Sweet Southern Nights (Home In Magnolia Bend Book 3)

by Liz Talley

  “I’ll look forward to it,” she said, giving him the prettiest smile he’d ever seen. “Hank stopped by this morning. He told me you recommended me for the arson investigator’s job.”

  “More money, lighter hours…and you go in after the fire,” Jake said, moving toward the couch. “I’d never presume to tell you what to do. You’re a good firefighter. I merely told the chief that I thought you’d be good at it.”

  “And you wouldn’t?”

  “I’m not sure I’m staying with the fire department,” Jake said, clasping his hands and giving Charlie a shake of his head when the kid tried to turn on the machine. “I finally feel like I’m getting a new beginning. I’m thinking about law school.”

  Eva made a face. “You don’t want to be a firefighter? That’s…that’s…well, I’m shocked but not surprised. But—”

  “Oh, I’m staying here. You’re here.”

  “I don’t have to stay here. I mean, I love Magnolia Bend but I can move. Wherever you go, I’ll go.”

  “You know that’s Biblical, right?”

  Eva shook her head. “I wasn’t raised by a preacher.”

  “Some stuff stuck with me, I guess,” he joked, rising and taking her hand. “I’m not ever leaving you. Don’t you get it, Eva? I finally found my home, and it’s with you.”

  Eva curled her hand around his and pulled him down. He kissed her, tasting her cherry lip balm.

  “Ooooh,” Charlie crowed in delight. “Y’all are kissin’.”

  And then someone at the door knocked. In popped Fancy’s head. “Yoo-hoo.”

  “The family’s here,” Jake said, sighing. No more time with Eva.

  “Come on in.” Eva smiled and then the entire Beauchamp clan bustled in. Every. Last. One. Of. Them.

  And as he watched Eva’s face, he knew he could give her no better gift than himself and his family. She belonged like a duck in the water.

  Like a pig in mud.

  Like a woman made just for him.

  As everyone hovered, fussing over her, she caught his eye. He saw so much in those brown eyes.

  Pleasure.

  Forgiveness.

  Hope.

  Appreciation.

  And love.

  And the greatest of these is love. Yep, some stuff stuck.

  “I love you,” he mouthed. And he meant every single word of it.

  *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from SECRET GARDEN by Cathryn Parry.

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  Secret Garden

  by Cathryn Parry

  CHAPTER ONE

  Twenty-two Years Ago

  MacDowall Castle in the Scottish Highlands

  THE LAST PERSON Rhiannon MacDowall expected to see when she looked out the window on New Year’s Eve was her friend Colin Walker, standing on her family’s castle drawbridge.

  Rhiannon felt a surge of excitement. Colin was her best friend, and usually she only saw him in August. Colin was American, and he came to visit his grandparents during his summer vacation. He and his parents stayed at the guard’s cottage on the edge of her family’s estate for the whole month.

  She skipped over to him. Colin was eight, like her, and the two of them were inseparable when he visited.

  “You’re here!” she said, opening the heavy door and letting the cold winter air surround them both.

  “I’m not supposed to be,” Colin answered, not moving from the threshold.

  “Why not?” She peered closer at him.

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled, pushing his hair out of his face. Colin had straight blond hair and his mum cut it so it was perfect all around. Rhiannon thought it was beautiful; far more beautiful than her brown, limp hair. Colin had light blue eyes, too. Her mum said it was a shame that all that beauty was wasted on a boy.

  She waited patiently for him to tell her why he’d come. Finally, she decided to help him along.

  “When did you arrive in Scotland?” she asked.

  “This morning.” He stared at his shoes, frowning. He seemed so sad, and Rhiannon had never seen him like this before. She’d never seen Colin in a bad mood, not in all the time they’d spent together, and Colin had been visiting since they were both babies.

