The question was, which story should she choose? Emma gently flipped through the pages until she reached a watercolor illustration of Belle approaching Beast’s castle. The twinkle of starlight cast a swirling glow around the darkened castle, and Emma’s heart skipped a beat. Beast got all the attention from readers and viewers, but the entire castle was spellbound. So when Belle saw something more in him, she saw something more in that as well: a home.
A once-darkened, once-neglected, once-hopeless place that the magic of fairytales restored. Now there was an idea she’d never considered before. For some reason, it set her pulse racing, and she couldn’t get the farmhouse out of her mind.
Emma cleared her throat and looked up at the girls. “Today we’re going to read ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ Anyone have questions before we get started?”
A preteen with two blonde braids and a toddler on her lap raised her hand. “I’m Beatrix, but you can call me Bea, and this is my brother Chip. Say hi, Chip.” She raised the little boy’s hand. “I know who you are. You’re the woman who writes all those love stories.”
“How would you know about my—”
But Emma didn’t have a chance to finish the thought. Beatrix’s sweet little voice kept on.
“My Grammy is friends with your mom, and your grandmother too, and so we have all your books. My Grammy says the plot in your last one was a little predictable but she forgives you because the writing is so good.”
Emma raised her chin. “Well, that one was write-for-hire, so I didn’t get to decide the plot, but—”
“Is it true that you’re moving back and that you’re in love with Mr. Sawyer?” Beatrix quickly covered her mouth with her hand. “Whoops. I wasn’t supposed to say that. My mother is always fussing at me for blurting stuff out. I’m sorry.” Beatrix hesitated. “But now that I’ve said it, you can tell me.”
The rest of the group leaned closer. They’d clearly reached the stage of life where they recognized the value of a deep, dark secret. Flashbacks of playing Never Have I Ever and Truth or Dare were nearly more than Emma could take. Then came the memory of her best friend in eighth grade mixing her Coke with toothpaste because she wouldn’t tell them who she loved.
She chose the dare that night. She moved all the way to Boston a decade later. All to avoid what only a young woman with two braids and a sibling in her lap could ask so brazenly.
Did she love Sawyer Hammonds?
Of course she did. She always would. Ever since the day he leapt over the fence between their houses and introduced himself as her new neighbor. The answer to that question had never changed.
But maybe she had. And Sawyer too. Her own castle, like Belle’s, had gone dark. She wanted to believe if she just saw beyond the curse that maybe the magic would return before the last petal fell.
But life was not a fairytale. And she was not Belle.
“Well, are you?” Beatrix prodded.
Emma opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out.
Sawyer’s mom appeared at her side, holding a cup of tea as promised. “How’s it going over here?”
Emma blinked and reached for her tea. “Just fine.” She tried to smile naturally but knew she probably looked like she’d just seen the Ghost of Christmas Past.
“Mrs. Hammonds,” Beatrix said. Emma braced herself for the child’s next words. “We were talking about Emma’s writing and she was just about to tell us whether or not she’s in love with your son.”
Every preteen gaze—and Chip’s as well—zoomed in on Emma like a laser beam. She clutched her steaming teacup. What was she going to say now?
Mrs. Hammonds simply chuckled. “That’s what I love about all of you. You’re always looking for fairytales.” The woman’s grin did little to appease Emma’s fluttering stomach, but her words seemed to have shifted the squirming girls’ attention from Emma to the older woman. Thank goodness. “That’ll be all the questions we have time for today. Now, who’s ready for ‘Beauty and the Beast’?”
Emma looked up at the woman and sighed her relief. “Thank you,” she mouthed.
Mrs. Hammonds leaned toward Emma’s ear. “Never let them ask questions.”
Emma laughed. She had certainly learned that the hard way.
But as she took a sip of tea, her stomach still turned with the feeling of anticipation. Perhaps the problem wasn’t that she’d avoided Beatrix’s question. The problem was, she had answered it—with an answer that had chased her down across the country, over a front porch, and all the way into this teashop.
9
The following three days were filled with more planting, shiplap, and Crock-Pot suppers than Emma thought possible. Nearly all the real dishes and sentimental knickknacks had been boxed up and moved over to the house in Fairhope. Emma thought of the ceramic figures and antique vases along windowsills overlooking the Bay. And she imagined they would fit in just fine there.
Yet as she began to look at all the empty spaces in the living room, and the bookshelves, and within the stairwell—those spaces where clutter overwhelms a person until it’s suddenly gone, and its absence, felt—her heart began to tug with the most unexpected sense of deep grief.
Maybe the problem was the early hour, just a little past dawn. Or maybe the lack of sleep this past week or the fact she hadn’t yet made a cup of tea. But whatever the cause, Emma knew exactly what she needed right now.
The book of fairytales had never let her down before. Why would it start now?
Emma walked over to the little closet beside the entryway to pull out her jacket and slip it on, then took the copy of Finding Ever After from the foyer table.
