Steal My Magnolia (Love at First Sight Book 3) Read online

  Steal My Magnolia

  Love at First Sight Book #3

  Karla Sorensen

  www.smartypantsromance.com

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, rants, facts, contrivances, and incidents are either the product of the author’s questionable imagination or are used factitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or undead, events, locales is entirely coincidental if not somewhat disturbing/concerning.

  Copyright © 2021 by Smartypants Romance; All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, photographed, instagrammed, tweeted, twittered, twatted, tumbled, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without explicit written permission from the author.

  Made in the United States of America

  Ebook Edition:

  978-1-949202-30-4

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Second Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Sneak Peek: The One That I Want by Piper Sheldon, Scorned Women’s Society Book #3

  Other books by Karla Sorensen

  Also by Smartypants Romance

  Dedication

  For the reader who might be looking for hope in the midst of something scary.

  I promise, whatever it is, you have the strength inside of you to get through it.

  Prologue

  Grady

  In the end, it was my complete lack of organizational skills that ended up being my downfall. Or my savior. Depended on how you wanted to look at it.

  And there was a long list to choose from, ways that I could have easily messed up the entire scheme of moving to Green Valley from California. Trading out a tech job that I was good at (but hated to the very depths of my bored soul) for a fledgling idea of a guided hiking and camping business on the cusp of the Smoky Mountains came with a host of ways to monumentally screw up.

  But I was the kind of person who refused to dwell on a single item on that list.

  Which was how I found myself in a leased office space that was probably too big for my needs, with gear and inventory that I most likely didn't need until I got my business up and running, and without a single employee to help me with the mess I was quite literally buried in.

  "Holy hell, Grady," my twin sister, Grace, muttered as she surveyed the disaster that housed the brand-new business. "What have you done?"

  "It's fine," I insisted. "You know that when you're organizing, it always looks worse before it gets better."

  One eyebrow, the same dark gold color as my own hair, lifted slowly, rife with disbelief and the slightest hint of pity.

  "Don't give me that look."

  She sighed. "I just think ... I think maybe you should take a step back, you know? You've got all these amazing ideas, Grady, and no one can fault your enthusiasm."

  But.

  I held my breath and waited for it. I didn't want to hear the but. I didn't want to hear all the ways this could go wrong, or how I may have bitten off just a tad bit more than I could chew.

  "But," she continued, "if you'd let someone help you, you could focus on the parts of this you're so, so good at."

  Using the edge of my booted foot, I pushed a box of hiking gear to the side to clear a path back to the paper-laden desk. "I'll hire someone." Rifling through papers, I grimaced when I couldn't find my laptop. "Eventually."

  "Tucker can help you," she said, referencing her boyfriend and my only actual friend in Green Valley.

  "I know he can. But he still has a lot of responsibility at the law firm, and that's okay because once we're up and running and I get some customers, then Tucker will have more time to help with the fun stuff. The 'let's spend our time in the beautiful outdoors' stuff that we both want to do."

  Grace had followed my lead when I decided to move to Green Valley, even though I'd been the one with the grand plan. So, it was with no small amount of irony that my twin sister was running a successful photography business in town. She'd also fallen head over heels in love with literally the first man she met once she passed the city limits.

  "Can I help you find some office help, maybe?"

  "No," I said firmly. "I will hire my own employees, thank you. Besides, shouldn't you be packing?"

  She grinned. "Yes. I can't wait for Mom to meet Tucker."

  "What if she hates him?"

  Grace slugged me in the shoulder. "You know she won't."

  I wanted to rub at the spot where she nailed me, but if I did that, she'd know it actually hurt. And that was my own fault because I'd taught Grace how to throw a jab when we were fifteen and some guy at school had a terrible habit of grabbing her ass when I wasn't around. She'd clocked him in the left eye, and I caught him behind the school and threatened to pull his balls off with a socket wrench if he ever touched her again.

  "I know," I agreed, "because he's perfect."

  Her answering smile was dreamy and happy and so lovesick that I wanted to roll my eyes.

  "He is." She sighed. "It doesn't even seem right that I'm so happy." Her eyes turned devious. "You know that means you're the last single Buchanan left standing, right? It's only a matter of time."

  I pointed a finger at her. "Don't you start with me."

  "Keep your eyes peeled, Grady," she said in a singsong voice. "You never know when she's right around the corner."

  "Which is why I keep my eyes straight ahead when I walk anywhere in this town."

  It was true. Unless I was forced into conversation with any woman under the age of forty in Green Valley, I pretended they didn't exist.

