Page 14 of A Breeze Over Rosewood Beach (Rosewood Beach #9)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hazel stepped inside Rosewood Beach’s hardware store with a spring in her step.

The new chandelier that she and Jacob had ordered had just arrived, and she hadn’t wasted a moment before driving over to pick it up.

She couldn’t wait to get it mounted on the ceiling of their new home.

She was looking forward to hosting dinners underneath the warm glow of the imitation candles.

She made her way to the back of the store, where she spoke with an employee who went to get the chandelier out of the back room. Although it was boxed up and she couldn’t see it yet, she felt a tingle of excitement as it was handed to her.

“You sure you’re going to be all right carrying that?” the hardware store worker asked her. “Looks pretty heavy.”

“It’s not so bad,” Hazel said with a smile. “And my car’s right out front. I don’t have too far to walk with it.”

The truth was that the box was rather heavy, but she didn’t mind. She was strong from years of gardening and cleaning and now all of the home restoration work that she’d been doing with Jacob.

She hurried out to her vehicle, not having to stop at the cash registers since she and Jacob had already paid for the chandelier online. As she was driving out of the parking lot, she decided to drop by Julia and Cooper’s house and see how her sister was doing.

It was a short drive from the hardware store to Julia’s, and soon Hazel was pulling into the driveway of the charming white stone house. She noticed with a grin that Alexis’s red car was parked up ahead in the driveway, just behind Julia’s royal blue car.

Perfect, she thought with a laugh. It’s a party.

She got out of her car and scampered up to the front door, which she knocked on with her mittened hand. A few moments later, Julia opened the door with a big smile on her face.

“Hazel! Come inside. It’s so nice to see you!”

Hazel didn’t have to be asked twice to get out of the cold, and she stepped inside Julia and Cooper’s warm and cozy house.

It had been Cooper’s house for a few years already, and it had always been a pleasant, comfortable home.

Hazel could see clear signs of Julia having moved in, however—the place was cleaner than ever, there was an attractive shoe rack painted a cheerful sunshine yellow, and a framed photograph of the happy new family hung on the wall at the foot of the staircase.

“Hey, you!” Alexis hurried forward to give Hazel a hug. “Isn’t this fun? We’re all here unexpectedly.”

“I knew you guys would start checking up on me all the time,” Julia said with a laugh. “But I’m definitely not complaining. It’s great to see both of you.”

Hazel smiled at her sister, but in the next moment she realized that Julia looked tired and a little paler than usual. She wondered if her sister was experiencing morning sickness or some other type of symptoms associated with pregnancy.

There was a gurgling sound in the living room, and Alexis and Julia laughed.

“And it’s great to see Cash, of course,” Julia called, as if the baby had taken offense at not being included in her previous statement.

The three of them stepped into the living room, where Cash was still tucked inside his car seat, playing with a toy that was dangling from the handle. He made a face of exquisite joy at them and wiggled his tiny Converse in the air.

“Oh, he is just the cutest thing,” Hazel cried, kneeling down and drinking in the sight of the baby from a closer distance. “Just think, Julia, soon you’re going to have your own miracle like this.”

“I know,” Julia said with a smile, but there was something fatigued about her tone.

“Let’s all sit down,” Hazel suggested, sensing that Julia wasn’t feeling as energetic as usual. “We can talk on this marvelously comfy couch you have, Julia.”

“Sounds great,” Alexis said. “I brought peanut butter cookies for us to munch on.”

Both Hazel and Julia burst out laughing. While Alexis was pregnant, her life-long hatred of peanut butter had turned into a ravenous obsession. Even though she was no longer pregnant, she still loved to eat anything involving peanut butter.

“Hey, they’re great cookies,” Alexis said with a grin. “I made them myself.”

“Can’t wait,” Julia said, sitting down with a sigh. “Oh! Would either of you like tea?”

“I’d love some,” Hazel said, and immediately held up her hand as Julia tried to get up. “I’ll get it. You want some, Alexis?”

“Sure! I’ll take a vanilla chai please.”

“Ooh, me too,” Hazel said, delighted by the idea. “What about you, Julia? You want vanilla chai too?”

“No, I’ll take peppermint, please,” Julia said. “Thanks, Hazel.”

“You got it, kiddo.” Hazel blew a kiss in her sister’s direction and headed into the kitchen.

