The front door creaked open, and Mrs. Diller in a house apron stepped out onto the porch. Aldo sat and watched as she reached into her apron pocket and produced a pack of cigarettes. Her thin shoulders were rounded as if from years of tensing for a blow. She’d scraped her hair back in a tight bun, leaving her lined face bare. The skin on her neck sagged.

Her thin lips were pressed in a tight line of disapproval.

Life had not been kind to Mrs. Diller.

Deciding there was nothing more to see, Aldo drove on.

45

“That was one hell of a celebration yesterday,” Claire announced, packing an arrangement of daisies and mini-sunflowers into a white florist box. Their delivery driver, a crabby woman in her fifties whose standard comment was that no one had ever sent her flowers, would be making the second pick-up in a few minutes. “You did good, kiddo.”

They’d done a brisk enough business that morning that this was their first chance at conversation.

“Thanks. I’m pretty proud of myself,” Gloria said, double-checking the orders in the computer and printing the delivery slips. It was a busy day for her. She had a full day of work, a therapy session scheduled over lunch, and a secret appointment that evening that she’d finally decided she deserved to make. To top it off, she was still riding the heady high of waking up in the arms of Aldo Moretta while processing her feelings about her confrontation with Linda Diller the night before.

It had been a complicated twenty-four hours.

“Rumor has it, the town council wants to ask you to organize the Christmas festival,” Claire pressed.

She gave a non-committal, “Hmm.” They already had that morning. Gloria had thought about the long hours, the endless meetings, the schmoozing of local business owners for sponsorships…and gave an emphatic yes.

At least Mrs. Diller’s outburst hadn’t completely ruined everything she’d worked toward, she thought. With care, she opened each of the four delivery boxes and smoothed back the tissue paper, double checking the contents against the orders. Satisfied everything was perfect, Gloria stuck the peel-off delivery tags on each box.

Claire chattered on about how much Harper and the kids had enjoyed the fireworks and the festival while Gloria busied herself with the next item on her to do list: snipping the stems of freesia to encourage the tight buds to open for their weekend centerpiece order.

“So, Aldo…” Claire let his name hang in the air between them.

Gloria dunked the freesia into a plastic vase where they would stay until the blooms were ready for their arrangement. “What about him?” she asked innocently. She knew exactly what Claire was asking but decided it would be fun to make her work a little harder for the information.

“You left the festival with him last night, and he came to work with you this morning.”