pocket of her jeans and hit a few buttons. “It reminds me of my mama. She was in a hotel room when she overdosed, and this was playing on her phone when they found her—over and over again. I should’ve cut her some slack, but I was just a kid and I didn’t understand the darkness or the sadness.”
He drew her close and held her as they listened to Sarah McLachlan sing “Angel.” His sadness was very different from Jolene’s or the singer’s, but he could relate to the pain that it caused, because the end result was the same.
“Songs speak to me,” she whispered. “They always have. They get down into my heart and strike emotions so deep that I wonder where they come from.”
“Me, too.” He had to swallow several times for the lump in his throat to disappear.
She took a step back and his arms felt empty.
“What song reminds you of the Magnolia Inn?” he asked.
She drew the tail of her T-shirt up to wipe her eyes. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Hey, we listened to music all the time when I was on the police force. You’d be surprised what songs bring back memories to me.” He wasn’t about to tell her that he couldn’t even listen to Jamey Johnson sing “Lead Me Home,” because that’s what they had played at Melanie’s funeral.
“Aunt Sugar would dance around the dining room with Uncle Jasper to Mary Chapin Carpenter singing, ‘I Feel Lucky.’ When I hear that song, I think of how much they were in love and they didn’t have to go outside this inn to . . .” She paused for a breath. “And I’m not sure how to explain.”
“Maybe the inn really is magical.” Tucker reached for her phone and brought up “I Feel Lucky,” laid it on the counter, and held out a hand. “Can I have this dance, Miz Jolene?”
She put one hand in his and the other on his shoulder. She was a very good swing dancer. When he spun her out and brought her back to his chest, she didn’t miss a single beat. By the time the song ended, they were both breathless, and there wasn’t a tear in her eyes.
In that moment, he realized that Jolene was more than a partner. She was his friend, the first one he’d made since Melanie died. With sideways glances, he studied her. She was definitely what they talked about when they said dynamite came in small packages. She’d endured so much at such a young age, and yet she was kind, sweet, and the hardest-working woman he’d ever known. She and Melanie would have been good friends for sure.
“I bet Uncle Jasper and Aunt Sugar have been dancing like that all over. I haven’t done that in a long time. That was fun,” she said as she sat down at the table.
“Yes, it was,” he said. “We’ll have to do it more often.”
Columbus, Georgia
Five days after leaving Jefferson, Jasper and Sugar reached the Georgia line. Sugar awoke in the middle of the night and eased out of bed. She poured herself a glass of milk, opened the mini blinds above the booth-type table to look at the stars, and imagined her niece sitting at the table back in Jefferson, having a late-night snack before she went to bed. Tucker was there, but she could only see him in his stained jeans and shirt, like the picture Jolene had sent. He was a good-looking man with all that dark hair.
Her phone was lying on the table, so she picked it up and brought up the photograph again. Tucker looked happy. She flipped past that one to one of Jolene with a smudge of dirt on her face. Without thinking, Sugar tried to wipe it away with a fingertip.
“God, I miss home so much. I’m so homesick I could just cry,” she muttered and then checked to be sure that she hadn’t awakened Jasper.
What had she been thinking, leaving the place where she’d been born and lived her whole life? She had roots, not wings. She didn’t necessarily want to go back to the inn, but she did want to go home.
Where are you going to live? a pesky voice in her head asked.
A few keystrokes on her phone brought up Dixie Realty. In only a few minutes she’d found several suitable places. She and Jasper didn’t need a big house. Just a small one with two bedrooms would be fine. Jolene had her own place