  But now his hands were in his pockets. He wasn’t speaking. And Colin usually talked even more than she did. “Silver-tongued,” his mother called him. “A chattering magpie,” her dad called her. So straightaway, she knew something was wrong. Sometimes Rhiannon felt as though she could read people’s minds—or at least, guess at what bothered them more than most people could—and she’d said so to her brother, Malcolm, once. He said she should keep that to herself. So she did.

  “May I stay with you for a while?” he asked, finally looking up at her.

  “Of course!” She opened the door wider. They never stood on ceremony between them. Colin had let himself in nearly every day in the summer. They’d been in charge of watering and haying the ponies, so he came over very early in the morning. Sometimes he went upstairs to her room and woke her up, which didn’t bother her because she was used to having an older brother around. Boys didn’t always think, as her mum would say.

  “Will you come to our party tonight?” she asked Colin, leading him inside. She twirled around in her red dress, which was special, because it was New Year’s Eve. Hogmanay, they called it in Scotland.

  Colin just shrugged, still looking sad.

  “We’re all going first-footing afterward,” Rhiannon said. “And they’re letting me stay up late and sing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ We’ve been practicing the verses all day.”

  Colin gazed at the Christmas decorations still on the walls, his expression relaxing a bit. She remembered how much he loved her family’s castle. Colin lived in Texas, which she thought was fascinating. She followed his gaze to the empty spot over the fireplace.

  “Do you want to see our swords?” she asked him. “We took them down so Dad could clean them.”

  “You took all the swords down?” he asked. “In the whole castle?”

  “No, we’re just cleaning those two fancy ones with the jewels in the blade.”

  Still, Colin was impressed. “Those are my favorites.”

  “Mine, too.” She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. “Come upstairs in the library and see them. I think the bigger sword might be like the one Robert the Bruce used.”

  Colin’s head tilted in interest. The two of them had spent so much time this summer running across the moors and through the woods, Rhiannon pretending to be Robert the Bruce and Colin playing Davy Crockett.

  She ran up the wide staircase, knowing that Colin would follow her close behind.

  But just as they reached the first landing, the castle door below them swung open. The winter cold came rushing into the great hall again. “Yoo-hoo! Is my son here?” called a high-pitched, female voice.

  Colin’s mum, Daisie Lee Walker. She was tall, with wavy blond hair. Daisie Lee always wore cowboy boots—some red, some beige, some with sparkly decorations—and once Rhiannon had curiously asked her why she did that. Daisie Lee had replied that she’d been born in Texas on a working ranch and that gave her the right. Rhiannon liked her. “A force of nature,” Rhiannon’s mum called her. “Outspoken,” Colin’s grandmother said. Colin didn’t say much about her either way. But when he v
isited, he seemed to spend most of his time with Rhiannon and her family. Once, he’d told Rhiannon that he liked that her parents were so calm.

  But tonight, Colin grabbed Rhiannon’s hand and quickly pulled her down into a crouching position, hiding from Daisie Lee. With the way the big staircase curved, there was a small box on the landing where they were hidden from view, but they could watch everything the adults did in the great hall below.

  Kneeling beside him, Rhiannon tucked her dress under her knees. Colin pressed his forehead against the staircase barrier, focusing on his mother.

  Something was wrong.

  Rhiannon’s mum hurried from the kitchen to greet Daisie Lee. Rhiannon could see them both clearly, too, from the tiny carved-out slits in the lattice wood. Her mum was dressed for New Year’s Eve, and she looked beautiful. She wore a long white dress that was decorated with bits of gold lace. She was so pretty and it made Rhiannon hope she could be like her, too, one day.

  “Why don’t you come in?” Rhiannon’s mum said to Daisie Lee. “You’re welcome to join the party tonight.”

  Rhiannon whispered in Colin’s ear, “I hope your mother says yes.” In the living room, her older brother, Malcolm, was sitting on the bench with their dad, and they were playing “Auld Lang Syne” on the piano, practicing the words. Malcolm always got to stay up late and sing, but this was her first time. “Then you can stay up late with me, Colin.”

