Maddie’s sweet laugh trickled over from the corner of the yard. “That’s sun tea, silly. It’s supposed to be outside.”
“You’re actually gonna drink that?”
Cooper and Drew’s amusement joined Maddie’s. Well, at least Ti could add comic relief to her purpose in being here.
Cooper spun the basketball on his finger. “Don’t worry, Big Apple. We’ll have you drinking sun tea and calling soda ‘pop’ before the summer’s over with.”
Not in this lifetime. “Don’t count on it, Billy Bob.”
“I like a challenge.” Cooper made a jump shot. The ball rebounded off the backboard and rolled into Ti’s feet. “Up for a little two-on-two later? You and me versus Drew and Freckles?”
This time, Drew almost choked on his drink. He scrambled for a napkin. “I doubt she’d want to break a nail.”
Glaring, Ti kicked the ball into her hands, lined up her shot, and bent her knees. “I might’ve walked the runways in London, but I grew up on the streets of Queens.” The ball cleared the basket with nothing but net. She hiked a brow and the corner of her mouth at Drew. “The only nails anyone’s losing are the ones you’ll be chewing off.”
“Ohhh!” Cooper palmed the ball at Drew. “Someone get him some ice for that burn.”
Grandma Jo rasped a contagious chuckle. “Ooh wee. If there were ever a picture to take, it’d be of Drew sitting there as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.”
“Okay, okay.” Drew sauntered over and stole the ball from Ti. “You and me later, tough girl.” If he played as unfairly as his dimples did, she might be the one in trouble.
Refusing to show a hint of being flustered, Ti flaunted a gangster pose. “Bring it.”
Grandma Jo stretched an arm across Ti’s shoulders. “A girl who can hold her own. Told ya you were already a part of this family.”
Not if Drew had a say in it. His smile fell as he jerked his gaze away from her.
Ti’s chest caved. Being unwanted wasn’t new. Why was she letting it get to her?
Grandma Jo nodded to the back door. “C’mon. Let’s take that confidence to the kitchen.”
Had to be better than trying to figure out Jekyll and Hyde. The guy seriously needed to pick a personality and stick with it.
Inside, Ti did a double take to make sure the door hadn’t been a portal into Cracker Barrel’s kitchen. Savory southern aromas raced for her growling stomach. If she wasn’t careful, she’d forget she was a vegetarian.
Grandma Jo fanned through a stack of mail. “AARP, life insurance, funeral discounts.” She dumped the envelopes in the trash without opening them and kept on trekking to the counter. “I swear, as soon as you hit your sixties, the world’s ready to put you in the grave.” She waved one hand over her Betty Boop apron like Vanna White and hung the other on her hip. “I’ve still got some spunk in me, don’t I?”
“In spades.” After washing her hands, Ti sat on a bar stool behind the breakfast counter. “You’d have to to keep up with Drew and Cooper.”
“Don’t I know it.” She tossed Ti a blue polka dotted apron in the shape of a dress from the fifties. “Let’s keep that spunk rolling.”
“Um . . . I really wasn’t exaggerating earlier. You don’t want me ruining your meal.”
Grandma Jo handed Ti a knife and cutting board. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” Back at the sink, she rinsed a colander of peeled potatoes. “Your mom never taught you your way around a kitchen?” she called behind her.
“My mom wouldn’t even know what to do with utensils unless they were a lighter and a spoon.” A terse laugh tailed a confession she’d meant to keep to herself. What were the chances the sound of the running water had drowned it out?
Grandma Jo took the seat opposite Ti while extending half the potatoes and a motherly smile. “You know, Karl and I tried to have kids for ten years. Ten.” Shaking her head, she sliced a potato into quarters. “It felt even longer. Doctor’s appointments, treatments, expenses we didn’t have no money for. Even got pregnant once but miscarried a month later.”
Ti pulled her sunglasses from the top of her head and set them aside. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, sugar. Those were the years my faith was born.” She tossed the cubed potatoes into a bowl. “Oh, I got angry with God, all right. Gave Him a good talking to more than once.” Her chuckle slowly gave way to a sobered expression. The kind that’d known the deep recesses of loss yet still found hope.
