Steal My Magnolia (Love at First Sight Book 3)

by Smartypants Romance

  The woman he left for my sister.

  I sank to the floor, my legs no longer able to support me, and for the second time that day, I speared my hands into my hair. But this time, my gaze held hers, and I couldn't find a single word to say in comfort.

  Because not only was it a horrible, terrible idea for her to work here, I couldn't even begin to process the fact that she was the one. That, according to my family's stories—generation after generation of them—I'd love her until my dying breath.

  "I'm so sorry, Grady," she said.

  "That's why you ran to the bathroom," I said numbly. "You saw Grace."

  Slowly, miserably, she nodded.

  Her hand reached out, like she wanted to comfort me, but I held up my own to stop her. If she touched me ... no, I couldn't handle anything close to that with how my mind was racing. My brain was like a messy car crash, each scenario piling higher and higher on top of each other.

  I stood abruptly, knocking over a small side table in the process.

  Magnolia covered her mouth with her hand.

  "I have to go," I said. "I ... I have to go."

  "Okay." Her voice was quiet. She started gathering her stuff, blindly shoving her keys and laptop into her purse. I saw a sheen of tears, and the sight of them was like a semi running straight over top of me.

  "No, you can stay," I said. "Just ... lock up when you leave. I just ... I can't be here right now."

  Her eyes met mine. "You're not firing me?"

  I swallowed. "I-I don't know what I'm doing."

  My honesty clearly took her by surprise. Her nod was shaky. "Okay. I-I'll just ... finish those ads, I guess."

  With jerky movements, I pulled my keys out of the front pocket of my jeans, and I was out the door before I could betray myself with another misspoken word.

  Chapter 9

  Magnolia

  After Grady left, all I could do was sit in the quiet and feel the absence of his energy in that drab gray space. Not that I wasn't working. No, I worked my ass off for the next two hours.

  Until my phone rang and his voice came on the other end to tell me that I no longer had a job, I was going to accomplish everything we'd talked about that morning and then some.

  In the two days I'd been gone at the Chamber office, Grady had compiled a document of login information for all the various accounts. I zipped through Facebook, adding a few posts about sights in Green Valley. Next came some graphics for social media use with hiking packages that included picnic lunches.

  He had an ad account set up, but I set up a few small-budget ads in addition to what he already had running, using a picture of Grady hiking up a trail, probably something his sister had taken.

  My eyes closed briefly as I thought about the mess I'd made. Why did I think it would be easy to tell him?

  Firing was the least I deserved.

  If Tucker was ever going to work with him, having me around the office would be awful for everyone. I thought about the time I ran into Grace at the Piggly Wiggly the day after Tucker broke up with me.

  My chest felt tight, not because I missed Tucker—he'd been right to end our relationship—but Grace had been so kind to me. She wasn't a bad person even though everyone in my family had certainly vilified her for gliding off into the sunset with the man I'd shared all my firsts with.

  When a piece of hair fell forward over my shoulder, and when I thought about the effort I'd put into it for the first time in so long, I laughed sadly. Tucker and I were a lot like my hair. We'd been together for so long that I saw no reason to change. And that was the problem. We'd gone years in a sad state of complacency, and we were the only ones who suffered its effects.

  No matter how mad my family got at her—and I'd heard my Aunt Julianne call her some names that would make the pastor fling holy water—I never once blamed Grace for my single status.

  I blamed myself.

  Just as I was doing now.

  Working, and working hard, allowed me to quiet that part of my mind that could easily keep me up at night if I let it.

  It was what I'd done for years with my father, muting my own terrible, vicious inner critic with sheer competency.

  Do this right, do this well, and you'll be just fine, Magnolia. No one will notice how terribly unhappy you are.

  Pull this event off, earn that pat on the back, and no one will notice how embarrassed you are for how he treats people.

  Find a new job, lie to your new boss, and prove your worth, and maybe you won't have to face the fact that no one else in this town would hire you anyway.

