Sugar's Twice as Sweet: Sugar, Georgia: Book 1 (5 page)

“Josephina—”

“I know who you are. The little blonde pixie who claimed to be able to fly, but I had to rescue from that big old oak tree.”

“I never said I was a pixie.” She’d said fairy. “I said that I was merely working on my levitation skills.” And she had been. In her head.

“You still afraid of heights?”

“No.”
Kind of
. “And since we have established who I am, that would mean you’re the one trespassing,
Bart
. Maybe I should call the sheriff.”

“Brett,” he corrected. “And you’d need a phone to do that.”

She shrugged, grabbed one of her bags, and dragged it up the stairs, smacking each step in the process, hoping he’d take the clue and leave.

“Fine,” he hollered after her. “At least let me bring in your bags, check the electricity, and make sure there aren’t any bears or squatters hiding inside.”

“Bears? Do I look stupid?”

“No comment,” he grumbled, picking up four bags at once and, with ease, setting them in the foyer before stomping through the house, mumbling derogatory things about the opposite sex.

 Josephina walked into the entryway and forgot to breathe. The outside might need a nip here and tuck there…or possibly a complete facial transplant, but the inside was just as she remembered it—magical.

The entryway, circular and whimsical, spanned the full two stories. Its hand-painted ceiling highlighted the enormous crystal chandelier that hung between two staircases, which hugged either wall, meeting in the middle and creating a freestanding walkway.

When she was little, Josephina used to lie on the entryway floor and stare at the ceiling, trying to imagine how many fairies it must have taken to create such a beautiful home. Because behind the gilded crevices of the ceiling was where fairies lived, Aunt Letty would say. And if you looked hard enough you could see their wings flutter, spreading their magical dust.

 “What are you doing?”

Josephina opened her eyes to find Brett’s gaze locked on her, a strange expression on his face. She realized what she must look like with her arms outstretched, palms up, eyes closed. She’d been twirling.

There were a million intelligent and worldly explanations she could have given, and a few minutes ago she would have. But instead she smiled and said, “Trying to catch fairy dust.”

To her surprise, Brett smiled back. Not that his smiling was all that surprising, given that it was the international calling card of womanizers everywhere. But this smile was not contrived or given for maximum impact. It was a natural curling of lips that happened when someone was experiencing joy.

The lights flickered overhead and Josephina realized that the power was on. “Guess I’ve got electricity.”

Brett walked down the stairs, stopping in front of her. “Running water, too. Though I’m not sure I’d drink it until it was tested.”

“No bears?”

“No bears.”

“Great. Then I guess I’d better get started setting up camp.”

“Is that your way of telling me that you’re tired of my company?”

“Pretty much.”

Fairchild House sat on the banks of Sugar Lake, nestled among eleven acres of overgrown pecan plantation. As when she was young, her heart caught as the fading afternoon sun filtered through the wind-blown willows, casting a canopy of mottled shadows over the surface of the lake.

The estate, equally majestic, was made up of the main house, a detached garage, five servants’ quarters, and a small wooden dock that was one storm away from sinking. Josephina’s goal was to turn the house into an inn, the servants’ quarters into private guest suites, and the dock into a place where people could check out small boats and fishing gear.

After Brett left, she quickly unpacked and changed into work clothes. Her goal was merely to dig a path between the porch and the garage before sundown, hoping to find her aunt’s old clunker. Ten minutes in and she’d become distracted by a single yellow rose peeking out from beneath the ragweed. When Josephina had visited, she and Aunt Letty spent hours tending to her roses. Somehow being knee-deep in the dirt made her feel connected to her past and her aunt.

Desperate to uncover the beautiful rose garden that she knew hid beneath, she’d started pulling weeds. That had been about three hours ago. The muscles in her arms and thighs burned, and she was certain she could cook bacon off her shoulder blades. Fading or not, SPF five thousand was no match for a hot Georgia sun.

Josephina was on the losing end of a stubborn fistful of ragweed when she heard a phone ring. Standing up, she dusted her hands off and listened. It was coming from inside the house. She trudged up the steps and pushed through the screen door, the hinges squeaking on their axis, protesting a century of openings and closings.

The ringing came from an old rotary phone, which sat on a table next to the front door. Pushing the hair out of her eyes, she picked it up and gave a tentative, “Hello?”

The only response she got was the rustling of pearls in the background.

Josephina closed her eyes and sighed. “Hey, Mom.”

