The distance between them bothered Lily. Even though she’d only really known Garrett for a few days, their time together had been a revelation. A lesson in not judging a person before she got to know them. He was one of the good ones, and she couldn’t ignore the way her heart hammered when he smiled at her or how she craved more time with him.
“That’s my house,” she said, pointing to a two-story colonial on the tree-lined street. “My dad’s house, actually.”
“The house where you grew up,” Garrett said with a nod. “It will always feel like home.”
She sighed and nodded. Little comments like that made her feel as though he understood her and really cared.
Half of the reason she was so unlucky in love stemmed from the fact that she led with her heart and always wanted to see the best in a person. She might want to believe a special connection had developed between them during the past four days, but that was silly. People didn’t fall in love over the course of a cross-country road trip.
Pressing her knuckles against the sharp ache in her chest, Lily opened the car door when he pulled into the driveway.
She hooked Chloe to the leash then led the dog to the back of the SUV to begin unloading boxes.
“I’m happy to give you a ride to the hospital after we unpack your stuff,” Garrett said, his quiet tone making goose bumps erupt across her skin.
“My sister left me the keys to my dad’s truck. I’m sure you want to get back on the road anyway.” She forced a smile. “You have a new book to start and all that.”
“All that,” he repeated, giving her a look she couldn’t quite decipher. “Sure.”
They each grabbed a box, and he followed her up the walk. Helena had texted that she’d left the front door unlocked. Magnolia was that kind of town.
Lily hadn’t realized how much she missed home until she arrived. Yes, the town had seen better days, largely funded by famed artist Niall Reed, Magnolia’s most famous resident. But even now, in need of a facelift, Magnolia looked beautiful to her. She realized she didn’t care that she’d failed as an actress because it wasn’t her dream.
She wanted a place to call home, to care for people and be a part of a community. Magnolia would give all of those things to her. Her father’s house was the same as she remembered, cozy and cluttered. It still smelled of linseed oil from the woodworking her dad did in his spare time. She could hardly wait to visit the hardware store. As a child, she’d loved the neat rows of tools and supplies, the potential in the items her family sold.
If only things hadn’t gone bad between her and Garrett, Lily would love to show him around the town and introduce him to her dad. She wanted a chance to get to know him better and see if the tender spot he’d so quickly occupied in her heart was more than just infatuation.
But as she met his gaze over the pine dining room table that her great-grandfather had built for her great-grandmother’s first Thanksgiving as a wife, he looked away, and all her hopes that their ending might be a happy one faded into nothing.
Chloe whined and tugged at her leash.
“Great house,” he said, taking in the framed photos on the wall. “I’ll grab the rest of the boxes if you want to take care of her.”
“Okay.” Biting down on the inside of her cheek, Lily led the dog through the kitchen and out into the backyard with the town’s namesake tree blooming in one corner. She unfastened the leash and Chloe trotted away to investigate her new surroundings.
The privacy fence that surrounded the property would keep the dog contained, but Lily didn’t move for several minutes. She watched Chloe and tried to smile at the animal’s usual antics. Tried not to acknowledge that she’d been foolish enough to open her heart to Garrett, and now she’d have to deal with that pain on top of everything else.
True to his word, he’d gotten the rest of her belongings unloaded by the time she returned to the front of the house.
“Thank you,” she told him but couldn’t quite force the muscles of her face into a smile.
“No problem.”
Lily wrapped her arms around her chest. “You’ve paid your debt.”
“Aunt MJ will be thrilled.”
They stood with a heavy silence between them for a few long moments.
“I’m going to head out.” Garrett scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “You probably want to get to the hospital anyway.”
“I do,” she confirmed. “Thank you,” she repeated, unable to come up with anything better. “For everything.”
“Good luck, Lily.” He leaned in for a hug, but she shoved her hand out instead. He took it, and even that small bit of contact was almost too much in her current state.
“Have a nice life, Garrett,” she managed as he turned away.
CHAPTER NINE
LILY WALKED OUT of the hospital later that night, physically and emotionally drained but with a peaceful heart. Her father would be transferred to a rehab facility tomorrow and then be released to come home a few days after that.
She’d spent the past four hours at his bedside, visiting with her dad and her two sisters, who’d both head back to their own lives the following morning.
The homecoming should have been awkward or laced with the familiar tension of their fraught sibling bond, but all of the difficulties of the past seemed to fade away in the joy of their reunion. Even sharing the stories of dozens of failed auditions hadn’t carried its usual weight. No one in her family was disappointed in her. On the contrary, they seemed happy to have her home.
That could be just the initial reaction, but it was enough for now. Helena and Meg had left an hour earlier with instructions for feeding Chloe her evening meal.
Alone in the room, Lily and her dad had watched sitcoms and eaten pudding cups, and a sense of contentment had covered her like a warm blanket.
As she crossed into the hospital parking lot, her fingers itched to pull out her phone and call Garrett. He was the person she most wanted to share this moment with. In their hours together, she’d confided so many of her hopes and fears about returning to Magnolia, and he’d made her feel like everything would turn out for the best.
Now it had. Everything except him driving away.
A familiar bark broke the silence of the evening, and she turned to see Chloe standing under one of the parking lot lights with Garrett Dawes holding on to her leash.
Lily’s breath caught, and she remembered that morning in the diner when he’d explained the involuntary function of breathing to her.
“Are you kidnapping my dog?” she asked as she approached, heart pounding so hard she could almost feel it banging against her ribs.
“Just borrowing her,” he clarified. “I met your sisters.”
“Oh.”
“You seem just as smart as they are, in my opinion.”
Lily let out a small laugh as she reached out to love on her giant dog. Chloe whined and licked Lily’s hand. “I’m not sure you know them well enough to judge.”
“I know you,” he said, the rough timbre of his voice sending shivers along her skin. “I’d like to know you more, Lily.”
“I’m not exactly a long-distance relationship type of girl,” she forced herself to say. As quickly as her feelings for Garrett had developed, living on different coasts wouldn’t work given how wholly he’d captured her heart.
“Me neither.” He made face. “Not the girl part,” he clarified. “But the rest. I don’t want distance between us. This sounds completely strange, but I think I fell in love with you somewhere between Amarillo and Memphis.”
“Wow.” Lily inclined her head as joy zipped through her. “It took you a whole two days? I was long gone for you by the time we hit the New Mexico border.”
“Thank God,” he breathed and reached for her, drawing her close and wrapping her in his arms like he never wanted to let her go. His mouth fused to
hers in a kiss that set her soul on fire.
“I had no idea if I’d ever find a place to belong,” he said when he finally pulled back. His dark eyes were intense on her, filled with so much promise and love. “But you’re my home, Lily Wainright. My north star. I tried to drive away, but I didn’t get any farther than the town water tower. I want to be with you. I want to make you happy and hold you when you’re sad. I love you.”
She grinned and blinked back the tears of happiness that clouded her vision. “I love you, too. And I better be the first person who gets to read the next great novel from Garrett Dawes. I will always be your biggest fan.”
“Always,” he promised and kissed her again.
In that moment, Lily knew she’d truly come home.
* * *
ISBN-13: 9781488078248
The Road to Magnolia
Copyright © 2020 by Michelle Major
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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