  I sniffed, horrified by the burning sensation behind my eyes.

  That was the truth I didn't want to see, and the voice I didn't want to hear.

  No one else would dare hire me in this town because of my father. And I'd look a fool, going door to door, when everyone on the other side of those doors knew that my last name would get me in just fine at any of the places that my own family owned.

  The MacIntyres would hire me.

  So would the Boones and the Paytons.

  They'd make room for me—they'd protect me—so that I wouldn't have to face reality.

  I was living a life of someone else's creation, and I'd resorted to deceit in order to carve out a space somewhere for myself.

  A tear slid down my cheek, and I dashed it away with my fingers. There was no time for that. Not today. If Grady was hiking his way through his confusion, trying to figure out a solution to the problem I presented, then I probably had a couple of hours to impress the hell out of him.

  With dry eyes and a renewed sense of determination, I got up from the desk and lowered the shades on the windows. No one needed to see inside this office. Not today.

  I made my way through all the social media to clean things up and finished shelving some of the stuff he'd been working on when Grace showed up.

  My phone rang twice, but when I saw it was my father both times, I sighed and sent him to voicemail. Behind the last row of the shelves, around the corner from the bathroom, I found a few unopened boxes of things that Grady must have ordered as soon as I left my first day of work. Books about Tennessee history and wildlife filled one. Another had a large wrought-iron clock that was cut in the outline of the state.

  Behind those, I saw a black card table and two chairs. Tapping my thumb rapidly along my thigh, I remembered the black and white plaid blanket I kept tucked away in the trunk of my car in case of emergency.

  Ten minutes later, I had the table set up underneath the window, covered with the blanket as a makeshift tablecloth, and the books fanned out in the middle. Maybe no one would ever sit at it except the people who worked for Valley Adventures, but it made the room look a bit more inviting. And more than anything, I wanted Grady to come back from wherever he was and feel excited about this space.

  I could rotate the decorations for the holidays, a nice touch right in front of that window. Something the Green Valley residents could smile at as they walked by. In my head, I'd already cataloged what Thanksgiving items I could bring from home.

  As I was hanging the clock on the wall, standing back to make sure it was even, my phone buzzed with a notification. A message had come through to the VA Facebook page.

  Hi! I tried to call the number on your website, and it went straight to voicemail. What kind of availability do you have for a group hike this afternoon or tomorrow?

  She included her phone number, and with shaky fingers, I tried to call Grady. Straight to voicemail.

  "Lord, Magnolia," I whispered. "Watch you cost him his first client because you sent him straight into the wilderness to think."

  I waited two minutes, then tried his phone again. Nothing. Staring at the message, I made an executive decision. Booking something before we were ready wouldn't do Grady any favors. I dialed her number and took a seat at the desk, pulling out my notebook before she answered.

  "Hi, this is Magnolia from Valley Adventures returning a call for Ginny."

  "Oh!
Great, that's me. Thanks for getting back to me so fast." I heard young boys whooping and hollering in the background.

  "No problem. Grady, our owner, is out on a hike right now, so he's probably not getting any service, which is why you couldn't reach him."

  "Makes sense." I heard a door close. "My husband and I are ready to venture out of Gatlinburg for a couple of days, and I swear, no sooner had I searched something did one of your ads pop up when I was scrolling Facebook. Do you have any of those family picnic hikes available today or tomorrow? That sounds perfect for the five of us."

  I scrawled that down, then tapped the button for speakerphone and set the phone down on the desk. No sooner had I done that, but the office door swung open and a disheveled, sweaty Grady walked in.

  His face, normally covered in a wide smile, was serious, and he gave me a nod. I pointed at the phone and mouthed, "They want a hike."

  Those golden-brown eyes lit up.

  "Ginny, we'd be happy to accommodate your family. You said you prefer today or tomorrow, right?"

  "Yeah. We didn't have anything scheduled for those days, and honestly, we're just ready to see something a little different."

