Page 37 of Sugar Plum Serenade

Temporary what? Escape. Adventure. Happiness.

Happiness shouldn’t be temporary.

She continued on, walking briskly. She wasn’t hungry, but coffee would be nice. Put enough sugar and creamer in it and a cup would qualify as a meal, right?

Hart’s Vinyl Depot sold excellent coffee.

There wasn’t much of a crowd in the depot, so maybe it was just a slow day all across town, not just in the boutique. Anna busied herself cleaning behind the coffee bar. Colt was nowhere to be seen, but he was probably around. Somewhere. Talking to Maude? Talking to another of the ghosts who inhabited this haunted depot?

She’d love to have a nice, long chat with him, but at the same time she wasn’t sure she wanted to know more than she already did. So many questions…

Anna smiled and offered a friendly hello. She was probably just happy to have a customer on this slow day.

Olive ordered coffee; Anna prepared it; Olive paid. So, now what?

Instead of walking out the door or moving to one of the benches near the coffee bar, Olive took a deep breath and looked into Anna’s eyes.

“You’re right. Tuck and I are… dating.”

“I knew it.” Anna grinned widely. “I’m glad. Tuck is a great guy, but he needs a good woman in his life.”

Olive wanted to ask… Why? Were there bad women in his past? Was there a deficit she needed to know about? What was wrong with him? In her opinion nothing, but she couldn’t say she knew him well.

For the past eight years she’d approached every man with that question, either in the back of her mind or on her lips. What was wrong with him? Something had to be. What was it?

“I’m not going to be around much longer,” Olive said. Anna’s smile faded. “But while I am here I want to help him, if I can. This thing with his grandmother…” She stopped speaking and swatted at the back of her neck. Were there mosquitos in the depot? Flies, maybe?

Anna held up her hands as if in surrender. “Maude, stop it. I know that’s you. Leave Olive alone!”

Olive backed up and spun around, but of course she saw nothing. She waited for another tickle on the back of her neck that never came.

Why was she tiptoeing around the issue? “I have a ghost in my house, my niece sees them, and Tuck is spun up about this grandmother issue. I can live with the first two, since I won’t be here much longer, but while I’m in Seawolf Beach I want to help him. Tell me more about these pearl earrings. Tell me everything.”

A good dumpsterfire was just what Tuck needed to get his mind into a better place. A different place, anyway. The call had gone out and he’d gladly left Ginny behind the bar. In the back parking lot he’d pulled on the firefighter rig he always kept in the back of his truck, and then he’d joined the rest of the volunteer crew and the firetruck behind a new restaurant on the highway, not far from The Magnolia. For a while he focused on the job at hand.

Which sadly didn’t take long enough to provide much in the way of mental relief.

He invited the rest of the crew to The Magnolia for a round on the house. About half of them accepted. The rest, Mike included, declined. They wanted or needed to go home. Maybe they’d just eaten. Could be dinner was waiting for him. Wives, kids, parents waited for them.

No one waited for Tuck. He’d never minded that fact so much before Olive had come crashing into his life. No, she hadn’t crashed. She was more subtle than that. She’d slipped in, she’d snuck into his life when he hadn’t been looking. There was no way he could’ve been prepared for her.

She made him long for more, for family and dinner waiting for him at the end of the day, for a woman in his bed who wouldn’t be gone the next morning. These thoughts had crossed his mind in the past, of course they had, but he’d never felt them so deeply. Nate Tucker didn’t do deep feelings. He floated along through life on his own and content. He had a booming business, a great house, plenty of friends. He’d delivered not one but two babies.

He could do without that happening again, but he did love having a great story to tell. That’s all this Christmas thing with Olive was. A great story.

One he had no intention of ever telling anyone.

She made him want more.

She terrified him, because he’d never wanted more so much that it was painful.

How did she know he was thinking about her? The text came in as he walked into his office to grab a change of clothes. He smelled like smoke.

Busy?

A little. What’s up?

Thinking about you. When will you be home?

He could leave the bar in Ginny’s hands, go home, and ask Olive if she’d like to come over to his place and take a shower with him. She’d say yes, he knew it. He’d never get over her if he got in any deeper. Wanting more was a trap. Normally he’d be thrilled that there was no chance a former lover would be waiting around the next corner, or might come into the bar after whatever they had was over either with a new fella or to check on him. This would normally be the perfect situation for him. Love ’em and leave ’em. Always. Anything else was foolish.

Probably by three a.m.

Her response began with a laughing emoji. Too late for me, I’m afraid. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.

Maybe. Night, Olive.

Night.

That ended the text conversation.

He thought about starting it back up again with a quickly typed I’ll be right there.

But he didn’t. Olive could break his heart if he let it happen. Something about her… something he couldn’t grasp… made him want what he couldn’t have more intensely than ever.

He could love her. Love didn’t last.