I took the roll of tickets, tested its weight in my hand. “I already hate these things and we haven’t even started.”
The words came out quietly, and I’m not sure I intended her to hear, but I should’ve known that she’d have the ears of a bat.
“Lord, the lovesick do complicate things, don’t they?”
“Maybe we do,” I admitted wearily. “Doesn’t make the complications less real though.”
Maxine waved off. “Oh, that’s horseshit.”
“Okay, so tell me what you’d do, Ms. Barton. Two people did wrong by each other, no matter if it was intentional or not, didn’t say the right things in the right way, and I’m, I don’t know, I’m probably overthinking what I need to do to fix it.”
“You hurt her,” she clarified.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s what relationships are, Haywood. You hurt each other, you misunderstand each other, and sometimes you’re both wrong. But if you love someone, you forgive them, and you keep moving forward.”
Grace’s words flashed through my brain. “Forgiveness doesn’t always mean you’re willing to put yourself back in the line of fire though.”
“That’s true too.” She turned her walker and flipped the locks so she could use it as a seat. “Can I make an observation?”
“Could I stop you?”
Maxine snorted. “Probably not.”
“Then observe away.”
“You were with Miss MacIntyre for a long time. Formative relationship years. A lot of people around here get married in less time than the two of you dated, right?” But she held up a hand before I could answer, because clearly it was hypothetical. “The two of you together was like, being on a sailboat on a man-made lake. You know, the kind that rich people build their houses around? Pretty to look at, checks all the right boxes, but it’s a poor substitute to trying to sail on the ocean. No waves, no current to propel you forward, no wildness about it, even though it’s in the wilderness.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Sounds about right.”
“And you took your boat from that glass-smooth lake and dropped it into the ocean, son. You’re bound to move faster, risk more. When you mess up, the consequences are bigger, and every time you make a decision, you better be sure of it, because there’s a lot more riding on it.”
Grace as the ocean was appropriate, and it brought a sad smile to my face for the first time in a few days.
“And if I’m sticking with this analogy, because I’m pretty damn proud of it right now, you’ve never had to navigate anything like it before. Am I right?”
“Yes, ma’am, you are.”
“I told you to be careful, didn’t I?’
“Yes, ma’am,” I repeated. “I guess I’ll just come to you from now on when I need advice.”
She snorted. “Jesus be a fence, don’t do that. I’m old and cranky. I give terrible advice most days.”
I smiled at her. “No, you don’t.” I thought about the picture Grace took of Maxine, the sweetness behind it. The way she saw things that no one else did, it’s why Grace was good at what she did. Why her pictures were so beautiful. And it made me sad that those beautiful things made her feel even more separate. Like I had, by my selfish actions.
“Maybe you are overthinking it, Tucker. I don’t know. I don’t know what you did or how badly you screwed things up. But showing someone you love them isn’t complicated. Let them know they matter, and they’re seen for who they are. That what’s important to them is important to you.”
I’d been falling in love with her from the first, and I was so wrapped up in keeping things steady, not upsetting the waters around me, that I lost the ability to see just how badly I was hurting her.
Her. The one person I should have been protecting over anyone else.
“Why does it sound so simple when you say it?” I asked.
“Because I’m not stuck in the middle of it.” She gave me a shrewd look. “I don’t have skin in the game, Tucker. Whether you fix things with Grace makes no difference to me, but if she’s moping around like you are, then it probably warrants a conversation.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Before or after half the town lines up to kiss us?”
“Oh please, half those people will line up just to check her out. I picked you two for a reason, you know. Nothing draws a crowd better than something beautiful.”
A smile spread over my face before I could stop it.
“Ms. Barton, you are a genius.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “That so?”
I dropped a noisy kiss on her wrinkled cheek and grabbed my phone to call the one person I knew would help me. Even if it got my ass kicked in the process.
Chapter 54
Tucker
The back door on my childhood home squeaked loudly when you opened it too fast. Something I’d found out the hard way in high school when I was trying to sneak in past curfew.
But this time, entering my parents’ home, I was fine with my presence being announced before I step foot into the mudroom.
“In the kitchen,” my mom called out the moment my shoe touched the floor. “And it’s about damn time you showed up.”
I took the hit without argument and tossed my keys into the ceramic bowl by the back door. My parents were seated at the kitchen table, my dad reading the paper and my mom working on a grocery list.
Neither one of them looked at me as I pulled out a chair and sat in it. My dad pushed the sports section toward me, and I took it with a half-smile. It was the same thing he did at work if we were getting coffee at the same time. With each portion of the paper he finished, he passed it to me.
“You’re going to make this hard for me, aren’t you?” I asked quietly, when they still hadn’t looked up.
My mom paused as she was writing. “We should make it easy?”
“No.”
The paper folded in my dad’s hands, and he finally pinned me with a serious look. “You should’ve told us.”