She brushed the gold tinge of the scripted title and cradled the book in her arms as she stepped out onto the porch. Before her stood acres of pecan trees that had begun as seeds, planted by her grandfather. Beside them grew acres more, planted by Sawyer’s family. The roots grew deep for the harvest to be strong.
For generations, their families had farmed this land together—caring for the once-tender shoots so those very trees might one day mature and fruit in abundance. The pecan harvest was a cycle. A season of rest had to follow the next harvest. And unlike strawberries or corn, the plants were not dug up or begun again. Quite the contrary—each season, the roots went farther down.
That’s why pecan farms were so hard to come by, and probably why the buyer wanted this one. A good harvest was decades in the making.
Emma shivered from the chill as she started down the porch steps and into the orchard. The early morning fog hugged the soil, blurring the horizon with rows upon rows of trees.
If she weren’t feeling so melancholy, the whole thing would be downright magical.
Emma clutched the old book to her chest as if it were a lifeline, an anchor of hope and dreams and familiarity in a sea of change.
She came to a stop between two rows of trees. Above her, barren branches fragmented into a canopy. Below her were roots she could not see. But beside her… my, beside her was the thing. Pecan trees spanned acres, following the dip and the rise of the ground. Perfectly spaced, intentionally planted. Predictable and strong.
As she scanned the orchard, a wish flittered from her heart like an orange butterfly on an orange geranium. At first, she hadn’t seen it there at all—growing its wings in plain sight.
But it was there, all right. It had been there all along.
And now she realized, in one fell swoop, how very clear that wish had been from the first moment she returned.
I want to come home.
Emma’s heart ached with the impossibility of it all.
She could never be neighbors with Sawyer. She could never run this farm by herself. And she could certainly never be roommates with Grandma Dorothea.
The never’s had become too much to overcome.
As Emma breathed in the air, still damp with morning dew, she saw memories climb out from the darkened spaces where they had been hiding within her heart. Herself, as a young girl, playin
g hide-and-go-seek behind the tree limbs. Riding along in the harvester with her father. Stirring pecan pie mix with her mother. But Sawyer, most of all…
Emma struggled to swallow.
Sawyer, standing in the middle of a row between the trees. Getting down on one knee for the first time in his life and holding his mama’s ring.
Emma Jane, marry me.
The memory of his whispered words and the brush of his cinnamon lips wrapped her with an unexpected warmth she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for years. She wanted to close her eyes and just be there, in that beautiful moment, as one lingers in a dream. That promise, so full of hope and such clarity that she still knew the exact square footage of the house add-on they would’ve built just one year later if Sawyer hadn’t gone and made such a mess of things.
One. Year. Later.
What a difference it had made.
And to think, he had likely never loved her at all.
Emma rested her back against the firm pecan tree and slid down it, all the way to the ground. Beside her was a cluster of empty pecan shells, well past harvest, with ridges sharp enough to cut.
With care, she opened the book pages she had studied like a treasure map—back when she still believed in happily-ever-after's. Before reality had swept the magic straight out of her life like a speck of dirt in Grandma Dorothea’s kitchen.
But that wasn’t quite right, was it?
Because the magic was still there. Perhaps the real problem was that Emma hadn’t slowed down long enough to see it. And not just with Sawyer.
She looked up into the tree branches as the gentle rise of dawn washed the world with color. She’d become so preoccupied with making every little detail perfect, nothing could live up to the pressure. Not her relationships, or her writing, or even her dreams of living in Boston.
Turned out, when she forced every aspect of reality to be magical, she grew blind to the magic of reality. She had forgotten the peace of the orchard, the song of the mockingbird, and the creak of the porch swing. She had forgotten the taste of Mama’s biscuits and how whispered prayers could bring healing.
Emma breathed in as the realization settled in deep. No matter what happened with Sawyer, returning to the farmhouse had been the right thing. She needed this time of reconciliation with her family and with her dreams.
Emma wiped the moisture collecting at the corners of her eyes and smiled as she opened the book of fairy tales to the “Cinderella” story.
Her pulse quickened when she saw the note scrolled in the margin. The doodles had always been fascinating, but she had never noticed this one before. Almost as if someone had scripted it inside Finding Ever After just for her—a message time and distance had so carefully preserved. Her own little bit of magic in the fairy tale.
Emma read the words aloud to herself. “Magic is as much your own making as any fairy godmother’s.”
“Magic, huh?”
She turned at his voice. She would know it anywhere.
He carried several shiplap boards balanced over his shoulder. His fitted T-shirt did him all sorts of favors, and his backwards ball cap suggested he’d already been up working for a while.
He set the boards down and got comfortable on the ground beside her.
Several wild, auburn curls escaped the rim of his cap, and he nodded with his chin toward her book. “Early morning reading?”
Emma let her fingers trail over the delicate pages, blending beautiful words with vintage watercolors in a blurring of happily-ever-after's until she reached the front cover. She closed the book and set her hand on top of it. “I was having a moment.”
“I see that.” A half grin pulled up Sawyer’s lips. “And now?”
Emma glanced down at the book then back up at him. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
“About…”
You.
