"It's Tucker Haywood, isn't it?"
The croissant lodged in my throat, and I bent over as I tried to cough it loose. I could practically feel all the eyes in the bakery on me as I hacked like a cat losing a hairball the size of its head. Grady's big hand smacked me on the back, once, twice, and then three times until I could swallow.
A water bottle was shoved into my hand, and I greedily lifted it to my lips. The block of pastry moved painfully down my throat, making my eyes water and my chest squeeze tight.
"Good," Grady said when I sucked in a gasping breath, "looks like she won't need mouth-to-mouth."
"I think she would've needed the Heimlich, not mouth-to-mouth," a deep voice said from behind me.
I stilled at the sound of it. I'd been replaying the sound of that voice alllllll morning.
That's when I noticed Grady had his hands propped on his hips.
Which meant the big hand currently resting in between my shoulder blades, the one that smacked my back until I could breathe was not my brother's—it was Tucker's.
I used the back of my hand to wipe my mouth and glanced carefully to the side.
His face was bent in concern, and given how close we were standing, I could see details that I'd not noticed before. Probably because when we were at the park, I'd been so careful to not stare openly in the way I wanted to.
There were blond hairs peppered throughout the brown of his beard, a light spray of freckles over the bridge of his strong, straight nose, and his breath smelled like mint.
My brain zipped straight to Rose Buchanan, and the peppermint candies she used to find tucked in the pockets of her dresses, the way she protected them under her pillow so her brothers wouldn't find them.
"Are you all right?" he asked, unaware of the places my mind was wandering. Like whether his tongue held that same cool, strong flavor if I were to slide mine along the top of it.
I blinked.
"Yeah. I'm okay." Grady was watching me steadily, and I gave him as much of a look as I dared. Don't you dare embarrass me, I all but screamed at him with my eyes. He held up his hands in supplication. Even though my body wanted to do the very opposite, I moved to the side, and Tucker's hand fell off my back. "Thank you," I told him.
"I seem to have good timing when it comes to you, don't I?" There was something, something meaningful behind his words, I could see it in the glow of his dark eyes. My stomach flipped and flopped, my heart skipped a beat or two, and all I wanted to do again was run.
Because his timing didn't seem all that good to me.
It seemed awful, what with his beautiful, long-term, been together for a million years girlfriend in the picture.
"Uh-huh," I said weakly. I gave Grady a beseeching look. "I'll see you at home?"
When I turned to leave, Tucker set a hand on my arm, and my entire body exploded with confetti and glitter, shivers danced up my spine and dropped back down like a rollercoaster.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked.
No. I wasn't okay at all.
I wanted to park myself in front of him and ask him everything about himself. I wanted to tell him my entire life story. I wanted to take his picture. I wanted to curl up next to him and see what his skin smelled like at the base of his throat. I wanted to hear his voice ring sweet and low in my ear as I drifted off to sleep. I wanted to lay my hand on top of his chest so I could memorize the beat of his heart.
I wanted to nod, wanted to be able to give him some false proof that I was fine.
But I wasn't. Levi told me to befriend him, get to know him. Doing that felt like someone was laying out all my favorite treats in a place that I could smell and touch them, but never, ever taste them. It was torture.
So, I decided not to lie. I met his eyes and gave him a weak smile. "I'll see you around, Tucker."
"Grace," he said, but I'd already turned toward the door.
And for the second time that day, I fled.
Tucker
We watched her exit the bakery like the hounds of hell were nipping at the heels of her boots.
Grady sighed. "I wish I could explain my sister, but I just … I can't."
The smile I gave him was about as flimsy as the one Grace had given me.
Walking through the doors of the bakery to see her, after the soul-draining two hours I'd spent at Magnolia's, felt like someone lit a sparkler under my mood. Everything got bright and golden, and this time, there was no guilt to darken the edges.
Now I was allowed to drink in the sight of her, the mess of golden, curling hair falling around her shoulders, the unconcealed happiness on her face before she took a massive bite of whatever had lodged in her throat.