“I know.” There was a lot of that particular argument aimed in my direction. “I’m sorry I didn’t communicate better. I can’t expect it from you if I’m not willing to extend the same courtesy.”
My parents waited me out, attention unwavering. Firmly curious, but not unkind.
This felt, very much, like the first time I was in court on my own. The judge behind her desk, waiting to hear me out, see how prepared I was, and if that preparation would give me the outcome I wanted.
On my drive here, I decided not to practice what I was going to say. Not to think like a lawyer. I decided to think like a son who was talking to his parents about his life, and what he wanted out of it. So, my preparation came from trusting my gut. Knowing my heart.
“The most important thing I can tell you right now is that I found someone incredible. Who loves me. Who knows me. Who trusted me with her heart, and I wasn’t as careful with it as I should have been.” I took a deep breath and studied the woodgrain of the table. “From the beginning, she saw something that no one else has. She saw how unhappy I am, in doing the job that I’m doing.”
My dad’s chest expanded slowly, but he didn’t interrupt. My mom’s hands folded together on the tabletop, but she didn’t speak either.
“I don’t know if I’ll win Grace back, but I’m going to try, because I fell in love with her so easily that I hardly saw it happen. The way I feel with her … I’ve never felt it before.”
That was the thing that had my mom raising her eyes to mine, and they were bright with tears when she did. “I hate that I had to find out like that, Tucker. As much for that poor girl’s sake as my own.” She wiped under her eyes. “She must have been mortified.”
“She was,” I agreed. “And I, man, I made it worse. I was a fool, and I’m paying for that foolishness right now.”
“I had no idea you were so unhappy,” my dad said quietly. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
“I didn’t want you to see it, Dad.” I
covered my mom’s hands when she sniffed. “Either of you. But regardless of whether Grace gives me another chance, I know I need to make a change. I want my future to involve her, but it needs to involve me, too.”
My dad nodded slowly, studied my mom’s face before laying a comforting hand on her back. “So let’s talk about what that looks like, Tucker. You’re an equal partner in Haywood and Haywood. How do we make this work for all of us?”
The weight shifted and fell, as easily as dust being swept off the surface of a table.
“I have a lot of logistics that need to be discussed, and it’s not just up to me,” I told him. “But if we can talk about reducing both our hours, it kills two birds with one stone. We reduce our hours and ease the budget. You take some steps closer to retirement by reducing your days, and if I do the same, it gives me time to balance Haywood and Haywood with something else. I’m still … well, that piece is up in the air too.”
His eyes widened. “You’re not walking away altogether?”
“This is our family business,” I told him. “No, I’m not walking away completely. But I’d like to have time to explore what else I might be able to do.”
My dad nodded. “I think that sounds like a fine discussion to have, son.”
Mom smiled at both of us. “Do you have a plan to win back your girl?”
“I do,” I said with a grin. “I don’t know if it’ll work though.”
She patted my hand. “If it does, you bring her over for a proper introduction.”
I smiled, already feeling lighter than I had in years. How much happier would I feel, if I could cross this last hurdle with Grace? “Yes, ma’am.”
By the time I left, with a bruising hug from my dad and a bit more fussing from my mom, and was on to my next destination, I felt certain in my course. Ready for what would come next.
The parking lot was empty, which was a relief. For the first time since summer started to ebb into the next season, there was a bite to the air. Soon, the tips of the leaves would start changing, the air would take on the smell of fall, crisp and cool.
While I waited, I tucked my hands into my pockets and tilted my chin up to the sky. I had less than twenty-four hours to fix this, in a way that felt right.
As the car pulled into the lot for the Cooper Trail road, I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders.
He hadn’t even answered my text, so up until that moment, I wasn’t even positive he’d help me. The engine shut off and he opened the door, unfolding to his full height, about an inch shorter than my own six-five.
But Grady had something I didn’t; the justified fire of a pissed-off brother. Which is why I let him have the first punch.
His fist came up before I could blink, a right hook to my jaw that snapped my head around. I staggered back against my truck from the force of it, my hand cupping my face as he shook out his hand.
Grady took one step and I straightened.
“You get one free one, and that’s it,” I warned. “Because I deserve that hit. But I’ll defend myself if you want another.”
He lowered his fist and studied me with a stony expression.
“You’ve got balls the size of Texas to think I’d help you do anything, Haywood.”
I worked my jaw back and forth, wincing when I stretched it too far. “Who else would I call to do this?”
“Maybe you could leave her the hell alone,” he suggested. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
A humorless laugh escaped. “Trust me, I know what I’ve done. I’m going to fix this, but I want to do it in the right way. I need your help for that.”
Grady leaned up against his car and studied me again. His face had lost a bit of its uncharacteristic iciness.
“Your face hurt?”
My eyebrows popped up in concession. “Yeah.”
“Good. And just to warn you, I can’t guarantee that my sister won’t do the exact same thing when she sees you.” He looked at me like I was crazy when that made me smile. “You want her to punch you?”
