by Meg Maxwell
Olivia stared at Dory, this lovely, petite blonde with angelic blue eyes and a sweet manner. She wanted Dory to have everything—her family bakery, love, her financial worries gone. “Did my mother say anything else?”
Dory shook her head. “She only said that I wasn’t in love. She said it again as I was leaving.” Tears filled her eyes. “I’m all alone in the world, Livvy. And just like in a fairy tale, a knight in shining armor rides up.”
Except Dory didn’t love her knight in shining armor. Sometimes people don’t want the truth and they do as suits...
Dory’s use of her childhood nickname made her heart clench. As teenagers, they used to spend so much time talking about the kind of man they wanted to marry someday. Being madly in love with someone who was madly in love back was first on the list.
“I’m sorry I dumped this on you,” Dory said, putting her half-finished po’boy back in the bag. She stood up, slinging her tote bag on her shoulder. “I just needed to say it out loud to someone who I knew wouldn’t judge me or advise me. I just needed to get it out, you know?”
Olivia stood up and went around the table and hugged her friend. “I know. And I know you’ll do what feels right to you, Dory. Whatever that may be.”
As Dory hugged her back, the doorbell rang. “I’ll let you go, Liv. Thanks for listening.”
Dory left and Olivia went to the front door. Carson Ford stood there. She was relieved to see him. And barely able to take her eyes off him. How could she be so drawn to a man who was so...her opposite?
“Isn’t that Dory Drummond?” Carson said, upping his chin at Dory, who was getting into her beat-up old car, which was even older than Olivia’s.
“Yes, she’s an old friend. Why?” Olivia asked.
“She just got engaged to a close family friend,” Carson said. “Beaufort Harrington. Our fathers go way back.”
Just figures, Olivia thought. She would definitely keep quiet about the fact that Dory had been a client of her mother’s.
“Carson, look, I really am sorry about all this with my mother and my aunt and your father. But I promise you, there is nothing underhanded about it. My mother wasn’t that kind of person.”
“Then help me prove it,” he said. “I intend to find this Sarah person myself so that my father’s life isn’t interrupted or upended. I’ll find her, introduce them, my dad will feel absolutely nothing for this stranger and he can go back to his life and I can go back to mine.”
“How can I help?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to find my aunt Sarah since my mother died.”
“We can start with her last name, Social Security number if you know it, details that will narrow the field.”
“I’ve tried all that. Well, not her Social Security number. I don’t know it.”
“Well, then we’re going to take a road trip.”
* * *
Carson stood on Olivia’s porch, unsure if he’d really just said those words. A road trip with Olivia, who he barely knew?
“Do you have a day off coming up?” he asked. “We can make some calls, find out which salons employ Sarahs and go check them out.”
She opened the door wider. “Come on in. Coffee?”
“Biggest mug you have,” he said, stepping inside.
He glanced beyond the small foyer to see a tiny living room with a green velvet sofa, a well-worn oriental rug and all kinds of decorations, from masks to little statues. Madam Miranda clearly hadn’t been raking in the bucks, given the old scuffed wide-plank floors and the unrenovated kitchen he could see through a doorway. Interesting.
“Did you grow up here?” he asked, following her into the small kitchen. She gestured at the round white wood table by the window and he sat down.
“I was born in this house. I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Did you used to listen in when your mother was telling fortunes?” he asked.
“I tried not to,” she said. “To give her clients privacy. But sometimes I couldn’t resist.” She poured chocolately-smelling coffee grounds into the coffeemaker and pressed a button. “One time, my middle school science teacher came to see Madam Miranda. Mrs. Flusky was the meanest teacher at the school, never smiled, barked at kids. I eavesdropped when she came. It took her a good five minutes to ask her question. She said, ‘How can I go on with this pain of losing my daughter?’ I don’t think anyone knew that Mrs. Flusky even had a daughter. But it turned out her daughter was just twenty-two when she was hit by a car.”
He saw Olivia wince just saying those words. “What did your mother tell her?”
“My mother told Mrs. Flusky that by going on, by living her life, by teaching with passion, by going back to the activities she’d given up, like her book club and her garden and traveling, she would be honoring her daughter by honoring life. Which would always have its share of crushing sorrow, its days of the status quo and, of course, joy. Madam Miranda then asked Mrs. Flusky how she thought her daughter would feel to know that she’d given up all she used to enjoy because of her grief. Mrs. Flusky said her daughter would hate knowing how small and sad her life had become, that they’d been planning to travel the South together that summer, but of course she wasn’t going.”
Carson leaned forward, curious what else Madam Miranda had said.
“And then my mother reached under the table and pulled out a small flowerpot,” Olivia continued. “She told my mother to plant her daughter’s favorite flower in the pot. When the flower bloomed, that meant it was time for Mrs. Flusky to honor her daughter by blooming anew, respecting the new person she was in the face of the changes in her life, but by doing what she enjoyed. She also gave Mrs. Flusky three flower seeds and said she’d bet her daughter would love it if she planted each seed in the three places they’d planned to visit in July.”
