Free Heart of Grace (Return to Grace Trilogy #1) by Abigail Easton Page A

to sustain her for three months. At least she didn’t
need to worry about rent, but she still needed to eat and there
were her credit cards and the storage unit to pay for.
Angela closed the laptop and rested her elbows on it,
letting out a long sigh, her chin in both hands. The espresso
machine whined. Needing to calm the nervous fluttering in her
veins, and hating everything about this moment, she stood and
walked outside.
Flags flapped along the boardwalk posts. Pretty white
flowers overflowed from terra cotta pots. A man swept the
walk in front of his store.
Across the street, a girl carried a tray of lemonade to people
seated at patio tables. One of the patrons was the girl Angela
had met at the arena office when she first returned to Grace.
She sat with a boy who slouched in his seat and stared idly at
the umbrella over their heads. The girl – Tina , was it ? – set a
straw in her lemonade and looked up from her glass. Noticing
Angela, Tina stood and waved enthusiastically.
Angela barely managed to return the wave before a kid on
a bike rushed by. She lurched to the side to avoid a collision.
The man sweeping his stoop yelled after the kid to slow down.
Then the man called across the street, “Mrs. Markey, good
day!”
Angela followed the direction of the man’s gaze. Maisy
Markey arranged flowers on a display rack outside her dress
shop. Angela barely recognized her. The old woman’s hair
once been dark brown, but she had let it go completely gray.
Aside from dresses, Maisy sold whatever else held her
fancy, whether it was tiny toy cars, plastic windmills, or flats of
garden flowers. Once she had set out power tools for sale,
because the local handyman decided he was moving to South
Dakota and she figured folks would need to learn how to mend
their own squeaky screen doors once he was gone. Today she
sold flowers.
Maisy stopped fussing with the flowers and looked across
the street, her hands at her thin hips. “Hello John!” she said.
“Fine day it is!”
And then Maisy’s gaze fixed on Angela. It was too late to
duck back into the coffee shop. Maisy tossed both hands into
the air and waved her over.
“My, my, Miss Angie Donnelly!” Maisy said as Angela
approached. “Why just this morning, Mrs. Bradley and I were
taking our morning walk and she told me you were back!”
Angela smiled at Maisy’s penchant for using such formality
with the name of her closest friend.
“How are you, Mrs. Markey? You look well.”
The old woman clucked and shook her head. “I almost
didn’t recognize you, but it’s hard to miss that red hair and fair
skin. Though the hair is a bit blonder now, isn’t it? You’re
prettier than I remember. Oh, now, don’t blush. You always
were a shy child.”
Since Angela’s return she had been called shy by three
different people: Cole, Mrs. Bradley, and now Mrs. Markey.
The idea was absurd, but she supposed people were inclined to
see her as they had known her long ago. They would not know
how she had changed. And yet, she realized she was twisting
her fingers in the strap of her laptop bag and she didn’t know
what to say.
Just as she would have done with a child, Maisy took
Angela by the hand and led her to the flowers.
“Aren’t these beautiful?” she asked, her tone soothing. “I
went to the nursery to buy a new fig tree, and I just couldn’t
resist them. Have you ever seen dahlias so bright?”
However foolish she felt, Angela rubbed a petal between
her fingers, smiling at the thought of flowers for sale in front
of a dress shop.
“They are gorgeous,” Angela said, “and they smell lovely.”
“Won’t you come inside for some tea?” Maisy took
Angela’s hand again and tugged her toward the door.
She almost agreed to go in. She found herself wanting to
talk with this woman who never lost her smile. She wanted to
sit in those soft chairs and let them swallow her up in the
warmth and fragrance of Maisy’s shop, which had always been
a favorite