Excerpt

Sixty, I thought, wishing I could withdraw from the party and disappear into the wingback chair in which I sat. I'd barely noticed thirty, forty had passed in a blur, fifty had felt like just another day, but sixty?

Sixty was hard.

Sixty came with reading glasses, hips that stiffened when I sat too long, fifteen extra pounds (which explained the popped dress buttons and too-tight bra), various minor injuries incurred while sleeping, and perpetually misplaced keys.

Heck, it had even come with a return of the hot flashes I thought I'd left behind. Like the one washing over me now, a slow, intense heat starting in my chest and radiating outward. I dug my fingers into the chair arms and tried to focus on the conversation around me instead of ripping off my clothes.

Braden chose that exact moment to pause mid-sentence and stare at me.

"Are you okay, Grandma? You're all red."

Thank you so much, grandson of mine.

All eyes in the room turned to me. The heat in my core increased. Edie's gaze narrowed.

"Hot flash," she announced.

Natalie's friend Dave stared longingly at the front door. Perhaps we had something in common after all.

"I thought you were past those," Jeanne said.

"They can hit anytime." Edie looked down her nose at Jeanne. "You're a nurse. You should know that. And they can stop and start up again, too."

"Of course I know that," Jeanne snapped. "It was just an observation."

Gilbert and Dave both sighed.

"I'm fine," I said, glaring at the women. "I'm just a bit warm."

"I'll get you more iced tea," Paul said. I suspected the offer came from a wish to escape rather than from any sense of compassion, but I appreciated the distraction nonetheless.

"And maybe the cake, too?" Natalie suggested. "I'll help."

I nodded with rather more enthusiasm than was polite. "Great idea," I said. Because cake meant gifts, and then everyone would go home, right?

"Is it time for presents yet?" Braden demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he dumped a package onto my lap, its bow hanging askew and several layers of tape holding unicorn-and-rainbow-decorated paper in place. "Open this one first. It's from me. I wrapped it myself."

"And a very good job you did." I folded my grandson close, breathing in his scent—a mixture of soap from the bath he'd had before coming and the lawn he'd rolled around on after Merlin had tired of his attention. Braden tolerated the embrace for roughly one-point-five seconds before wriggling free and pushing the gift into my hands.

"I found it at Mr. Arch—Arch—" He gave up struggling with the name and pointed instead to Gilbert. "His store. He said he gave me a good deal."

Gilbert, who liked to call himself a collector, owned a store on the outskirts of town called Archambault's Antiques. Archambault's Junk Shop would have been more accurate. The place was little more than a rundown shed, filled to the rafters with useless (and often broken) bits and pieces. It lost far more money than it made, in part because it was filled with rubbish, but mostly because Gilbert was always buying another estate lot in the hope of one day finding that one treasure that would make him rich.

His lack of interest in generating an income was the main reason Jeanne still worked as an emergency room nurse at the age of sixty-three—and the main bone of contention between them.

Jeanne, unfortunately, had bought into the ''til death do us part' idea lock, stock, and barrel, even though they seemed to be in a perpetual state of conflict these days.

Which was probably what Edie had spouted off about in her last set-to with Jeanne. As if to confirm my hypothesis, the two women exchanged a cold look, and Gilbert scowled. I headed off any possible flare-up by turning Braden's package over in my hands, making a show of admiring the gaudy paper and bright pink bow.

"Are you sure you wrapped this all by yourself?" I asked, pretending awe. "You did such a good job."

Braden beamed. Dave and Gilbert both glanced again at the front door. Paul re-entered the room with an iced tea in one hand and a stack of plates and napkins in the other. He set the tea on the end table beside me and the plates on the coffee table with the cake Natalie had carried in moments earlier. While they began setting fire to the candles covering the cake top (it was a two-person job), I searched for a corner of Braden's gift not buried under layers of tape. I peeled back the unicorn paper to reveal a tissue-wrapped lump within.

