Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Luke
“You sure you don’t want me to follow you home and help get her to the barn?” I asked Ben.
I’d pulled the llamamobile to the end of the alley, where we’d loaded the animal up easily with a single cookie.
“Nah. She knows she’ll get another cookie when she gets to her stall,” Ben said. “Thanks for your help finding her. I still can’t figure out what she wanted from Magnolia.”
“The secrets of llamas,” I said.
Esmerelda chuffed as if she didn’t approve of my comment.
“Good luck getting her home.” I stepped back from the driver’s window of the van.
“Have a good night,” Ben said as he put the old vehicle into gear.
He raised his window and pulled away. I watched him go, waiting till he was out of sight before moving. Because I wasn’t heading straight for my truck.
I walked back toward Magnolia’s apartment to take care of what I should’ve taken care of days ago.
I’d been stunned to find Ben’s llama with Magnolia, of all people.
My dads’ group had been at Max’s to eat and play pool while watching game two of the World Series.
As we’d been getting ready to leave, Ben got a call from Emerson that Esmerelda was MIA.
As the guy without a wife to get home to, I’d been the obvious choice to help round up the beast. What were the chances we’d find Esmerelda was snuggled up with her?
Magnolia had looked pale and more than a little freaked out when we’d shown up. Understandably. She’d had a llama in her face, literally.
As I ascended the stairs to the apartment above The Lily Pad, I told myself I mainly wanted to be sure she was okay. More importantly, I owed her a follow-up from everything she’d confessed to me in her office last week.
Only when I got to the top of the steps did I question whether midnight was an appropriate time to be knocking on her door.
She’d been awake just twenty minutes ago. Surely she wasn’t already asleep. With a shrug, I decided to go for it. I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to take time out during the day to pay her a visit, not with tree season about to start. She could tell me to leave if it wasn’t a good time.
I knocked and heard movement inside, then a heavy pause on the other side of the windowless door, which I guessed was her looking through the peephole.
The door creaked open just enough for her head to appear.
Magnolia narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, obviously puzzled.
“Either you didn’t bother to look who it was, or you did and you opened the door anyway,” I said lightly.
“What are you doing here, Luke?”
“I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“It was a llama, not a street gang,” she answered flippantly.
“Llamas are creepy,” I said, then shrugged. “Don’t tell Ben I said that.”
A quiet laugh escaped from her, and she opened the door wider. “They really are. Why are their heads so small?”
“And their eyes so big,” I added.
“And googly.”
Her hair was wet and hung down her back. Instead of the leggings and baggy sweatshirt from earlier, she wore lightweight pants that reminded me of a genie and a thin-strapped tank. I couldn’t help noticing her nipples through the fabric.
“You showered off the llama?” I asked.
“As soon as I got in the door, in case there was drool. Anyway, I’m fine and you can go,” she said. Her tone wasn’t unfriendly, just matter-of-fact.
“Can we talk?”
“Right now?”
“Are you going to bed?”
She grimaced. “What’s the point? I won’t sleep for hours.”
“Can I come in then?”
She studied me, as if trying to discern why I was here.
“I need to apologize,” I said, hoping that would get me in the door.
Her brows shot up. Then she opened the door all the way, turned, and walked farther into her apartment. I stepped across the threshold, taking that to be as much of an invitation as I was going to get, and followed her deeper, past closed doors on either side.
Once past the doors, we went through another door as Magnolia explained the others were Dotty’s storage for the shop below. This door led to her studio apartment.
There was a bathroom immediately on the left.
Once you got past it, the main room contained a kitchen area with a dining table for two, a double bed, a sitting area with a love seat and two easy chairs flanking a faux fireplace, and a compact desk.
The furniture looked old, but she’d decorated the whole place with a colorful floral theme, from a blanket on the back of the sofa and her bedding, to a rug in the desk area and gauzy curtain panels on the two windows.
When I returned my attention to her, she’d pulled a Lily Pad sweatshirt over her tank.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said as she leaned against the kitchen counter.
“What am I thinking?”
“My apartment could fit in the laundry room of the house I grew up in.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never been in the house you grew up in, but I was thinking this is cozy and you have good taste. Girly but good.”
She grinned. “Flowers don’t have to be girly.”
“Addie would love it,” I said.
“Your daughter, right?”