  But Colin only shook his mop-top head. She peered closer at him. Beneath his shaggy bangs, his eyes seemed wet. His mouth was scrunched. She felt sad because she only really knew Colin as somebody who laughed and played jokes and had fun. Colin didn’t like to feel sad.

  Rhiannon’s mum ushered Daisie Lee farther into the castle, directly below them. Colin stayed down when his mum glanced in their direction, not knowing that they were in their clever hiding spot. Both Rhiannon and Colin squinted through the scrollwork in the old, dark wood.

  “I’m not here for the party, I’m here to fetch Colin.” Daisie Lee sounded angry. “Have you seen him? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find him.”

  “No, we haven’t seen him.” Rhiannon’s mum took Daisie Lee’s hands in hers and peered closer. “How are you? Are you visiting for the holiday?”

  Rhiannon glanced at Colin. He seemed awful eager to hear what his mum would say.

  “No, we’re not visiting. We just got here, and we’re flying back tomorrow,” Daisie Lee said.

  “That’s a short trip,” Rhiannon’s mum remarked kindly.

  “We came because I caught him,” Daisie Lee said. “Did you know my husband is seeing someone?” she demanded. “He’s been calling her for months now. I think he met her in August. At that pub he always goes to.” She spit out the word pub.

  “Oh, dear,” Mum said quietly.

  “He had the nerve to fly back here over Christmas. He had the excuse that Jessie was ill. Ill, my foot. His mother is healthier than I am. She should be—she has no stress. Her son is my problem, not hers.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rhiannon’s mum said mildly. “I haven’t seen Dougie here at all, Daisie Lee, if that helps you.”

  “Well, he came here to see her, and I knew it. I knew it in my bones. So I packed up Colin and flew his son over to see him. We caught him with her today, just now. That son of a…”

  Rhiannon glanced at Colin. He’d gone pale. His hands were trembling against the barrier.

  “He doesn’t care about his own son,” Daisie Lee said, her voice rising. “He never has, really.”

  Colin went rigid beside her. Rhiannon could barely breathe.

  “Oh, Daisie Lee, I’m sure that’s not true,” Rhiannon’s mum murmured.

  “He said it to his face,” Daisie Lee hissed. “I was there.”

  Colin’s neck and shoulders seemed to droop.

  “Colin’s not enough for him,” Daisie Lee was saying, “and I told him so, and he agreed as much. He agreed, and now he’s leaving us. How am I going to raise a son alone?”

  Whatever Rhiannon’s mum said in return, it was muffled as she led Daisie Lee off, crying now, into the family kitchen.

  Rhiannon glanced at Colin, but he just sat there, his forehead against the wooden railing, and not saying anything.

  Rhiannon couldn’t imagine how she would feel if her mum had said those things about her and her dad. It made her stomach hurt to think about it. It was too scary.

  Hesitantly, she placed her forehead on the latticework beside Colin’s.

  “I think my dad is leaving us for good,” Colin mumbled.

  Her stomach churned with the thought. She didn’t know what she would do in his place. “What will happen to you, Colin?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “My mom said we’re moving to my grandmother’s ranch. My other grandmother,” he clarified. “The one in Texas.”

  “You really will be a cowboy,” she remarked. Everybody called him a cowboy anyway, because of living in Texas and his mum’s cowboy boots. Now it would be true.

  Colin hung his head lower. Rhiannon was sure that he would rather everything went back to the way it used to be. It was what Rhiannon would have wanted.

  She peered through the latticework, but her mum and Daisie Lee hadn’t come back.

  She finally dared to ask, “Where will your dad live?”

  “I don’t know.” Colin’s voice was a whisper.

  Rhiannon thought about that. Colin’s dad had been part of their summer world at the castle for as long as she could remember. He was a funny man. Round-faced and quiet, he’d always been with Daisie Lee and Colin—a unit, even if they did shout and make rows. Daisie Lee, Dougie and Colin. That was their family. They stayed at the cottage on the edge of Rhiannon’s family’s property. Jamie and Jessie were Colin’s grandparents—Dougie Walker’s parents—and they worked for Rhiannon’s family. They always had.

