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

  "A mess is just an organization project waiting to happen, and that's my favorite kind of opportunity, Grady."

  Her response had me tipping my head back with laughter. Maybe this phone call, and she, was really an answer to a prayer. "Well, you lost me on that one, but I'm glad there are people like you in the world." I glanced at my watch, then back at the mess. "Do you want to swing by in about an hour? Or is that too soon?"

  "An hour is great." Her eagerness was a breath of fresh air on a day that had rapidly been deteriorating. For the first time since I started loading my car with boxes of inventory I wasn't even sure I needed, I could take a deep breath. "I'll try to leave the mess intact for you."

  "You are too kind." I heard the smile in her voice. "I'll see you soon."

  Why did my stomach flip when she said that?

  "I look forward to it," I told her.

  I disconnected the call and hardly realized that my hand was gripping my phone so tightly that my knuckles were going white. It took a concerted effort to relax my fingers before I set it down, my head tilting to the side as I replayed the conversation.

  Digging into my pocket, I pulled out a butterscotch candy, which I carried with me at all times. The yellow cellophane crinkled when I unwrapped it, and as soon as the sweet, hard candy hit my tongue, I felt my body relax. A little.

  Something ... something felt peculiar inside my head. To be honest, I wasn't sure I'd used the word peculiar to describe anything in my entire life because I wasn't the sort of guy who used words like that.

  But it was the only word that fit.

  Maybe my jokingly uttered prayer had found a foothold somewhere, or maybe I was truly losing my mind. For a few minutes, I did nothing except stare out of the large window facing downtown Green Valley. Because I was a couple of blocks off Main Street, with a field behind the building, the foot traffic was lighter. Only the occasional person slowed in front of my space to gawk inside.

  I smiled when I saw one such person approach the window, except she took it a step further and cupped her hand against the glass to see if anyone was inside. Maxine Barton, one of my sister's favorite people in town, caught sight of me and nodded in satisfaction when I lifted a hand in greeting. There was no jingling bell on the door when she opened it. But I'd be remedying that soon, simply because I liked the idea of it.

  "Young man," she said.

  I stood and jogged to the door, holding it open so she could push her walker through. That earned me a grunt.

  "You may not be from the south, but I can't fault your manners. Your momma must have done something right."

  I smiled. "She did a few things, ma'am. What can I do for you today, Miss Barton?"

  She waved a hand. "Call me Maxine. I've practically adopted your sister as one of my grandkids, so I think we can move forward on a first-name basis."

  "Maxine, it's an honor."

  With a roll of her eyes, she started to walk farther into the space and then stopped when her walker pushed up against some boxes. "Good Lord Almighty, Grady. This place should come wrapped in caution tape."

  "Yeah, uhh, I'm still settling in." I rubbed the back of my neck and fought an embarrassed flush crawling up my face at the way she studied the sad-looking room. Just like that, the pressure was back on my chest. What had I been thinking, telling Lia she could come here in an hour? I needed a week not to look like such a mess.

  "And you think this'll work?" she asked skeptically.

  "I sure hope so."

  "Your sister leave on her trip yet?"

  The change of subject was welcome, and I nodded. "They left early this morning."

  "Your momma ever plan on visiting here again, or is she gonna make you kids always cross the whole damn country when you want to see her?"

  Another thing that took some getting used to was the absolute unerring way elderly southern women had no compunction about speaking their minds.

  I gave her a lopsided smile. "I don't know if I like you bad-mouthing my mother, Maxine. She's the only one I have, you know."

  She sighed. "Fine. Can't be easy with her and your daddy being divorced as long as they've been. I probably wouldn't want to come back here either, what with it being his home and all."

  "Green Valley was never home to my mom, but she's glad that Grace and I are happy here. I'm sure she'll come to visit eventually."

  Maxine looked skeptical.

