The Green Dress by Michelle L. Rusk

Until her Aunt Sally died, Audrey Thomas thought New Mexico was nothing more than a place people flew over on their way to Phoenix. When Aunt Sally leaves everything to Audrey—house in Albuquerque, car, and a large sum of money in the bank—Audrey plans to clean out the house and sell it, returning to Kansas City in time to start the fall semester as a high school teacher. But everything changes when she meets the neighbors, three elderly ladies, who were Sally’s best friends, and they welcome her into their lives. Soon she meets another neighbor, Vince, a handsome doctor to whom she is instantly attracted. She finds herself reading Sally’s journals and having conversations with Sally, who tells her stories that she never expected to hear. Glamorous Sally loved to shop, and Audrey makes it her goal to get fit and slender enough to wear a green dress she finds in Sally’s well-stocked closet. The biggest mystery is Sally’s true love. Who was he, and why didn’t Sally marry him? While Audrey continues to sort through her aunt’s house and figure out who he was, she and Vince begin to weave their lives together and Audrey finds they share more than just a possible future.