The Sweetest September (Home in Magnolia Bend) (25 page)

“I know. But what is a house if it can’t be a home?”

“My God, you do love her.”

“Bingo. You’re clueing in. Now, can Bart stay with you for a few days?”

Abigail looked down at the golden retriever at her feet, smiling up at her with a doggy grin. She sighed. “Sure. Birdie will be thrilled.”

“Thanks.”

“So you’re going to give up Breezy Hill for a chance with that smart-ass blonde.”

“You bet your own smart ass I am.”

Abigail laughed. “Life sure surprises you sometimes.”

John looked around the kitchen of the house he’d loved for over a decade and then looked back at his sister. “But thank God that it does.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

S
HELBY
ARRIVED
IN
Seattle to overcast dark skies and her mother waiting in a Mercedes. That little fact shocked the hell out of her, because the Mackeys sent car service to the airport for pickup.

“Good God, Shelby,” her mother said when she slipped into the front seat after having tipped the porter, “you look like hell.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Shelby drawled, pulling the door closed, grateful for the warmth of the heated leather seats. It was the little things that got a girl through the shittiness of life.

Marilyn pulled away, stopping to honk at someone who cut her off. “Idiots,” she breathed.

Shelby’s mother wore her dark blond hair in a controlled bob. Her touched-up eyes were dark blue, her long fingers elegant, her jewelry tasteful. She reeked of money, power and high expectations. Only the seats were warm in the car.

“How was your flight?”

“Long,” Shelby said, passing a hand over her face, wondering for the sixth time in the past ten hours if she’d made a huge mistake in coming back to Seattle. She didn’t feel like she belonged here, either. Shelby didn’t feel she belonged anywhere. “I’m surprised you came to pick me up. It’s early.”

“I have an early meeting and I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh,” Shelby said, knowing before Marilyn spoke it hadn’t been about a mother concerned for her daughter.

“And I was worried about you.”

Shelby sat up a bit. “Worried?”

“You know us mothers, we always worry when our children are unhappy.”

Since when?

“Of course,” Shelby said vaguely, staring out at the scant traffic on the road in the wee hours of the morning.

“Are you going to tell me about this man? About why you are back here?”

“Things didn’t work out. It’s best I come home and make a life here.”

“You don’t say it like you mean it,” Marilyn said, shifting lanes and sliding a glance over at Shelby.

Shelby didn’t know how to respond. Bone-deep weariness had settled over her and her mind was fuzzy. “I don’t know what I mean. I’m confused.”

“Yes, you’ve gone through much of your life the same way.”

“I really don’t need this right now, Mom. Really, really don’t.”

Marilyn closed her mouth and stared straight ahead into the darkness. Minutes ticked by. Uncomfortable minutes.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I ran away?” her mother said.

“Ran away?”

“I was twenty, home from Stanford for the summer. There was this guy. A surfer.” Marilyn’s eyes glazed over a little and a small smile tipped her lips. “He was something else.”

Ah, that phrase again. “You ran away with a surfer?”

“For a month,” her mother said. “It was the best month of my life. I planned to drop out of Stanford. We were going to open a surf shop in Laguna and live in an upstairs apartment of a friend.”

“You’re serious?”

Marilyn laughed. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but I had hair down to my ass, smoked weed like a fiend, and my surfer taught me things that blew my mind. I would have done anything for him. It was the most wonderful summer of my life.”

“What happened?” Shelby almost leaned over and pinched her mother to make sure she was real.

“Bobby robbed a liquor store and got sent to jail. I came back home heartbroken...and pregnant.”

Shelby swallowed. “What?”

Marilyn shook her head. “Daddy almost stroked out, but my mother, who spent most of her life in an alcoholic haze, snapped to attention, whisked me away for an abortion and dumped me off on your father.”

“What?”

“That’s why I wish you would have told me before now that you were pregnant.”

“Mom,” Shelby said, taking deep breaths, fighting back the shock and the tears threatening to once again make an appearance.

“After all that, I swore I would take control of my life. I got my degree, set my mind to take over for Daddy and married your father. He’s a good man and we’ve made a good life together, but I remember what it was like with Bobby on that beach, making love around the fire, getting high and being in love. You’ve always been like me.”