  I let out a deep breath. "Maxine, as much as I love being able to spend some time with you, I have someone coming for an interview in less than an hour, and I'd like to tidy up a bit before she gets here."

  Her focus sharpened on that little tidbit. "What's her name?"

  "Lia ... " My voice trailed off. "Actually, I didn't get her last name. But she heard I needed some administrative help."

  Maxine's mouth pulled to the side. "Can't think of a single Lia who'd want to work here with you doing this."

  "Thanks," I said dryly.

  "Oh, don't go fishing for compliments. It's not attractive." She turned her walker. "Grab the door for me, will ya?"

  When I pulled it open for her, she glanced up at me, wrinkled face thoughtful. "Lia, you said?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Huh." She pushed forward until she was almost clear of the doorframe.

  "Maxine?"

  "Yes, young man?"

  "Is that why you came? To ask if Grace left on her trip?"

  She gave me a mysterious little smile. "Of course not. Someone from church asked me why it looked like a crime scene in here, so I wanted to see for myself that you weren't doing anything illegal."

  I was still shaking my head as I watched her make her way down the block and turn the corner.

  "This is a weird place," I muttered.

  A gust of wind blew down the street, making tree branches sway, and I shivered. Given that I was raised and spent most of my life in California, the mid-forty days of an early Tennessee winter were something I was still getting used to. Some of the leaves had fallen, now that October was finished, and for some reason, it made everything look a little bit colder than it actually was.

  When I was back inside, I took a hard look at the space and knew I couldn’t do much to make it look any less terrifying for my first potential employee. Whoever she was, there was a good chance she'd walk in, decide the "organization opportunity" wasn't all that exciting, and walk right back out.

  Absently, I pushed the sleeves of my Henley up past my elbows and started stacking the boxes a little bit ... neater. The desk took a bit more time, and I was hunched over the surface, reviewing a piece of receipt that had gotten smudged in the stack. Was that a five? I turned the paper to the side. No, it was an eight.

  When the door opened, the change of angle in the glass caught the sun, and for a moment, I couldn't see a thing. She was bathed in that bright, golden light, and it framed her like she was meant to be under a spotlight somewhere, hanging on the walls of a famous museum.

  Something whispered through the back of my brain as the door swung shut, and I got my first look at her. I hardly heard what that whisper was because the second her face came into focus, everything went static and quiet. An eerie calm that I'd never felt before spread through my body like an ink stain.

  "Grady?" she asked.

  I think I nodded. Maybe I said something. I wasn't entirely sure because that peculiar feeling from the phone call ... I knew what it was.

  "Oh, shit," I whispered.

  Her head tilted, a confused smile frozen on her face. "I beg your pardon?"

  Shit. Dammit. Why were my palms so sweaty? What was wrong with me?

  "Sorry," I said on a rush, "just ... I wish I'd been able to tidy up more."

  Her shoulders relaxed.

  The dress she wore was bright yellow, and it made me think of the lemon tree in my mom's backyard.

  My mouth watered instantly.

  Her lips looked soft and sweet, and oh my hell, I was going to get sued before all this was over bec
ause now I'd probably do something stupid like hire her on the spot. Even if she turned out to be a serial killer.

  When she extended her hand, yes, I absolutely looked for rings, and my shoulders did some relaxing of their own when I didn’t find any.

  I should have been thinking about lawsuits.

  About inadvisable hirings.

  About anything except how long her eyelashes were. How high her cheekbones were. How soft her skin looked. What her middle name was, and why she loved to organize messes, and how she chose her major, and if she'd get coffee with me. If she even liked coffee. I'd get tea. Tea was great. I loved tea.

  She continued to hold out her hand, and if my stunned silence freaked her out, then she was doing a damn good job of hiding it. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

  When I took her hand in mine—the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen—my heart stopped, and in that suspended moment, I knew I'd never be the same.

  Chapter 3

  Magnolia

  In hindsight, I wasn't sure what I expected from Grady Buchanan. After a moment's pause, he shook my hand.