Whatever had changed between us on that picnic table didn't feel like something I should be ashamed of, something I should hide, I wanted to examine it under the light.
Normally, I might've been disappointed that Grace didn't seem to share that opinion, but the truth was that my breakup with Magnolia was still so fresh, it was impossible for her to know about it.
And even if she did, I had to face the fact that she might not care.
I glanced at the man standing next to me. "It's all right," I told him. "I'd like to try and figure her out on my own."
It was risky, to admit that to a man I didn't really know, all but declaring intentions toward his sister.
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "That so?"
I nodded.
Grady glanced toward where she'd made her escape, the wheels turning in his head as he did. "I'm gonna grab that table in the corner, if you want to join me for couple of minutes."
"I think I'll take you up on that."
While he found a seat, I bought an almond croissant and a large coffee from Mikey, then made my way back by Grady.
I jerked my chin at the bag he'd set in the middle of the table. "Stocking up for the week?"
He grinned. "That should tell me how badly my sister wanted out of here, that she was willing to sacrifice the eight pounds of baked goods she just made me buy." Grady waited until I was sitting across from him before he spoke again. "What'd you do to her?"
"Nothing," I insisted. I rubbed a hand over my forehead. "Or, I don't know, simply being myself seems to rile your sister up in one way or another."
"I noticed," he said dryly. "I can't say that I've ever seen Grace dislike someone so thoroughly after knowing them for so short a time."
That didn't make me grin. That made me grimace.
Was I seeing what I wanted to see when it came to Grace Buchanan? Yes, there was something intriguing about her, something fascinating, almost from the moment I met her, but it was entirely possible that her unfiltered reaction to me—even if it seemed to be shifting in a different direction than blind hatred—had me misreading the signals.
Grady tore into his pecan roll and groaned happily, while I thought quietly.
No, Grace may have hated me, but I wasn't imagining our interaction this morning. The way she spoke to me. The way she looked at me. The inexplicable way she almost started crying, just because she said something she hadn't meant to say.
If I could bottle that for you, Tucker, that feeling you're searching for, I would.
No, I wasn't imagining things. It was so very real, what had happened at the fairgrounds.
Like I'd recorded it on high definition, I could hear her voice in my head on repeat. How, after knowing me for such a short period of time, was she able to slice through the placid, immovable mask that no one else seemed able to penetrate?
Grace, the seer of hidden truths and patron saint of not being able to fake how you feel.
That had me smiling.
"What's that smile for?" Grady asked.
I leveled him with a curious look. "You really want to hear this?"
"Depends on what you're about to say."
Glancing around to make sure no one was eavesdropping; I braced my forearms on the table and leaned forward. "I broke up with my girlfriend this morning, who I've
been with since we were seventeen."
Grady paused with another bite of frosting laden roll halfway up to his mouth, then he lowered the fork back to the plate.
I surprised myself with the calm way I was admitting it, because inside, I still felt torn to shreds over the tears Maggie had shed. Tears that I'd caused, and honestly hadn't expected. "And I broke up with her—a kind, smart, beautiful woman who's been very important to me—because of feelings I was having for your sister. Feelings that were not fair to someone like Maggie, even if they don't make a single lick of sense."
"Okaaaay," he drawled. Grady hooked an arm over the back of the chair and studied me, much more carefully than he had when I first sat down. "I like you, Tucker. In fact, I liked you so much yesterday that I started thinking of ways I could get you to partner with me in starting a business."
A brief flare of excitement at his words was doused as soon as his eyes turned cold and unflinching. Gone was the laid-back guy I'd met in the parking lot, the one who teased his sister and invited a stranger on a hike without blinking.
"But I'll tell you this," he leaned forward, mirroring my pose, and lowering his voice into something rife with warning, "if you fuck with my sister, there won't be enough pieces left of you to identify by the time I'm done with you."