  Grady pulled out his phone and snagged one of the chairs by the card table, a quick smile flashing across his face when he looked at the wall clock. "Let's do tomorrow at ten," he whispered. "If you could get food figured out."

  I gave him a thumbs-up. Daisy's would have no trouble packing me some sack lunches.

  Grady leaned in, and I caught a lungful of delicious man smell. Despite how hard he must have hiked while he was gone, Grady smelled like soap and skin and spice. The skin of his arm when it brushed mine was hot. It almost made me lightheaded, and I caught myself stammering over my words.

  "A-and you wanted an easy or a moderate hike?"

  She answered a few of my questions, and I wrote down her answers as fast as my normally neat handwriting could manage.

  "We can't wait to meet y'all," I told her. "And if you can just get me your email address, I'll send you an invoice. We don't quite have our website ready to accommodate payments yet, but you'll be able to pay using debit or credit through the link I'll email you."

  Grady was watching me carefully as he tapped a few things into his phone, and I had to fight not to stare right back.

  This was a different side of him, quiet and watchful, with maybe a hint of sadness.

  "We can't wait, Magnolia. Thank you so much for calling me back so soon!"

  "It's my pleasure," I assured her. "Please don't hesitate to reach out before tomorrow if you have any other questions."

  She hung up, and I sank back in the chair.

  Grady didn't say anything, and neither did I. Our eyes held for a few moments longer, and a muscle ticked in his strong jaw.

  That's the edge I saw, I realized. It wasn't sadness. Something about Grady looked dangerous. Not in a scary way, but enough that I knew maybe even he wasn't sure what to do with me just yet, and that drove him crazy.

  I exhaled slowly. "Should I quit now and save you the trouble?"

  "No," he said immediately. "I don't think I could handle you leaving me." He paused. "Uhh, leaving me on my own right now."

  My face felt warm, and I glanced away.

  "I think it's pretty clear that I wasn't doing a great job of getting this off the ground," he said, another one of those self-deprecating grins briefly crossing his face. "I don't think I should be left to my own devices, considering I just left for two hours, and you managed to get me my first customers."

  "You'd have done just fine." I smiled. "Eventually."

  Grady exhaled a soft laugh. He raked a hand through his hair, and it stuck out everywhere given it was still damp with sweat. There was a clear V on the front of his long-sleeve T-shirt from whatever exercise he'd done while he was gone. He must have noticed me staring because he stood and plucked the shirt away from his broad chest. "I probably stink, sorry."

  "No, you're fine." I hooked a hand over my shoulder. "But we do have extras if you need something dry."

  He stood and walked back to the shelf that held a neat stack of white T-shirts with the Valley Adventures logo on the chest. Maybe he thought I wasn't looking, because with his back to me, Grady yanked the sweat-soaked shirt off and tossed it to the floor. His back was layered in sleek muscles and so were his long arms. My mouth went a little dry at the way his broad shoulders curved into his biceps, at the flawless expanse of his bare skin, and the way his narrow hips looked in the dark jeans he was wearing.

  I jerked my eyes back to the desk in front of me. Great. As if this situation wasn't complicated enough without me ogling the only man in town who already had every right to terminate my tenuous employment.

  Grady sat down at the card table and rested one hand on the blanket. "This looks nice here."

  "I hope it's okay that I didn't ask first. I just ..." I shook my head. "I just wanted it to feel welcoming in here."

  His eyes were intense as he watched me speak, and the quiet descended between us, heavy and full.

  "I don't want you to quit, Magnolia."

  My chest relaxed incrementally. "Okay."

  When he spoke again, he spoke slowly, like he was choosing his words very carefully. "I wish you hadn't kept who you are from me." His eyes never wavered from mine. "But I understand why you did."

  I nodded. "Everything I told you in my interview was true." My shoulders lifted in a small shrug. "I know that probably doesn't help much right now. And I won't make excuses for why I did it. But I do want this job, Grady, I promise you that."