  His eyes held mine, and for some reason, my cheeks went slightly warm at the intensity I saw there. There was no way he could know who I was because I'd purposely not given him my last name when we spoke on the phone.

  Slowly, I pulled my hand away, and that seemed to snap him out of ... whatever it was.

  My eyes wandered away from the man in front of me—God blessed the Buchanans with a healthy dose of attractive genes, that was for sure—to the space around us.

  If there was a name for the thrill that ran through me at the idea of bringing a system to the stacks and stacks of boxes in front of me, I didn't know what that word was. I was smiling before I knew it, a real smile too. Not the polite, southern “bless your heart" smile I had to use often in my day-to-day life. People who were annoyed by something Daddy had done got that smile. Coworkers like Candy often found themselves on the receiving end. People who never even wanted to take the time to get to know me for who I actually was.

  As sad as it was, I knew how to wield that not-so-real smile so much more easily than I did any other kind. And it was a good sign that within minutes of walking into this horribly messy office space, it came out of hiding.

  "I wasn't exaggerating on the phone, unfortunately," he said ruefully. Grady shoved a hand through his hair—an undeniably nervous gesture—and I felt my smile twitch at how it sent his golden-brown hair into messy disarray. "I need help."

  "Yes, I can see that." I wandered past him and ran my finger over the edge of one stack of boxes. The desk was cluttered with papers, and there was only one chair. I tilted my head to the side, my mouth opening to ask where I should sit, when he darted past me.

  "I'm sorry, here." He tripped over the corner of some boxes and caught himself from pitching forward by bracing one hand on the desk.

  I swallowed a shocked laugh.

  Grady exhaled loudly, and I caught a flush of embarrassment splash across his chiseled face.

  I tried to see the similarities between him and Grace when he slowly, carefully pulled the chair out from behind the desk and found a spot for it close to where I was standing. It was in their coloring, to be sure; all the Buchanans had that golden look to them. It was in the eyes too, hazel and green, similar to my own, but his tended more golden brown, and mine looked like the trees in my backyard as they started changing color in the fall.

  And I saw it in his smile. Grace had a pretty smile too, I remembered. We'd only spoken a couple of times because it wasn't easy to see the woman who'd made your ex-boyfriend fall in love with her.

  That brought me up short, and I had to swallow past a rush of anxiety that I was not accustomed to feeling.

  What was I doing here? I never made rash decisions. But when he answered and actually agreed to meet me in an hour, I'd refused to give it a second thought when I rushed home and put on my favorite yellow dress. Overkill for an interview, but the Peter Pan collar and wide ribbon around the waist made me feel pretty and feminine, and I knew the color made my skin glow.

  In that dress, I felt powerful. Like I could conquer the world. And I needed a little bit of that reassurance before I had my first blind interview in my entire life.

  Thankfully, Grady was so busy trying to push a couple of boxes behind the desk for a makeshift chair of his own that he didn't notice my mental freak-out. I took a seat on the chair and let out a deep breath. He did almost the same thing, and again, I found myself smiling at how off-kilter he seemed.

  "Okay," he said, and grabbed a pen from the desk, but no paper on which he might write anything down. "So, business school, huh? That's ... good."

  "I think so," I told him. "Vanderbilt is a great school."

  He did that intense eye contact thing again, then blinked down to his desk. "Right. It is. I've heard of that one."

  "I was on the dean's list every semester during my bachelor’s and master’s." Carefully, I folded my hands in my lap and thought of what else he might want to know. "And the only thing I love more than finding ways to make things work efficiently is seeing this town thrive."

  Grady smiled differently this time, like my answer pleased him, but he didn't want to show it too much. "You said you've lived here your whole life, right?"

  I nodded. "I have. Other than going away for college, of course."

  He scratched the side of his face, mouth opening and closing like he wasn't sure what to ask next.

  "Is this your first time interviewing someone?" I asked.

