The Love List: Hilton Head Island, #1

Chapter One

Beatrice Callahan’s steps sent vibrations up her legs and through her core. The mailman had just arrived, and she may or may not have been standing at the window for the past several days, watching for a particular piece of mail.

She’d seen it, and the large, official letter had triggered something inside her. What, she didn’t know. She simply felt different now than she had before she’d seen that envelope. Then she’d grabbed her keys and purse and gone into the garage.

Afternoon, the man called from down at the end of her drive, and Bea lifted her hand in a wave. After all, he wasn’t the one who’d taken his sweet time signing the divorce papers. He wasn’t the one who’d insisted that Bea could have either alimony or her car, but not both. He wasn’t the one who’d wanted to go through their assets one by one and make sure everything came out fair.

Fair. She scoffed as she got behind the wheel of her SUV—the same one she’d had for the past three years, thank you very much. Norton, her now-ex-husband, if that envelope meant what Bea thought it did—had filed for divorce fourteen months ago. He’d moved out the day before that. He’d been fighting with her over ticky-tack things every day since.

There was no fair after twenty-five years of marriage. Not in Bea’s book—and thankfully, not in the State of Texas either. She had plenty of friends around the Sweet Water Falls area in Texas, and one of them happened to be a fantastic divorce attorney.

Vera had gotten the alimony and the SUV, and before Bea had seen her brilliance in front of a judge, she hadn’t understood why Nort wanted to settle things on their own.

Oh, she knew now, and it had nothing to do with him being fair to Bea.

She went down the dirt lane and past the mail truck, where the mustached man who came every afternoon still stuffed flyers and other useless mail in her box. She didn’t wave this time, her memories of when her oldest son, Ted, had built the red-brick pillar for the mailbox. He’d been fifteen and trying to earn his Eagle Scout award. He’d called friends and neighbors to come help; he’d gone to the local hardware store and talked to the owner to get the supplies donated; he’d built not only their mailbox tower, but five others along the highway north of Sweet Water Falls—one for everyone who hadn’t yet been able to fund their own construction.

Tears pricked her eyes at her sweet Teddy Bear. He wasn’t so young anymore, and he’d listen to her tell him the news that the divorce was final later that day. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d listen.

Then he’d ask her what she was going to do next.

Bea wondered that herself, her eyes drying up before any real tears fell. Thankfully. She couldn’t show up at the salon with red-rimmed eyes and a crazy demand for the hairstyle she’d been planning for the day when the divorce papers arrived.

You don’t need to wonder, she told herself. You made a list.

And she had. The list of things Bea had put together hung on her refrigerator, and she hadn’t grabbed it in her haste to leave the house. She’d stuffed her feet into the first pair of shoes she could find, grabbed her purse, and strode out of the house.

She’d get the mail later. Get the proof that the nightmare she’d been enduring for over a year was really done.

Then, she’d get her life back.

All of it, she said a half-hour later. Her slate-blue eyes met the hazel-green ones of her stylist, Mae.

Mae’s expression showed shock, and she released Bea’s as she kept running her fingers through her hair. It is starting to go gray in some spots.

I don’t want to color it anymore, Bea said. Her part-sandy, part-golden blonde had been coming from a bottle for decades. She’d done it mostly to keep up appearances at church, be the arm-candy Nort required for his ritzy financial firm, and to keep the other women in her Thursday Night Supper Club from guessing her true age.

All idiotic reasons, in Bea’s opinion. And seeing as how Bea was now single, and all three of her children were out of the house, living their lives at various colleges and in towns across Texas, she didn’t have to dye her hair anymore.

And yes, she said, smoothing her hands down her thighs under the drape that would become very important once Mae started cutting. I want it all gone. I want that. She nodded to her phone, where she’d brought up a cute, classy, and sophisticated cut. One she’d seen on older actresses as they aged.

At forty-five, Bea wasn’t heading into a retirement home, but she was the second-oldest in her Supper Club. They’d all been guessing her age for years, and when they got together later this week… Well, Cass would be thrilled to know she was younger than Bea by five months.

We can do a pixie, Mae said, looking up into the mirror again. She kept smoothing her hands through Bea’s hair. You have beautiful hair. It’s not too thick, so it won’t poke out strangely.

