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“What are you doing for Vonna at the fair?”
“Selling cupcakes,” Maggie answered.
“Doesn’t sound like a real job to me, Mags.”
“Okay, Dad,” Maggie replied sarcastically.
“I’m just trying to help you keep your trust fund.”
Maggie inhaled, and the sweet buttercream frosting of the dozen and half cupcakes tempted her again. If this long light didn’t turn green, she might have to taste one. So what if she’d already had three earlier today? It wasn’t like she had any parties to attend these days. “Well, I appreciate you looking out for me,” said Maggie. “But I’ll get there. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“All right, lil’ sis.” Richard’s chuckle dripped with disbelief.
Maggie huffed once more. The light still remained red, yet no other traffic was coming from the left or the right. Not even one ahead. Just then she heard a honk to her right, in the turning lane. She glanced there and saw a sleek black sports car beside her. The tinted window rolled down to reveal the honker’s face. A familiar whiplash feeling shocked her body. She swore her womb quivered.
Caden Archibald.
“Richard, I gotta go.”
Richard might have said goodbye or simply disconnected the line. Either way, Maggie didn’t notice. Her eyes locked with Caden’s.
“Meet me over there,” said Caden, nodding in the direction of the park.
A stroll among the sweet gardenia bushes rimming the edge of the lake. No, thank you. “I’ve got someplace to go, Caden. Some other time.”
“Time is not what I have.”
“We’ve had eleven years, Caden,” Maggie pointed out with a raised brow.
“Magnolia.”
Only Caden Archibald could pronounce her name with more Southern twang than anyone she knew. He might as well have ridden up next to her on a stallion and tipped his cowboy hat. Then he flashed his killer smile.
“What are the odds I’ll get another shot of alone time with you?” Caden followed his question up with a wink.
The last time Maggie saw him, he was tiptoeing out of her hotel room in the wee hours of the morning for ice. He did look as good leaving as he did coming—literally. Maggie licked her lips at the memory.
“This is a small town, Caden. The odds are in your favor.” Maggie snapped into focus when a car honked behind her. Five minutes at a light and all of a sudden Main Street is five o’clock traffic.
“Maggie?”
“Love to, Caden, but, uh,” Maggie began, biting the corner of her bottom lip, “I’ve got a bridal shower to go to.”
“Not yours, I hope?”
The car behind her honked again. Maggie offered Caden a wink and sped off just as the light turned yellow again. In the rearview mirror, she watched Caden shake his head and laugh with that dazzling grin. It was a small town. If Caden were really here to see her, he’d find her—again.
Pushing Caden out of her mind, Maggie headed off to Erin’s event. At least she tried to forget about him. Amazing how if she tilted her head the right way she still felt his lips on her collarbone. Why did one weekend together singe her soul? No other man compared to Caden. What would be the harm in revisiting the past? Maggie sighed and blew out a deep breath of relief.
If anyone were to be blamed for Maggie’s lifestyle, she’d chalk a good bit of it up to Caden’s brothers, Chase and Jason. Using her hologram trick, Maggie had needed to connect to the SSGBP computer circuit. Back then, the brothers had stupidly left open an email conversation which trashed the contestants. It had made sense afterward, their pursuance of her and her pageant roommate, Rochelle. Truthfully, the only guy Caden was interested in entertaining then was Caden. Maggie had rebuffed their advances, and in retaliation, the boys set up a crass bet on Maggie’s future. They’d joked back and forth about her becoming the trophy wife of some rich man, or ending up with several different men’s children in an attempt to land her a man. Jason swore she’d lose her looks once the spotlight was off her. Some of the cruder comments were their inquiring about Maggie’s carpet matching the drapes. Her stomach curdled with the memory.
“Which is why it’s best to avoid Caden for however long he planned on being in town,” she told herself in the mirror, pulling up to the curb of the Southwood Garden Center. So what if the man made her feel like a horny teenager? That’s what her battery-operated boyfriend in her nightstand was for. As far as she was concerned, the Archibald family was bad news.
Outside the gardens, the blooming magnolias and gardenias sweetened the warm air. Thankfully the early summer days were bearable. She dreaded the weather in the next few months and thanked God for a working air conditioner. Now that she paid her own electric bills, she knew the price of a cool home. It still amazed her, considering how much she hated being hot, that she used to look forward to spending two weeks every summer at her family’s cottage in the woods in nearby Black Wolf Creek. The dense forest and breeze from the creek made the summer times livable.
“Maggie!”
The sound of her cousin Erin’s cheerful voice snapped Maggie out of her daze. Maggie lifted her hand and waved. Erin didn’t suffer the curse of the red hair Maggie and her siblings had. A sharp dark pixie cut framed Erin’s face and blew in the summer breeze. Rose-gold balloons tied to the two grand columns of the building’s wraparound front porch created a festive atmosphere.
