Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Luke
Once I’d finished my errands in town Friday afternoon, I glanced at the clock in my truck. Almost five. I didn’t know what time Magnolia’s business closed, but I needed to catch her before she left.
I had a point to make.
I parked in the lot behind the hardware store and headed to her location by The Bean Counter.
The sky was dark for the hour, thanks to heavy clouds that promised one hell of a storm.
As I approached the building, I could see a cozy, inviting light was on in her space.
Then I shook my head, reminding myself it was like a poisonous spider luring prey into its web.
Raindrops were just starting to fall as I headed down the walkway to the door. It was unlocked, and I stepped inside, noticing her logo in neon on a brick wall. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but this was comfortable and classy at once, decorated tastefully without feeling over-the-top snooty.
On the left side was an open door, and I could sense someone was in there, though no one greeted me. I walked to the doorway and looked in just as Magnolia appeared in my face, apparently on her way to see who’d entered. We nearly collided.
“Oh!” she said, stepping back, one hand on her heart, the other holding a half-full champagne flute out of the way. “What are you doing here?”
“Why are you drinking champagne by yourself?”
“I asked you first,” she said.
I took out my wallet, removed the check I’d filled out at home, and handed it over to her. “Your payment.”
She looked at the check as if she’d never seen one before.
“For your consultation services,” I said.
She frowned. “You didn’t have to deliver it in person.”
“I was going to mail it, but I didn’t want any chance of it getting lost and you accusing me of not paying you.”
“You could’ve sent it electronically. My username is on the invoice.”
“Do you want to argue about how I pay you, or do you want to thank me?”
She wrinkled her nose as if both options sucked, then muttered, “Thanks.”
“Your turn,” I said.
“My turn for what?”
“To answer my question.”
As if remembering she had champagne in her hand, she took a sip, then went to the chair behind her desk and sat. “I’m celebrating.” To emphasize, she took another drink.
“New client?” I asked, wondering how often she sat alone drinking champagne.
“Even better.” She drained the glass like a beer, then sized me up, as if judging whether I was worthy of hearing her news. She shrugged. “I don’t care if it gets out. I want it to get out.”
“Want what to get out?” I needed to get home to take care of a couple of pressing items on my to-do list before dinner so I’d have plenty of time for a movie with Addie as I’d promised.
She took a deep breath, her chest rising, catching my attention, triggering my memories.
I’d had so many damn fantasies about touching her breasts back in the day but hadn’t gotten the opportunity before we crashed and burned.
Now they seemed fuller, even more tempting.
If there wasn’t a shit ton of bad history between us.
“I just found out that Felix James is not my biological father,” she said, sounding gleeful.
I puzzled through that. Felix James was known around town as one of the wealthiest residents.
His company owned a bunch of properties, both here and in Nashville.
Its reputation as a property manager was mixed.
The company mostly maintained their properties well, but he was thought of as arrogant and greedy.
Back during the short time Magnolia and I’d gotten close, I’d gained only a little personal insight from her. Though she hadn’t talked about him often, there’d been no question she didn’t have a good relationship with him, even back then.
“So that’s good news?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes, morphing from happiness to contempt. “It’s great news to learn I’m not related to the most manipulative asshole on the planet.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard Magnolia swear, which told me even more than the rest of her statement.
“How’d you find out? Did you meet with your mom?”
I’d tried not to wonder about that ever since I’d overheard her phone call.
Tried not to give any mental energy to Magnolia’s life and what it must be like to have a mother who’d deserted her and a father who’d disowned her over a broken engagement.
But for a few moments last Sunday in the barn, I’d been taken back to those weeks during junior year when Wednesday evenings marked time for me because I got to hang out with her.
Damn, I’d been crazy about her then.
“I did. She left about twenty minutes ago. I’m still absorbing all the bombs she dropped.” Her expression snapped to a frown. “You and I need to talk.”
“What do I have to do with anything?”
“I’ve been thinking we need to hash out the past if for no other reason than Presley and West’s wedding. But now…some of what I learned concerns you.”
What the hell? “What did your mother tell you?” I couldn’t imagine the woman I’d never even met knew a thing about me.