  And like the jerk my sister was, she cackled. "You can't avoid it, Grady. Didn't you learn anything from me and Tucker?"

  I rubbed the back of my neck. "Grace, I know because you found your perfect match that you think our juju family love curse is real, but ..."

  "It is," she cried. "Mom and Dad didn't work out because they didn't meet here. I'm telling you, when you meet her, Grady, you are going to know it in the depths of your soul, and there will be no avoiding the fact she's your soul mate."

  A growing sense of unease gnawed at my gut. Her surety was something I'd been trying to avoid ever since she met and fell in love with Tucker Haywood. We'd grown up with stories about the Buchanan love curse, something buried deep in the southern lore of our family tree. Grace and I never believed it, not even for a little bit, because our parents had divorced years earlier and were much, much better people because of it.

  It almost felt like a betrayal that my twin sister now believed this with every fiber of her being.

  "Can we go back to talking about my lack of help, please?" I begged. "I'd take any subject except this one."

  She laughed. "Fine. But bro, you need help, and you need it bad. Please promise me you'll work
on finding someone to whip your sorry ass into shape while we're gone."

  I held up one hand. "I do solemnly swear."

  Once more, she glanced around the space at the stacks of unopened boxes, the shelves I wasn't sure how to fill in the most efficient way, and the empty filing cabinets that would eventually hold ... papers and shit, if I could get a better system than the one I currently favored (piles on the desk). "You sure you've got this, Grady?"

  Her tone wasn't light or teasing anymore. It was chock-full of sisterly concern and a slight edge of pity that I seemed to be drowning in my own grand idea.

  "I have this," I told her, then shoved her gently toward the door. "Now go. And give Mom a hug when you see her."

  She nodded. "Hire someone good," she called over her shoulder.

  "I'm sure it'll be a match made in heaven."

  The door closed behind her, and I sank back into the chair by the desk.

  A match made in heaven.

  No, it turned out to be something else entirely, and if I'd known just how complicated it would be, I might never have answered the phone when she called.

  Chapter 1

  Magnolia

  When I younger, I used to think my family was perfectly normal. But isn't that the way of most children? We know what our life is like, and it's hard to imagine, until you grow up and experience a bit more of the world, that other people know life in a different way than you do.

  It wasn't until my daddy had the etiquette coach for my cotillion class fired—she had the unmitigated gall to tell me I was breaking a dress code rule—that I had any inkling that the family dynamic wasn't supposed to work that way. Young ladies being bred into the life that I was accustomed—wealthy southern families who valued a certain lifestyle—did not glare mightily across the room at each other, but the day that J.T. MacIntyre stormed through the doors like an avenging angel and informed her that her time of teaching the young ladies of Eastern Tennessee was unequivocally over, I received looks that made my eleven-year-old heart feel pinched and cold.

  Of course, as we left classes that day with my daddy's arm wrapped around my shoulders, he promised me something that I'd heard a hundred times since that day: "Don't you worry about a thing, Magnolia. I'll take care of this for you."

  My whole life, I knew that truth like it was printed on the pages of the family Bible, the one that used to sit on my grandma’s nightstand.

  God is good, and Daddy would remove any obstacle in my way by sheer force of his will. Amen.

  Only it didn't seem so funny on that particular day.

  The glares of those girls niggled at something in the back of my head that I couldn't shake until we got home and he told my momma what happened.

  They didn't know I was listening because I was told to go read in my room, but I tucked myself up at the foot of the stairs and listened because I thought maybe I could learn why those looks bothered me so much. I'd done nothing wrong, right? Black tights looked pretty with the dress I'd been wearing, prettier than boring old white tights, and when I stuck my leg out, the delicate pattern of the material made me happy. They made me feel like a princess.

  "J.T." My momma sighed. "You can't fire anyone who corrects her."

  "That woman embarrassed her in front of all those little girls." He sighed, and I knew that sigh of his. It always preceded a good rant, paired with frantic pacing around our kitchen. "And nobody—I don't care who she thinks she is—embarrasses our daughter and gets away with it. You should've seen her face, Bobby Jo."

  "Embarrassed Magnolia or you?" she asked quietly.

  I pressed my hands to my cheeks, because even now, they felt hot to the touch.

  The kitchen went quiet, and I knew my momma was either giving him a hug or giving him that steady look of hers that she was so good at. That was the difference in my parents. Momma was the steady one. Sometimes, I thought she had more pragmatism in her veins than blood. But Daddy was a bit more unpredictable. Especially when it came to the two most important people in his life: me and Momma. Even back then, I knew he'd burn cities to the ground for us without a second thought.

