A Taste of Christmas Magic (Southern Love Spells #1)

Prologue

M illicent Maye concluded the short meeting and waved her four granddaughters off, but before she locked the doors or turned off the lights for the night, she had to implement step two of her plan. She’d surprised them all with her announcement. That was for sure. But no mischievous smile kissed her lips. She’d waited too long. She’d known it, but something inside her wanted to grant her girls, as she called them though they were all adults, the freedom that she and many of the women of her generation had never had.

She walked up the elegant, wide curved staircase to her bedroom, feeling unusually tired, but her mind was settled. She opened the cedar chest that had been a gift from her mother, who had received it from her mother—four generations starting with Maeve O’Malley, who had received it from her mother and had brought the chest with her when she’d left Ireland and talked her way onto a ship bound for America.

“So much history,” she whispered, running her fingers over the roses carved into the lid, but this was not the time to reminisce.

She opened chest and picked up the book she’d stored there for far too long.

Food Is Love

Recipes for

Southern Love Spells

She pressed her lips against the worn leather cover. The book was a family heirloom passed down—like the trunk—mother to daughter, but Millie had only had one son and now four granddaughters. She’d waited. Looked for a sign—who was ready for the book? Something inside of her had whispered that the book would choose. But the book had never left the trunk. Had never whispered to her. Had never showed up unexpectedly to tell her when it was time. Perhaps because she had hidden the book away, a little awed by its power.

She’d never fully understood the book. Hadn’t used any of the recipes in her diner except the one for biscuits. Over the years, many of the book’s recipients had added recipes, notes, stories and advice. Millie never had, perhaps too intimidated by the book’s legacy.

Or too arrogant.

She should have used the book with her girls, passed it down years ago. She regretted that now.

Holding the book to her chest, she walked back downstairs and out her front door. Down the regal steps to the brick path and out her wrought iron gates to the small mini home library that had been a gift many years ago from the town as a thank you for her generosity. All of her girls had loved the little library, adding books and borrowing them over the years. Chloe, the teacher and the youngest, still did.

Millie opened the door, surprised to find the library, with its three brightly painted shelves, empty. She felt like her heart skipped a beat. The library was never empty. Never. She made sure of that, but she wasn’t the only one. The mini library was loved by many.

She closed her eyes and sent a wish up to her ancestors.

“It’s time to find her soulmate,” she whispered, trusting in the book to know which granddaughter was primed to find her true love.

She placed the book carefully on the shelf, not feeling bereft, as she’d imagined but buoyed by hope and a sense rightness that had eluded her for so long.