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th sarcasm.
Jack let out a huge belly laugh. “My girl has a real sense of humor. She’s pulling your leg, though. We haven’t entertained on that scale, not for years anyway. Not since my Gigi became ill,” he said with visible sadness in his voice. “Those were the days.”
“So, Olivia, other than giving Martha Stewart a run for her money, what else are you up to these days? Do you work at Renault?”
“No, I don't work at Renault. I volunteer down at the Youth Center working with kids in crisis. I have a pretty busy schedule there, working thirty hours a week plus overtime if there’s a need for my services. Sometimes a crisis arises or a child becomes displaced from his home and needs immediate intervention.”
“Volunteer? As in paid volunteer?” Hunter asked with a raised eyebrow.
Olivia bristled. “No, I don’t get paid. Hence the word volunteer,” Olivia said with an edge to her voice. “The youth center desperately needs volunteers to support the center.”
Hunter let out a snort. He couldn't believe the nerve of people taking advantage of Olivia's kindness. “You volunteer thirty hours a week for free?”
“Yes, I do,” she said in a tight, small voice. Her cheeks began to redden with embarrassment and she began to squirm in her chair.
“Thirty hours a week is not volunteer work. That's a full-time job for some people. I have employees who work that many hours a week and receive a full salary.” Hunter let out a low whistle, then shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. “They should be giving you a paycheck.”
Olivia let out a sigh. “Not everything in life can be reduced to the almighty dollar. I enjoy working with the children and helping to make a difference in their young lives. It may be hard for someone like you to imagine, but they need me. That’s nothing to sneer at.”
“I'm not sneering. It's just that...you’re a bright girl,” Hunter said. “You should be running that place. If you went back to college and finished up your degree then got your masters, you -.”
Olivia shot him a look to slay the devil. Her nostrils flared like an angry dragon as she said, “Don’t you dare come waltzing back into town and try to tell me how to live my life!”
He held up his hand in a feeble attempt to ward off her anger. “I wasn’t trying to tell you how to live your life. I was trying to figure out what your goals are, where you’re going,” Hunter said in a calm voice.
Her lips curled upwards into a snarl as she spit out, “Right. Because everyone has to go somewhere to be complete, is that it? Well, let’s see. At this very moment my number one goal is to get as far away from you as is humanly possible!” Olivia stood up so quickly that the heavy, mahogany-colored chair turned over and landed with a loud bang on the hardwood floor. Olivia threw her napkin down on the floor and stormed out of the dining room as if her feet were on fire.
The silence that followed Olivia’s departure was thick with tension. Sadie sent a pointed gaze in Hunter’s direction and quipped, “I guess it’s safe to say that you never got your diploma from charm school.”
Hunter tried unsuccessfully to stop a grin from breaking out on his face at his baby sister’s words. Sadie always had a way of making him laugh, even at inappropriate moments such as this one. Wiping the grin off his face, he stood up from the table and pushed his chair back from the table, pausing to place his napkin beside his dinner plate. He might not have had charm school, Hunter mused, but he had certainly been schooled on proper dining etiquette. He knew how to mind his manners.
“That’s one degree I don’t have, sis. But I do have a master’s degree in putting my foot in my mouth,” he said in a humble voice. “If everyone will excuse me, I’ll go make my apologies to Olivia.” He leaned down and pulled Olivia’s chair to an upright position.
“Hunter! I think there have been enough fireworks for tonight,” his mother said in a warning tone, her eyes filled with concern.
Hunter winked at his mother then leaned down and planted a kiss on her pecan colored cheek. “I’m going to make nice, Mama. You know us Rawlings men know how to turn on the charm when we need to.”
“That’s what she’s worried about,” Sadie said with an impish smile.
“Let him go and make up with Olivia. He didn’t mean to offend her. After all,” Jack said with a chuckle, “someday soon they’ll be brother and sister, Mae.”
“Heaven help us,” Hunter muttered to himself as he exited the dining room. He could never think of sweet, beautiful Olivia as his sister. The feelings she stirred up inside in him were way more romantic than sisterly.
Hunter exited the house by the side door near the library, taking a moment to breathe in the scent of magnolias. The cool, floral scented air reminded him of a thousand lazy nights like this from his childhood. Although his upbringing had been far from idyllic, Hunter remembered the love and warmth of his childhood home. Despite their being poor, Mae and Sam Rawlings had never let their children doubt that they were deeply loved. And, if nothing else, they'd been rich in affection and had unselfishly shared that love amongst each other. He looked down at the steps and saw a pair of silvery shoes sitting there, glistening like a star in the night sky.
With the aid of the luminescent full moon, he caught sight of Olivia sitting on a swing that had seen better days. The swing hung by a gnarled rope that looked as if it might snap in two at the slightest strain. He thought it was a small leap of faith that Olivia was even sitting on it. But then again, she always had been full of hope.
He began to softly whistle as he watched her pump her shapely legs in the air to make the swing fly higher and higher in the sky. She sat there with her long dark hair blowing gently in the breeze, barefoot as the day she was born and acting as if she didn't have a care in the world. She didn't flinch as he came up behind her and gently pushed the swing higher. Her graceful fingers were wrapped tightly around the rope.
“How many pushes will it take to earn forgiveness?” he asked in a low voice.
He was greeted by silence. The only sound he could hear was the creaking of the swing and the chirp of a few insects.
“C'mon, Liv,” he said, sweetening the pot by throwing in her old nickname. “You can't stay mad at me forever.”
“You're unbelievable!” she fumed. She jumped off the swing, landing gracefully in the grass. She whirled around to face him. “You leave town for a decade and then you come back a stuck-up snob.”
“Whoa! Are you seriously calling me stuck-up?” he asked, shock evident in his voice.
