Chapter 51 Coco
Coco
“You ready for this?” Mom asks as I unlock the front gate.
“I’m ready.”
Dad grabs one side of gate and swings it open. “It looks great, honey.”
A knot of worry pushes up into my throat. “Let’s see if they come.”
My gaze brushes over the field of tulips I created. It took weeks of planning, weeks of course correction to make sure I could grow the flower I really wanted—and I wanted one that withers in the heat but, with magic, could bloom.
So I picked tulips.
“All the social media’s done,” Brittany says, coming up beside me. “Lots of folks selected they’re interested in coming. So maybe they will.”
“Hopefully so.” I grin at my family. “Let’s get ready for them. Even if they don’t come. It’s okay. We tried.”
I turn back to the field—rows and rows of brightly colored tulips stand in straight lines. They look like a rainbow, one I’m so proud of because growing the right flower proved harder than I thought it would be.
And luckily, it doesn’t take long for cars to start rolling up. People park and exit their vehicles. As soon as they spot the flowers, their eyes flare, their mouths part into bright smiles.
“Morning,” I say, welcoming them. “Pick whatever you’d like. Everything’s free.”
“Free?” a woman asks.
“Free,” I confirm. “Completely free.”
My family and I spend the day helping people pick and load up baskets of blooms. It’s the least I could do for Mystic Meadows—give back to the town that has embraced me with open arms.
By the end of the day, I’m sweaty. My pits are stained and there’s a line of dirt beads clinging to my neck. It turns out that giving away free flowers is a lot of hard work.
It’s when I’m cleaning up that Brittany calls out, “Coco.”
“Yeah?”
She nods to the driveway. “Someone’s here to see you.”
I look up and my lungs squeeze. Stone gets out of his SUV. He opens the back door, and Hercules jumps out. The lambicorn has gotten so big he’s nearly a sheep.
Stone grabs a bucket from the back seat and strides over.
My stomach leaps at the sight of him. He looks amazing in Carhartt jeans and a blue button-down shirt that’s rolled to the elbows.
He’s clean shaven, and his hair’s brushed to one side.
It’s a little longer on top than it was before, and thicker.
“Hey, Stone,” my mom calls.
“Hey, Mrs. Higginbotham,” he replies, his voice friendly.
He reaches me and I can’t move. I can’t believe he’s here.
“So, um.” He scratches the back of his head. “I heard there were some flowers to be picked.”
“Yes.” Brittany’s gaze swishes from me to Stone and back. “You can pick all you want.”
“Yes, let’s help—” Mom starts.
Brittany grabs her by the hand. “Oh, wow. I hear Nu-Nu. Sounds like she needs something. Let’s go.”
I barely notice them leave because my eyes are glued to Stone. I absorb every inch of him, and as I do, I remember his warm touch, his protective hand on my back, his soft lips.
Oh my God. This is torture, and he’s not even doing anything.
I have to say something. “I’m sorry—”
“Look, I—” he says at the same time.
I laugh and drop my head.
He shifts his weight from one leg to the other. “You first. This time I won’t pretend to know what you’re going to say, maybe because I actually don’t.” His voice is warm and inviting.
I’ve practiced this a lot. I’ve had weeks to think about what I’d say if he ever asked for a deeper explanation than what I gave him at the chapel.
I clear my throat. “I never should have used the spell on you. I didn’t think it would work, but that’s no excuse. And then, after it did work and we became close and I fell for you, I was afraid that once you knew the truth, you wouldn’t love me anymore.”
My throat shrinks. This is harder than I expected it would be, but I push on.
“I thought the real me wasn’t good enough for you, that you’d reject me.
And that thought”—the words crack as they tumble from my lips—“broke me.
I was going to tell you at the chapel, and then Pane came in, and if you hate me, I understand.
I would hate me, too, and I did for a while.
“Stone, I never—” My voice falls, and he takes a step toward me, but I hold up my hand to stop him from interfering. “I never wanted you to hate me, and I’m so, so sorry for all of it. For what I did. All I ask is that you forgive me, but if you can’t do that, I understand.”
The words leave me in a rush, and the burden I’ve carried for weeks—almost two months—is finally, finally gone. I inhale a deep, cleansing breath and look at him.
His jade eyes sparkle with a twinge of amusement I can’t place. He grins, and my own mouth quivers as I try to smile back.
“Coco Chanel,” he says.
And it breaks me. I half sob, half laugh.
He takes a step forward and winds his fingers in mine. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” I whisper, looking at his feet.
He hooks a finger under my chin and tips my face until I’m looking up at him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. Time and again, you tried to tell me, but I didn’t hear it.
I told you what you were going to say instead, and for a long time I was angry.
Not because of the spell, but because the spell forced me to see myself, to really look—and do you know what I found? ”
I can barely get the whisper out. Too much hope hangs in this moment. “What?”
