The Magnolia Inn(75)

“Cold rain is the worst,” he said.

“Amen to that.” Luke patted his shoulder. “How are you doing? We were sad not to see you at the birthday.”

The story of the dream poured out. Then he went right on to tell Luke how he’d felt that morning when he was close to Jolene.

Luke nodded through the whole story. “Has she talked to you about Jolene?”

“She told me that Jolene was a good woman and I should give her a chance.” Tucker rubbed the place where his wedding band had been. “But it seems so final. Like I can’t go back, but I’m not sure I know how to go forward.”

“It was final the day that we lost her. It just takes a while for us to get that settled in our hearts,” Luke said.

“But how can I be sure that it is settled?”

“I think what you put in the ground says that. I saw that you were burying your ring.”

Tucker glanced down at his finger and the pale line of skin marking the ring’s absence. “Is it possible that there’s more than one soul mate for some of us?”

Luke clamped a hand on Tucker’s shoulder. “Listen to Melanie, son. You’re too young to go through life alone and lonely. I’m sixty-five years old and Carla is the same age, but I told her to find someone when I’m gone. With her family history, she could live past ninety. She could have another thirty years with someone who adores her,” Luke said.

“But . . .” Tucker started.

“You look at things different when you’re lookin’ the Maker in the eye, just like Melanie looks at things different from the side she’s on now. If she said this Jolene is a good woman, then believe her.”

“Yes, sir,” Tucker said.

“Carla and I’d like to meet her,” Luke said.

Tucker couldn’t answer for the grapefruit-size lump in his throat.

“And it would have to be pretty soon. As you know, I’ve got a deadline to meet. Let’s go for ice cream on Sunday afternoon. Meet you at the Dairy Queen here in Marshall at four?”

“We’ll be there.” Tucker opened the truck door and ran to his own vehicle. He was soaking wet when he got there and shivering from his ears to his toes. Whether it was from closure or the weather, he had no idea.



Jolene hoped that by the middle of March the new website would be up and running. That would be a perfect time to start taking reservations and to join the ads for the tour of homes. She had made several phone calls to wedding photographers, florists, and bakeries. As soon as she’d compiled all her materials, she and Tucker would discuss how to price wedding packages. The way she saw it, they could range from simply renting the place for a few hours to a full-fledged turnkey wedding where all the bride had to bring was her dress. As she closed her laptop, the doorbell rang. She and Sassy both rushed to answer it.

“Why’d you ring . . . oh, you had your hands full.” She swung the door open so Tucker could come inside.

Sassy rose up on her hind feet when Tucker carried in pizza and then hurried off toward the kitchen, where she jumped up on the countertop.

“She loves pizza. Meat lover’s with extra cheese and marinara sauce,” Tucker explained as he took the first piece out of the box and cut it into bite-size pieces for her.

“I can see that. She almost beat me to the door when the bell rang.” Jolene got out paper plates and napkins.

“Like Pavlov’s dog . . . or cat? Anyway, the doorbell means pizza to her.” He chuckled.

“She never does that when it’s the ladies.”

“She can smell pizza a mile away.” Tucker stacked three pieces on a plate.

That’s when she noticed that his wedding ring was gone. That was a huge thing. She was glad that she had a mouthful of food, because her first idea was to ask why he’d taken it off. With the ring gone and the difference she could feel in him, she wondered if he’d found a final piece of closure that day. She tried not to stare at his hands, but it was impossible to keep her eyes away from the pale indentation on his ring finger.

She shouldn’t ask about that, even though she was itching to know the details of why now, where it was, and what had made him take it off. The silence was getting uncomfortable, so she started talking about the first thing that came to mind—the website she’d been working on just before he came home.

“This is going to be a fantastic website. I sent pictures of the first three bedrooms for the webmaster to get into the site. We’ll have tabs of each room with pictures and prices and the whole nine yards. We should talk about prices. I charged that little couple who stayed here Aunt Sugar’s old rates, but we can’t operate on those twenty-year-old fees and keep things running.” She got a second slice and bit into it.

“Look online or call around to see what everyone else is charging. Then we’ll make a decision,” he said.

She felt a lot like she had that morning when she’d looked at the calendar. It reminded her of that eerie feeling out in West Texas when a tornado was blowing through the flat countryside, only this wasn’t fear of getting blown away. Tucker had taken off his ring, and that was really big. She couldn’t wait for the opportunity to tell Dotty. Maybe she’d even call Aunt Sugar that evening and talk to her about it.

She grabbed a third piece of pizza and started toward the table with her plate, stumbled over her own feet, and barely got control, but not before she got marinara sauce all over her hand.