Chapter 12 Ethan #2
Her lips part, and her eyes widen, but before she can respond, we approach the booth I’ve been looking for. “Dad,” I call out. “Meet Ms. Alexandra Sinclair.”
Dad jumps up from behind his vegetable stand, patting his assistant’s shoulder before walking around to us. He’s wearing flannel and jeans paired with a wide-brimmed hat. It took Robert Hart exactly fifteen minutes to adjust to the Magnolia Cove lifestyle, and he’s loved it every second since.
“Please, call me Robert.” He thrusts out a work-worn hand to Alex, who accepts it warmly. “Any friend of Ethan’s is a friend of mine. Though”—he squints at me—“he failed to mention how beautiful you are.”
I groan. “Dad,” I drag the word out, but I’m smiling. For one thing, his comment has brought another round of color flushing Alex’s cheeks, and damn, is she beautiful when that happens.
Dad lifts one silver-streaked eyebrow. “You know, if you need information for your magazine article, I’m the person to speak with.”
“Is that right?” Alex asks.
“Mhmm. Ethan wasn’t always the baking prodigy he is today.”
Okay, this was officially a mistake. “I brought her to say hello as requested. The least you could do is try to behave yourself.”
Alex’s breath catches, and she tilts her face in my direction.
I find that I can’t meet her gaze and instead focus on the dozens of different tomatoes stacked across the stand—some violet and the size of softballs, others petite and fire-red.
Does she think me introducing her to my dad means more?
Would she want that? I shouldn’t want that, so I don’t know why I’m entertaining the thought.
Dad leans against the stand’s corner and crosses his ankles. “Has he told you about the Great Birthday Cake Disaster of ‘98?”
Heat rushes up my neck. This is my opportunity to have my baking featured in a world-renowned magazine, and it’s going to end up with ridiculous anecdotes because I foolishly agreed to let my father meet Alex.
“Dad, no—”
“I’m certainly curious,” Alex says. She peers up at me from beneath her long lashes, her eyes sparkling, and I can’t help but smile back. “Go on, Mr. Hart.”
“Call me Robert.” He winks. “Anyway, this ambitious little baker”—he shoves an elbow my way—“decides he’s going to make his mother a rainbow birthday cake.”
I cover my face with my hands. “Can we not?”
“Shush you.” Dad swats my arm gently, then waves at friends who pass by before continuing.
“Well, turns out our little artist here decided to mix his colors directly on the kitchen counter. By the time I got there, that white Formica was a Jackson Pollock painting of food coloring. No amount of scrubbing could get it out.”
I drag a hand back through my hair. “We had a tie-dye kitchen counter for years after that.”
“Sure did. Your mother called it her ‘abstract art installation.’ Said it brightened up the entire kitchen. We only replaced it when we remodeled, and I swear she was sad to see it go.”
“Yeah, I think I was too.”
Alex is looking at both of us with a divot pressed between her brows.
I have the urge to reach for her hand, but that’s the last thing I need to do in front of Dad.
I’d never hear the end of it. He still thinks Sarah was too immature for me, as if I wasn’t the problem in that situation.
He still thinks I have a right to meet someone and fall in love.
He’s wrong, but it’s nice to know he’s always stood in my corner, no matter how badly I’ve screwed things up.
“It sounds like you two make quite the team,” Alex says.
Dad throws his arm around me. “Always have, always will. Even when this one insisted on living on an island in the middle of nowhere, I said, ‘Ethan, you can’t get rid of me that easily.’”
My muscles tense. Dad’s just teasing, and Alex probably thinks nothing of it. But he’s dancing precariously close to truths she can’t know about.
“Dad,” I say, hoping the word doesn’t sound too terse.
He throws his hand in surrender. “I know, I know.” He gives me a wink, and I fight a sigh of exasperation before he runs off, telling one story after another.
About my first attempt at sourdough (“I swear, that starter was alive and plotting world domination”) and about the time I entered a pie-eating competition at the county fair (“He won, but I don’t think he could look at a cherry for months. ”)
All throughout, Alex laughs, asks questions, and keeps shooting me small, meaningful glances that leave me wishing I could read her mind. And wishing for things that can’t happen.
“All right,” Dad finally calls. “I’ve held you two up for long enough. Grammie Rae expects you to stop for some honey candy, though.”
Alex and Dad say goodbye, then he lifts his eyebrows at me. I can already hear the words he’d say if she wasn’t around: Smart and pretty? You’ve done worse, son. I roll my eyes but clap him on the shoulder before leading Alex through the crowd of residents and tourists.
“Honey candy?” Alex asks.
“It’s a Magnolia Cove specialty if you want to try it.”
Grammie Rae has shoved her curly silver hair beneath a ball cap, and she stirs her massive copper pot. When we walk up, she claps her hands. “I’d hoped you’d stop by.”
“So, I hear. We’ll take two, Grammie Rae, and this is Alexandra Sinclair.”
“Nice to meet you. Everyone around here calls me Grammie.” She scoops the warm honey taffy out of the pot and into a cone, handing one to Alex. “You can call me that too.”
Before she releases the treat, her fingers light with energy.
A spark of magic glistens along the golden, sticky candy.
Alex gasps and nearly drops the cone. I’ve stopped breathing altogether.
Revealing our magic to non-magic wielders is the number one rule we must never break.
It’s the rule I broke that got me placed on parole here.