Ti followed her line of sight toward a shelf of picture frames. Beside a few that must’ve been of Grandma Jo’s family, a photo of Drew and a woman holding a redheaded baby skewered Ti right down the middle.
“Can you imagine growing up with seven siblings?”
That would’ve required parents who actually wanted kids. Regaining her composure, Ti spun around on the stool. “Must’ve been nice to have a big family.”
Grandma Jo huffed.
“Or not?”
“It had its moments.” She pushed another pile of potatoes off her cutting board with her knife. “People think being the youngest sibling means you get spoiled, but let me tell you somethin’. It ain’t true. Mama was so frazzled trying to keep up with everything, she didn’t have much time to tend to us youngins. My middle sister basically raised me.”
She peeked over at Ti’s much higher pile of unsliced potatoes. “If you can wield a paintbrush across a canvas, you can handle a knife and cutting board. Apprehension is all in your head. Come on, now. We’ve got hungry boys waitin’ on us.”
The woman could match Ti’s bluntness any day. She refrained from laughing and got to work. “Yes, ma’am.”
After finishing her stack, Grandma Jo began chopping an onion and some celery. “When I couldn’t get pregnant, I thought I must not’ve been fit to be a mama. That I’d done something wrong.”
Somewhere in the hidden places, Ti’s heart winced.
“But God had plans of His own. Had a whole family for me here all along.” She blinked away the sheen in her eyes and smoothed out her apron’s waistline. “Mind you, it didn’t happen when and how I thought it should’ve, but He’s got a way of working out the unexpected. Even when we think He’s forgotten us.”
Ti swallowed the rise of tears coating her throat out of nowhere. Springing from her seat, she bumped the cutting board into the ceramic bowl. “Sorry. I, um, left my lemonade outside. I should probably go get it before the flies take it over.” And before memories confiscated the composure Ti needed to make it through being surrounded by a family she didn’t belong in.
“You just worry about taking on Drew, sugar. I’ll finish up here.”
Without giving Grandma Jo a chance to change her mind, Ti fled through the screen door. A wall of humidity slammed into her body, the sight of Maddie swept up in Drew’s arms right behind. Ti slid her sunglasses back on. She shouldn’t be here.
“She kick you out already?” Drew asked. Apparently, Jekyll was back.
Partway to the picnic table, Ti stopped to iron out the wrinkles from her forehead and turned. “I warned her I’d ruin things.” She evaded the inquisitive look dissecting her words and hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I just remembered I have a painting I need to finish.”
“Can’t it wait?” Maddie swung around her dad’s waist. “Or you could bring it here. You can work on it before lunch. We have time.”
So much for a decoy.
Drew lounged an arm across Maddie’s back and cocked his head. “Unless you’re trying to back out of our game. Not saying I blame you. Just a little surprised.”
When did he get so good at pushing her buttons? That was supposed to be her skill. A glance from Drew’s taunting eyes to Maddie’s hopeful ones did her in. “You wish. I’ll be back in five. Actually, make that ten.” Coffee reinforcements were definitely in order. With any luck, she’d find some armor for her heart while she was at it.
At the grill, Drew basted the chicken thighs for the fifth time. No wa
y he was letting those suckers dry out. He cut a tiny sliver into one. Juicy perfection.
Too bad he wasn’t having as much success keeping his focus. His gaze kept drifting toward Maddie glued to Ti’s side at the easel, like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Hard to fault her. Ti’s paintings were spellbinding—like most everything about her.
Grandma Jo materialized out of nowhere. “You gonna let me taste test those?”
Flinching, Drew juggled the tongs like a devil stick to keep from dropping them. “Jeez. Wanna give someone a warning before sneaking up on them.”
“People only flinch like that if they’re already on edge.”
“I’m not on edge.” He turned over the rest of the thighs and added some burgers.
“Mm-hmm.” She butted her way into his space. “You go on, now. I’ll take it from here.”
