“Did Melanie tell you what her dad said?” Jolene asked.
“No, he did.” His tone had turned bitter. “I kind of understood where he was coming from. She was his only daughter. I assured him that I loved her and would take care of her, that he had nothing to worry about. I broke my promise.”
“Hey, you can’t carry that burden. That wreck wasn’t your fault,” Jolene told him. “You think she was a daddy’s girl?”
He skimmed the water with another flat rock. “Oh, yeah. Big-time.”
“She must’ve loved you a helluva lot.” Jolene had been close to her dad, but she’d have told him to go to hell on a rusty poker if he’d talked to her like that about the man she was about to marry. She’d been a daddy’s girl, too, but she’d never know the joy of walking down the aisle on her dad’s arm.
“Why would you say that?” he asked.
“Come on, Tucker, think about it. She went against her daddy’s wishes and married you. That takes courage, and from what I see on television cop shows, living with a detective ain’t all that easy, either, so it wasn’t a bed of roses after she married you,” Jolene answered.
“I could have been a better husband,” he whispered.
“Yep, and if the situation were reversed and you were the one who died in that car wreck, she would be saying that she shouldn’t have nagged you to take out the trash. Or fussed at you because you had a beer with the other cops after work, or forgot to pick up milk on your way home. Let it go and move on. She loved you enough to marry you, Tucker. She would hate for you to be punishing yourself all this time,” she told him.
“You sound like the therapist I had to see at the station,” he said. “I should be getting back to work.”
“You should’ve listened to that therapist you talked to when you were in the service.” She wondered if she was talking to him, to herself, or to both of them. The therapist she’d seen had told her that she had to realize she’d done all she could, but she hadn’t believed him. Now she wished she’d worked harder at overcoming her own guilt. She’d buried it like a dog did a bone. And then she’d gone back every few months and dug it up again. Tucker was doing the same thing—only he never buried it to begin with. He carried it around with him, slept with it, and kept it close by his side.
“I probably should have, but talking about it with you sure helps.” He leaned a little closer to her and their eyes locked.
For a minute, she thought he might kiss her, and she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. But then he turned away, focusing on the bayou again. She felt heat rise from her neck to her cheeks.
“Well, it helps me to talk about things, too. I’ve never been real comfortable tellin’ anyone about my mother or Johnny Ray,” she said.
“We’re sure a couple of misfits, aren’t we?” Tucker muttered.
“Yep, we are, and I for one am a hungry misfit. Want to share that cobbler we brought from Flossie’s yesterday? We could heat it up and top it off with ice cream.”
He stood up and offered her a hand. “Sounds great. And thanks for listenin’.”
She took it and popped up to her feet. “That goes both ways. Sometimes we just need to get things off our chests.” Chemistry sparked when he touched her, making her pulse race. “I talked to Aunt Sugar this morning. They’re having a great time. You should sit in on her next call. She wants me to send pictures of us, not just the work we’re doing. I thought maybe when we got into painting, we’d send one of us in our work clothes. Maybe we can even FaceTime and actually give her a tour of what’s going on rather than just pictures.”
Jolene talked too much and too fast for two reasons—either she was in trouble or she was running from her emotions. Right then, it was definitely the latter.
In mandatory therapy, Tucker would sit on the comfortable sofa and tell the guy what he needed to hear. He’d had to see him several times after Melanie’s death. He’d been so full of rage and so self-destructive that he was put on desk duty. That’s when he started drinking, and the last straw was when he had that little fender bender in his work car. He didn’t pass the Breathalyzer test, and the doc said he wouldn’t sign papers even for desk duty unless Tucker went to rehab.
But that morning, he felt better than he’d ever felt when he went to a therapist. Usually even the mention of Melanie’s name made him want to drink. They walked back to the house together, past the trailer where he always had a bottle of whiskey, but the longing for a shot was gone.