“I—I...” Shelby couldn’t even think of what to say. She’d never felt she was in any way like the tough woman sitting next to her. “I can’t believe you just told me that.”

Marilyn shrugged. “It was a secret I wasn’t necessarily proud of, but it was mine. You know?”

Shelby nodded. “Yeah.”

“So what do you want, Shelby?”

“A bed, some food and—”

“No, what do you want, sweetheart?”

Shelby looked at her mother. Marilyn set the car to cruise control and looked at her, eyes intent in the darkness.

“I wanted to live at Breezy Hill, have this baby and make a life in Louisiana.”

“And?”

“Things got complicated.”

“They always do. Do you love John?”

“You know his name,” Shelby said, not believing she sat in her mother’s car having this sort of conversation with the woman who’d disconnected herself from Shelby all her life.

“I make it my business to know everything about my children, which is why I’m really disappointed in Sela scheduling a nose job. She needs a lift. Her nose is perfectly fine.”

“I love him.”

“Then what are you doing here, baby?”

A tear escaped. Her mother had never called her
baby.
Ever.

“I don’t know.”

“Then I suggest you spend some time thinking about what you must do to get what you want.”

And that was the last her mother said of it. She turned the radio to soft jazz, stuck in her Bluetooth and made a call to London.

Shelby looked out the window, wondering what parallel universe she’d just entered, wondering if her mother was right for once. Maybe she needed to think about what she wanted and then figure out how to get it. Maybe for once in her life, she shouldn’t run from the things that were hard. If she wanted John, she should get him.

But maybe that was the kind of stuff that only existed in movies. The whole rush to the airport, feet pounding down the skyway, reaching the gate, yelling, “Wait!” She’d seen those movies, sighing at the implausible happily ever after.

She needed time to think. Shelby closed her eyes, her thoughts swishing round and round, and fell into exhausted slumber.

* * *

J
OHN
PRESSED
THE
button again, looking up at the huge ornate gates of Tangled Wood, the estate of the late George Montgomery Inabnet, founder of the largest furniture maker in the U.S., also Shelby’s grandfather.

“Sir?”

“I’m here to see Shelby Mackey.”

“May I say who is calling,” the clipped voice asked.

The father of her child? The man who loved her? The idiot who let her slip through his fingers? He settled on “John Beauchamp.”

“A moment, sir.”

Several seconds later, the iron gates parted. John slipped back into his rental car, cursing the legroom of the only vehicle left at the airport car rental, and pulled into the long drive twisting through the evergreen forest. Thank God his uncle was the sheriff and had access to certain files or John would have never found the private residence. The stone mansion emerging through the clearing made John inhale.

Yeah, it was the most impressive house he’d ever seen.

He parked in the curving drive with the carved marble balustrade and walked up to the grand entrance and rang the bell.

The door opened and Shelby stood there.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, pulling the carved mahogany door closed behind her. He shivered in his light jacket, but didn’t ask to be let in because he knew he was on thin ice.

“What do you think?”

“Did you call Carla?”

Shelby wore one of the outfits she’d purchased in New Orleans—a pair of jeans and a shirt that hung to midthigh. Her hair didn’t look as bouncy as it usually did and her eyes were swollen. But she still looked like the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“I’m not worried about Carla. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine. The baby is fine.”

She crossed her arms and looked at him with the same cute puzzled expression she’d given him time and again.

“I’m not here about the baby. I’m here about you.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Why did you leave me, Shelby?”

“I left it all in the letter.” She blinked away tears.

“You didn’t even give me a chance to—”

“Change my mind?” Shelby asked, stepping toward him. “Look, I know you wanted me to stay and raise the baby there, and I get that when it comes to chemistry, we could burn up a science lab. But when I really thought about it, that’s not enough for me. I don’t want to be second best.”

“Second best?”

“You still love Rebecca. Everyone knows it. Your sister loves to tell me.”

“My sister’s views on love are skewed.”

“Yeah, but still you don’t want me for me, you want me because I can fulfill some of your fantasies. And because I’m having your baby.”

“Are you insane?”

“No,” she snapped, her blue eyes igniting with anger.

“I love you.”

“No, you don’t.”