Nodding, I said, “The more colors something has, the more she likes it.”
She straightened and her grin disappeared. “What did you want to talk about, Luke?”
“Could we sit?”
She gestured to the sitting area, so I sat on one end of the love seat. Magnolia took the chair across from me.
I leaned forward and fumbled around for what I wanted to say. “Last week in your office… I’m sorry I hurried out. That was a lot to process.”
“Tell me about it,” she muttered.
“I can’t even imagine what you went through after your mom’s visit.”
“An entire shift in identity basically.”
I tried to fathom what it would be like to find out, in your mid-thirties, that one of your parents wasn’t actually your biological parent. “Did your mother tell you who your father is?” I’d been so caught up in other parts of what she’d told me that I hadn’t wondered before now.
“Jimmy,” she said flippantly. “Magical, unforgettable Jimmy, whose last name she didn’t get.”
I straightened. “Just…Jimmy? She doesn’t know more than that?”
“I imagine she knows a few very personal details about Jimmy, but nothing to help me track down the man whose DNA I share.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you plan to search for him?” I didn’t know if that was possible with genealogy sites or some other means.
Magnolia shook her head. “I don’t believe I will. It’s such a long shot. I’m sure any search service would be pricey anyway. I’m just overjoyed to know it’s not Felix. That’s enough for me.”
My thoughts got caught up in her situation for a bit before I remembered why I was there. I stood, paced a few steps until it registered that I was standing at the edge of her bed. I pivoted and went to the empty chair next to her and sat again.
“Magnolia,” I said, “I owe you an apology for the past. For my actions after my mom was fired.”
She pulled her legs up onto her chair and hugged them, her eyes locked on me.
“I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions,” I continued.
“For thinking you were the one accusing her. For shutting you out.” I swallowed hard, ashamed of how stupid my reaction had been.
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust that the Magnolia I was getting to know was the real you.
” I shook my head, regret flooding me, making it hard to keep talking.
“I’ve been pissed at you all week because I told you everything—more than my friends know, even—and then you just left. This doesn’t change the past, but it helps.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I fucked up big-time. In high school, I mean. Maybe last week too, but I was bowled over by everything you told me. It took some time for everything to sink in.”
“I do understand that.”
“I was an idiot back then,” I admitted. “I’d like to kick my seventeen-year-old self’s ass.”
“I’d like to help you kick your seventeen-year-old self’s ass.” She didn’t smile when she said it.
“Regret is a bitch.” My voice came out thick with emotion.
“Yes, well, you can’t change the past,” she said. “But I do appreciate the apology.”
Her tone seemed dismissive, but I wasn’t ready to walk away just yet. Was it just the regret talking? Making me want to try to smooth things over? I knew that wasn’t possible, but I couldn’t make myself get up and leave.
“Have you heard from your mom since she told you everything?”
She shook her head. “She’s…going through some things. She was just diagnosed with cancer. That’s what provoked her to tell me everything. And no, I’m not making excuses for her. I’m not waiting around for her to call. I don’t know what she’ll do. I might never hear from her again.”
“Would you be okay with that?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She grasped her legs tighter and shrugged.
“It’s not like we could ever have a good relationship.
Not after everything that’s happened. I do have her number, so I could call her if I want to, but I don’t know.
I’m still processing everything too, even though I’ve spun it all through my head a thousand times. ”
“It sounds like it was a lot. I mean, a lot doesn’t begin to touch it. Just what you told me about the battle between her and her husband…” I shook my head. “Sorry to say it’s like an over-the-top TV drama.”
“I had the same thought.” Magnolia shifted her legs to one side and ran her hands up her arms, like she was hugging herself again. She gazed off at nothing, her expression deeply troubled, tinged with sadness.
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but I had a strong urge to pull her into my arms and comfort her.
That would likely get me shoved away. She didn’t want solace from me.
I understood why, but my brain seemed to be confusing the past with the present, mixing the reality of now with how it’d been between us before her ring had gone missing.
The good times, when our connection was crackling with potential and hope.
I clenched my hands together to try to ground myself fully in the here and now.
“Part of me is stunned by the hateful games she admitted to,” she said. “Part of me is thinking, yes, that sounds about right. That’s exactly the house I grew up in.”
“No child should be subjected to that kind of home life.”