That sounds like a plus, Bea said with a small smile. At this point in her life, she’d take all the positives she could get.

Bangs? Mae asked. I think you have a great face-shape for short hair. But I think we should go easy on chopping off too much up here. We can always take more off. I can’t put it back on.

Okay, Bea said, admiring the shape of her jawline. She did have a nicely shaped face, with jawbones that tapered into a soft point at her chin. She usually wore makeup to accentuate her cheekbones, but today wasn’t one of those days.

You can do an up style, or down, Mae said, holding her longer hair closer to the scalp. I’ll show you how to style it both ways.

That would be fantastic, Bea said, and Mae got to work. Without having to color her hair first, Bea simply watched as Mae sprayed it down with a water bottle and started cutting. Ten inches hit the floor, and then Mae got out the clippers.

Bea swallowed hard. There really was no going back from this. Like so much else in your life right now, she thought.

She took a steeling breath, because she didn’t want to go back to the life she’d had with Norton. She didn’t want to go back to the woman she’d been before the divorce papers. The woman who always dressed right, who always had dinner on the table at six-thirty, who had literally never cut her hair shorter than her shoulders, even when she’d had children and it had turned dry and brittle and should’ve probably been shorter to preserve the health of it.

Norton liked showing her off in her clothes. He liked eating right when he returned home, so he could spend evenings in his office. He liked her long hair.

Mae switched on the clippers, and the buzzing, rumbling noise of them suddenly represented a brand-new day for Beatrice Callahan.

The hair on the back of her head fell away and though she couldn’t quite see it, Bea could definitely feel it.

And it felt amazing.

When she returned home a couple of hours later, she stopped by the mailbox first. After gathering all the mail—which seemed like an unusually large load, though she supposed they had just come out of a holiday weekend—she sat behind the wheel again, the air conditioning blowing softly and the radio volume low.

She put everything else aside, keeping the legal-sized envelope in her hands. It couldn’t be more than a centimeter thick, and most of that was probably the cardboard envelope. The seal for the State of Texas sat on it, and Bea took a deep breath.

It has to be the finalized divorce, she said to herself. Norton hadn’t contacted her for some weeks now, and neither had his lawyer. Her lawyer hadn’t either, and when Bea had inquired about it, Vera had said he’d most likely agreed to their terms—finally—and would be signing soon.

Watch your mail, she’d said, and that had started the afternoon vigils in Bea’s beautiful farmhouse. She lived out in the middle of nowhere, her closest neighbors one-point-nine miles away. Everyone out here had a farm or a ranch, even Bea, though she didn’t use her land the way the other families did.

Norton had wanted to move to the country once he’d gotten more well-known in the area. He had always existed on the wrong side of paranoid, and since Bea loved the more wild parts of Texas, she hadn’t protested. She could get to town easily, and sometimes the drive actually soothed her.

She found the courage to open the envelope, and sure enough, the front page on the packet of papers she pulled out told her that her divorce from Norton Bailey Callahan was now final.

Bea sighed as she sagged into the seat behind her. Finally, she said, more relief and…happiness than she’d expected flowing through her. She pressed her eyes closed and thanked the Good Lord above for releasing her from this burden, and then she pressed the papers back into the envelope and tossed it over to the passenger seat along with the rest of the junk mail.

After trundling down the dirt lane to the house, she parked in the garage, gathered all the mail, and went inside. She stepped through the mudroom, saying, Wouldn’t it be nice if I had a little dog to greet me when I got home? and deposited the mail on her kitchen counter.

Without another glance at it, she turned to the fridge and got down her list.

It wasn’t a to-do list. Not really.

It’s a bucket list, she said, her eyes catching on the top item.

Finalize divorce.

She didn’t know anyone in their right mind who would actually add that to a bucket list, so she amended her thoughts.

No, she said, hating how loud her voice sounded in her quiet, empty house. She and Nort had raised three children, all of them having lived in this house for at least a decade before they’d grown up, graduated from high school, and gone on their own adventures.

It’s not a to-do list. She opened the drawer on the end of the bank of cabinets and pulled out a pen. Lord knew she had plenty of to-do lists—the fridge did too, as it practically groaned under the weight of the many and varied lists she kept there.

She needed one for the front yard, one for the backyard, one for the schedule of when the town services came out into the county to collect recycling and trash.

