The Comfort of Favorite Things (A Hope Springs Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

that close to people.” Isn’t it obvious? “I do better from behind a counter.”
    “Or a chair?”
    Lena looked down, completely unaware that she’d moved, and in doing so had put one of the bistro table’s chairs between herself and the other woman. Idiot. She was so screwed. “Sorry about that.”
    “It’s okay,” Ellie said with a laugh. “I don’t take very many things personally.”
    “It wasn’t meant personally,” Lena said, thinking the remark strange . . . or not, considering first impressions and all that.
    Ellie went on, picking up the conversation as if the interlude hadn’t happened at all. “I guess you’re close to your mother then. If you’re taking classes for her instead of for yourself?”
    “I figure a business education’s not a bad thing to have. It’s pretty versatile.”
    “If you like business, sure.” Finally stuffing the spools of thread into her pocket, Ellie shrugged. “Do you?
    “I like it more than unemployment.” But a whole lot less than setting up the animal shelter she’d been planning for a while now. She’d get around to doing for herself later. After doing for her mom. If the shelter ever saw the light of day, it would be because her mom had kept her alive to make it happen. “Peggy Butters asked me if I’d want to buy her out. Take over the bakery next door. I guess she and her husband are retiring. I figure the classes would help with that.”
    Ellie’s smile, when she spoke, was soft, though it also seemed to be . . . disappointed maybe? As if somehow Lena had let her down? “Are you going to?”
    “I haven’t really thought about it yet.” Desserts weren’t really her thing. And the classes would be just as helpful getting the shelter up and running.
    “Well, good luck if you do.” Ellie backed a step away, raising one hand in a tentative wave. “I’m sorry for keeping you. And for bugging you. And for bumping into you.”
    “You’re not bugging me, and the bump was nothing. But I do need to get to work,” she said, turning to go, hating to go.
    “It was nice to meet you, Lena Mining.”
    “And you,” Lena said, silently adding Ellie Brass .

    Becca wasn’t sure why she let herself get her hopes up about anything anymore. She, more than anyone, should know better. It was almost as if once she’d left the Fort Worth hospital for the shelter in Austin where she’d met Thea, she’d forgotten every life lesson she’d ever learned.
    Do not expect things to go your way. That was the most important one.
    Of course, she couldn’t say that to Thea. Or to Ellie, really, who was as fragile as she was strong. Thea was a big proponent of not looking back, though Becca wasn’t sure the other woman practiced what she preached to any of the women living in the house on Dragon Fire Hill.
    Still, Becca had promised to do her best to move on from the abuse she’d gone through. At least her physical scars were on her back, where she couldn’t see them. Ellie had to look at hers every day. Yet Becca had to give it to her. Though she chose them occasionally, Ellie had given up always wearing long sleeves.
    Becca wasn’t sure she would’ve been that brave. The idea of being faced with that visual reminder every day . . . Oh, who was she kidding? She didn’t have to see her scars to remember.
    At the sound of the front door opening, she pushed aside the thoughts and looked up from the plans for the barista station, glancing at Ellie as she shut it and collapsed back against it. “What happened to you? You’re all flushed.”
    “I’m all embarrassed, is what I am. Humiliated.” Ellie closed her eyes and waved a hand in front of her face like a fan. “Mortified. Absolutely, ridiculously mortified.”
    Hmm. Ellie Brass’s personality defined mood swings, but Becca couldn’t remember ever seeing the other woman so fully flustered. All over the place, sure. Up one minute, down the next, yep. But embarrassment was not in Ellie’s