One eyebrow lifted slowly. "That so?"
"Yup."
"You think it's a good idea to threaten a lawyer?"
"I don't give a shit what you do, man. She’s my sister."
If I wasn't the recipient of his violently protective tendencies, I'd be impressed at how thoroughly he was able to harness them.
Grady leaned back again, his face relaxing incrementally. "Glad we had this chat."
"Honestly," I told him, "I don't think you need to worry about it."
He huffed a laugh. "Why's that?"
"If I did something to hurt her, I'm pretty sure your sister would castrate me with a hot knife before you could lay a hand on me."
Instead of breaking up the tension, Grady shook his head a little bit. "You've got a lot to learn about her, Haywood."
"What do you mean?"
Grady stared out the window and smiled. "She's probably ready to kill me for being in here talking to you."
"Is that why you picked a table by the window? So she could see us as she drove out?"
His grin was unrepentant. "I might risk jail time for her, but she's still my sister," he said by way of explanation.
"As I don't have siblings, I'll have to take your word on that."
Grady stood, gathering his things and giving one more look out the window. Inside my gut was a gnawing sense that I didn't want him to leave, that I should use this time to pick up information about her, because, for all intents and purposes, she'd flipped my life upside down. And I still felt very much like I didn't know her.
"Before you go," I said, "just tell me one thing I should know about her. The last thing I want to do is hurt Grace."
He took a moment to think about that, still studying me as he did. It was strange to see so much of Grace in her brother's face, because he was taller, broader, and didn't look feminine in the slightest. But she was there, in the tilt and color of the eyes, the line of the nose, and the shade of hair.
"Grace is all heart. When she feels, she feels big. Bigger than most people. So, if she loves you, she'll love you harder than anyone you've ever met." He smiled. "Same goes for hurt. It won't break her, because she's got a backbone made from steel, but she'll feel that hurt so much deeper than you think."
A valuable nugget, but one I still wasn't sure what to do with.
Those were the extremes, love and hurt and the byproducts of both. Eventually, I might learn that for myself. How she loved, how she hurt, and what came after. But there was no point in jumping past all the steps in between.
I stood and shook Grady's hand. "Thanks. I appreciate your honesty."
He nodded. "Leave it to her to turn Green Valley on its head, less than a week after she got here."
I was still chuckling about that when my phone started vibrating. I pulled it out and sighed heavily when I saw J.T. MacIntyre flash ominously across the screen. Absolutely unwilling to have a conversation with him within earshot of anyone sitting in that bakery, I ducked out the door and walked around the corner of the building.
"J.T., what can I do for you?" I answered, mentally girding my loins.
"What the ever-loving hell did you do to my daughter?" he yelled. "She missed a meeting, and I find her sniffling and sobbing into her pillow, going on about you breaking up with her? You broke up with her?"
His booming voice was loud enough that I had to pull the phone away from my ear. I pinched the bridge of my nose before I answered.
"Sir, as hard as this is for me to say to you, I'm still gonna say it. What happens between me and Magnolia is not anything that I need to explain to you."
"Oh, ho, you wanna bet, boy? You don't get to break Magnolia MacIntyre's heart and not have to answer for it, you little shit."
Much like his daughter, J.T. couldn't fathom a reality where things didn't pan out the way he planned.
"J.T.," I said, "I'm not going to recap our relationship issues with you. She and I talked for a long time today, and while I'm sorry I hurt her feelings, I think that this is for the best, for both of us. And I think Maggie will come to see that too, once the surprise passes."
"You arrogant prick," he whispered. "And here I had big plans for our families coming together." J.T. clucked his tongue, and I had to grit my teeth. "Do you know who you're messing with right now?"
Oh, I was aware. And with the patience of a saint, I listened as he railed into me. As he reminded me of my place in the mental hierarchy that he'd assigned to his worldview. Naturally, he was at the top of the Green Valley food chain, because in J.T.'s mind, he wielded far more power as the chamber of commerce president than he did in reality.