“I think it’s possible I’ve been so fixated on perfection, I’ve missed out on life.” She traced the title of the book with her thumb. “And I flock to fiction because I can trust it, you know? As a reader and a writer.”
“Yeah?” Sawyer rubbed a smudge of dirt from his shoes.
“You said something the other night that stuck with me.” She hadn’t planned to bring it up and didn’t know what good it would do, but maybe she should thank him for helping her see things more clearly.
He raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“You said I could never forgive you because you ruined it all.” Emma took a deep breath and summoned her courage before she had a chance to analyze what was coming next. Then she met his eyes and found all the courage she needed. “You were right.”
“I was?” His surprised tone reflected the flicker in his eyes.
She nodded. “But I can’t live like that anymore. Starting today, right now, I want to be present to see the magic in life rather than living preoccupied.”
His half grin turned into a full one, as the early-morning sunlight grew stronger. “I knew I’d win you over eventually, Em.” He winked then, and it took all her resolution not to fall back into his arms.
“I said I forgive you, not that I suddenly turned stupid.” The breeze chased the low-lying fog from the fields, and she rubbed her arms for warmth.
Sawyer laughed. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He reached into his back pocket. “While we’re on the topic, I have a gift for you. Hold out your hand.”
Emma hesitated, studying him. Was he kidding? He didn’t seem to be. He was definitely pulling something from his pocket—
“Em, I said hold out your hand.”
“I suppose you want me to close my eyes as well.”
“Do I have to spell everything out for you?” His chuckle rolled along the rows of empty pecan branches.
Emma smiled and closed her eyes. She heard the gentle tweet of the birds overhead and let the familiar weight of the book in her hands settle into a new memory. Then she reached out.
Sawyer opened her fingers one by one. His touch, at once familiar yet lost, set a play of color before her closed eyes. His calloused fingers lingered against her own, the lightest of touches yet somehow the most profound. And she remembered—oh, how she remembered—and the thing was, she let herself.
As she sat there with her eyes closed, she wasn’t just a brokenhearted girl living in a might-have-been. Writing stories of happily-ever-after and hiding behind the smokescreen of words on the page rather than getting out and living words of her own. She was a woman filled to the brim with appreciation, expectation for the magic all around. For the fairy dust falling into the cracks of the broken places, even lifting them so they felt a tad lighter.
Filled with something else too, if she were really being honest. Just the smallest fraction of hope for a could-be with Sawyer Hammonds.
He dropped something small into her palm, closed her fingers, and moved his hand. She wanted to reach for him, to weave her fingers with his own. “Open your eyes, Em.”
Emma gasped. She held an intricate wooden locket on a long chain.
With her pointer finger, she traced the engraving around the heart. “Where did you get this?”
“I made it.”
Emma was speechless. She stared at the locket then looked to him.
“The engraving isn’t really the thing…” He cleared his throat and watched her, moistening his lips and never looking away. “I made it out of wood from the porch swing. With all the renovations, I figured you’d want a memento. You know, something from home. You always have been the sentimental type.”
Emma couldn’t be sure if it really happened or if she imagined it, but the orchard stilled, so rich was the magic of that moment. Clouds she hadn’t even seen in the sky shifted, and sunrays rushed through the rows of trees. The very air she breathed was weightless—and so, too, was she.
“Sawyer, it’s beautiful.” She lifted the locket over her head so that it laid against her sweater in the exact spot where she’d clutched the book just moments ago.
She knew th
is was it. Her happily-ever-after. And her heart swelled with gratitude. Because next week, someone else would own the farm. She would be back in Boston, and she may never see Sawyer again.
But she would never forget this moment. The moment her hope grew wings and took flight over solid ground.
10
Sawyer hadn’t felt this nervous since the day he asked her to marry him.
The sky was perfect, the breeze was perfect, but all that really mattered was Emma Jane, sitting on the ground beside him. All along, his hope had been that she would see a different side of home. That he could get her to remember the creak of the stairwell, the taste of fresh pecans, and the way her farm looked at dawn. And that maybe—if he were really successful—she’d see a different side of him as well.
He had three days left to show her how she longed for a home she hadn’t missed at all.
The necklace was a perfect fit. A perfect start.
Sawyer reached for the chain, moving the clasp to the back of her neck. “This way, you can carry it with you, Emma. All of it—only lighter.”
Emma stared up at him. Her eyes were wide and filled with wonder.
“You are still planning to go back to Boston?”
“Yes.” She looked away from him to the book on the ground. “That’s where my life is.”
“I understand.” Her words choked the hope from his heart. Moments ago when she’d looked at the necklace and sparkles lit her eyes, he thought that maybe… but he was getting ahead of himself. He had a plan and three more days to carry it out.
At least he hadn’t kissed her again this time.
Sawyer stood, brushed the dirt from his jeans, and held out his hand to help her up. “Come on. It’s a beautiful morning. Let’s go down to the creek for old time’s sake.”
Emma moved backward. “Sawyer, it’s freezing. ”
He kept his hand outstretched. “I have short sleeves on.”
Finding Ever After Page 27