Chapter 4 #2
He looked back at her. “Actually, I do need your help.” Since he had never asked for help before when he came in looking for books, she was more than a little surprised. And even more so when he continued. “Have you heard any gossip about my mama?”
The only gossip she’d heard about Rosie Hennessy was about how her kids had deserted her. She didn’t think that was what he was talking about. “What kind of gossip?”
“I was just wondering if you’d heard anything about who she’d hung out with before she passed. A close friend? A confidant?”
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t talk to Mama much once we left town.” He hesitated for a moment before he glanced at the book she still held. “I guess I’m hoping to learn a little more about her last days.”
His admission more than surprised her. Everyone in town knew there was no love lost between the Hennessys and their mama.
According to gossip, they hadn’t even cried at her funeral.
But maybe the Hennessys were just good at hiding their true feelings.
If anyone should understand that Magnolia should.
She hid hers behind a bright smile. Maybe Dawson hid his behind a grumpy frown.
But it looked like he was hoping for the same thing she was .
. . some kind of connection to his mama.
The realization made her see Dawson in a different light.
Not as the mean-spirited Hennessy who liked to point out her flaws, but as a grieving man who was dealing with loss the best way he knew how.
And the fact that he had come to her for help made her feel all sparkly inside.
Maybe there was a good heart beneath all those bad boy glares.
Maybe there was someone who just needed a friend.
She had an overwhelming desire to hug him. Instead, she decided to help him. If she couldn’t remember her mama, at least she could help Dawson remember his.
“I’m afraid I haven’t heard anything about the people who were closest to your mama before she passed, but I could certainly find out. People have a way of telling me things.”
“I’d appreciate anything you can find out.”
“No problem.” She held out the book. “And here. It’s on the house.”
He hesitated before he took it. “Thanks. Now I better go and let you get back to . . .” He glanced at the floral cushion on the window seat, and she quickly finished the sentence for him.
“Napping! I was just taking a little nap.”
His eyes twinkled with a teasing sparkle. “I do love a good nap.” He turned and headed for the stairs while she stood there and tried not to picture Dawson helping her “nap” in the back seat of a limo.
The rest of the afternoon was spent unboxing a new shipment of books and placing them on the shelves.
Her uncle had an unorthodox way of cataloging books.
Instead, of shelving them by genre and the author’s last name, he arranged them by random words he chose in the title.
Gone With the Wind was shelved with books about weather and wind turbines.
A Time to Kill shelved with books about clock repair and mass murderers.
At first, it had driven Magnolia crazy. But once she got the hang of it, she had no problem figuring out where a book should be shelved or finding a book for customers who couldn’t always remember the author’s name but always seemed to remember what it was about or one word in the title.
She was placing a travel book about Italy on the shelf next to The Time Traveler’s Wife when the bell on the door rang. Before she could get down from the ladder, Tully came around the corner of the shelf.
She didn’t look happy.
“You aren’t going to believe what happened.”
“Jaxon got his inheritance and y’all are going to take an amazing honeymoon to Italy?” She pulled out the book, climbed down the ladder, and held it out to Tully. “I have just the book for you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to go on a honeymoon to Italy. I just want to run the best bar in Texas.” Tully flopped down in an overstuffed chair. “But it looks like that’s not going to happen.”
Magnolia set the book on a rung of the ladder before sitting down on the ottoman in front of Tully. “What do you mean?”
Tears collected in Tully’s eyes. “Someone is contesting Jaxon’s mama’s will and Honky Tonk Heaven could soon belong to someone else. Someone who might turn it into just a regular old bar . . . or worse a Dollar Tree.”
Magnolia stared at her. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Who would contest the will?”
“We don’t know. All we know is it’s the same person Rosie Hennessy willed her estate to if her kids couldn’t get Honky Tonk Heaven renovated and opened on time.
It has to be someone she got close to right before she passed away.
But I can’t think of who that would be. Have you heard any gossip about someone who became her close friend or confidant? ”
Tully’s words were almost the exact words she’d heard earlier.
Suddenly, Magnolia realized why Dawson had asked for her help.
It wasn’t because he was grieving his mama.
Or that he needed a friend.
It was because he wanted his inheritance and he thought he could use Ditzy Barbie to get it.