She needed a list of what she had in the fridge that would expire soon, and items she needed at the grocery store that she was currently out of.

A list for Monday, one for Tuesday, and one for what she needed to take to church that week so she could talk to the pastor’s wife about their upcoming Summer Faire.

So she had a lot of lists. Over the years, her husband and children had teased her about them, but no one minded when Bea had every single thing they needed when the family took trips to the beach. She even remembered the ice packs and the aloe vera for her youngest son, who always thought he didn’t need to wear sunscreen.

Not a to-do list, she mused. Not a bucket list.

She crossed off the top item, another dose of comfort, of satisfaction, of pure respite making her feel warm and sleepy. She’d done it. She’d endured, and she’d won. Maybe not everything she’d wanted to keep, but she hadn’t been beaten, and that alone felt like a victory.

She scanned the items on the list. Go for a walk and get lost.

Visit the beach and listen to the ocean.

Fly a kite you don’t think you can control.

Visit ten National Parks.

Cut your hair short.

She crossed that last one off too, a new measure of happiness stealing through her. Mae had styled her bangs up, and Bea felt like a Rockstar. A middle-aged rockstar, but a celebrity nonetheless.

Her heartbeat picked up speed as she picked up the pen. She scrawled, Get a puppy onto her list, grinning at the new item with renewed vigor.

Her refrigerator hummed, adding some ambient noise to the house. As she poured herself some sweet tea, continued to ignore the mail, and instead looked over her list again, she knew what it was.

It’s a love list. She laughed. A list of all the things I’d love to do in my life, now that I’m…well, now that I’m in this new stage of my life.

With that, she returned the list to the fridge, bypassed the mail once again, and headed for her back porch. After all, a day or two ago, she’d put, Spend more time in your porch swing to her newly named love list, and she needed to do exactly that.

Chapter Two

S tewart, can you hang the piñata? Bea said a couple of days later. Her daughter and oldest child, Meredith, turned from the dining room table, where she’d been laying out the gaudy plastic silverware.

Mom, you got a piñata?

It’s in the garage, she said, her pulse increasing slightly as her eyes skidded across the time on the microwave. They’ll be here in literally minutes.

I can hang a piñata, Stewart said, sliding his hand along Meredith’s forearm as he passed her. Bea didn’t stare long, because she didn’t need to call any more attention to herself. Stewart and Meredith had gotten engaged recently, and Bea was absolutely over the moon for them. She was. One-hundred percent thrilled.

Their wedding date sat months away, and to her knowledge, Meredith hadn’t done much more than circle the date on the calendar. She was practicing a lot for her final performance piece, which would be in two weeks’ time, and then she’d be finished with her semester at UT-Austin.

She’d be finished with her dual-major in English and piano performance as well. She’d been planning for her graduation, and Bea had promised that she’d then come to Austin to help her daughter start planning the wedding after that. One event at a time, she’d thought then, as she did now.

Stewart Spalding was a good man. Three years older than Meredith, he didn’t have to deal with college finals, dates, or deadlines. He owned a music store in Austin where Meredith went to play quite often, and they’d met and fallen in love through music, dancing, and their shared love of unique doughnuts.

He retrieved the piñata from the garage and took the rope from the counter, freeing up the space there that Bea needed, and slid open the glass door that took him outside to the shaded patio.

Will your Supper Club ladies even want to hit a piñata? Meredith asked, and Bea averted her eyes. The Supper Club sounded so proper. So Southern socialite. That was why she’d always banned her family from the house on the third Thursday of the month, once every six months when she had to host at her house.

Nort had taken the kids to movies, over to his parents, or who knew where. Bea didn’t ask too many questions, because then she didn’t have to answer any herself.

Not that she and her friends got raging drunk and went rowdy. But the laughter could be a bit…cackly sometimes, especially if Lauren had some steam to blow off. She worked a high-stress job at a marketing firm, and she had two cats at home to vent to if she needed it.

And then her ladies in the Thursday Night Supper Club.

She had no husband and no children, and it was always Joy who tacked on the word, Yet, whenever Lauren would lament that she really had become her neighborhood’s cat lady despite her power suits, high heels, and flawless performances for big-name clients like Nike and Coca-Cola.

I think they’ll enjoy it, Bea said airily. Thank you for coming to help. That was code for, You’ve never stayed for Supper Club. The moment Stewart’s done with the piñata, you should go.

