Steal My Magnolia (Love at First Sight #3) - Karla Sorensen Page 0,60

those rolls, if you please."

I did as she asked, then handed her the plate. "I know why you're pushing me, Aunt Julianne."

"Because I love you and want you to be happy and would desperately like some little ones to love on before I die, which just might be any day now."

I smiled sweetly. "I'm so glad we haven't resorted to guilt trips at this point in our life."

"I don't have anyone else to spoil, Magnolia. You are it. My sons haven’t found women to put up with them, and your daddy found the only woman in existence who would." At my laughter, her face softened. Her eyes went bright with unshed tears. "Someday, you'll have a family, honey, and you'll know the special kind of love that children bring into your life. Your parents being of the age they were when they had you … you’re as good as my own granddaughter, the way I look at it. I’ve always felt that way about you, since our momma and daddy passed away. Seeing you find happiness in whatever you do brings a different joy than anything else I know. And I want to see you loved, really loved, while I'm still here to experience it."

Coming around the island, I wrapped my arm around her and gave her a squeeze. "I know."

"I'll stop, I promise." She cupped the side of my face. "But just know, all our crazy, and we have a lot of it, comes from such deep love. We want the world for you. Your daddy and my parents did. Your momma’s parents did too, God rest their souls."

The conversation was over when she started on her food, and that was fine by me.

Nothing Aunt Julianne told me was new. Nothing I didn't know.

I knew they wanted to see me happy and loved. Tucker breaking up with me was hard on my family too because they absorbed my hurt like it had happened to them.

I knew what Grady was. Not just to me but in general.

And even though all our interactions through the holidays, save the texts on Christmas Day, had been completely professional in nature, it was all I could do to tamp down my excitement at being back in the office with him.

Maybe that was the strange ache behind my chest.

I missed all those things about him that made him attractive, the things that had nothing to do with the chiseled features or bright eyes or wide smile.

That he watched Home Alone by himself on Christmas Day, just like I had.

That every day that dawned with dry, sunny weather made me wonder what piece of nature he was out discovering.

That when the clock struck midnight the night before, I found myself glancing around the room for that tall head full of golden-colored hair, elephants and butterflies and all sorts of animals fighting for the number one spot. And when I didn't see him, that ache I was now feeling took root.

Kissing him at midnight in front of the entire town was a horrible idea, but it was all I could think about. For the first time in my life, I'd found myself thinking simply about what I wanted down to my marrow instead of what was the safest course of action.

It was a new year. Starting fresh.

And maybe simply being single at the same time wasn't a reason to see if Grady might be thinking about me in the same way I was thinking about him, but all those other things might be.

I saw my momma eating from her plate out on the dock and thought about how all the ways my parents were different. How those differences were what made them fit together so well.

Fire and water, I'd always thought of them. Nobody chose for them, based on the things that made them similar.

Maybe that was where I'd gotten it wrong with Tucker. He was so like me that we hadn't worked. And instead of feeling embarrassed, all I could do now was think about what that held for my future.

How some nameless, faceless man might complement me, simply by being himself. How I'd complement him, by being me.

I was done having people choose what was right for me.

Maybe all along, the key to my happiness wasn't in the safest choice, or the one that made the most sense, or in the path of least resistance.

Maybe my happiness was in knowing that I could take whatever leap I wanted to, and no one would have to