They were close enough that their hands brushed several times. He couldn’t deny that there were vibes, but until he was ready to close the door to the past, he couldn’t do anything about the attraction. He’d wanted to kiss Jolene so badly back there under that tree, and even now, when he glanced over at her lips, he wanted to take her in his arms. But again, he had issues to take care of before that could happen.
When they reached the house, he held the door for her to enter before him. She removed her coat and headed straight for the kitchen. He did the same and got out the ice cream while she warmed the cobbler.
Food and work provided an escape after an emotional talk like they’d just had. Would it always be that way? Would they, someday in the future, really start a relationship? He was still wondering what that would be like with Jolene when she poked him on the arm.
“So?” she asked.
“So what?” He frowned.
“What were you thinkin’ about? You didn’t even hear me talkin’, did you?”
“Nope. I was woolgathering. Tell me again,” he said.
“I was asking you if you’ll talk to Aunt Sugar with me. You can explain all the carpentry stuff a lot better than I can, and besides, it might do both of you good to get to know each other. This wasn’t just her business. It was her lifetime home.” She took two bowls from the cabinet and set them on the table.
He got out two spoons and the ice cream scoop. “Sure. Be glad to do that.”
“Both Uncle Jasper and Aunt Sugar were so disappointed in Reuben that it’ll be positive for them to see that the inn is in good hands,” she said.
“You think they’re kind of mad at me for buying him out? If I hadn’t stepped up and got it the day after he put it on the market, he might have changed his mind,” Tucker said.
She pulled the cobbler from the microwave. “I doubt that, but it is what it is.”
He divided the cobbler into two portions and put them into bowls. She added the ice cream and carried hers to the table. He joined her and put the first bite of cobbler into his mouth. “This is better than it was yesterday.”
Before she could argue with him, there was a rap on the door and Dotty yelled, “Yoo-hoo, I’m comin’ in. If you ain’t decent, you better hide behind a chair.”
“I’m just glad I’m decent. I don’t think there’s a chair big enough to hide me,” Tucker said.
“Little egotistical there?” Jolene raised an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t talking about . . .” She hadn’t seen a man blush in years.
“Talkin’ about what?” Dotty draped her coat over a chair and sat down. “Got coffee made? If not, I’ll have tea. I’m going to an estate sale that starts at eleven. They’ve got an old jukebox I want for the bar. It actually plays real records and might defend us from that damn karaoke.”
Jolene cocked her head to one side. “Karaoke?”
“Thursday nights when you’re not there. Bruce started it against my wishes, and I didn’t know how to stop it once he was gone,” Dotty said. “Listenin’ to drunk people sing drives me crazy.”
Jolene remembered her mother staggering through the door singing some song that she’d performed on karaoke night at a bar. Elaine had a voice like a screech owl when she tried to sing. Jolene had thought at the time that she was so glad she hadn’t been there to see her mama make a fool out of herself on a stage.
“Y’all want to go with me?” Dotty asked.
“You go, Jolene. I should stay here and get some b
edding and taping—” Tucker started.
Dotty reached across the table and patted him on the cheek. “You are your own boss now.”
Tucker smiled. “You’ve got my attention. Tell me more about how an auction works.”
Jolene poured a glass of tea and set it in front of Dotty.
“The first hour they’ll sell off the junk while everyone looks round at the good stuff. Then from twelve to one, the crowd will all go to the food wagon to get a barbecue sandwich.” Dotty took several long gulps of the tea. “It’ll be a profitable couple of hours whether we buy or not, because old Buster runs that food wagon and he makes the best barbecue in the county. Y’all can follow me. I’ve got the company truck, and it only seats two people.”
The auction was ten miles away, not far from Smithland, at a two-story house set back off the road in a copse of pine trees, not totally unlike the setting for the Magnolia Inn. A young guy directed the traffic to a pasture that was being used for parking, and Tucker pulled his truck in right beside Dotty’s.
“First thing we do is go get us a biddin’ number.” Dotty started talking as soon as she got out of her vehicle. “Then we’ll do a walk-through and see what they’ve got. Lucy said if I see something really nice to send her a picture and she’ll tell me whether to bid on it for her.”