Of course, Meredith said, stepping in front of Bea so she couldn’t take the enormous bowl of homemade salsa over to the table. Mama.

Bea stopped and looked at her daughter. Meredith stood a couple of inches taller than her, courtesy of her father’s genes, and she had the most wonderfully long, powerful fingers. She’d been playing the piano since age four, and Bea had taught her herself until she’d realized how talented her daughter was.

Meredith definitely inhabited a special place in Bea’s heart, and she put down the bowl of salsa to hug her daughter. Are you sure you’re okay? Meredith asked.

Yes, Bea whispered, sinking into the embrace and holding her daughter tightly. Oh, how she’d wanted to hold onto her at age thirteen and never let her grow all the way up. Children changed so much in their teen years, and not everything had been pleasant. But Bea loved her children fiercely, and she’d cried the day each of her children had moved out.

She knew it was good for them. She was happy for them. She simply wanted to hold on for just a little longer. Right there, in that moment. Hold tight. Don’t change. Stay with me; stay the same.

Meredith moved and pulled back, and Bea forced herself to release her. She took a moment to cage her emotions back where they belonged so they wouldn’t sound in her voice. I’ve waited for those papers for months, Mere. I’m good.

She picked up the bowl of salsa and had just placed it on the table when Stewart poked his head into the house. All set, Bea.

Thank you, Stewart. She embraced him too, and he fished his keys out of the taco party favors Bea had strewn all over the desk. She had more in the living room on the coffee table, and her kitchen looked like it had spat out streamers in bright red, orange, yellow, and green.

Her daughter and future son-in-law went out the front door, and Bea followed them onto the porch though the timer on the pork enchiladas beeped behind her in the kitchen. As Meredith and Stewart got in their car, another one turned down the driveway in the distance.

Giddiness pranced through Bea at the sight of that stark white, oversized SUV.

Cassandra had been named the designated driver, and she’d have everyone in that ten-passenger vehicle easing to the side of the road so Stewart could get off the property.

Bea grinned and grinned, turning just as Cass started inching forward again. She hurried to grab the oven mitts and get the main dish out. She stopped the timer, caught a glimpse of the piñata as she set a pitcher of margaritas on the table, and turned just as the side door that led into the garage opened.

Aye yai yai! Lauren said, leading the other ladies into the house. She wore a feather boa in pink and purple, which clashed terribly with the other Mexican décor Bea had labored to put up that afternoon.

She laughed anyway and started toward her friends. Lauren stopped beside the refrigerator, the hand waving her boa falling to her side. Behind her, the other women piled up until Cass said, Why are we stopping here? I’m not even out of the mudroom yet.

Lauren stumbled forward as Cass pushed her way through, and then she halted too. Oh.

What? Bea asked, though she knew exactly what. Lauren’s dark eyes hadn’t settled on Bea’s at all, flitting all over around her face and hair as they did. Cass reached up with one perfectly manicured hand and actually ran her fingers through her own hair.

Joy, who’d cut her hair short a couple of years ago, grinned like she’d just seen a leprechaun and would surely follow the fellow to his stash of gold. Her blue eyes twinkled like stars in the heavens, and she started laughing first.

Bea grinned at her, and then flicked a glance at Sage, the oldest woman in their group. She still wore her hair long, though she vowed she’d never dyed it to keep it the rich, earthy brown color it was.

Is there something on my face? Bea asked, switching her gaze to Bessie, the singular redhead in their group. She actually had gorgeous waves of blonde hair, with just a hint of strawberry in it. Bea had always been in awe of her hair, and that hadn’t changed despite her new cut.

I have been sampling those chips with the hint of lime. She made an over-exaggerated swipe of her hand across her mouth, though she already knew she had nothing there. They’re really good.

Your hair, Cass said.

It’s gorgeous, Joy said, stepping past the still-staring Lauren and embracing Bea. You’re beautiful.

Thanks, Bea said, letting her eyes drift closed so she didn’t have to look into the shell-shocked faces of her best friends. She supposed she could’ve sent a text, but then she wouldn’t have been able to surprise them with her new haircut and see their reactions.

When did you do this? Lauren asked, taking Joy’s place in front of Bea as the other woman stepped back. I do like it. She