Southern Seducer (North Carolina Highlands 1)

“This is for her, too.”

Letting Mrs. B lead me out of the kitchen, I cast Mom a glance. I need reassurance. I can do this. My legs will carry me where I need to go.

Mom nods. I love you, she mouths.

I kiss Maisie’s head and follow Mrs. B.

She leads me to a door at the end of the hallway at the back of the house.

There’s a curtain over the window in the upper part of the door, so I can’t see outside.

Putting her hand on the knob, Mrs. B. says, “Beau made me promise I wouldn’t say anything. But we adore y’all.” She cups Maisie’s cheek. “Your family is my family.”

I take a shaky breath. “Thank you. So, so much.”

She smiles, eyes kind.

Then she opens the door.

The smells of late springtime fill my head. Grass, clean air, jasmine. Everything is green and new.

A yard stretches out behind the house. It’s overgrown, the grass patchy in spots, but the way the dying sunlight cuts through the pines—

It’s magical. There’s a gilded stillness in the air. Brings back that familiar ache in my torso. The one I felt when Beau was around.

My eyes catch on a large wooden farm table in the middle of the yard. It’s set with glass hurricanes, candles flickering inside, and mason jars bursting with blooms: I recognize lilies, roses, peonies. All in soft shades of ivory and pink.

Milly’s touch. I see it, too, in the blankets draped over the chairs that surround the table and the lanterns that hang from the old oak beside it.

But the lane of rose petals that lead from the back door to the table—

That’s Beau.

Somehow, I know that was his idea.

I’m shaking again.

Mrs. B. puts a hand on my back.

“John Riley,” she calls.

I look at her, surprised. Beau doesn’t like it when people call him that.

Mrs. B. just nods at the lawn.

I look, and he appears, coming out from behind the oak tree.

Beau is wearing jeans and a button-up, and he looks so handsome and so wonderfully familiar my eyes flood with tears.

I’ve missed him. More than I thought possible.

His eyes are full. As full as I feel.

Oh.

Oh oh oh.

My feet move before my heart does. The grass swishes beneath my steps.

I can feel Maisie’s drool soaking through my shirt.

Beau moves toward me, too, and the way he moves, the masculine roll of his shoulders, the confident glide of his hips—

It all hits me like a freight train. The memories and the desire and the sense of home.

We meet under the canopy of the oak, sunlight dappling the ground and his face, raw with emotion.

“Hi.” His voice is deeper than usual.

He’s nervous.

Something inside me overflows.

Still, I try to keep my feelings in check. He has yet to apologize. Yet to explain himself.

“Hi.”

He looks at Maisie. Smiles, not with his mouth but with his eyes. “Hey, Miss Maisie. I missed you.” He looks at me. “I missed you, too.”

I nod. “Okay,” I say.

I’m gonna be okay. Whatever happens next, I will be all right.

“Can I take her for you? I don’t mind holding her.”

He takes a step forward. I have to strain my neck to look up at him.

“I’ve got her,” I say.

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I know it’s past her bedtime, so I’ll get right to it. I wanted to apologize to you both. For being a stubborn, selfish idiot. You were right. About everything. My future, mostly. I didn’t understand that light could come with darkness. I was ignorant, and that’s on me. But now I see my diagnosis differently. The future I thought I couldn’t give you—life doesn’t guarantee us anything. But I can promise you I’ll bust my ass to give you and Maisie the happiness y’all deserve. I want to be happy with you, Annabel. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like my future is a dead end. I’m hopeful. So I’m begging you to forgive me. Please.”

I wipe away a tear with the crook of my first finger. “What’s changed?”

Beau tells me about Nate Kingsley, and his dad going down to the distillery before he died, and the end of the feud between their families.

He tells me he sees it now, how his dad was capable of good things even though he met with a bad end.

Beau says he believes he has the tools to seek out a different end for himself.

I listen, and I cry.

I cry because I’m so happy for him.

I cry because I’m angry he has to go through this.

I cry because I’m so in love with him, and I feel lucky to be a part of this extraordinary man’s extraordinary life. No matter what the rest of it looks like.

“But there’s still that uncertainty,” he says. “My possible diagnosis is the same.”

“But it’s your attitude about it that’s different now,” I say. “And that changes everything.”