They signed their names to the roster, and the lady sitting behind the table handed each of them a small booklet along with a piece of cardboard with a number written on it. “Everything is labeled in order that it will be sold, and the auctioneer will do the selling from the garage. So write down what you’re interested in. Once you buy, you come back to me to pay and claim your purchase.”
Dotty stuck her book and number in the hip pocket of her jeans and motioned for Tucker and Jolene to follow her. “I like this kind of sale. It’s well organized. And if I see something I want to bid on, I’ll write the item number down in my book.”
“Oh, oh!” Jolene clamped a hand over her mouth. “I want this box of doilies and scarves.” She whipped the book up out of her purse, located a pen, and made her first note. She could visualize them scattered on the dressers in each bedroom, and even matted and framed to hang on the walls. Crocheting was fast becoming a lost art, especially the kind with fine thread instead of yarn.
“You do realize that you’ll have to wash them every single time a guest leaves, right?” Dotty frowned.
The box held dozens of doilies and at least ten embroidered scarves—one even had magnolia blossoms on each end with fancy work in between depictions of hummingbirds.
“I’m going to frame this one to go above a bed.” Jolene held it close to her chest. She was determined to buy the box if it took all of her tips for the past two weeks.
“That’s a lie.” Dotty pointed at the scarf.
“No, I mean it. It will be lovely,” Jolene argued.
“Not what you said, but the birds. Those little guys like red blossoms, not white ones.”
Tucker chuckled. “I can just see our first guest tellin’ us that they have to change their room because hummingbirds don’t go around magnolia trees. How much would you give for that box, Dotty?”
“No more than five dollars, because I can’t sell those things. People, even antiquers, don’t like the effort it takes to keep them done up,” she said.
Dotty found a secretary with a rounded glass door that she thought she might be interested in buying. Tucker’s eyes went all dreamy over a gadget that Jolene thought was a piece of junk or maybe something like modern art.
He held it in his hands and looked at it from every angle. “This is a genuine hand planer. I’m hoping that there aren’t any woodworkers here today so I can get it for a decent price. I could take a tiny bit of wood off the top or bottom at a time. I’m going to keep my eye on that for sure.” He wrote the number in his book.
The box of doilies started at two dollars. Jolene didn’t make a move until Dotty nudged her. “You got to raise your number, chère, or he’ll put them with something else later, like a dresser.”
Jolene’s hand shot up, but she was holding her book instead of her number card.
“Wrong thing,” Tucker said.
She raised her card with her other hand. “Sorry.”
“I’ve got two bucks. Can I get three?” the auctioneer rattled off.
“Five,” Jolene yelled out. The scarf with the magnolias was going to be hers.
The auctioneer grinned and went on. “Young lady in the back must like this kind of thing. Can I get six? Six? Anybody want them worse than she does? One more time. Six? Anyone? Okay, then, sold to the pretty blonde in the back for five dollars.”
They broke for lunch before the box with the tools was up for grabs. They only had to stand in line at the barbecue wagon a few minutes.
“Man, you’re so right,” Jolene said after the first bite. “These are amazing sandwiches.” She chattered on as she ate. “I can’t believe I got that whole box of stuff for only five bucks. When you see what I’ve got in mind for that magnolia embroidery, it’s going to blow your mind. I’ve seen plain doilies that’ve been matted and framed go for a hundred bucks. I wonder who did that work on the magnolias.”
“Slow down.” Dotty laughed. “You’d think this was your first auction.”
“It is my first one.” Suddenly she got serious. “I didn’t see that jukebox that you wanted. Are they hiding it?”
“No, the sorry suckers decided to keep it,” Dotty said. “That box of tools that Tucker wants is next, so we’ll stay until they sell it. Then I’m ready to go home. My part-time help wants to leave before quittin’ time. Anyone want another sandwich? I’m takin’ a couple back with me for Flossie and Lucy’s afternoon snack.”
“I’m good,” Tucker said.