  His grin was lopsided and full of self-deprecation. "Am I that obvious?"

  "My grandma used to say that obvious is only a character flaw if you're a cheater or a liar."

  "That sounds like something my memaw would say." He tapped the pen on the side of his leg. The way he was looking at me was disconcerting but not uncomfortable. Like he just wasn't quite sure what to do with me.

  "Are you officially open to take bookings yet?" I asked.

  "Ahh, yes." He looked around at the boxes. "Sort of."

  "And you've already connected with the park rangers, right?"

  "A former one, yes. I, uhh, I had a conversation about my idea with Jethro Winston when I first got into town, and he had some pointers for me, but ... I wasn't ..." The pen clattered to the floor when it fell out of his hand, and he swooped down to pick it up. "I was still gathering information at that point."

  I hummed. "Good. I think there's a market for what you're doing." The boxes, so many boxes, captured my confused gaze again. "May I ask, though, what exactly do you have for inventory? I was under the impression it would be guided day hikes, that sort of thing."

  Grady grinned. It was so happy, so boyish, that I found myself unexpectedly charmed by the sight of it.

  "You know, I probably shouldn't admit this, but just before you called, I was wondering why I had all these boxes too and was thinking maybe I needed someone to help save my sorry self from getting too many ideas that I couldn't execute."

  My laughter wasn't much more than a soft exhale. Only a man who was crazy or incredibly secure in who he was would admit that to a person he was trying to hire.

  He continued, pointing at a few of the stacks. "I have packs in there. Boots and gear over here. My thought was that I could have a bit wider range of offerings than just the day hikes that most companies do."

  "Such as?"

  "Well, say you have a company that wants to do some team building or maybe even an overnight trip. If they had someone they could call to handle all the logistics, rather than make their employees purchase all new gear, we'd have things built right into the package price, and all they'd have to do is show up."

  My brain immediately switched into a higher gear. It would take substantial tracking to maintain that sort of thing, but as long as you had the right person in charge, it was doable for a smaller operation. "Food, too," I said. "You'd have to contract with one of the restaurants around here to make sur
e you could provide meals for larger groups that didn't break the budget."

  He leaned forward. "Exactly."

  "I could help you with contacts there. Like I said on the phone, I know every business owner from here to Merryville."

  Please don't ask how, please don't ask how, please don't ask how.

  Grady seemed like a levelheaded guy, if not a little flighty, but if he knew I was Tucker's ex-girlfriend before he hired me, my fantasies of starting fresh somewhere that had nothing to do with my father would disappear right before my very eyes like a horrible magic trick. With nothing more than a wave of his hand, this opportunity would vanish into thin air.

  "And you said you were an office administrator?"

  I nodded. "Since I graduated college. I've done it all: scheduling, payroll, managing the books, HR. You name it, and I've done it in some capacity or another in the past five years. I've managed budgets and foundation disbursements, and I've had to organize events, big and small, so logistics are no trouble." I leaned forward in the chair. "When I say that spreadsheets are my favorite things in the world, I'm being perfectly serious."

  He laughed, a big booming sound that filled the room. It was a happy sound coming from a man who smiled as easily as he did. I got the sense that Grady Buchanan loved life, and he probably wouldn't apologize for it. After the past year of mine and my growing frustrations with Daddy, it was that kind of freedom that I was craving with a fierceness that surprised me.

  We were going about this interview in every way except the right one. I had no references typed up, no letter of recommendation, and there was a good chance that if I filled out a payroll form right now and he saw my last name, he'd usher me straight out the door.

  "I'm ready for a change, Grady," I told him. "And I'd be thrilled to help you make sense of this mess, if you let me."

  His face changed a bit as he studied me, and I got the sense something internal was going on, some decision he was trying to weigh, and he wasn't quite sure how to puzzle it through. This man, tall and handsome, had a face that didn't hide much. And I found that I liked it.