Page 43 of Sugar Plum Serenade

CHAPTER 17

He should’ve expected Olive to show up after last night. Well, this morning. A fantastic, foolish, life-changing morning. But he hadn’t been looking for her at all. No, he’d gotten lost in the routine of working at the bar and allowed himself to put her out of his mind for a while. He turned around and there she was, walking through the main entrance of The Magnolia, looking as out of place as she had the last time she’d surprised him by stopping by.

Seeing her here only reinforced his opinion that their worlds were too far apart to ever merge in any way other than the physical. The physical was great; it was different from anything he’d known. But that didn’t change the facts.

She wasn’t for him.

“Everything okay?” he asked as she approached him and took an empty stool.

“Okayish,” she said.

He grunted a little. “What can I get you?”

“Nothing. I have to be able to drive home tonight, and we both know what happened last time I was here.”

The band had been between sets when she’d walked in, but they were gathering on the stage again. It was about to get too loud for him to hear her. Maybe that was a good thing.

She glanced toward the stage, then up and down the bar. “Is there a place we can talk? Privately?”

Ginny had everything well in hand. There was no reason for him to say no. No reason other than he had zero control when he was alone with her. What could he say?

“Sure. My office.” He walked to the end of the bar. She left her stool and met him there. “Okayish, huh?”

Olive sighed. “For so many reasons. My parents are here. Tomorrow is going to be crazy at the boutique. And…” She hesitated as he opened the door to his office and let her walk inside. “Monday will be my last day there. We’ll be closed Christmas Eve. A couple of weeks ago I was spun up about difficult customers and now…” She laughed a little. “I’m going to miss retail.” She glanced around the neat, organized space. “It looks like you keep your books on the computer?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Not Dawn. She insists…” Her smile faded. She looked at him with those dark brown eyes that did him in. He saw her uncertainty. “I’m not here to talk about Dawn’s Radiance, customers, or accounting systems.”

Of course not. “Why are you here?”

She stepped behind him and closed the door, muffling the sound of voices, the clink of glasses, and the band as they started up. “I should’ve done this last night, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Then this morning you were sleeping so soundly, I couldn’t wake you. I thought maybe we’d see each other tonight, but then Mom and Dad came in and, well…”

He saved her as best he could. “Olive, say what you have to say.”

She placed her purse on his desk, opened it, reached inside, and came out with a small, gray, velvety bag with a drawstring. “I know you don’t want to talk about Maude.”

“No, I don’t.”

“But Anna and Colt asked me if I’d help, and I couldn’t say no.”

“My ghostly grandmother, if that’s what she is, is none of your business.” His words were sharp and intentionally hurtful. He just wanted her to stop, to go away, to leave him in peace.

He saw the hurt in her expression. “I suppose that’s true, but here I am poking my nose in where it doesn’t belong because I care about you and this is important.”

“Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t poke my nose in your business or don’t care?”

“Both.”

That should send her packing, but it didn’t.

“I’ll be out of your hair soon, I promise, but this isn’t mine to keep.” She dumped the contents of the bag onto her palm. “These are the earrings your grandfather, Phillip, gave to Maude not long before he died. She wants you to have them.”

“No.” A simple no should be enough, but it wasn’t.

“She wants you to have them so…” Olive hesitated, looked away, took a deep breath. “So one day you can give them to the woman you love.”