Turning around, she found a cute and very heavily pregnant brunette staring at her. Although her brain did a frantic search, the face simply wasn’t familiar. Crap. “I’m so sorry, but—”
The woman laughed. “I’m actually flattered you don’t recognize me.” After that confusing statement, she added, “Jessie Floss?”
Whoa. Talk about transformations. In high school, Jessie Floss had been chubby and heavily goth—white makeup, too much black eyeliner, combat boots, and moodily sulking in the back row of class. Helena was at a loss for words, opening her mouth and closing it without managing to say anything.
“I know,” Jessie said. “I look back at pictures and wonder what the hell I was thinking.”
“Well, you look great now.”
“So do you. I heard you were in town, but I’ve been in Biloxi the past few weeks with my aunt. My uncle passed recently, and she’s been having a rough time. I’m glad I ran into you.”
“I am, too, but I’m actually on my way out of town.”
“So Ms. Louise is better?”
“Getting there.” Gesturing toward Jessie’s stomach, she added, “And congratulations. When are you due?”
“A couple of weeks. That’s why I’m home now. Duncan was getting antsy with my due date looming and my being away.”
“Duncan Hollis?”
Jessie nodded. “We’ve been married nearly five years now. This is our first,” she added, rubbing her belly.
A year older than Helena and Jessie, Duncan had been the prom king and the student council president, not to mention making the all-state basketball team three years in a row. And hadn’t she seen something in the paper about Duncan taking over the bank as president or some such? Jessie Floss and Duncan Hollis? Mind blown.
Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Jessie laughed. “Go ahead, take all the time you need. It’s a lot to process.”
Horrified, Helena tried to cover her rudeness. “No, um . . . it’s just . . .”
“It’s fine,” Jessie assured her. “We get that all the time. Hell, you should have seen the look on Duncan’s face when I came home from college minus forty pounds and all that eyeliner.”
“I can only imagine.”
“I’m so sorry I’ve been out of town. I’d have loved to have caught up. Duncan says you’re some kind of artist now?”
“Graphic designer,” she answered automatically, wondering how she’d managed to even ping on Duncan’s radar.
“Well, you’re certainly a Magnolia Beach success story. Claire was telling me—”
She searched for a Claire in her memory banks. Only one popped up. “Claire Montgomery?” Prom queen Claire Montgomery?
Jessie nodded. “It’s Kingston now, though. She lives over in Bayou La Batre, but she said you just swooped into town and took over, getting everything sorted out for Ms. Louise like a general on a battle march. Of course, you shook everyone up, but Magnolia Beach needs a good shaking every once in a while.”
“I didn’t mean to shake anything.”
“Oh, honey, I’d have paid cash money to see the looks on people’s faces when they realized their former cautionary tale was now a role model.”
She shook her head. “I’m hardly—”
“You know what I mean. Everyone loves a good redemption story, and yours is great.”
Helena’s head was starting to hurt. Jessie had just said more words in the last five minutes than Helena had heard from her in all four years of high school. The content of that flood of words would take time to process, and the Mini Mart was not really conducive to that depth of thought.
At that moment, the redheaded boy stuck his head inside to tell her that she was filled up, checked out, and ready to go, giving her the excuse she needed to go pay and get on her way.
“It was really great seeing you, Jessie. Congrats on the marriage and the baby, and good luck.”
“You, too. And don’t wait so long to come back, okay?” Jessie gave her a brief squeeze. “Drive safe.”
“Okay,” she answered as the theme song to The Twilight Zone played in her head. “Take care.”
In her car, Helena took a deep breath. That was surreal.
It was also another very good reason to get the hell out of Dodge before she got sucked deeper into the crazy. As the Mini Mart and Magnolia Beach disappeared in her rearview mirror, she expected to feel relief, a lessening of the tension that had been camped across her shoulders for the past week.
Instead, the weight in her shoulders shifted to her chest. She couldn’t figure out why, though.
Everything was the way it should be. Everything made sense.
So why did it still suck?
* * *
She’d left. Just up and left. Like it wasn’t anything.
Even after a week, Ryan was still unable to get past that fact. He’d rolled it all around in his head repeatedly, from the day she’d arrived until the moment he’d closed the door, unable to figure out what any of it meant or what he should have said when she’d come by out of the blue with a blithe good-bye.
She hadn’t even thrown him a “We can still be friends” bone. The “Have a nice life” had merely been implied. It was infuriating.
But it still smarted.
Magnolia Beach heaved a collective sigh of relief as word got around that Helena had left, but honestly, things felt stale and bland now. Helena added a bit of color to life in Magnolia Beach and an energy that was now absent.
Or maybe it was just him. Everything went back to normal within hours, and though his life hadn’t changed dramatically from its pre-Helena state, the satisfaction he used to feel was lessened somehow.
He was suddenly bored by it all.