"Careful!" Braden warned, hovering at my elbow. "It's fragile."

"Promise," I said, craning my neck to see around the blond head that had come between me and the gift. I unfurled the tissue paper, and a heavy pendant dropped into my hand. "Oh, Braden—it's lovely!"

An ornate silver frame encased a round glass center, flat on the back and convex on the front, and a small crystal was set below a clasp attached to a long, matching chain. I wasn't much for jewelry, but this was a stunning piece.

Braden grabbed the pendant from me and held it up to my eye. "Look! It's a magnifying glass. It makes things bigger, so you don't need your glasses to read your book or do your embroidery."

"Why, so it does," I agreed. I cupped his hand and moved it and the pendant to a safer distance from my eyeball. That it would be impossible to embroider and hold the pendant at the same time had no bearing on the thoughtfulness behind my grandson's gift, and my heart swelled with love for him. "It's a wonderful present, sweetheart. The best one ever."

It was also hands-down better than the gnome Jeanne and Gilbert had given me, or the gift certificate for Aquafit classes Natalie had presented me with—in private, thankfully. The gnome I could understand because it was my own fault for not saying something over the years. But Aquafit? So I could take better care of myself because my daughter-in-law worried about me now that I was "you know, getting on in years?"

Gah.

Even if she did have a point.

Sixty.

My God, how had that even happened? How had I lived an entire lifetime already, when it felt as if I should just be starting out? How could I be here, in this town, this house, this moment, and not remember so much of the journey? So many days blurring into weeks and months and years that had run together and slipped past, and now—

"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!"

The chorus of voices jolted me back to my guests and the alarming wall of flames coming toward me in Natalie's hands. I uncurled my fingers from around the pendant and sat up straight, forcing myself to smile at the people who had come together to celebrate me.

All except Gilbert, perhaps, who was neither singing nor celebrating, but staring at the pendant in my hand. My hand tightened reflexively on it, then I looped the chain over my head and slipped the pendant inside the neck of my cardigan. It nestled into the gap of the dress beneath, cool against my skin. Cool and safe and...tingling?

That was weird.

"Happy birthday, dear Clai-aire," the voices crescendoed. "Happy birthday to you!"

I leaned forward, took a deep breath, and with Braden's enthusiastic help, blew out the sheet of flames. I sat back again amid the chatter and Braden's cheers, my attention going back to the pendant. Not tingling, exactly. More like...buzzing. Like something electrical.

Really weird.

My gaze strayed over the assembly and paused again on Gilbert, who watched me with a curious look of indecision. I raised an eyebrow, and he jerked his head in a way that said, "I want to talk." I raised my eyebrow higher. He had to be kidding. I had never pretended to like Gilbert, nor he me, and now he wanted a conversation with me? On purpose? Not.

I turned my face away, and he took a half step toward me, but Paul intercepted him with a plate of cake, Jeanne murmured something in his ear, and I was saved. My shoulders relaxed.

"Are you all right?" Natalie held out a plate of cake to me, a fork standing upright in it. "Is it too much for you? The party, I mean? I tried to tell Paul it would tire you out."

Too much everything was more like it. Too much party, too many people, too many years. Far too much sixty. Between my breasts, the pendant's buzz had changed to a faint throb, like a pulse. Almost like it was—what, trying to get my attention?

Great, now my imagination was working overtime. Was that a thing at sixty, too?

I took the plate from my daughter-in-law. "I'm fine, thanks. It's a lovely party. Really."

"I'll herd everyone out as soon as the cake is done," she promised. "You probably had plans of your own with your friends today."

I opened my mouth to tell her it was a little late to be thinking of that now, but my churlishness would have served no purpose other than to hurt her, and so I smiled. I smiled, and I patted her arm, and I thanked her again. Then, as she turned away to speak with Edie, I heaved a sigh and nudged the slice of cake around the plate, leaving a smear of vanilla icing and a trail of crumbs in its wake.

Sixty.

How?