Deception,and he wasn’t shy about discussing it.
“They had me spend time with a spy,” Russell told them. “For two weeks, I lived with the guy.”
Eliza shot back in her seat. “How did they find a spy? Was that even safe?”
“I have no idea, and sure. It was as safe as can be. I mean, I feel like the guy had killed people. But he didn’t have any orders to kill me.” He flashed a smile. “Though maybe he wanted to kill me by the end.”
“Who did he kill?”
“I didn’t ask. He didn’t talk much. It was a strange two weeks. I just tried to watch him. He always checked exits wherever we went. Now I do the same thing. It’s about the only thing I learned from him.”
Sheila smiled but kept her thoughts to herself. She’d done enough sharing for the day and, after lunch, she excused herself back to the cottage.
There was work to be done there, too. First, she answered emails from her newly poached accounting clients. A few had followed her as soon as they heard she’d left the firm, and others had agreed to work with her once she emailed them personally. Her old boss would be furious, but then, he shouldn’t have fired her.