Here he was, back in his usual spot at the Sunday dinner table in his grandmother’s house, surrounded by his family, wearing a proper shirt with a collar and eating his peas like a good boy. His brothers were arguing about something—he’d long lost interest—while Jamie lectured a now-sorry-he-asked Tucker about the pros and cons of low-interest financing versus taking a cash-back dealer incentive on a new car.
Shelby leaned over. “Hello? Earth to Ryan. What’s with you today?”
“I’ve just got things on my mind.”
“Things that aren’t sports or money?” she said, rolling her eyes at the conversations going on around them.
“Believe it or not, yeah.”
“Everything okay?”
He still owed Shelby a shouting-at over her interference in his life, but this was neither the time nor the place. And he wasn’t in a safe mood for that anyway. He might say something to really hurt Shelby’s feelings or otherwise come to regret later. He settled for a safe topic instead. “I’ve got a meeting tonight with the ladies of the historical society and members of the Chamber of Commerce.”
“Well, punching the president of that association probably doesn’t help your case with them.”
“Trust me, I think everyone’s glad I did, even if they won’t admit it. I’m more worried about the historical society.”
“Yeah. Don’t let the lace and cookies mislead you. Those historical society ladies are tough. They’ll be loaded for bear.”
“Exactly. It’s a waltz through a minefield.”
“Better find your dancin’ shoes, then,” she teased. “But I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you. Those little old ladies love you.”
“I don’t need them to love me right now. I need them to trust me. They can love me later.”
“They just fear change. They like Magnolia Beach just the way it is, and they’re worried. You just have to sell them on your ideas.”
“I like Magnolia Beach, too, but I’ve got to figure out a way to convince them of the difference between ‘tradition’ and ‘stagnation.’”
“It’s the c
urse and charm of all small towns.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have a lot of patience for it right now. Excuse me.” He pushed his chair back from the table, walking to the kitchen as if he were after something, and went straight out the back door into the yard.
Shelby, of course, followed him. A man couldn’t get a moment’s peace around here.
“Ryan, what’s wrong? And don’t say the historical society, either.”
“Nothing.”
Shelby sighed. “It’s Helena, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Hey, don’t take my head off. You’ve been a real bear ever since Helena left town. I don’t have to be psychic to see there might be a connection between the two events.”
“Could you butt out for once?”
“I could,” she admitted with a shrug, “but I know my butting in made some problems for you two in the first place, so I might as well stay in trouble and give you a friendly ear to vent to.”
“I don’t need to vent. I need to think.”
“She’s been gone for a week already. How slow do you think?”
“You know, maybe I don’t want to have this conversation with you.”
“Sorry.” Then her forehead wrinkled in concern. “So this wasn’t as casual as you two led everyone to believe, huh?”
He couldn’t stop the sigh. “For Helena, it was.”
“I can’t believe that. A woman would have to be a fool to not snap you right up. What did she say?”
He didn’t want to have this conversation, but since Shelby just stood there, blinking and waiting for him to talk, it seemed he didn’t have much of a choice. “Very little actually. ‘Thanks for everything. It’s been fun. See ya.’”
Shelby winced in sympathy. “Ouch.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So what did you say?”
“There wasn’t much to say. Ouch,” he added when Shelby punched him in the arm. “What was that for?”
“The girl’s not a mind reader. If you didn’t tell her how you felt, no wonder she left you like that. She made the sensible choice based on the information at hand.”
“But she knows I care about her.”
Shelby rolled her eyes. “That’s not enough. She’s not going to fight the tide because you vaguely ‘care’ about her. You’d be a fool to even expect it.”
“Wait, so now you’re suddenly okay with me and Helena being together?”
“She wouldn’t be my first choice for you, no, but that horse has already left the barn. Does she make you happy?”
He wasn’t used to this level of honesty. “I’m pretty sure she could. I know I wanted to find out.”
“Do you love her?”
The baldness of the question caught him off guard. “What kind of question is that?”
“A rather important one,” she explained in a tone that called him dumber than a bag of hammers. “Helena’s come a long way in people’s eyes, but she’s still got a ways to go. If you love her, you’ll have to be willing to fight those old prejudices with her and deal with the consequences.”
“I am.”
“Then tell her that.” When he hesitated, she sighed in exasperation. “Jeez, on behalf of women everywhere, I should hit you again.”
He gave her a warning look, and she unclenched her fist. “I’m going home,” he said. “Make my excuses to Gran and the family?”
“Of course. But what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “But I need to do something.”
“Just be sure you know what you want—and are willing to live with the consequences—before you do anything rash or crazy.”
“Once I figure out what I want, then I’ll do what I have to do.”
“That’s kind of what I’m afraid of,” Shelby said quietly. “But good luck.”
“We’re talking about Helena Wheeler. I’m going to need a hell of a lot more than luck.”
Chapter 19
This was her life. A few of her plants had died and there was an abundance of dust waiting for her on the furniture, but otherwise, it was as if she’d never left. Yoga on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, book club on Thursday evenings, and plenty of time to devote to her clients to keep them happy. She’d caught up with the news of the neighborhood and the happenings in the lives of her friends and gone to see the new exhibition at the Museum of Design with Misha.