  It fit together like a puzzle with the pieces all there, and with Colin’s dad gone, it just wouldn’t feel right anymore. Nothing would be the same again.

  “Maybe he’ll move over here and live with Jamie and Jessie in the cottage,” she mused.

  Colin didn’t answer.

  And then a terrible thought occurred to Rhiannon. “You’ll come back, won’t you?” she asked, horrified at the thought of that changing.

  Colin didn’t answer again. He covered his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  A cry tore out of her. She didn’t know where it came from. Rhiannon just remembered their happy times, coming at her in snippets of memory, all at once.

  Running over the grounds with Colin. Helping his dad repair a car engine. An outing at Loch Ness, she and Colin searching for Nessie with her dad’s binoculars. Takeaway suppers from the local pizza shop. Swimming at the beaches near Aberdeen. Golfing with Jessie at the public course at Kildrammond.

  What if it never happened again? What if they couldn’t be friends anymore?

  She put her arms around Colin and laid her cheek on the back of his shoulder. His skin was warm and he smelled the way he always did. She squeezed him tighter, wanting him to stay with her. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

  He stiffened at first. She remembered that he was a boy and she was a girl, and even though they were best of mates, they should never touch like this.

  She pulled back. “Sorry,” she said. “But I wish it didn’t have to change. I wish nothing ever changed. It’s perfect as it is. I can’t bear it to be any different.”

  “Me, too.” He gave her a meaningful look. She and Colin thought so much alike, sometimes she felt they were almost the same person.

  “You’re my best friend, Colin.”

  He smiled at her. The first smile she’d seen from him today. At that moment, her brother and her dad chose to sing aloud with the music they’d only been playing on the piano until now:

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And never brought to mind?

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

&
nbsp; And auld lang syne!

  The words were sad, especially in her dad’s deep singing voice. Rhiannon couldn’t help sighing. She glanced at Colin and saw that he was listening, too.

  “That’s what we’ll sing together at midnight,” she whispered.

  “We sing it at home, too,” Colin answered.

  They both grew quiet, listening to her dad and Malcolm sing. So far away from them that the words were somewhat muffled.

  Rhiannon joined in with them, singing the words clearly. Some people didn’t know all the words to the song; they just mumbled on the harder parts. But Rhiannon’s dad had taught her all of it. She knew what that song meant, every phrase.

  Colin took her hand. He held it in his, and smiling gently at her, he whispered the words to the song, too. But his voice didn’t sound like hers. His accent was American.

  For auld lang syne, my dear,

  For auld lang syne,

  We’ll take a cup of kindness yet,

  For auld lang syne.

  This was the ending chorus, the part when they would hold hands and all rush into a big circle. It was brilliant fun. But instead of smiling or acting silly about it, Colin got quiet.

  She gazed at him. Now was also the time when everybody was supposed to kiss. She’d never stayed up so late before to get any kisses at midnight.

  Colin seemed to read her mind, too. He turned to her and kissed her then, straight on the lips. Fast and firm. With conviction, as her dad would say.

  Her heart jumped a little, and she looked into his light blue eyes.

  “I’ll never forget you, Rhiannon,” he said fiercely.

  Her heart seemed ready to burst. August was much too far away.

  “If I write to you, will you write back?” she asked him softly. Suddenly, she felt shy with him.

  His face flushing again, he nodded. “I will.”

  “If you see Colin, tell him I need him, now.” Below them, Daisie Lee had reappeared and was saying her goodbyes to Rhiannon’s mum. Daisie Lee was sniffling and she looked terribly upset. Rhiannon’s mum was doing her best to comfort her, but…

  Colin stood. “I have to go now.” But his gaze was still on Rhiannon.