“Lots of people have it so much worse than I did, honestly.”
“That doesn’t make it less awful.”
She nodded. “Nobody else knows how it really was. I tried to hide it from everyone. It wasn’t like they were beating me or locking me in the basement, you know?”
“Just playing devious head games, using you to hurt each other. That’s fucked up, Mags.”
Her gaze shot to mine. Only then did I realize what I’d called her. Mags. That was what I used to call her. It spoke of a better, closer relationship than what we currently shared.
Instead of apologizing, I carried on. “What are you going to do? Have you talked to your—to Felix? Called him out? Asked him why the hell he accused my mother of something he knew damn well she didn’t do?”
She laughed, but it was hollow. “He wouldn’t let me in the door if I tried. I’m dead to him.”
I narrowed my eyes, hoping karma would come along and clock that fucker.
“I thought about doing a tell-all on the Tattler,” she said, a hint of a real grin curving her lips. “Apparently he’s mortified by his inability to have children.”
I grinned with her, imagining that would hit him where it hurt.
“I’m not going to though. That’s so much negative energy. I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”
“That’s smart.”
“Careful, Luke Durham. You nearly gave me a compliment.”
“My bad,” I joked.
“I just want to move forward. Keep healing. Build my life as Magnolia Not-James. Maybe I could be one of those one-name people. Just Magnolia.” Her smile was fuller. More peaceful. Pretty.
“You’ve already started it with your business name,” I said, trying to shake off a spark of attraction.
That ship had sailed long ago and crashed into a giant iceberg. It was too late to send a rescue boat out.
Wasn’t it?
I stood. Time to take my leave.
“I’ll let you get to bed. Thanks for letting me in so late.” I laughed to myself. “Weird night.”
“That’s an understatement.” She rose and led me toward the door.
I specifically did not let my gaze drop to her ass. Instead I watched the way the damp waves down her back shifted as she moved. An image flashed in my mind of her in the shower, water dripping down her long locks as I joined her…
Forcing my attention elsewhere, I looked at my watch without really seeing the time, then made a point of noticing the flowered ceramic bowl with her keys in it on a small table near the door.
Magnolia opened the first door, led me to the outer one, and stood with her hand on the knob, facing me. When she looked up at me, her long lashes caught my attention as her lids lifted. Her blue-gray eyes met mine, unguarded for the first time in nearly two decades.
Without thinking it through, I stepped toward her, palmed the back of her head, and lowered my mouth toward hers. Inches away, I paused, checked those captivating eyes for a sign of hesitation. Her pupils enlarged as she peered back at me, seeming open, curious.
I kissed her. I intended to make it a brief touch of our lips, but as soon as we made contact, I was compelled to linger, to press my body against hers as I drew the kiss out for several seconds. I ended it before she could, staggering from the impact of that short contact.
“Good night, Magnolia,” I said in a rough voice and hurried out the door.
Magnolia
I shut the outer door, my heart still racing from the shot of ecstasy that was Luke’s kiss.
I went into my apartment, locked up, then leaned my back against the door, trying to gather my thoughts. That kiss was short but intense. It swirled the past into the present, leaving me…confused.
I felt lightheaded and bubbly on the one hand, because I’d never been kissed quite like that, with so much history and regret and apology and tenderness and…lust. I hadn’t missed his hardness as he pressed up against me.
On the other hand, how dare he just lean in and kiss me after everything we’d been through?
Worse? The thing that made me clench my jaw at the very thought?
I’d let him.
I’d practically welcomed him.
I could’ve stopped him at any time, but I hadn’t.
I hadn’t wanted to. And that irritated me more than anything else.
Because while I appreciated his apology and everything he’d said, I couldn’t just forget years of anger and be fine at the drop of a hat—or an apology.
The emotions I’d gone through for eighteen years because of his actions…
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t just make all that baggage disappear.
But apparently I also couldn’t resist his kiss. I touched my lips, remembering how sure he’d been, confident, almost demanding. He was familiar and brand-new at the same time. Teenage Luke hadn’t been half as confident as mid-thirties Luke.
His self-confidence was a turn-on.
“Damn that man.”
I shoved away from the door, feeling so very drained.
On a normal night, I had about a fifty-fifty chance of sleeping more than three or four hours.
Tonight, I was pretty sure, was not a normal night.