“Maybe we will get on home after Tucker bids on his screwdrivers.” Jolene smiled. “In our world a screwdriver is a whole different thing than in his, right, Dotty?”
“You got it, kid! And a planer isn’t a funny-lookin’ tool—it’s talkin’ about someone who doesn’t dress to the nines, right? As in, ‘she sure dresses plainer than her cousin,’” Dotty teased. “What’s your top bid, Tucker?”
“I haven’t decided.” His hand brushed against Jolene’s as he reached across the table to gather up everyone’s trash and take it over to a big black can. She felt another rush of sparks, but the way she figured, it was like when she’d gotten a silly notion that she’d like to dye a blue streak in her hair a couple of years ago. She had, and she’d hated it. It took a while to grow out, but it taught her a lesson: never do anything on impulse again. So what if there were sparks—she was a woman and he was a very sexy man. If there weren’t vibes, then she should be worried, right? Besides, she’d vowed that she’d never start a relationship with anyone who got drunk—even on weekends—and she intended to stand by that promise.
Dotty nudged her again, this time with a shoulder. “I’d give a pretty penny to know where your mind is, chère. I’ve got a feelin’ it’s not on a box of doilies.”
“Nope, it’s on how pretty that magnolia scarf is going to be with a dark-green mat and a pretty frame,” she said.
“Come on, chère. Tell the truth,” Dotty prodded.
“I’m attracted to Tucker. We were talkin’ about things, heavy things, this morning, and I thought he might kiss me, but he didn’t,” Jolene admitted.
“Were you disappointed?”
“A little, but it’s for the best.” Jolene sighed.
Chapter Fifteen
Eight bucks!” Tucker couldn’t expect Jolene to be as excited as he was to have just bought a two-hundred-dollar antique for only eight dollars, but he couldn’t contain his excitement, either. He’d almost grabbed her and kissed her when he won the bid on the box of worthless tools that contained his planer.
She nodded toward the back seat at her box of doilies. “Big spenders today, aren’t we?”
Tucker’s grin widened with every word. “This same auct
ioneer is doing another one on Saturday, starting at noon, and Buster is going to be there with his food wagon again. Want to go?”
“Oh, honey, I’ve got the fever now.” Jolene nodded. “Where is it?”
“Right in Linden. The sale bill is in the back seat. It lists a couple of washstands like we’re lookin’ for,” he told her.
“We’ll have to tell Aunt Sugar about our finds when she calls.” Jolene reached for the green paper. “They’ve got a tiny picture of the washstands, and in the column that lists other things, they’ve got tools, crystal, and lots of miscellaneous. Wonder if they’ll have doilies?”
“You’ve got enough in that box to outfit the whole house,” he said.
“But for five bucks a box, I can hang them on the walls, use them in baskets where we’ll put out cute little soaps and lotions in the bathrooms, and all kinds of other places. They’d even be beautiful sewn on the tops of pillows. They bring such an old flavor to a house,” Jolene said.
He stole a sidelong glance at her as he parked the truck in the front yard of the inn. Several strands of hair had escaped her ponytail, and there was a tiny smudge of barbecue sauce on her jaw. But she still looked adorable in her ragged and faded work jeans and sweatshirt. What would it be like to really kiss her? To hold her in his arms and . . .
“No!” he muttered.
“No, what? You don’t want me to use doilies in the house?” Jolene asked.
“No. I don’t need any more tools. I didn’t even need the planer. I wanted it because my shop teacher in high school had one like it, and I loved using it.” It was lame, but at least it was the truth, and he didn’t have to explain what he’d been thinking.
Good for you. Melanie’s voice popped into his head. Not for the lie covered with the truth, but for actually taking a step forward.
“I’m not stepping anywhere, back or forward,” he muttered to himself as he carried his box of tools inside the house.
Jolene had gone in ahead of him and was now sitting on the living room floor, dividing the doilies from the scarves. If they had a stain, they went in one pile. If not, then she stacked them on the coffee table.
The Magnolia Inn Page 16