“That I was a real miserable son of a bitch.”
His words are so surprising that a laugh bursts from me. So does a tear.
He thumbs the tear away and keeps his hand on my face, slowly rubbing his thumb over my cheekbone.
“That spell stripped away who I was, the part of me that was vindictive, who planned to blackmail you. Blackmail you!” He tips his head back in disbelief.
When he drops his chin and looks at me, my insides pulse.
“What an asshole I was, and it took you to show me I’d been living without love, pushing it away. And I’d been doing it a long time.”
My ribs hurt just hearing these words—that Stone, a man I’d grown to love, had chosen to be miserable.
Memories can bind us. They can chain us. But who we decide to be is up to us. Do we let the bad experiences, all the painful moments that get saddled to us, define who we are?
Or do we create ourselves by pushing through the bad and letting it fall away?
He shoots me his lopsided smile, his jade eyes filling with a warmth that just about undoes me right then and there.
“The spell didn’t strip me of who I was.
I see that now. It made me who I needed to be.
You even said that, but I didn’t listen.
Coco, I never want to be that person again.
Ever. I refuse to be Stone Maddox: asshole.
I want to be Stone Maddox, a man worthy of your love and someone who loves you back.
“You didn’t break me. You made me. You showed me who I could be if I stopped trying to be someone else. And I like who I am when I’m with you. Maybe magic started it—but it was your love that made it real. Your love. It changed me, and I’m forever grateful.”
I’ve spent so long thinking I’m forgettable, and Stone just reinforced that I’m not.
Another tear slips from my eye and he thumbs it away again. “So I guess I’m here because I want to say I’m sorry for how I acted.”
I take hold of his wrist and squeeze. “You had every right to be angry.”
“I know.” He says it lightly, and we both laugh.
“But seriously, I would have destroyed this town if it hadn’t been for you.
And you’re right, I never would have accepted Hercules, and who doesn’t love that little guy?
Maybe not so little anymore.” He looks over at the lambi, who stops munching on grass to lift his head and bleat. “Yeah, I’m gonna need a bigger SUV.”
I laugh at that, too.
His gaze drops to mine and he murmurs, “I guess what I’m asking is, can you forgive me for leaving you at the altar and for not listening? For not hearing you when you tried to tell me the truth? Can you forgive me for all of that?”
“Let me ask you this first: Can you forgive me for potioning you? And my potion days are over, by the way. But can you forgive me for that?”
“I already have.” His voice is so tender it rocks me to my core. “I was never angry at you. I was always angry at me, that I backed you into a corner. That you saw no other choice. So can you forgive me?”
His eyes are so clear and green, with small flecks of gold in them. “I already have,” I reply, repeating what he said.
His gaze drops to my mouth, and I tilt my face up until our lips touch. Both of his hands are on my cheeks, sliding into my hair and cradling the back of my head. I let go of all the worry and regret, allowing myself to truly be in this moment and melt into Stone’s arms.
This kiss—we’ve kissed so many times, and so many emotions have flowed between us through our lips. But this time, the sense I have is that this kiss is a promise not to break one another, to be gentle with each other and to give grace when sometimes giving grace is the hardest thing to do.
When we break apart, he takes my hands and kisses them. Then he lifts a brow and says, “Tulips?”
I laugh. “Tulips.”
“Were they hard?”
“They were so hard! It took me weeks to get it right.”
He twists away, still holding me, to survey the landscape. “Well, I’d say you got the whole town on your side.”
“It wasn’t the town I wanted. It was you.”
He kisses me again and murmurs onto my lips, “Well, now you have me.”
The bang of a door grabs our attention, and I look up toward the house. Brittany, Mom, and Dad stand on the porch. It’s my mom who speaks.
“Does this mean Stone’s staying for dinner?”
I cock a brow. “I bet my dad will let you put on some vinyl.”
He rocks back like I’ve punched him. “You drive a hard bargain, Coco Chanel.”
“It’s not so hard.”
“No, it isn’t.” He squeezes my hand and calls up to my mom. “Yes, ma’am. I’d love to stay for dinner.”
“‘Ma’am’?” I ask, eyebrow crooked.
He shrugs. “What can I say? When you’re in the South, you learn to speak Southern. Come on. Let’s go up to the house.”
My parents greet Stone with hugs, and as we’re walking inside, he says to my dad, “Sir, that’s a pretty amazing jazz collection you’ve got.”
“Thank you.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a CollectorPrep561 on eBay, would you?”
Surprise flits over my dad’s face before he says, “Why do you ask?”
Stone leans in. “I’ve been looking for you. You’re a hard man to pin down. I’ve got a proposition you might be interested in.”
Stone tugs me to him and we go inside. My heart is so full I think it might pop.