‘I come bearing gifts,’ she said, brandishing her offerings. ‘I’m partial to port at the end of a meal, a habit I got into early in my court days and never shook.’
‘Sounds good. Come in,’ Heidi said, stepping aside and gesturing her in. ‘That’s the beauty of living in a small town. Even if we polish off the wine and the port and you leave your car here, it takes only a few minutes to pick it up in the morning.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ Meredith raised the port bottle to her mouth and pretended to guzzle it, making them laugh. ‘This place is quaint,’ she said as she followed Heidi into the living room.
‘It’s ancient and in desperate need of a reno.’
Meredith’s eyebrows rose. ‘You don’t like it?’
‘I’ve lived here for almost thirty years and I don’t have the energy or the inclination to change any of it, which means I should probably sell.’
Meredith hesitated before saying, ‘I heard on the grapevine it’s just you here?’
‘Yeah, Bert, my husband, died of a heart attack eighteen months ago.’
‘Sorry to hear that. I never married.’ She shrugged, like it didn’t matter, but Heidi didn’t miss the sadness shifting in her eyes. ‘Never could find a guy man enough to stand up to me and I always thrive on a challenge.’
Heidi wanted to agree with her, that Bert far from challenged her, but that would be sharing too much too soon. ‘Shall we eat? I’m starving.’
‘Me too.’ Meredith deposited the takeaway bag on the table and delved into it, lifting out several cardboard boxes. ‘The quiches are warm, and the lemon tarts are cold, just the way I like them.’
‘Yum.’ Heidi helped Meredith dish out the food, filled their wine glasses, then sat opposite her and picked up a glass. ‘To new friends.’
‘To new friends,’ Meredith echoed, clinking her glass against Heidi’s. ‘I love how welcoming everyone has been since I moved here.’
‘There’s nothing like Acacia Haven hospitality—until you’re the brunt of gossip.’
Meredith’s eyebrows wiggled. ‘I sense a story?’
Heidi chuckled. ‘About twelve months after Bert passed away, I got sick of being a third wheel to all my married friends in town. So at the ripe old age of fifty, I tried a dating app.’
She’d never forget the day she plucked up the courage to renew her friendship with Rayne, and the two of them had signed up to Happy. Luckily, her best friend had found happiness with the lovely Leo. She was still waiting for her Prince Charming to show up.
‘That must’ve been exciting.’ Meredith blushed. ‘At the risk of you judging me before we really know each other, I’ve been on a few of those sites, but more to … uh … dust off the cobwebs, so to speak, rather than any real interest in dating long term.’
Heidi laughed. ‘Nothing wrong with a little exercise, as Bert used to call it.’
‘Nothing at all.’ Meredith joined in her laughter. ‘Tell me the rest of this story the town gossips are abuzz about.’
‘Well, like you, I wasn’t really after a relationship. The exercise had well and truly tapered off in my marriage and that’s all I was after, a little pulse-raising action, so I only dated younger men.’
Meredith let out a loud whoop that startled her. ‘You go, girl.’
‘The thing is, I started dressing accordingly, and apparently the townsfolk started whispering that not only had I ditched my bargain-basement jeans and tops, I’d added whips and chains to my new skin-tight pants and leather jacket.’
Meredith chortled and picked up her wine glass in a toast. ‘To us single gals tearing up the town and having a good old laugh at BDSM rumours.’
‘To us.’ After clinking her glass against Meredith’s, Heidi took a sip of her wine, then another, wondering when the last time was she’d had this much fun with a virtual stranger. ‘So do you have any dating disaster stories?’
‘Blossom, I have enough stories to fill a courtroom docket for a month, but let’s eat first, gab later.’
They made small talk as they demolished Nevaeh’s delicious quiches and lemon tarts, as well as half the bottle of wine. After clearing the table, they settled on the old chintz sofa with a port glass each and the cheese platter between them.
‘This place is like something out of a museum,’ Meredith said, sweeping her arm wide to encompass the living room. ‘Did you deliberately set out to keep it this way?’
Heidi snorted. ‘Hardly. I really should sell, but …’
But what? As she glanced around the living room—the old brick mantelpiece atop the fireplace she rarely used, the gold-embossed wallpaper, the faded grey carpets with giant floral swirls—she saw evidence of a drab life, of being stuck in the past rather than moving on. Ultimately, that’s what dating younger men had been about: a desperation to break free from her boring past and start afresh.