“Sit down, and I’ll explain.”
“Do I need a drink for this?” I asked.
“Likely,” she said dryly.
“Got any whiskey?”
Shaking her head, she said, “How about some bubbly?”
“Am I going to want to celebrate?”
“No, but this and white wine are all I have.”
“You really think dragging out the past will do any good?”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “You never heard my side of the story, Luke. I texted you and called you and tried to talk to you at school, but you shut me out in every way. There were things back then you didn’t know, and I just learned even more.
So whether it will ‘do any good’ or not, you’re going to hear me out. ”
I didn’t take kindly to being told what to do by anyone, but particularly by this specific person. I debated saying fuck it and walking out.
“Please,” she said in a less bossy, more emotional tone that shot me back to our nights outside her house.
Dammit.
I studied her, weighing my decision. I didn’t owe her a damn thing, but I did care about West’s wedding. I knew he was worried about the friction between Magnolia and me becoming a problem. And I could admit I was curious.
“Fine.” I sat, crossed one leg over the other, and waited for her to speak.
Magnolia shot up, went to the other room, and came back with the open champagne bottle. It wasn’t Dom or some other high-dollar, snooty brand but a more middle-of-the-road label. She filled her glass as close to the top as humanly possible without overflowing it.
“Want some?” she asked.
I was not a champagne guy. Didn’t even own champagne flutes. I had shit to get home to and didn’t want to be here more than the five or ten minutes it might take to hash things out. I shook my head. “Just say what you want to say.”
She brushed her hair behind her ear and met my gaze directly. “I never accused your mother of stealing my ring. I never believed she would do that.”
I scoffed. “Then how the hell did she get fired for it and blacklisted all over town?”
“Felix,” she answered simply. “He caught me turning the house upside down looking for it and demanded to know what I was doing. I told him my ring was missing. He asked a few questions, like when I’d last seen it, whether anyone had been in my room.
I didn’t often have friends inside the house when my parents were in town, only to use the pool in the backyard, so that was an easy no.
He asked if Mrs. Durham had cleaned my room that week.
She had, but Luke, even if I’d thought your mom was guilty—and I didn’t—I wouldn’t have told him that.
Not when I was getting to know you, learning what kind of person you were, the kind of loving, hardworking family you came from…
I didn’t know your mom well, but I knew you enough to understand you weren’t raised by someone who would steal from her employer. She was always pleasant to me.”
“Where’re the glasses?” I pointed to her delicate flute, thinking whiskey straight from the bottle would be way more appropriate. I didn’t want memories of my mom dredged up here with Magnolia. I’d welcome anything to dull my senses and hopefully the grief that never went away.
“Out there at the beverage station.”
She started to stand, but I gestured for her not to get up and went to the other room myself. I picked up a glass and paused for a moment before heading back in.
Magnolia’s assessment of my mother was spot-on. She was the last person who would steal anything. She was honest and, like Magnolia had said, loving and hardworking.
Fuck. My eyes burned just thinking about her.
Remembering my mom was enough to choke me up, but add on top of it, Magnolia’s revelation that she wasn’t the accuser? I couldn’t even process that right now.
Painfully aware that Magnolia was on the other side of that wall, waiting for me, I sucked it up, took my glass, and rejoined her. I slid the flute across the desk to her, unable to stop my racing thoughts.
If Magnolia hadn’t accused my mom…
A knot formed in my gut.
If she hadn’t accused my mom, that would make me the biggest dickhead alive for convicting her without even hearing her side of the story.
Magnolia slid me a full glass of light, sparkling alcohol that was completely inappropriate and insufficient for this occasion. I left it sitting on the edge of the desk.
“How do I know you didn’t accuse her?” I asked, unwilling to handle the shift in my reality that would create if it was true.
“Why would I, Luke?” she asked with outrage. She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What would I have to gain by hurting the family of the boy I had feelings for?”
I leaned forward, planting my elbows on my knees, running my hands over my face. “When I found out my mom was fired and accused of stealing, I thought you’d been playing games with me all along,” I admitted.
“How could you think that?”