She couldn’t be serious. “You’re relieving me of my duties?”
Grandma Jo looked his shocked profile up and down. “Do we need formal papers drawn up?” She gestured for the tongs.
Tight-lipped, he held them out to her but didn’t let go. “Don’t you be messing up my chicken, now. They’re just about perfect.”
She gave the tongs a tug. “And don’t you be worrying about my lunch, sugar. You have other things to concentrate on not messing up.” With her usual lack of subtlety, she waved him toward Ti. She must’ve missed seeing Cooper take her to the festival and flirt with her today. There was nothing to mess up.
“Go on and get before I invite Mrs. Cunningham over.”
Both brows shot to his hairline. “You’re evil.”
She laughed. “Balances out my charm.”
Not the trait he was thinking of at the moment.
Drew turned in time to graze arms with Coop, whipping past him to the porch. Drew grabbed his brother’s arm. “Hey. You’re not going AWOL on me, are you?” He had a knack for sneaking out at random times.
“Just running to take care of something.” He shook his watch forward on his wrist, adjusted his Tar Heels hat, and kept walking. “Save me some chicken.” The screen door swung behind him.
Left alone with the women and no task to occupy him. Perfect. Drew took one look at Grandma Jo and strode for Ti and Maddie instead.
“Dad, look. Isn’t it cool? It’s a picture of the shop.” Maddie set a paintbrush on the easel ledge. “Ti let me help paint.”
He eyed her paint-smudged fingers. “I see that. How about you go wash up before we eat?”
“Right now?”
Face stern, he dipped his chin at her.
“Yes, sir.” She trudged up from the lawn chair and across the patio.
Ti mixed red and blue paint on her palette with her knife. “She’s a natural artist.”
He wasn’t about to tell her art was part of Maddie’s DNA. He tapped his shoe against a root and motioned to the camera slung over the chair. “Do you take photos as well as you paint?”
Her brush hiccupped across the canvas. Recovering, she resumed her graceful movement. “They’re both just hobbies. Outlets I picked up as a kid.”
The slight quiver to her voice hinted to something unspoken. But the more she lost herself in the imagery in front of her, the more her shoulders seemed to relax. “I had this silly dream of opening my own gallery one day.”
“Why didn’t you?” Drew took Maddie’s seat.
“No point chasing childhood daydreams, right?”
“Says the girl insisting I be less practical.”
All smiles, Ti threatened to tattoo him with her fan brush.
“Seriously, though. You could open any kind of gallery you wanted. Where’d you learn to paint like that?”
She scrunched her lips together as if debating whether or not to tell him. “Sorry. That’s classified.”
“Oh, c’mon.” He stretched back against the seat, foot propped up on his knee. “I think the owner has the right to know his artist’s credentials.”
Moaning, she craned her head to the sky and then stabbed the paintbrush in the air at him. “Fine. But no laughing.”
Now he was intrigued. “Promise.”
“Bob Ross.” She returned to painting but peeked a sideways glance at him.
He tried to school his face. “The afro dude on PBS?”
“Don’t mock.” She poked him with the end of her brush. “The guy was an artistic genius.”
“I’m not mocking. Just surprised.”
“That I had cable as a kid?”
Eyes rolling, he nudged her back. “That you gleaned so much from a TV show.”
Ti added striking definition to the painted shutters with the edge of her knife. “Trust me. I owe the foundation of my technique to him. But it was more than that. He knew how to create these entire worlds you could escape into. So serene and magical.”
She switched back to her fan brush. “The first show I saw was of this gorgeous trail winding into a fall forest. Honestly, there wasn’t that much to it, but something about the path drew me in. I wanted to go there, you know? To be right in the middle of the trees. Figured if I couldn’t be there physically, painting it was the next best thing. Haven’t stopped since.”
Head angled, Ti took in her own world on the canvas before adding a finishing stroke. “What do you think?”
That she was far more captivating than she realized.
When she turned her blue eyes on him, it took massive restraint not to wish he could escape in the painting, too.
