Page 11 of A Whisper of Summer Magic

“Like this.” Jackson stood, like he was at an audition, shook out his body and said, in a slightly higher register, “I’d like to take a look at the old orchards and berry fields, but with my injury, I need some options. Jackson, do you have any ideas?”

Then Jackson struck a different pose and said in a deeper, more resonant, slightly stagey voice, “Storm has a sweet top-of-the-line Gator in the equipment barn. I’d be happy to tuck you safely inside and play chauffeur for an excursion.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He sat down opposite of her and took another cookie.

Unfair he could devour multiple cookies and still look like he did, and she just looked at the cookies, and knew she’d need to go for another hated run.

No running for a while. Her heart lightened. See, she could do this reframing thing.

“Let’s go.” She sat up a little straighter and looked at the crutches Jackson had rented. Normally she didn’t think about how far the house was from the nursery or the equipment barn, but now…

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Jackson said and flipped the comforter back over her legs. “I’ll take you tomorrow. Now I’m going to forage in the kitchen to see what I can throw together for us for dinner.” He grinned. “Willing to risk me whipping up something using theSouthern Love Spellsbook? Does is work if you’re not a Maye?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But you can’t.”

“Can’t is my battle cry.”

She smiled despite the sadness when she remembered the night Grandma Millie had taken her turn enveloping her like a winter night, even though it was early June.

“Mine too,” she admitted. “But the book is gone. I think I accidentally torched it the night of Chloe and Rustin’s party. We were rushing to get G. Millie to the hospital, and I tossed it aside where Sarah and I had been sitting by the fire pit.”

*

“I don’t thinka man has ever made me dinner,” Meghan mused as she nibbled on the heirloom tomato salad with caprese cheese and basil spread on sliced, roasted baguette that he called crostini. She didn’t imagine many good ole boys from small-town North Carolina who’d done a couple of stints in the army and now worked for the local fire department would know what crostini was, but Jackson had tossed it out like a pro. Maybe he’d been spending evenings off at the Wild Side.

And that’s where the problem of assumptions rears its ugly head.

Although in her line of work, assumptions were her reality and drove her clients. The moneyed with their big plans and love language, demanding more of every pie, hired her to push aside roadblocks before they appeared and inconvenienced anyone.

Meghan plucked up one of the throw cushions on the couch and held it. It was squishy and soft—one of Chloe’s early needlework projects. Of course, Grandma Millie would still have it displayed—not at her formal downtown Belmont home, where she’d played hostess and town matriarch for so many years, but in her family home where she andher girlswould retreat for the occasional weekend.

Another wave of sorrow washed over her.

“Hey, Megs, is it the pain becoming unmanageable? What number on a one-to-ten scale?”

He was there before she realized she was hurting—more emotional than physical. His clear blue gaze was so pretty. Honest. Hard to believe he was real, yet impossible to doubt.

“I was just thinking about Grandma Millie. I feel closer to her here, which is a blessing but also makes me paralyzingly sad. I can’t believe she’s gone. Just like that. We didn’t even know she was sick. She didn’t—” Meghan broke off, not wanting to start crying all over again. “She helped so many people,” Meghan said. “At the funeral, the church was packed. People waited outside to pay their respects. We held the party in her home.” Meghan gulped to stop as a fresh wave of agony rolled over her. “So many stories about her generosity and sharp, though well-meaning, tongue.”

“You definitely knew what she thought.” Jackson smiled a little. “Though she never turned away from someone or a cause in need, she was nobody’s fool.”

“Yeah, there was a lot of subtext in the stories people told at the memorial. Rustin and his crew cooked a lot of favorites from Millie’s Diner. It was such an homage, although I thought my dad was going to bust an artery that Rustin was in the kitchen of his childhood home.”

Meghan winced, remembering the hissed scene between him and Rustin—her father, righteous and furious trying to throw him out. Rustin, Chloe by his side—pale and beautiful through the tears—fiercely defending his right to be there. Then Jessica stepping in to try to calm their father down like she always did, but instead of backing Daddy, she’d stood with Chloe and Rustin and then Sarah had entered the kitchen with Mr. Brewster, the family’s long-term family lawyer, who managed to get the tempers to simmer level.

That hadn’t lasted, Meghan thought, still a bit mortified that her father had been so angry about his mother’s will, though Sarah had continually reminded her that grief looked different on everyone.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.” Jackson’s soft regret brought her out of her memory of the new tension between Meghan and her sisters and their parents. “I was on shift, and we had several calls that day. I’d hoped to slip away to pay my respects, but it was impossible.”

“Your mom was there. Your grandparents too. I know your grandma and Grandma Millie were longtime friends.”

Jackson’s eyes cooled, and his expression turned remote, surprising Meghan. Something was up there, but she didn’t have the head space to work out what—yet.

“They grew up next door to each other,” Meghan reminded him, thinking back to what Grandma Millie had said about Miss June over the years, who’d been one of her longtime employees. Miss June hadn’t had the time or money to serve on the committees in town, but she’d always had a smile, and a piece of candy or crayons for the kids arriving with their families at the diner.

“I figured you’d be handling the will,” Jackson said, very casually, standing up from the table.

---