Page 3 of A Whisper of Summer Magic

Meghan tossed the book aside on the fire surround and raced alongside her sisters back to the house.

Chapter One

June

Meghan Maye hadn’tclimbed an apple tree since she was twelve and intent on hiding from home and reality. And in a way, she was trying to avoid reality now. Dumb because, at thirty-three, she was beyond such out-of-sight-out-of-mind childishness. And absurd because as a corporate attorney she daily dealt in reality, though perhaps more in trying to assist her clients in dancing around it.

Still, the upper branches of the tree beckoned—not because the apples were ripe. They weren’t. And the tree hadn’t been pruned in over a decade if that, and it didn’t look healthy. But she wanted to see the view beyond the trees.

Always wanting more.

G. Millie used to say that to her. She and her father had that in common. But Meghan was at the farm—such as it was—to think because this was a rare weekend when none of her sisters would be around. Not that she didn’t love them. She did. And she was happy that Chloe and now Jessica had found love, but she needed a moment to herself to… A loud snap broke her internal bitch session, and she dropped down a foot, crashing into another branch.

Meghan staggered, tilting sideways. She scrabbled for another branch and clung to it as the one she’d just stepped on crashed to the ground. She slipped. Her ankle rolled—at least she’d had the sense to take off the Jimmy Choos she’d borrowed from her sister Jessica because they matched her green geometric printed Saint and Sofia wrap dress she’d worn to an important work cocktail party.

Meghan dragged in a calming breath, hoping her heart would stop pounding. She clung to the branch, trying to hoist herself up, so she could recover and figure out a way down that didn’t involve plummeting. She looked at the surrounding branches, estimating their health and sturdiness. She was at least twelve feet off the ground. The branch she clung to wobbled alarmingly. What to do? Reach for another branch—risking it was as rotten as the one she’d already miscalculated? Inch her way closer to the tree’s trunk? Or would it be better to straighten, protect her head and drop, possibly spraining or breaking an ankle? Could the branch below throw off her trajectory, or could she grab for it, hoping to slow her fall?

Gravity made the decision. The branch broke, and as Meghan fell—not in slow motion as other people had described accidents over the years, but in a terrorizing, dizzying rush—a snippet of a long ago Radiohead lyric from “Fake Plastic Trees” mockingly accompanied her descent to earth.

Meghan sprawled on the ground, part of a branch in her fist like a primitive javelin. Dead? Not dead, she decided. The sky was a deep blue above her, and for moment, nothing hurt. There was no sound. No thought. No breath. A peace she’d never before experienced.

Had she fallen into the pre-void?

Was G. Millie going to appear? Scolding her as she guided her somewhere Meghan had no desire to go? She still had so much she wanted to accomplish, and none of it at this moment was work-related. Nervously, she racked her brain—more good deeds than bad? Depended like so much in her life on the judge.

“Meghan?”

Jackson Roberts?

The thought of him being dead was almost as shocking as G. Millie’s devastating demise last month that she and her sisters and parents had only begun to process.

If she could have penned an opening scene for a meet-cute romance that her sisters loved so much, Jackson would have been the perfect hero. Too young of course, but maybe age didn’t matter in death.

“Like an Adele song,” she murmured, thinking of “When We Were Young”, “although you look more like a wicked angel. Why were you sent to cross me over? Wait! You’re not dead, are you, Jackson?”

She should sit up but couldn’t. She felt stuck to the earth, twenty pounds heavier, unfair as she had only indulged in one of the fruit tarts she’d made for Chloe’s bridal shower last month when she’d wanted to gobble at least three or four. Or more. And she still ran three hated miles every day before work.

His too handsome features resolved into something resembling relief. “Did you hit your head?”

“Is there a God?” she asked, curious.

Interesting that the end brought the beliefs she’d grown up with but had started questioning as a teen and rejected her first day of college.

“Why didn’t Grandma Millie come? Is she pissed I was so careless? She used to lecture me about climbing the fruit trees when I was a kid. Poetic justice, I suppose.” A wave of nausea and tiredness swept over her.

Shouldn’t such earthly pains and bodily discomfort be part of life, not death?

Jackson squatted beside her. His hands ran over her body. That was when she realized her wrap dress had snagged on something and come unwrapped. Good thing she’d matched her bra and panties to the dress, but the mid-thigh Spanx would not have been her first choice of lingerie to flash a hottie, even though he was too young.

“Hey.” She swatted at him, feeling she should make some protest. “Oh. My body still works. Cool.”

“It didn’t look like you hit your head.” Jackson leaned over her. “Can you breathe in deeply?”

“We need to breathe when we’re dead?”

Confusion clouded his beautiful light blue gaze for a moment. “We aren’t dead,” he said. “Although you shaved off a few years of my life when I saw you tumble out of the tree.”

“Years off. Great. Now I’m really pervy—likely I’ll be arrested soon if I’m not dead.”

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