  His lips finally softened from that hard, straight line into only the slightest hint of a smile. "I believe you."

  "Do you want me to talk to Tucker?"

  "No," he said immediately.

  My eyebrows lifted at his hard tone.

  "No, that's okay," he said, a bit more gently. "I'll take care of Tucker and Grace."

  "I don't want to cause problems between the two of you."

  "You won't."

  I wanted to ask him how he was so sure, but instead, I decided to simply trust it. Because I felt like it might help our new agreement, I grabbed a butterscotch candy from the drawer and tossed it to him. He smiled, just a little, as I took one for myself.

  For a moment, the only sound between us was the crinkling of the paper as we unwrapped our candy. I popped the hard disc of sugar into my mouth and felt a strong pang of nostalgia at the flavor. Grady's eyes closed for a moment while he did the same.

  Tucking the candy into my cheek, I asked, "And now?"

  Grady opened his eyes, pinned directly onto me, and I fought not to fidget under the intensity of what I saw there.

  Finally, he glanced away and ran his hands down the tops of his thighs. "For now, let's get everything ready for Ginny and her family tomorrow."

  Chapter 10

  Grady

  The sound of a bell, happy and welcoming, heralded my entrance to Big Bob's Bait and Tackle. I glanced up at it because it seemed like you couldn't actually claim a legitimate business until you had one.

  I'd visited my pops at work before, but I'd never walked in those doors looking for the "Bob" in Big Bob. Not in a creepy stalker way, but I found myself fascinated that the woman who birthed Magnolia—who got such a horrified look in her eye when I suggested she come on the hike with me and Ginny's family, that I laughed every time I remembered the way her eyebrows pinched in—owned a tackle shop.

  Not that we had to be like our parents. But it was such a dichotomy, and I found myself wanting every stray piece of information on Magnolia, simply to feel like I might know her better.

  The store was big and clean. And busy. Rows of fishing poles cut straight through the space, and bright lights hung from steel beams in the ceiling, making the whole space look bright and modern. Customers walked through, looking at the bait and spinners and hooks displayed on the walls.

  The whole back corner was clothing. Vests and waders and
hats all neatly displayed and organized.

  This was no small-fry operation.

  I remembered when I came the first time, and my dad had shown it off with pride, almost as though it was his own. Every employee seemed to feel that way. I'd met a couple of his coworkers that day but not Bobby Jo.

  But what I did remember from my dad was that everyone loved working for her.

  Which meant Magnolia's mom was probably a better person than her dad when you started grading strictly on their ability to interact with ... you know ... other humans. That was a part of what sent me running when she admitted who she was even though it hadn't taken me long to come to the decision that I'd go toe to toe with Tucker if he asked me to fire her. What had sent me away was a deep, visceral sense of embarrassment that I'd assumed J.T. MacIntyre would've had a white daughter because he was white.

  Laying that at her feet to deal with was absolutely not going to happen, so I knew getting out some self-directed frustration was a better choice than staying and trying to talk it out with her.

  I hadn't even taken a hike as she assumed. My non-running ass ran a 10K before I even realized what I was doing.

  And if the way she handled Ginny's call was any indication, I'd made the right decision. When I met our first customers that morning with delicious lunches from Daisy's Nut House ready to go, everything was perfect, and the hike had gone off without a hitch. A happy family of five left me to head back to Gatlinburg and promised to spread the word. Because of Magnolia.

  Even if I wasn't pining for her—which I was—she was a great fucking employee, and Tucker could kiss my ass if he wanted to let her go.

  But now, going into this situation with clear, open eyes of what I was really dealing with, I wanted to know more about her before I could figure out how I was going to handle this with Grace and Tucker.

  I'd hardly made it past the opening of the store when a woman approached me, and I swear, it took everything in me not to stare. Which, when you came from LA and saw celebrities regularly, was saying something.