The Merriest Magnolia (Magnolia Sisters #2) - Michelle Major Page 0,3
the front lawn of the house he’d rented for the next six months.
An eerie blue light glowed from the window of an upstairs bedroom, which meant Sam was awake and playing video games.
This had been a crap night, and it was about to go even more off the rails. They’d only moved in the prior day, with Sam alternately surly and outright antagonistic.
Dylan didn’t blame the kid. Fifteen was a rough time for any teenage boy, let alone one who’d lost the only family he had in a plane crash then been stuck with a guardian who was laughably unequipped to take responsibility for another living being.
Dylan might be a success in business, but his single-minded determination had forced him to sacrifice his personal life. Not that he’d particularly minded. After having his heart shattered once before, he was in no hurry to repeat the venture.
He sure as hell hadn’t expected to run into Carrie Reed on a quiet street tonight. In Boston, where he’d lived in a modern loft downtown, his inability to sleep hadn’t been a problem. He could always find a party or neighborhood bar for late-night companionship. Or, as he’d taken to more often of late, enjoy the succor of background noise while he silently sipped his preferred whiskey neat on his own.
Magnolia, with its tree-lined streets and festive holiday decorations, didn’t offer the same kind of around-the-clock distractions. Instead, he was stuck roaming the neighborhood until the wee hours, needing only a light jacket with the temperatures hovering in the low fifties. That might be cool for this part of North Carolina, but after ten years in Boston, it felt downright balmy.
There hadn’t been another soul out so late, but the flash of a quilted red jacket turning a corner had made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
Dylan didn’t need to see her bourbon-colored tumble of hair or the delicate line of her jaw to recognize Carrie. It was as if the months they’d dated had imprinted her on his soul. He recognized her deep within his body the way a sailor sensed a storm brewing at the edge of a calm swath of sea.
Scaring her half to death wasn’t his plan, but he’d been curious about where she was headed. Although she was a grown woman, he couldn’t imagine her living anywhere but her father’s ostentatious mansion that sat in the opposite direction from the path she walked.
Her reaction to him hadn’t exactly been a surprise. He’d visited Magnolia a month ago, during the time that he was in talks to lease a downtown property that had belonged to Niall. He’d tried to buy the buildings outright but had been willing to settle for renting when his Realtor told him the estate wouldn’t sell. When news of Niall’s death had reached him almost a year after the plane crash that killed his uncle, his cousin Wiley and Wiley’s wife, Kay, Dylan had made the decision to return to Magnolia.
Sam needed a fresh start, and Dylan was determined to honor the promise he’d made to his cousin to take care of the boy. Plus, Dylan wanted a chance to prove wrong all the people in town who’d believed he would never amount to anything. He somehow needed that recompense to demonstrate he could handle raising a surly, grief-stricken teenager. Niall had been at the top of his long list of detractors, but if death stole Dylan’s chance for revenge on the man himself, he could at least destroy the famed artist’s legacy.
He understood that his mixed desire to raise the boy in a small town but also disguise that more noble pursuit with his personal need for revenge made him ten kinds of a jerk, but it didn’t faze him.
He hadn’t expected to be so rattled by Carrie. The quiet and shadows had lent an intimacy to their conversation that made his blood run hot. She’d always been out of his league, and not just because of her standing in the community.
Carrie had one of the purest hearts he’d ever known. Just being close to her gave him the feeling of stretching out in a ray of sunshine on a cold winter day. She was everything light and warm, and he had no business wanting her.
Not anymore.
CHAPTER TWO
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Carrie dropped into a booth across from Avery and Meredith at Over Easy, Magnolia’s best breakfast diner.