The Second Chance Shoe Shop by Marcie Steele Page A

relief.
    Ethan snorted. ‘Don’t be drawn in by that cute face and the sorrowful eyes. He’s a demon.’
    ‘I bet he isn’t. He looks a bundle of fun.’
    ‘How about the next time we meet . . .’ He looked at her pointedly. ‘Will there be a next time?’
    She nodded shyly, already looking forward to it.
    ‘We’ll take Jimmy for a walk. And maybe, if we can get a bit of time off during the week together, we can visit the Coffee Stop for a muffin?’
    Riley beamed, even though she knew he was teasing her. ‘Sounds like a plan to me.’

Chapter Eight
    S adie sat down on the settee. She put her glass of wine down beside her on the coffee table, shifted her feet up to her side and sighed. Losing her job was the last thing she wanted to worry about right now. And then there was working on Sundays.
    She couldn’t afford to protest, not that Suzanne would even listen. She couldn’t bear to think how she would cope if the shop went under.
    Sadie loved working with Riley. She combined being a great manager and a great friend perfectly, not like some of the bosses Sadie had worked for. And she had been brilliant during Ross’s illness, and far beyond. Sadie often wondered where she would be if it weren’t for her close group of friends − Riley, Dan, Ash and Cooper. Although, to be fair, she often wondered whether they’d ever get fed up of her inability to move on, especially as the anniversary of Ross’s death loomed.
    She picked up her iPad and logged on to Grieve Together to see if Tanya was online or, if not, whether anyone else wanted to chat. Although she relished the silence when Esther was asleep, the loneliness started to creep in.
    Tanya wasn’t online but she had left her a message. Sadie clicked on the icon.
    Tanya: How has your day been? I haven’t been too bad actually. It’s been fun at work for a change. How about you?
    Sadie typed a quick message back.
    Clara: Oh, you don’t want to know. I may lose my job. If things don’t improve in three months, the shop I work in might close :( Glad to see that you’ve had a good day, though − good days are great!
    She pressed send, hoping that the message wasn’t too self-centred. Over the months that she and Tanya had become online friends, she’d given out a little more information than she had on the forum. Tanya had been great to chat to, especially in private. Somehow it had been easier to talk to a person behind a screen. Tanya knew what she was going through. She would sympathise with her when she needed, gently reprimand her when she was feeling too sorry for herself. Tanya could make Sadie smile in an instant with a silly comment.
    She took a few sips of her wine while she waited for the message to be answered. When it wasn’t, she realised Tanya mustn’t be online. She flipped through a few comments and other people’s blog posts and then wrote a little in her journal.
    The phone rang. It was Cooper.
    ‘Hi, how are my two favourite women?’ he asked her.
    ‘One is hopefully asleep and the other is fine, thanks.’ Glad of someone to talk to, Sadie took another sip of her wine and relaxed back in the settee. ‘Where are you?’
    ‘At the pub having a quick pint. I just wanted to see how you were.’
    ‘Esther wants me to tell you that she got another gold star for her essay on the garden, thanks to you for helping her out.’
    ‘I didn’t help her with the essay. I’m useless at storytelling.’
    ‘But you planted the seeds. Literally!’
    Last month, Cooper had helped Esther clear a patch at the bottom of the garden to plant some flowers in a spot where mother and daughter could sit and remember Ross. Cooper had been a great help with the garden. Sadie would never have managed it by herself: she didn’t even have an interest in learning what was a flower and what was a weed. It had been something that Ross had loved, giving them separate interests. Sadie would rather bury her nose in a book than in a flower.
    They’d been