But he was still a client, and it behooved me to keep my mouth shut and not tell him where he could shove my foot. And at the core of it, I knew where this stemmed from. You couldn't be a good lawyer without learning how to ferret out the truth of why people did what they did.
J.T. loved his daughter.
In his eyes—flawed though they may be—she hung the moon and stars, and he'd destroy both without blinking if they did anything to make her unhappy.
Which is why I kept my mouth shut, and let him unload on me.
"Have you ever seen her like that? Huh? Crying. Snot everywhere. Hair a mess. Wouldn't leave the couch."
A pang of guilt lanced through my gut. Yeah, Maggie had been more upset than I anticipated. I thought she'd be sad, a little surprised. But I knew where it was stemming from. It was the out of control feeling that it gave her. It was a life change that happened outside of something they'd planned for. Definitely something she hadn't anticipated.
"Sir," I interrupted when he started in on the loss of our future children. "Have you thought about the fact that maybe Maggie is better off finding someone who'll worship the ground she walks on?" Stunned silence answered me. Probably because J.T. wasn't used to people talking over him. "We both deserve someone who won't simply … tolerate the other. Magnolia should have a man who'd wreck his life for her, who'd flip his world upside down to keep her in it." Grace's face slid effortlessly into my head. I felt the guilt ebb away, replaced with certainty, and unexplainable peace. "And I deserve that too."
I heard him suck in a breath. Maybe it was shock. Maybe he was about to agree with me. Maybe he was reloading his ammo. Either way, I didn't feel like it was my responsibility to be his whipping post.
"I'll see you around, sir."
And I hung up, feeling lighter than I had in years.
Chapter 40
Grace
The Piggly Wiggly in Green Valley had a produce section that rivaled any hipster-perfect farm stand that I'd be able to find in southern California. And my dad didn't want any part of it.
"It
won't kill you to try it."
He harrumphed. "I don't like eggplant."
"You don't know if you like it or not. You've never had it before." I set two of the gorgeous aubergine plants in his cart. Immediately, he picked them up and set them back on top of the others. "Dad," I warned, "we're having fresh vegetables with dinner, no matter how many times you put them back."
The rough way he ripped off his hat and scratched the top of his head betrayed his frustration. Thin wisps of salt and pepper hair stuck straight up before he slapped his hat back on and covered them. "Grace Bailey, I am fifty-six years old, and I don't need to eat that damn purple plant if I don't want to."
I rolled my eyes and let him win that round. "Fine, no eggplant. But I'm grilling some zucchini."
My dad groaned, drawing the attention of two ladies pushing a cart next to us.
"Like dealing with a child," I muttered under my breath.
"I heard that," he said.
"I meant for you to hear it." But my cheeks felt hot, because I hadn't. It seemed like such a good idea, as I helped Aunt Fran shuck some corn earlier and listened to her cluck about how the Buchanan men had a genetic predisposition against healthy eating. Not that I was in any position to judge. Every single item that I'd purchased from Donner Bakery was gone within the hour of Grady returning home.
The sugar felt amazing going in, with its false rush of happiness and sweetness. But the crash came about two hours later, and oh what a spectacular crash it was. I tossed and turned the whole night, blaming it on the baked goods and not at all on the sudden appearance of Tucker Haywood at the bakery.
And that crash continued the next morning, which made no biological sense, but whatever. Aunt Fran finally came into the garage apartment in the afternoon, dragging me bodily into the kitchen to help her. One day of moping is one day wasted, she'd told me. It won't make you feel better, and it won't fix a single solitary thing. Hence the corn shucking, and genius idea to take my dad grocery shopping for the healthy dinner that I was determined to make for us.
Grilling chicken was healthy cooking for dummies. And in theory, I felt like I could manage a few brightly colored sides, the kind that were chock full of vitamins and minerals and wouldn't cause a zombie-inducing sugar and carb crash.
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