If Dean Markham was around… But Grammie Rae shoots me a wink, like she isn’t worried in the least about Dean Markham, and hands me my paper cone.
I pay her and thank her, but the words come out choked.
Alex continues to stare at the candy, and my voice is gruff when I speak. “It’s best warm.”
She’s staring at the cone like it’s about to come alive. She saw something. A journalist from New York City just saw something. I should report it. I should find Dean right this minute. Alex lifts the paper cup and takes the first bite of the honey candy. Her eyes go wide.
Even without tasting mine yet, I know the flavor she’s experiencing. The impossibly smooth, warm honey and the burst of sweetness. I’ve experimented but never came close to whatever Grammie Rae does to achieve the consistency.
“Oh my god,” she moans, and it sends a shiver down my spine. “This is incredible.”
I grin. Maybe she didn’t notice the magic. Maybe it’s fine. She lifts her face, her eyes amber in the sunlight, matching the candy shimmering in her paper cone and another glistening spot by her lip.
“Oh, wait, you’ve got a bit…” I reach out with my thumb and swipe the candy away. The minute my finger scrapes her flesh, a jolt rushes through me, and we both freeze.
“There,” I whisper and force myself to pull my hand away. “All clean.”
Alex doesn’t acknowledge my words. I’m not even sure she’s breathing. Her expression reminds me of how she looked on the porch—rain-drenched, her hair darkened, her eyes wide and unblinking. I’m going to kiss her in front of everyone, and I don’t even care.
“Alex!” Rachel walks up, Mia at her side.
Alex jumps, then turns and walks toward them, immediately starting a conversation. I should go with her, but I turn back to Grammie Rae. “You used magic,” I whisper.
She stirs the pot, and her dark eyes twinkle. “Mhmm, been known to do that now and then.”
“Yes, but in front of Ms. Sinclair?”
“Oh, it’s Ms. Sinclair now, is it? With the way you two were just looking at each other, I was starting to think Mrs. Hart.”
“Grammie Rae, I know you mean well—”
She stops my speech with a dramatic sweep of her arm, and her voice gets low and serious.
“She saw it. The magic.” My furrowed brow must give away my confusion, but Grammie Rae sets her stirring spoon down and walks closer to me, her voice low and serious.
“Most of the tourists can’t see a thing.
The wards, you know? But you saw that Ms. Sinclair did. ”
She had. I’d heard the gasp slip from her mouth and watched her lips part. It’s true. Even though we’re not supposed to use magic in front of others out of an abundance of caution, most people can’t see it. But Alex had.
“Magic chooses people it wants sometimes,” Grammie Rae says.
“What do you mean?”
She nods over to where Alex is embroiled in a laughter-filled conversation with Mia and Rachel, like they’d all graduated school together and not like they’d just met.
“I’m saying the magic is choosing Alex. She belongs here with us. Hmm?”
I’m about to ask more questions, demand a better answer, but then Alex walks back over, and Grammie Rae gets that twinkle in her eye again. “Tell me now, Ms. Sinclair”—at this, she grins at me—“has Ethan here informed you about the Bonanza?”
Alex turns to me, her brow furrowed, a smile still lingering from her conversation with her new friends. Panic ripples through me, a stone dropped into a lake. Dean Markham wanted Alex gone two weeks ago. He would not approve of extending her stay yet again.
“Grammie, Ms. Sinclair has important deadlines and—”
“Nonsense!” Grammie lifts the spoon and waves it, sticky bits of honey candy dripping down the handle.
“This is the food-lover’s event of the season.
Ever since he’s moved here, Ethan has won every year.
Frankly, it’s time someone gave him some actual competition.
” Her lips curl into a grin. “What do you say, Ms. Sinclair? Care to show our local baker extraordinaire how it’s done in the city? ”
I clear my throat. “I wouldn’t say I win every year.
” It’s a weak deflection, and I’m not motivated to argue, anyway.
I should be. I should encourage Alex to return home.
Discourage whatever this is building between us.
But I’m not the one asking her to stay this time, and what could a few more days hurt, anyway?
“Oh, hush,” Grammie Rae says. “False modesty doesn’t suit you, dear.
You’re cute enough without it.” She turns toward Alex.
A handful of curious customers have wandered up to the booth, but Grammie’s entire attention remains fixed on us.
“Please say you’ll stay. It would mean so much to have a food expert give our local celebrity baker some competition. ”
The hair that’s come free of Alex’s ponytail sticks to the part of her cheek that I’d brushed the candy away from. She’s holding her cone so tightly she dents the paper. “I… I suppose I could try to rearrange some things.”
A breath rushes out of me. I was sure she’d say no. I still can’t believe that she seems to want to be here. To be with me. Her gaze meets mine at that moment, and my heart thunders.
“Wonderful!” Grammie Rae claps. “Oh, everyone will be so excited. A real New York City food writer in our little contest. I’m going to spread the word.” She bustles forward, greeting the next customer.
Alex peeks up beneath the wisps of her windswept hair, and my heart stops pounding for a moment. Grammie Rae’s words echo through my mind. Magic chooses people it wants.
Hope is the world’s most painful emotion. Even allowing myself to imagine that Alex might be different, that she might love the Cove, love—other things in the Cove. I shiver.
“What did I just agree to?” she asks.
I chuckle. “Let’s just say you might want to bring a change of clothes.” I look down at her leather flats. “And maybe leave any shoes you care about at the B&B.”