Sugar Plum Serenade (Seawolf Beach #2)

Chapter 17

He should’ve expected Olive to show up after last night. Well, this morning. A fantastic, foolish, life-changing morning. But he hadn’t been looking for her at all. No, he’d gotten lost in the routine of working at the bar and allowed himself to put her out of his mind for a while. He turned around and there she was, walking through the main entrance of The Magnolia, looking as out of place as she had the last time she’d surprised him by stopping by.

Seeing her here only reinforced his opinion that their worlds were too far apart to ever merge in any way other than the physical. The physical was great; it was different from anything he’d known. But that didn’t change the facts.

She wasn’t for him.

“Everything okay?” he asked as she approached him and took an empty stool.

“Okayish,” she said.

He grunted a little. “What can I get you?”

“Nothing. I have to be able to drive home tonight, and we both know what happened last time I was here.”

The band had been between sets when she’d walked in, but they were gathering on the stage again. It was about to get too loud for him to hear her. Maybe that was a good thing.

She glanced toward the stage, then up and down the bar. “Is there a place we can talk? Privately?”

Ginny had everything well in hand. There was no reason for him to say no. No reason other than he had zero control when he was alone with her. What could he say?

“Sure. My office.” He walked to the end of the bar. She left her stool and met him there. “Okayish, huh?”

Olive sighed. “For so many reasons. My parents are here. Tomorrow is going to be crazy at the boutique. And…” She hesitated as he opened the door to his office and let her walk inside. “Monday will be my last day there. We’ll be closed Christmas Eve. A couple of weeks ago I was spun up about difficult customers and now…” She laughed a little. “I’m going to miss retail.” She glanced around the neat, organized space. “It looks like you keep your books on the computer?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Not Dawn. She insists…” Her smile faded. She looked at him with those dark brown eyes that did him in. He saw her uncertainty. “I’m not here to talk about Dawn’s Radiance, customers, or accounting systems.”

Of course not. “Why are you here?”

She stepped behind him and closed the door, muffling the sound of voices, the clink of glasses, and the band as they started up. “I should’ve done this last night, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Then this morning you were sleeping so soundly, I couldn’t wake you. I thought maybe we’d see each other tonight, but then Mom and Dad came in and, well…”

He saved her as best he could. “Olive, say what you have to say.”

She placed her purse on his desk, opened it, reached inside, and came out with a small, gray, velvety bag with a drawstring. “I know you don’t want to talk about Maude.”

“No, I don’t.”

“But Anna and Colt asked me if I’d help, and I couldn’t say no.”

“My ghostly grandmother, if that’s what she is, is none of your business.” His words were sharp and intentionally hurtful. He just wanted her to stop, to go away, to leave him in peace.

He saw the hurt in her expression. “I suppose that’s true, but here I am poking my nose in where it doesn’t belong because I care about you and this is important.”

“Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t poke my nose in your business or don’t care?”

“Both.”

That should send her packing, but it didn’t.

“I’ll be out of your hair soon, I promise, but this isn’t mine to keep.” She dumped the contents of the bag onto her palm. “These are the earrings your grandfather, Phillip, gave to Maude not long before he died. She wants you to have them.”

“No.” A simple no should be enough, but it wasn’t.

“She wants you to have them so…” Olive hesitated, looked away, took a deep breath. “So one day you can give them to the woman you love.”

That would never happen .

“I don’t want those crappy old earrings.”

“Take them anyway,” she insisted. “Then I can go to the depot, tell Maude… well, tell Colt to tell Maude, if that’s what it takes… they’re in your hands. Maybe then she’ll move on to where she’s supposed to be.”

“You’ve certainly embraced this woo-woo ghostly crap.”

“What choice do I have? The ghost crap is right there under my nose. It’s in my house, in Dawn’s house, and while I don’t see or hear anything like Colt and Ava, the evidence is pretty damn incontrovertible.”

He wanted to argue with her, but nothing coherent popped into his mind. “What if I don’t want a granny ghost? What if I want to go back to a time when I had no idea ghosts even existed? Colt is crazy. Kids have vivid imaginations. Why isn’t that enough?”

“Because it’s not.”

The earrings on her palm were old and probably worthless. No one wore earrings with those clips that looked as if they’d be painful. They probably weren’t real pearls but some kind of fake shit. He didn’t want them, but Olive wasn’t going to leave until he did. “Put them on the desk.”

“You can’t even touch these earrings long enough to take them from my hand?”

I can’t. “I don’t want to break them.”