“And did Mrs. Flusky change? Did she go on the trip?”
“I waited every day to see a difference in her. Finally, after a few weeks, she came into the classroom with the flowerpot my mother had given her. There was a green shoot. She put it on her windowsill in the sun. And she was different from that day. Not in any big way, but she was nicer. She even smiled sometimes. And I’ll never forget how she said that when the school year ended she was going to Atlanta, Savannah and Charleston.” She set out two mugs of coffee, along with cream and sugar.
He added cream and a spoonful of sugar. “You do realize there was no fortune-telling involved there,” he said. “No hocus-pocus. Just compassion and insight.”
She nodded. “I do realize that. I thought about that session for a long time. Before that and after that I’d heard my mother tell people their fortunes, what she saw for them. But with Mrs. Flusky, she told her what she needed. When I understood that, I knew for sure that my mother was the real deal, Carson. She wasn’t a con artist. She cared. And I also began to realize that she did tell people what they needed—whether through a fortune or just common sense. If what she saw wasn’t what they needed, she wouldn’t put it out there.”
“So my father needs your aunt Sarah.” He leaned his head back.
“He must,” she said. “Crazy as that sounds.”
“As long as you know it does sound crazy,” he said, surprised to find himself giving her something of a smile.
He could see her visibly relax, her shoulders drop a bit. He felt like a heel for making her so tense, for storming into her life and making his family’s problem hers, especially when she must still be grieving her mother’s loss. He wanted to get up and go over to her and press his hands on those shoulders and massage away her tension.
She wore a white T-shirt with a faded ad for Blue Gulch Animal Rescue, the silhouettes of a dog and cat on her stomach. Her skirt was some kind of denim-patch thing and she was barefoot, a silver ring around one of her toes. He followed her tanned legs from the toe ring up the toned
calves to where the skirt ended. He’d been physically attracted to women before, of course, but something about Olivia Mack drew him in a way he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.
He cleared his throat for no reason other than to shake himself out of his sudden fantasy of walking over to her and kissing her. He pulled out the little leather notebook with its tiny pen that he carried everywhere. “Is your aunt Sarah’s last name also Mack?”
She nodded. “She wasn’t married when she left town. Her name was Sarah Mack, no middle name. But I’ve done many online searches for her, putting in all kinds of search words, like hair salons, her name, et cetera. Nothing ever comes up.”
“You referred to your aunt as your estranged aunt,” he said, sipping his coffee. “What’s the story there?”
Olivia sipped her own coffee. “I don’t know the whole story. There’s a big family secret I’ve been kept in the dark about. But I do know that my aunt told my mother she was never, ever to tell Sarah her fortune—she didn’t want to know, she wanted to do what felt right to her, make her own mistakes. Maybe there came a time when my mother couldn’t hold her tongue?” She shrugged. “It’s complicated, that’s all I know.”
Her aunt sounded levelheaded, so that was a plus. He wouldn’t want to know his supposed fortune or future, either. “Do you think she’s still in Texas?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I suspect. Sarah loved Texas. She was a big rodeo fan.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said. “That’s a good start. People tend to run away to what comforts them. Tuckerville is a bustling town full of shops and restaurants and it borders Stockton, where the rodeo championships are held. Seems a good place to start.” Tuckerville was just an hour away. Two hours driving, two hours visiting salons. Half a day’s work and hopefully they’d find her.
“So we’re going to just get in your car and go visit hair salons in Tuckerville and ask for Sarahs?”
He nodded.
“I’m off tomorrow,” she said. “But I need to cook tomorrow afternoon for Mr. Crenshaw. It’s his chicken parmigiana and garlic bread night. He counts on it.”
Carson had no idea who Mr. Crenshaw was. “I’ll have you back home by three. How’s that?”
“Mr. Crenshaw likes to eat at five thirty. Getting home at three will be cutting it very close.”
“I’ll help you,” he said. “I’m a pretty good cook. I’ve had to learn these past eighteen months for Danny’s sake.”
She tilted her head and stared at him for a moment. “Okay, then. Most hair salons open at ten, so why don’t we leave at nine tomorrow morning.”
Half a day’s work and this nutty situation would be resolved. He figured, anyway. But he was well aware that for someone who wanted this lunacy finished and done with, he sure was looking forward to spending time with Olivia tomorrow.
Chapter Five
Olivia sat on her porch at nine sharp, waiting for Carson. A shiny black SUV pulled into the driveway and he hopped out to open the passenger door for her. Gallant, she thought, offering him a smile as she got inside.
“I bought us coffee,” he said as he buckled up and pointed at the two foam cups in the console cup holder. “One cream, one sugar, right?”
For a moment she felt flattered that he’d noticed and had tucked away how she liked her coffee, then she remembered it was his job to notice details.
“Thanks,” she said, taking a sip and glancing at him as he started the engine.
The bright sun lit his dark hair and she saw shades of brown and copper. He slid on aviator sunglasses that made him look like a state trooper.
“So where’s Danny this morning?” she asked as they headed toward Blue Gulch Street.