This, indeed, was her life—everything she’d missed and longed for the six weeks she’d been in Magnolia Beach.
So why wasn’t she happier now that she was back?
There was something seriously wrong with her these days. If her life hadn’t changed, the fact it didn’t feel right or satisfying meant that she had. Only she couldn’t see how it had happened.
Maybe it was because she still had one foot in Magnolia Beach. She’d called Grannie every day in the beginning, but after the first week, Grannie had gotten frustrated with the long-distance hovering and told her to stop calling so much. She had Mary Ellen sending her e-mail updates, Tate teasing her on Facebook, and Molly texting her at least once a day with jokes and gossip and info on life in Magnolia Beach. Molly had even called the owner of the coffee shop here in Helena’s neighborhood to give them the special recipe for her rocket fuel to surprise Helena on her morning coffee run.
But every last one of them had been silent on the topic of Ryan Tanner—so completely silent that it was glaringly obvious it was intentional and calculated. That kind of hurt, which was strange, because she hadn’t expected to want informational updates on Ryan. What disturbed her most, though, was that the silence worried her. They didn’t want her to know what Ryan was doing, which her brain readily twisted into meaning that they didn’t want her to know who Ryan was doing. On the most obvious end of the spectrum, though, was the high probability that Ryan had gone right back to his life without a blink, as if nothing had happened at all.
Somehow, that thought hurt more.
And that was why her wine budget had gone right through the ceiling.
She missed him. A lot. A hell of a lot more than she thought possible.
It wasn’t fair. In fact, it was sick. Twisted. Simply wrong in more ways than she could comprehend.
She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Ryan Tanner.
Hell, it wasn’t even possible to fall in love with someone that quickly—especially without even knowing you were doing it.
Was it?
No, it couldn’t be. Life wasn’t a made-for-TV movie.
This would pass in time. She’d get over this and move on, and she’d be fine. Ready to smile at whichever nice, sweet local girl Ryan eventually settled on as the right one to be Magnolia Beach’s First Lady when she went to visit Grannie.
Even more pull-her-hair-out frustrating was the knowledge that if not for the whole Ryan situation, she wouldn’t be dreading the next trip back. After she’d friended Tate and Molly on Facebook, she’d received friend requests from other Magnolia Beach residents—most of whom hadn’t given her the time of day in high school. Hell, she’d even picked up a few new clients after the historical society uploaded its new banner. She certainly wouldn’t win any popularity contests, but she wasn’t the worst thing that could roll into town for a visit, either.
So it all boiled down to Ryan, and the fact she had to get over him. And she would. It would just take time.
But all the rational pep talks didn’t really help all that much. Which was why she’d invited Misha over for an exciting Friday night with movies, chocolate, and wine.
“Death by serial killer, cancer, apocalypse, terrorism, natural disaster . . .” Misha looked up from scanning Helena’s Netflix queue in disgust. “What is wrong with you? I thought this was going to be a fun night. Chick flicks, rom-coms . . . I was thinking less of tales of blood and d
estruction, and more of Bradley Cooper’s abs. Are you PMSing or something?”
Helena tried to picture the calendar. “Maybe. It would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”
Misha refilled both glasses and handed one to Helena. “Drink. You need it. Seriously, what is wrong? You’ve been all weird since you got back. I’m starting to wonder what the hell they did to you down there in the hollers.” Misha was a transplanted midwesterner still carrying a deep distrust of the South outside of the urban areas.
“Hollers are for hillbillies. You have to have a mountain to have a holler, and there are no mountains or hollers in south Alabama,” Helena explained. “And no one ‘did’ anything to me.” That was arguable, but she’d done it to herself more than anything. “Anyway, Magnolia Beach doesn’t have a decent Thai restaurant, so there were some serious phat si io withdrawal issues I had to deal with. Going cold turkey like that really messed me up.”
“Then I’m going to call Charm Thai right now and tell them we need an emergency delivery. You can clean out your queue and find something with a shirtless hot guy in it. Chris Pine, Josh Lucas, Ryan Gosling—take your pick, as long as they’re not dying horrible deaths.” Misha jumped off the couch and went into the kitchen where the menu hung on the fridge door.
“Bring another bottle back with you,” Helena called after her. She had to shake this off. She couldn’t stay miserable forever.
The knock on her door was unexpected, and Helena groaned as she moved the laptop to the coffee table and went to answer it.
Ryan.
She blinked, sure he was a drunken hallucination, but he was still there when she opened her eyes. A slew of emotions rocketed through her far too quickly to identify any of them, and then her heart fell to her stomach. There was only one reason Ryan would appear on her porch unannounced. She braced herself as she asked, barely able to get her voice above a whisper, “Is it Grannie?”
Ryan looked shocked and confused until understanding finally dawned. “No, no, she’s fine,” he quickly assured her.
“Oh, thank God.” She had to grab the doorframe for support. “I think my heart stopped beating there for a second.”
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