Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Magnolia had always been a smiler. While other babies came into the world screaming, her daddy said she came in with a smile on her face. He even had a picture in his wallet to prove it. Her smile was something that came naturally. Her weird upside-down mouth just liked to turn up at the corners.
But until today, she hadn’t realized there was a difference in smiling with your lips and smiling with her heart. Lips could be forced to smile. The heart had to be loved into it.
Today, her heart was smiling.
As soon as Dawson dropped her off, she thought the bubbly feeling would fade. But it hadn’t. All day, she’d felt like she’d swallowed the sun and its happy rays were shooting out of her. She was so giddy and giggly that the customers took note.
Birdie, who came in for another erotic romance, asked if she’d been smoking the loco weed. Sheriff Gentry, who stopped by for a true detective novel, hinted about the dangers of drinking on the job.
Only Adele Jonas hit the nail on the head.
She studied Magnolia as she set her stack of fantasy books on the counter. “You had great sex last night, didn’t you?”
“Adele!” Ada yelled from the cookbook section.
“What?” Adele yelled back. “You and I both know that’s the only reason women look like Magnolia—all flushed and smiley like they have a dirty secret.”
Before Magnolia could come up with a reply, Arlene walked to the counter with a self-help book on dealing with controlling family members.
“I remember that feeling. It’s too bad that sex giddy feeling fades when you are stuck picking up men’s dirty underwear and dealing with their man-colds.
” She pointed a finger at Magnolia. “Enjoy the sex without putting a ring on it, honey. That’s all I’m saying. ”
Magnolia had enjoyed the sex.
But it wasn’t the great sex that made her feel like a freshly poured glass of expensive champagne. It was the way Dawson looked at her when she’d walked into the kitchen that morning in one of his shirts. The love she read in those golden eyes had melted her.
And she wanted to see that look again.
And again.
And again.
When the bell over the door rang later that afternoon, she couldn’t help the leap her heart made or the smile that spread over her lips. She finished shelving the book in her hand and quickly headed for the front door.
But it wasn’t Dawson.
It was a balding, skinny scarecrow of a man wearing tortoiseshell glasses that covered half his face.
“Uncle Otis!”
Her uncle pushed up his glasses that had a tendency to fall down his large nose and glanced around the store with his sea-glass green eyes. “I’m glad to see you haven’t painted it pink.”
She released a squeal and hurried over to throw her arms around him and pull him close. “It’s so good to see you up and around. Last time I saw you, you were drugged up and talking about all the money you’ve hidden in oatmeal containers in the pantry.”
When she pulled back and saw him scowling, she mimed zipping her lips. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. But I can’t make any promises about Daddy. As you know, he can’t keep a secret to save his soul.” She glanced over his shoulder. “Did daddy come with you?”
“I thought I had him talked into it, but then he changed his mind at the last minute. I think he wanted to check on Glenda after they broke up.”
Her happy bubble popped. “Broke up? What do you mean they broke up?”
Uncle Otis’s bushy eyebrows lifted above the thick frames of his glasses. “Your daddy didn’t tell you? They decided to just be friends. Which is exactly what they should be. He was only proposing to her to make you happy and that’s no reason to get married.”
She stared at him. “You talked him out of getting married?”
“That was his choice not mine. I just pointed out that he didn’t love her as much as he loved your mama.”
She had always been respectful of her uncle, but that respect flew right out the window when she realized he’d ruined all her efforts to see her daddy happily married again.
“But he could!” she snapped. “He could learn to love her just as much as he loved my mama. You had no business talking him out of getting married. Not when you have no idea of the pain he’s lived through.
And how could you know when you’re an introverted bookworm who doesn’t like people?
But my daddy loves people. Unlike you, he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life alone.
And he doesn’t have to. I may not remember my mama, but I remember how happy my daddy was with her.
And he’ll be that happy again. I know he will! ”
Uncle Otis didn’t seem at all upset by her tirade.
He merely pushed up his glasses and sent her a pointed look.
“He is happy, Magnolia. He’s happy living near the beach.
He’s happy working at the university. He’s happy being your daddy.
And he’s not alone. He has friends and he has me .
. . and he has you. That’s enough for him. ”
“But how can it be enough when he was so happy being married to Mama? And I know he can find that kind of love and happiness again. God wouldn’t be so cruel to only give us one great love in our lives.”
Uncle Otis glanced around. “He only gave me one.” He looked back at her.
“I know what people think about me. I know they think I’m a real oddball for never marrying and staying holed up in this bookstore.
But books are my first and only love. Puttering around in this store and spending my nights reading is what makes me truly happy.
I’m never alone when I have a book. As weird as that might seem to people, it’s my truth.
Your daddy experienced a special kind of love with your mama.
I get that you want him to experience it again.
But that’s not your choice. That’s his. If one true love is enough for him, you need to accept it and move on. ”
“No.” She shook her head. “Because that’s just too sad.” She pushed past him and hurried out the door. She didn’t know where she was going. All she knew was that she needed to be alone with her anger and her pain.
Uncle Otis was wrong. Completely wrong. Her daddy might act happy, but she knew deep down that he wasn’t.
She knew because he still stared off into space with the saddest look on his face.
She knew because sometimes when he looked at her, he got that same sad look.
She knew he was thinking of her mama and his heart was breaking.
It just didn’t make sense to her that true love was so final. That once you found it, you could never find it again. If that were the case, why would anyone want to find their soul mate when they had the chance of losing them and spending the rest of their life miserable?
“Hey, lady! Watch out!”
The yelled warning jerked her from her thoughts, and she realized she’d started crossing the street without looking both ways and a kid on an electric scooter was headed straight for her. Just before he hit her, he swerved and ran into the curb, flying off the scooter and rolling to the sidewalk.
“Oh my God!” She rushed over and knelt next to him. “Are you okay?”
He sat up. His bike helmet had tipped forward, the visor shadowing his eyes. “Yeah, no thanks to you.”
She started to apologize again when a woman in a western shirt and jeans came running up.
“Camden! Are you okay, honey? Did you break anything?”
“Just my jeans, Mama.” Camden poked a finger in the tear on the knee of his jeans.
“I’ll be happy to pay for those,” Magnolia said to the woman as she got to her feet. “It was all my fault.”
The woman looked at her, and recognition was easy to read in her pale blue eyes . . . as was fear. How did this woman know her? And why was she scared?
“You can’t replace them,” Camden said belligerently as he stood. “Uncle Cooper and Uncle Callum bought them special for me in Austin.”
Magnolia suddenly realized who the woman was. “Oh! You’re Cadee Stockton.” She held out a hand. “I’m Magnolia Hastings. I was the one who brought the dinosaur book out to the ranch.” She smiled at Camden. “I hope you liked it.”
Cadee answered before Camden could. “He loved it. Thank you.” She picked up the scooter. “Come on, Cam. We need to go.”
Since Cadee was being so unsociable, Magnolia figured this might be the only chance she had to talk to her about Rosie’s will.
“Before you go, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.
” She glanced at Camden who was getting on his scooter.
“But maybe we should do it in priv—” She cut off when Camden pushed back his helmet.
For the first time, she got a good look at his eyes.
Eyes the color of drizzled honey on toasted bread. A splash of expensive whiskey in a crystal glass. A morning sun bursting over the horizon.
Eyes a Hennessy gold.
While she stood there completely stunned, Cadee spoke in a stern voice. “Come on, Cam, we need to go.”
As Magnolia watched Camden scooter away, she figured she’d just solved the mystery of why Cadee was in Rosie’s will.