“He goes to a day care he loves three mornings a week. He has two best buddies there. My dad will pick him up today and keep him until I return.”
“Your dad is so great with Danny. So loving. I never had grandparents. My mother’s mother died before I was born and no one ever talked about my grandfather. I didn’t know my father or his family.”
He looked over at her. “I didn’t know my grandparents, either. It’s one of the reasons I’m so protective of my dad right now. For Danny’s sake.”
“I can understand that,” she said. “Your son is lucky to have you.”
He glanced at her again and was quiet for a moment, then said, “When Danny’s mother walked out on us, I was so worried that I wouldn’t be enough as a dad. I mean, I know I’m not a laugh a minute. Not that my ex was, either, but she was very outgoing and bubbly. Thank God my dad morphed into an award-wining grandfather.”
His ex-wife walked out on them? Olivia couldn’t imagine. Hadn’t Carson said his son had been in the NICU for a couple of months? Had his mother left while Danny had been in the hospital? She wanted to know more about Carson and his past, but she wasn’t sure she should pry.
There was suddenly a hard set to his jaw and shoulders so she figured she’d better keep the conversation to their mission. She already thought too much about Carson, wondered too much, noticed him too much. “Did you let your father know that you’re looking for Sarah?”
A muscle worked in Carson’s jaw and he shifted. “I did.”
“And?” she prompted, sipping her coffee.
“He was a little too touched,” Carson said. “Even though I made it clear I’m not doing this to find his supposed second great love. I’m doing it to prove that he’ll feel absolutely nothing for this woman so he can go back to living his life.”
“What if he does feel something?” Olivia asked. “Yes, I know, power of suggestion, blah, blah, blah. But you can’t fake chemistry, a pull toward someone, a quickening of your pulse, an inexplicable draw.”
She knew because she felt it with Carson. She couldn’t stop stealing peeks at him, the strong profile, the broad shoulders, the muscular thighs.
“It would be pretty random for my father to meet some stranger and fall instantly in love. I have no doubt he’ll feel toward Sarah Mack the way he feels when he meets anyone. The earth won’t move.”
“What if it does?” she asked.
He looked at her, clearly frustrated. “It won’t.”
She couldn’t help a chuckle. “You sure are set in your ways.”
“You are, too.”
“Nope,” she said. “I’m open to possibility.”
He didn’t respond to that. He reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. “This is a list of every hair salon in Tuckerville and the surrounding towns. There are six in Tuckerville. And then four more in the bordering communities. I called ahead—there are four stylists named Sarah in four of the salons. Two in the bordering towns. My dad didn’t come out this far in his search. We very well may find your aunt this morning.”
She glanced at the list, her heart skipping a beat. Was Sarah Mack in one of these salons? Tears poked at her eyes, and Olivia realized she wanted to be reunited with Sarah so badly that it was overwhelming.
“We’re here,” he finally said, turning onto a bustling main road and pulling into a spot in front of a bakery. When she didn’t move, he glanced at her. “Hey,” he whispered. “Are those tears?” He lifted up her chin and brushed away the wetness under her eyes with the back of knuckle. “We’ll find her.”
For a moment she was so startled by his kindness that she just stared at his hand, now resting on his knee. “We want to find her for very different reasons,” she said. “You want to end something. I want something to begin.”
He nodded, then gave her hand a squeeze. “Well, that may be true. But at least you’ll have her back, right?”
Olivia froze. “What if she doesn’t want to be found? I mean, she clearly doesn’t.”
Carson turned off the ignition and turned to face her. “You know
what I’ve learned most in my business of finding people? That ninety-nine percent of people who walk away do want to be found, even if they don’t know it, even if they’re not walking around with it burning in their chest the way it can be for the people doing the looking. It’s not easy living with something unsettled—on either side.”
“Ninety-nine percent,” she repeated, liking that number.
He nodded and was around the car to open her door for her before she could even hitch up her purse on her shoulder.
Feeling a bit better about what might happen, she got out and looked around. The busy downtown was divided by a four-lane road, with shops and restaurants dotting both sides. Tuckerville was a lot bigger than Blue Gulch.
“Hair Magic is two shops down,” he said, pointing left.
Hair Magic. Nope. No way. Aunt Sarah, who hated magic, hated talk of the family gift, would not work in a salon with the word magic in the name. That she was a hundred percent sure of. She was about to tell Carson they should cross it off the list, but there it was, Hair Magic, right between a heavenly smelling bagel shop and a bookstore.
And anyway, what did she know about her aunt, really? Maybe she did work here. Maybe the word magic was just another word. Aunt Sarah had never been superstitious or sentimental. And it had been five years since she’d seen her. Five years. She used to think she and her aunt were close, but Sarah had walked away from her. Olivia and Sarah had never had an argument; it wasn’t fair, but wasn’t that the old line about life?
Hair Magic had a storefront painted silver with silver drapes in the window. A bell jangled as they entered. There was a reception desk with no one behind it and six hair stations; two women and one man, all in various stages of their work, had customers. A Shania Twain song was playing from a speaker on a sideboard with magazines laid out across it.