The Way We Wind by Halli Starling

Author:Halli Starling [Starling, Halli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Halli Starling Books
Published: 2023-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

If Elodie didn’t walk away from tonight with at least one date, Bren would eat her shoes. The woman’s love of color was muted, but that didn’t mean she blended in. The opposite, actually.

And Bren was staring. Hard.

She hadn’t seen Elodie’s outfit in the car and Elodie hadn’t seen hers, as both of them had been bundled up against the chill spring rain. But after they got their speed dating question cards from the greeter, Elodie took Bren’s coat to the tiny coat check room (“Fancy for a pub!” Elodie had exclaimed, delighted).

And then she came back and Bren’s entire world screeched to a halt.

Elodie glittered. Her tiny frame was wrapped in a satin jumpsuit the color of champagne and she strode across the pub floor in high heels, swaying with the kind of confidence Bren had never mastered. There was nothing scandalous or even daring about the jumpsuit and Elodie’s heels were tall but not towering. But she shone and it left Bren gaping. And she wasn’t the only one watching Elodie glide back to their table with an energy that brought them all like moths to her flame.

“Oh, Bren!” Elodie grinned at Bren, her pearl drop earrings swinging slightly with her movements. “I love that lilac blouse on you! It’s a good color against your dark hair.”

Bren shifted from foot to foot. She wasn’t used to compliments and Elodie’s seemed especially genuine. Enjoy it, she could hear her brother saying. Elodie’s nice, she’s fun to talk to. Let tonight take you wherever it leads. “Thanks,” Bren replied, running a hand over her hair. “Iris actually found it in my closet, so the credit should go to her.”

“Well, it really makes your eyes pop. And it goes so well with that beautiful pendant.” Elodie leaned forward slightly, looking up at Bren. Bren’s neck, specifically, where the necklace hung below the hollow of her throat. “God, that filigree work on the pendant is wildly intricate. It reminds me of ivy.”

Bren froze. Her mother had said something similar when she and Clark had given the necklace to her, bought with earnings from their first jobs at sixteen. Clark had worked as a bagger at the grocery store, wanting to be around people and chatter. And Bren had opted to work the zip lines at a kid’s adventure park on the other side of town, preferring to deal with the kids and let her manager handle any parent complaints. Plus, that meant she got to be outdoors, and if it rained, she could go to the gear shed and help the college kids clean equipment.

They’d put a little away from each paycheck so that they could buy their parents something special on their birthdays. That necklace had been their first gift like that to their mother. It would be only one of three they would get to purchase before she passed away. Her hand went to it, as if she could ward off the sudden flood of emotions.

Immediately, Elodie sensed something was wrong.

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