be falling for her again, but it felt like bad luck to give voice to that delicate hope.
“Everyone is going to hate him and probably me when he tears down the old factory along with half of downtown.”
Carrie’s breath caught in her throat, but she forced her expression to remain neutral. “That’s not going to happen. The festival was a success and we all see that the town is on the right track. I’m sure you’ve heard about the company that wants to buy the old factory. I think we’re going to have more businesses moving to downtown, as well. We have a meeting scheduled after the holidays. Dylan will see that he has options besides his plans for a luxury renovation.”
“It will be too late,” Sam said. “He’s out at the factory now and he’s going to sign a partnership agreement with some other creepy developer. I saw the contract on the kitchen table this morning.”
“You must have been mistaken,” she told the teenager even as panic snaked across her skin.
“I hated it here at the start and did some stupid stuff, but I’ve found better friends. Two of them have families who have lived here since the town was founded. They don’t have a ton of money and if everything gets all jacked up expensive, I don’t know what’s going to happen to them. Other than people are going to turn on me.”
“No one will turn on you.” She reached out to pat the boy’s hand, but he yanked it away.
“Dylan told me about your dad. How he was a big shot in town because of his art, and then when he didn’t have money, he only pretended to be a big shot.”
“Yes,” she said slowly.
“Were your friends still your friends when everything changed for you?”
Carrie pressed two fingers to her chest as memories from her childhood assailed her. “I didn’t have many friends to begin with,” she admitted.
“Why not?” Sam asked, inclining his head.
“I didn’t fit in.”
“Because...” he prompted, and she realized she hadn’t given the boy enough credit. He understood way too much about her past and the potential parallels to his own life.
“Because my family had money. It set us apart from most people in Magnolia. And when my dad lost it all, things got even worse.”
“That’s what’s going to happen to me.” Sam didn’t sound angry, just resigned. She hated that acceptance because it reminded her of herself at his age. “In my other schools in Boston, almost all of the kids had rich parents or at least they pretended to have these fabulous lives. When my parents died and my life wasn’t perfect, I was like a leper or something. Like if they hung out with me some of my crappy life might rub off on them. Here no one cares.”
“People care,” Carrie insisted.
“Not in a bad way,” he clarified. “But they’ll care if the guy who’s my stupid guardian changes everything.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He made a promise to my dad about the company and how it’s my legacy. Now he thinks he needs to make it huge, so I have all kinds of money or security or whatever. I don’t even want the dumb company. I’m going to study art, like you.”
“I wish I’d had the courage to do that in college,” she told him even as her mind raced with what he’d revealed about Dylan’s plans. “I was a business major and took a few art classes without my dad knowing about it.”
“That’s what Dylan said when he was lecturing me this morning. Art is fine for a hobby but I’m going to need to get serious about my future.”
Another dagger to Carrie’s heart. Not only had Dylan broken his promise to give her vision for Magnolia a chance, apparently, all his talk about her making a career of her art was just lies, as well. He might think it was good enough for her living in Magnolia, but he wanted more for Sam.
More than the town. More than she could offer.
Just as she’d always known.
* * *
“I THOUGHT WE were done with changes to the contract,” Steven Ross told Dylan as they stood in the factory parking lot. To Dylan’s shock, his potential partner had driven down to Magnolia after receiving Dylan’s response that Scott Development had a few additional line items to revise in their agreement. “But whatever it takes at this point. I’ll have my lawyers review your updates, and then we can both sign and move on from