Olive returned the earrings to the bag, closed it snuggly, and placed the bag on his desk. He’d toss them in the dumpster later.

“Sorry if I upset you,” she said.

“You didn’t.”

“Maybe I haven’t known you for very long, but I know that look. I’m not sure if I should call it upset or angry, but you’re not right . You’re not the Tuck I know and… well, know.”

Know and love? He couldn’t go there.

“Will I see you later?” she asked.

It was tempting. She’d be here a few more days, and the sex was great. If he could get past the fact that they had no future he could be with her again, and again, and maybe again. “No, sorry. I’m super busy tonight, and will be all weekend. I didn’t get enough sleep last night, so when I get home I should really…”

“You don’t need to over-explain,” she said. “I get it. See you Christmas Eve? Mike said he invited you to their party.” She looked him dead in the eye. “Don’t bother to answer. Judging by the look on your face, I’m guessing you’ll be busy here.” Instead of running she stepped closer, went up on her toes, and gave him a quick kiss. As she stepped back she said, “You made this Christmas… Christmas again. I appreciate that. Thanks for making me braver than I’ve been in years.”

She left his office without looking back. He should follow her and apologize for being an ass, but he didn’t. He wasn’t nearly as brave as she was.

Anna was expecting her, since Olive had texted on her way over. It was going to be a busy day for both of them since this was the last Saturday before Christmas, so best to get this taken care of before the long day of retail began. She heard the door unlock as she approached, watched as it swung open. Anna invited her in and re-locked the door behind her.

“Coffee?” Anna asked.

“I never say no to coffee.”

They both walked toward the coffee bar, Anna heading to the coffee maker, Olive making herself comfortable on the customer side. She reached into her purse, but Anna waved her off. “On the house. You’ve helped us out so much, I say you get free coffee for life.”

“I might take you up on that.”

Anna made two cups — sweet and light for Olive, black for herself — and carried them around the bar. She handed one cup to Olive then sat on the old, long, wooden bench. Olive sat beside her.

“How did it go?” she asked.

This is why she was here, right? Best to keep it simple. “I retrieved the earrings from Betty, who is very sorry about the mixup, on Thursday, and I handed them over to Tuck last night.”

“How did he take it?”

Olive took a long sip. The coffee was almost too hot, but she wanted a moment to choose her words. The point of all this was to help Maude move on. The truth might not help at all. But… she couldn’t lie. Not about this. “Not well, I’m afraid. He’s having a hard time accepting…” Ghosts, grandmothers, her . “Well, everything.”

Anna didn’t seem surprised or upset. “You don’t seem to be having an issue with any of it.”

“I don’t, which is really weird. It doesn’t make sense, but I’m different here.” Bolder, braver, more open than she’d been in years. “A few weeks ago if you’d said ghost to me, I would’ve been out of here like a shot.” Love might’ve gotten the same response.

Anna was an observer. It would be tough to get anything past her. “You care about Tuck.”

“I do, but I’m afraid he doesn’t care about me at all.” As she said the words she knew they weren’t true. At least, not entirely. She’d guarded her heart for years. Tuck had all but locked his behind a brick wall. “Tell me more about Maude.”

Anna took a sip of her coffee, then said, “I only know what Colt tells me. She’s sweet, loves to dance, talks a lot, and until all this happened he had no idea why she was stuck here. Lately she’s been driving him crazy. Now that you’ve handed the earrings over to Tuck maybe she’ll move on. Or at least stop hounding Colt at all hours.”

“I can’t believe that I actually believe all of this,” Olive said, smiling.

“You know what’s weird?” Anna asked in a lowered voice.

“There’s more?”

“Since I moved in here, I find myself occasionally using an old-fashioned word. Now and then I crave banana pudding, which I really didn’t care for before a couple of months ago. I’m a songwriter, and for the past two months I’ve been obsessed with the idea of writing one about pearl earrings.”

“I’d love to hear it!”

“It’s not done, because the story isn’t over.”

She thought of Tuck and the way he’d looked at the pearls as if they were a coiled snake. When would this story be done? Another thought crept in. “So you’re telling me ghosts can affect the people around them? That even if you can’t see or hear them, they might slip into your head somehow?”

“Colt says he doesn’t know, and he’s not sure how he can research the idea. But with me and Maude…” She shrugged. “Maybe.”

Olive took another long swig of her coffee, draining the disposable cup. “Could living with a fearless pirate somehow make me more willing to take risks?” To be bold, brave, fearless.

Anna laughed a little. “Who knows?”

That was the story of this trip to Seawolf Beach. Who knows?