She loved Cooper and Julia’s kitchen. It had big windows that looked out across the backyard, and a giant island in the middle of the room.

It was the kind of kitchen that would make it easy to cook big, elaborate meals.

She was so looking forward to when her and Jacob’s new kitchen was renovated, since it would allow her to have the big counters she’d always wanted.

She loved her cozy little kitchen, but she was always having to use the kitchen table as a counter and she craved big, spacious countertops like the ones Julia had.

She noticed as she made her way over to the tea cupboard that the kitchen wasn’t as clean as it usually was, however. There were dishes stacked in the sink, and there were some pieces of cereal on the floor under the kitchen table.

Huh, Hazel thought as she took three large mugs out of the tea cupboard. This doesn’t seem like Julia. I wonder if she’s been extra tired lately.

She put water into the tea kettle and turned on the stove.

While she waited for the water to boil, she tucked tea bags into each of the mugs and then set to work on the dishes in the sink.

She saw that most of them could be put into the dishwasher, so she picked up a frying pan that still had the remains of some scrambled eggs clinging to the bottom of it.

She scrubbed it clean vigorously and had just set it in the dish drainer to dry when the tea kettle started to whistle.

She filled the mugs with steaming hot water, set them on a tray, and carried it into the living room.

“Here we are!” she sang out. “Some nice hot tea for this chilly day.”

“Yummy, thank you,” Alexis said, picking up her mug gratefully and gingerly, since it was clearly very hot. “The peanut butter cookies are on the coffee table.”

“Yay!” Hazel took one of the thick, soft cookies from the cute pink container that Alexis had brought them in. “These look amazing, Alexis.”

“They are,” Julia said through a mouthful of cookie, and then laughed. It didn’t sound like her usual carefree laugh, however. It sounded somewhat higher pitched and slightly strained, as if Julia was experiencing unusual amounts of tension.

“How’s married life been, Julia?” Alexis asked, taking a careful sip of her tea. “Ooh, that’s good.”

“It’s been great,” Julia said, but she looked off to the side as she said it, and her tone seemed a little insincere.

Hazel could tell that something was wrong with her sister. She placed a hand on Julia’s arm.

“Julia, are you sure everything’s all right? You can tell us if it isn’t, you know. We’re your sisters.”

Tears filled Julia’s eyes, and she covered her mouth with her hand as she started to shake with sobs.

“Oh, honey!” Alexis set her mug down hurriedly and wrapped her arms around Julia. Hazel scooted closer to both of them and put a reassuring hand on Julia’s shoulder.

“I know I should be so happy,” Julia said, her voice shaking as she cried. “And I am, I’m so happy—being married is wonderful and now we have the baby on the way. But it’s just all so much at once. I feel completely overwhelmed.”

“I understand,” Alexis said, giving Julia a squeeze. “Marriage is wonderful, but any big life adjustment takes getting used to. Anything that feels overwhelming is hard, even if it’s a good thing in its essence.”

“So true.” Hazel nodded. “And your hormones definitely aren’t doing you any favors right now.”

“Definitely not.” Alexis grimaced.

Julia laughed and wiped away a couple of stray tears.

“Oh, you’re right, I know you are, but I feel so bad about reacting this way.

I don’t want to tell Cooper that I feel overwhelmed because I don’t want him to think that he’s doing anything wrong or anything like that.

He’s been so great—so caring and thoughtful.

And being Macey’s mother is incredible, but it’s different when you never get a break, you know?

She’s always my responsibility now, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it does feel like so much.

Like, I’m scared I’ll mess up. And my and Cooper’s relationship feels a little different now too.

Like, I can feel things shifting with us and none of it is bad, but it’s different.

Like, we’re more settled, you know? I get less butterflies and more of this steady, warm feeling when I’m around him. ”

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Hazel kissed Julia on the head. “You’re experiencing a lot of adjustment in a short time span. People don’t usually talk about it, but that’s totally normal when you first get married. It’s hard to merge lives with someone else, no matter how much you love them.”

“You felt this way too?” Julia asked. “Both of you?”

“I definitely did,” Alexis said. “But that was so long ago—I was doing so much modeling then that Grayson and I didn’t even see each other all that much.

I think maybe I worked so much and he did too because we were trying to distract ourselves from how weird our home life felt.

I wish we’d just leaned into the discomfort and made our relationship as strong as it is now all the way back then. ”