Maggie nodded. “Okay, that I get. It’s worse for women who are over twenty-one and not married.”
Caden reached across the table. “Not that I’m complaining, but I can’t imagine you haven’t been proposed to.”
Allowing him to take her hand, Maggie lowered her lashes. “I’ve been proposed to. I just never accepted.”
“Why?”
Because of what your brothers tried to predict about me, she thought. Instead, Maggie inhaled. Everyone had returned from the buffet line, and the delicious smells of fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, as well as greens, wafted to the table. She already knew Caden disliked his brothers as much as she did. Why add fuel to the fire?
“We should eat,” Maggie suggested and pulled her hand away.
* * *
After dinner everyone dispersed for their own activities. Mitchell Swayne stepped up to Caden for a private conversation. Caden balanced himself on his heels, prepared for a battle. Alone, Caden led the apology first. Mitchell was kind enough to hear him out.
“I guess you can say I was caught up in the emotion of my mother’s announcement and the end of an era. It felt like the beginning of a new one,” explained Caden. “You know, after being reunited with Maggie, I knew I never want to be apart from her again.” His answer was sincere. Maybe it was the spell of the city, or maybe Maggie did hold a magical power over him. Either way,
he felt his words deep in his heart.
“I’m not going to say I approve of the way you proposed to my daughter,” said her father, sticking out his hand for a shake, “but I can say I’ve never seen her so happy in a while.”
Caden wondered if Maggie’s unhappiness stemmed from the family’s financial woes. Mr. and Mrs. Swayne put on a brave front. Caden would never know there was a problem. Maybe tonight Maggie would feel like talking about things. He’d opened up with her about his fear of weddings. Maybe after a quiet glass of wine she would feel like opening up to him.
“Sir.” Caden cleared his throat. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for Maggie.”
Mitchell patted Caden’s shoulder while shaking his hand. “All right, I will take your word for it. For now.”
Maggie ambled over to them and fitted herself against Caden’s frame. She pressed her left hand against his chest. A part of him knew this was for show—maybe even to irritate her father—but Caden didn’t care. He’d take whatever attention and touch he could get.
“What is up for now?” Heat lightning lit the darkening sky as Maggie raised her brow.
“I was just congratulating Caden, sweetheart,” said Mitchell.
“Was my father trying to convince you to relocate to Southwood?” Maggie asked him. “He’d love for me to move back to Southwood permanently and have the same day-in and day-out job.”
Mitchell nodded his head at Caden in apology. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried working the same job day in and day out, Maggie.”
Maggie balked and walked away from the two of them.
The bus honked, and Mitchell said good-night to them, promising to see them in the morning. Caden caught up with his faux fiancée and linked his hand with Maggie’s and walked her over to the curb, where a cab waited for them on Orleans.
“Dare I ask what that was about?”
“No,” Maggie huffed. “I mean, we will never see eye to eye. What has worked out for him is not for me. Or rather, what works for me doesn’t seem to be something he respects.”
Caden opened the cab door for her. “What do you mean?”
“You know how you have this fear of weddings?”
He slid across the leather maroon seat next to Maggie and listened as she confided in him.
“Every year when I was a kid, I loved going to the fair. I love the thrill of the rides, as you can tell.” She lifted her eyes toward him and smirked. “But at an early age, I hated the merry-go-round. My parents would wait for me and my sister after every ride. The roller coasters took me through all kinds of emotions. At the end of each ride, no matter how scary, I knew they’d be there.”
In the darkness of the cab, Caden took Maggie’s hand in his and stroked her soft skin between her thumb and forefinger and drew circles.
“The thing with the merry-go-round is that I got nothing from it,” she said. “We go around and around, see the same thing, and there were my parents. It was boring. Boring beyond the fact that it scared me.”
“So you think staying in Southwood is the merry-go-round?”