Keep his guard up around her? Right. How many more times did he need to prove that was pointless?
Listening to her open up rendered his muscles useless. Voice, too, apparently. Good thing he hadn’t lost his ability to swallow. Because he wasn’t about to let the lump in his throat show.
Cooper sprang through the screen door with Maddie on his back. “Ready to ball?”
“After lunch.” Grandma Jo carried a platter of simmering chicken and burgers across the patio. “Last one to the table does the dishes.”
A sidelong glance launched them into a sprint to the table and Drew into a prayer of relief for the interruption. If Ti stuck around much longer, he was bound to lose his resolve.
Coop swung a leg over the bench. “What’s wrong, hoss? You scared Ti’s gonna take you down?”
More like he feared she already had.
Chapter Nine
Afterglow
Five days hadn’t killed the afterglow of Drew redeeming his grilling skills. Now, if he could figure out how to bring some of that luck to the shop, he’d really be accomplishing something.
At his desk, he swept a page off the printer and glanced between it and the computer screen, certain one of them would belie the other.
He wasn’t that lucky. Even if it wasn’t much, the past week’s sales outranked those from the last several combined. He succumbed to a smile. Ti’s outdoor remodeling made an impact, after all.
Man, it killed him to admit that.
A series of laughs out front billowed in through the screen door. Drew set the sales report aside and moseyed over. Leaning an arm into the trim, he took in the same sight that’d become a norm around here. Maddie attached to Ti’s hip—two rays of sunshine swaying on the old porch swing that Ti’d found out back and restored.
Once again, she was right. Getting Maddie involved in projects around the shop seemed to boost her spirits. Or maybe it was just from spending time with Ti.
He never doubted they’d bond. Knew it was inevitable. But seeing Maddie come to life around Ti was terrifyingly beautiful, like a summer storm claiming the ocean at sunset.
Maddie dragged her bare feet along Jasper’s back at the base of the swing. Of course the dog had fallen all over himself when he met Ti. Because what would her résumé be without adding Dog Whisperer to the list of credentials?
Jasper rolled over in a shameless request for a belly rub. With his paws in the air and tongue out, he panted his contentment at getting both girls to fall for his charm.
; His charisma almost rivaled Ti’s. In a white textured tank top, a long flowy skirt, and earrings reaching her shoulders, she filled the space with her larger-than-life presence.
The wind toyed with her hair as she faced the sky. Most people came here to seek out the sun. With Ti, it was like the sun found her. It shimmered over her skin and highlighted her laughter, rooting a surge of warmth inside his chest.
When she looked over and caught him watching, an almost coy smile filtered through the strands of hair gliding across her cheeks. He should’ve looked away but couldn’t.
She handed Maddie some rope fishnet and a vintage mason jar the same shade as the Grecian Isle paint she’d used on the shutters.
Grecian Isle? Tell me I didn’t just think that.
Ti had him calling the paint colors by name. This was bad. Trying not to laugh at himself, Drew tipped his head back. Man, he was in deeper trouble than he thought.
“Morning.” A middle-aged woman wearing an oval pendant necklace strolled up to the girls.
Jasper hopped to attention and went to town sniffing the stranger’s ankles.
“Jasper!” At the snap of Maddie’s fingers, the dog trotted back to her side.
“Oh, that’s okay, sweetie. I don’t mind.” The woman gestured to the turquoise swing they were on. “That’s such a stunning color. I couldn’t help noticing it from the road. Do you have any swings for sale?”
Great. Let the eating of his words commence.
Ti slanted a wry smirk his way. “Unfortunately, no, but I’ll be sure to suggest that to the owner.” She rose and lifted one of the mason jars filled with the shells she and Maddie had collected earlier. “We do have these souvenirs in the same color, though.”
“Well, how cute. It’ll go perfectly in my sun room.” The woman beamed. “I’m redecorating—going for a chic beach theme. Got all kinds of ideas off Pinterest, but I don’t really have a knack for crafts. I’d hoped to find some homemade treasures while here this week.”
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