“No,” I said around a grin. “I just don’t think she will. Even if I deserve it.”
“Why do you say that?”
Mimicking his position against my own vehicle, we must have looked like we were facing off to anyone who might drive past. Arms crossed, studying the opponent opposite us.
“I think your sister puts up a good front of being a hard-ass. But the more I’ve gotten to know her, she’s a big ol’ softy on the inside. She’s got a huge heart, and she loves people with her entire being. When she’s happy, you can’t help but be happy too, but when she hurts, it’s equally as big. The boots, the attitude, the way she stays around the edges of everything, it’s armor. And she’s allowed to have it, we all do things to protect ourselves, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
I exhaled as I thought about her, as I thought about the big picture that made up Grace Bailey Buchanan. The things that I’d failed to notice when it mattered. “But she won’t lash out at me, even if I deserve a punch and more. She’ll sit in her hurt until she’s figured out a way to pull herself out of it. But I don’t want her to be there anymore. I want her to see that no one here will hurt her. Not me, not anyone, because I won’t let them.”
It took me far too long to piece all that together about her, my sweet, angry girl. She was both.
“You think Grace needs you to protect her?” he asked carefully.
“No, I think she can take care of herself, because for all the big heart, she’s tough as hell. I just think she pushes the tough to the surface so people see her that way.” I straightened to my full height. “But I’m in love with your sister, and I’ve done a shit job of showing her that. So she might not need me to protect her, but I want to. I want to be right there with her.”
Grady shook his head and stared past me to the trailhead. The one where, ostensibly, it all began. The first time Grace thawed to me, the first time I saw a crack in that shield. And it made me want to pry it loose and see what was underneath. I should have known then that I would’ve done anything, sacrificed anything to have her in my life.
“You have no idea how badly I want to tell you to go screw yourself.” His gaze came back to mine, and when it did, I knew he’d help me. My shoulders relaxed from the sheer, overwhelming relief that swept through my body. Grady dug into his front pocket and handed me a thumb drive. “But I won’t.”
I took it. “This is all of them?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“Stupid Buchanan curse,” he mumbled.
My head snapped up. “What did you say?”
Grady held up his hands. “Nothing.”
“No, you said something. And I swear,” I shook my head, trying to figure out what it meant, “I swear it’s exactly what Grace said when she left my house after we argued. I heard her. It just didn’t make any sense.”
Grady looked up at the sky, much in the same way I did before he arrived. Like he was searching for divine intervention.
“This is not my problem, you know,” he said, then pointed a finger at me. “It’s not my problem. All I wanted to do was move here, be outside, have a job that didn’t keep me chained to a computer staring at ones and zeros. That’s it. I didn’t move here to fix my sister’s relationship issues. I delivered what you asked for, and my part in this is done. That’s it.” He swept his hands out in a rough gesture that had my eyes widening. “No more. It is not my responsibility to explain some family legend bullshit that I don’t even think is real.”
“What are you talking about?”
Grady groaned, covering his face with one hand. “Son of a bitch. I’m really going to have to do this.” He dropped his hand wearily, came next to me, and set a hand on my back. “Tucker, I’m about to tell you something really, really strange.”
I glanced at my watch. “You have ten minutes, because I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
He nodded. “Ten minutes it is.�
�
I unhooked the tailgate on my truck and gestured for him to sit. He hitched himself up and took another moment to stare into the woods as I sat next to him. Inside, I was itching like crazy to get to work, but if this was anything that could help me with Grace, I’d sit and listen.
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” he muttered. “In the Buchanan family, or most of it, anyway, we were told about this nutty family legend. A love curse, if you want to call it that.”
And then he told me the craziest, most impossible to believe story I’d ever heard in my life.
Ten minutes later, everything made perfect sense, in the most nonsensical way conceivable, and I was driving back into town with a smile on my face, and a thumb drive in my pocket that would hopefully wipe all the worst kind of weight off my back, and bring Grace into my arms again.
Chapter 55
Grace
I showed up at the fairgrounds just as the first runners of the Headless Chicken 5K were crossing the finishing line. Someone in a … was that a … yup, a chicken suit that had no head, just a clean slice at the top, held one side of the ribbon, the mayor of Green Valley holding the other.
"You sure about this?" my companion asked me.
With an arm around her shoulders, I started walking toward the kissing booth, making sure I was letting her set the pace.
"I think the question is are you sure about this?"
She chuckled, patting my arm. "Oh sure. It'll be the most fun I've had in years."
People milled around, cheering on the runners. The vendor tents were opening up for the first official day of the festival. Over the smell of popcorn and funnel cake came roasted chicken, without a doubt one of the entrants in the chicken recipe contest.
Over the heads of the fairgoers, I searched for any sign of Tucker, but I didn't catch a single glimpse of his golden-brown hair or broad shoulders. Nervously, I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear.
"You look beautiful, sweetie."
The Love at First Sight Box Set Page 47