  "I didn't have her fired because she corrected her," he said, voice a bit calmer. "I had her fired because of the way she spoke to her. Like she was less. Like she couldn't have possibly known what the rules were. And ..." His voice trailed off.

  "Ah," Momma said. "Well, we can't have that."

  "Damn right."

  "But," she continued gently, "life is going to be full of hard lessons for Magnolia. There will always be people like that woman who don't care her daddy is white because I gave Magnolia enough of me. You can't protect her from all those people."

  He was quiet, the kind of quiet that was tense and scary, because it usually preceded a storm.

  "I know that." His voice was rough. I looked down at my arms, a deep golden tan, a color I loved because I always felt like God must've poured a little bit of Daddy and a little of Momma into one giant paint can and mixed it up until He found the perfect blend. "But, by God, I will not sit by if I see it happen. Anyone who makes our daughter feel like she's less will have the full wrath of hell brought down upon them."

  My heart didn't feel pinched or cold when I heard him say it like that. I felt loved and protected. I knew I'd always have someone to face the world on my behalf. Wasn't that what daddies were supposed to do?

  Momma laughed under her breath. "Maybe you could teach her how to fight some of her own battles."

  "Why would I do that? If I can fight them for her, doesn't that make her life easier?"

  His genuine confusion had my face scrunched tight with the same feeling. My life had been pretty easy, and I knew now, it was a byproduct of the fact that both my parents came from families so wealthy that it was tacky to bring it up in public. But back then, I took it for granted. That was my normal, and kids can't be faulted for the way their parents raise them. All we can do is try not to let them twist us up if their own issues bleed into those choices.

  Thinking about that day, when the eleven-year-old me sat on the stairs and listened to my daddy ask that question, I should've known I was in trouble.

  I should've known that when I became an adult and was trying to find my foothold in this life I was born, I'd still be bearing the weight of my father trying to make my life as easy as possible for the simple reason he didn't want to witness me struggle.

  Not only was that not normal, but by all the saints and apostles in heaven, I knew exactly how downright unhealthy it was.

  Which is how I found myself at the age of twenty-six, working for my father and wondering how I'd let things get this far.

  He was pacing my office, hat ripped off his head and clutched tight in his fist. "It's not right, Magnolia."

  "Daddy," I said calmly, "why don't you take a few deep breaths, and I'll explain to you why it's perfectly fine."

  That hat pointed in my direction like an accusing finger. "She shouldn't have undermined you in that meeting. Anyone working in that office knows you're in charge. You run the show, and if you say that we're coming in over budget, then we're over budget."

  The hands I had resting on my lap flexed for a moment. I wanted to scream at him for being such an overbearing ass, but I took a deep breath of my own and schooled my facial expression. Those cotillion etiquette classes—once I got a new teacher—came in handy just about on a daily basis. Ironically, I needed them most in dealing with my father.

  "She was right."

  "She was ..." His voice trailed off, and he gaped in my direction. "No, she wasn't."

  I stared at him, the same steady look that my momma was so good at. Finally, I saw his shoulders relax. "I ran the numbers wrong in one spot when I was doing the bookkeeping. I forgot about one invoice that was paid when I thought it wasn't. It was a simple mistake, but she noticed, and it was perfectly acceptable for her to let me know before anything was approved by the board."

  Daddy's face turned an unattractive shade of purple, w
hich, for as handsome as he was, was not a good look for him. If I'd been able to give that color a name in a paint fan deck that they kept down at the Eager Beaver Hardware store, it would be something like Unreasonable Eggplant or Authoritarian Aubergine.

  Something you need to understand about my father is that he loved me. He loved my mother. And he loved running the Green Valley Chamber of Commerce. Those three things defined him almost entirely. The problem lay somewhere buried in the first two things because he'd allowed that love to become something it shouldn't be.

  Ever since I graduated with a degree in business administration four years ago, I’d been my father’s office manager, and for all four of those years, he'd systematically cultivated a work environment where I, alongside him, reigned supreme. Anyone who challenged or disrespected me was dispatched with alacrity. Not by me, of course, but by my father, who wouldn't tolerate such things.

  Not that it had happened a lot, but occasionally, a puffed-up peacock waltzed into our office demanding something for their business in town, and without knowing the politics of who I was, who he was, or what families I belonged to in the Green Valley hierarchy, they'd treat me as nothing more than a glorified coffee-maker.

  That man, I can hardly remember his name now, called me "Girl" and told me how he wanted his coffee fixed. No "please." No "thank you." (He had a Northern accent though, which I feel is important to the story.)