He swallowed and looked around, like there might be something there on the marbled, fancy-schmancy entryway to help him. “Yes. I do.”

“I heard you with your father.”

“You overheard a conversation, likely a partial conversation, and jumped to all sorts of conclusions.”

“You said I embarrassed your family. You said what you felt for me was not the same thing you felt for your wife. You have doubts. I heard that.”

“Well, yeah. Don’t you ever have doubts?”

She pressed her lips together, averting her gaze. She paused before mumbling, “You’re twisting my words.”

“No, I’m not. I’m trying to make you understand everyone has doubts. We’ve had them all along, but we also acted on something inside us. We listened to our hearts.”

“What are you saying?”

“Can we go inside?”

“No. Say it here.”

John sighed. “Okay. Yes, I’ve had doubts. I had doubts when I married Rebecca. I had doubts the entire time we were married, but that didn’t change the fact that at the end of the day I thought she was worth the trouble.”

“I read her journal. I know.”

“You really like to snoop, don’t you?”

“No, I tried to give the thing to you. I felt like Rebecca would want me to know about her...and you.”

He made a face.

“What? It’s true. And the only reason I heard you and your father is because of your mom’s pie. And really you should shut the door when you have a conversation like that.”

True. He should have made sure it was absolutely private. “I don’t mind you read Rebecca’s journal. I’ve read it, too, and it opened my eyes to a part of her I didn’t get to see. But I want you to know I never forgot our anniversary. I just forgot where I put the present and wanted to wait until I found it.”

Shelby gave him a little smile and hope blossomed. Rebecca had written some ugly stuff about him. Their marriage wasn’t perfect. Far from it at times. That’s the way marriage worked—some days you wanted to hug your spouse, the next kick them in the shin.

“I do feel differently about you, Shelby. I can’t hide that. You’re not like Rebecca, and the love I have for you is different. My dad called it a snowflake—the same, but different.”

She swallowed and finally looked at him. “A snowflake?”

“You know. They say every snowflake is different.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t love you any less than I loved Rebecca, and I may have gone a little crazy when I found your letter because I can’t imagine you not in my life.”

“This isn’t about the baby?”

“It started with the baby, but it ends with you, Shelby. I love you and I want you to come home.”

“But Breezy Hill is—”

“I love you more than I love Breezy Hill. My home is with you. If you want to live here, I’ll get a job here. Don’t know much about the agriculture in Washington State, but I’ll learn.”

“Seriously?”

“As serious as I know how to be.”

Then Shelby smiled. “So you’re saying you love me?”

“I love you, and not because you saved me from grief. Because you created new magic in me.”

And then she was in his arms, her lips covering his, dotting hard, excited kisses. “You came for me.”

He hauled her against him, lifting her from the ground, holding her tight. “Why in the hell would I let someone who made me laugh, hunger and feel again waltz out of my life? You taught me how to live.”

“Oh, my God. I love you, too. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to make your life worse.”

He shook his head, setting her back down before kissing her again. She tasted so warm and good. She tasted the way love should. His heart swelled, filling all the leftover empty places, making him feel as if he might burst. “You could never make my life worse than what it was, Shelby. I’m a blessed man—I get you and a new life. What more do I need?”

She pushed against his chest, looking up at him with eyes so full of joy it took his breath away. “We’ll need a place to live.”

“Where do you want to live?”

“Breezy Hill.”

“That’s going to be a problem, but we can find another house. Maybe a cute, country—” He glanced up at the magnificent arching stone mansion. “Your family is sort of well-off, huh?”

“We’re freaking rich,” she laughed, inching them back toward the door. “But when my mother picked me up this morning—which seems so long ago, by the way—she and I had a very interesting conversation. This morning, after sleeping like the dead, I had some thoughts about you and Breezy Hill.”

She opened the front door to a breathtaking foyer with a double marble staircase. John doffed his old cowboy hat and swiveled his head around in wonder. “Jesus.”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Shelby said, assuming the same tone his mother had on that Christmas Eve long ago. “And come inside so we can talk about my plan.”

“Your plan?”

She smiled. “This four-bit whore has tricks up her sleeves.”

John laughed. Because that’s what Shelby made him do.