If this conversation went anything like the one she’d had a few days ago while driving to Georgia, she’d need a seat—and a strong shot. Which was why she picked up the phone, dragging the extra-long cord outside, and plopped down on the porch swing.

“How was Paris?” Josephina tried again, this time forcing a smile into her voice.

“You would know if you had bothered to come. Rosalie said you didn’t even want to stop by the house before you took off.”

“I needed time to think.”
To figure out who I am without Wilson—and without you.

“Which is what I was giving you. But instead of figuring things out, deciding the best way to handle the situation, you made an even bigger mess.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You stole a car,
Josephina
.”

“It was
our
car, Mom.” She twirled her finger through the coiled phone cord.

“It was a juvenile attempt to get back at Wilson and you know it.” She did, and having her mother point it out made her feel even more pathetic. Thank God she didn’t know about the golf clubs. “You were hurt, I understand—”

“Am hurting, present tense—”

“—but to leave without a word to anyone, to me or your father, your friends, only added to the speculation.”

“I called you. Told you I was going to Sugar. You said reopening the inn was impulsive, another attempt to avoid growing up and dealing with the real world.” Josephina closed her eyes and willed back the tears. “You knew, Mom. You knew he was having sex with Babette and you never said a thing.”

“Oh, honey. I was with my ladies club when I saw them together. What was I supposed to do, make a scene?”

“Your ladies club? God, Mom, I had lunch with Margret and Elena the day before Wilson dumped me!” Elena was supposed to be one of her closest friends.

“Your father and I told Wilson he needed to come clean. We all thought that Paris would be the best place to do it.”

“So you could ruin the most romantic place on earth for me?”

Josephina could almost hear her mom rolling her eyes, mouthing to her father that she was being overly emotional.

“I wanted to be there for you, to hold you after, to cry with you.” Josephina started to soften, her anger melting at her mom’s words. “And to stay nearby in case you decided to do something rash.”

Rash?
Like put his dry-clean-only, custom-tailored Armani suits in the washer with a red sharpie and a box of glue sticks? Or rash as in cash out her savings, what was left of them, and Letty’s trust, to renovate a dilapidated old boardinghouse in the middle of cow country?

“We think that you should come live with us for a while. Maybe put one of those degrees to good use. Go back to working with your father.”

At present, she held a dual degree in hospitality management and interior design. When she’d realized her father had no intention of letting her work her way up the ladder like everyone else, since Harringtons were meant to lead, not serve, she left the hotel industry and went to culinary school.

She’d been hired on as the morning pastry chef at a hotel in Manhattan, one of the few her parents didn’t have an inside connection with, when she met Wilson. He was charming and successful and sophisticated—and her boss. That he asked her out was surprising. That he found her unrestrained take on life sexy had floored her.

Her odd schedule, which directly conflicted with his, was wearing on their relationship and, he pointed out, holding them back. Determined to make it work, Josephina left the restaurant to become an assistant to one of the most respected event planners in New York. And Josephina was damn good at her job. So good, in fact, that Wilson began having her plan his parties on the side.

Eventually Wilson’s events dominated her schedule, leaving no room for her career, forcing her to resign and make his goals hers. Which was how she’d wound up spending the past two years hosting galas and fundraisers with the sole purpose of advancing Wilson in the social scene of Manhattan.

She had been exactly what Wilson needed. Until he hadn’t needed her anymore.

“Let us help you through this,” her mom said, and everything inside her wanted to give in. Wanted to let her mom fix this, because she was scared and alone and she was really hungry.

Josephina wiped at her cheeks and stubbornly shook her head. “No, thanks, Mom. Your kind of help hurts too much.”

Her mom’s breath hitched and she let loose a few shuddery sniffles. Josephina felt bad, she did, but they had hurt her, too, and she didn’t want them to fix her life anymore. She needed to fix things for herself.

“Josephina.” Her father pronounced each of the four syllables precisely.

She closed her eyes and swallowed past the thickness in her throat. Dealing with her mom was one thing, but her dad had the ability to make her feel guilty without even saying a word.

“Hey, Daddy.”

“You okay?”

Josephina shook her head from side to side and blinked several times against the choking burn, not caused by the sun but by homesickness. And her mom was crying. And she hadn’t hugged anyone since Wilson took off, leaving her standing in pink lace and utter humiliation.

“Dad, it was mortifying,” Josephina whispered, wiping her nose off on the hem of her shirt.

All she wanted was for her dad to come through the phone. To hold her and tell her everything would be okay. That her life wasn’t a complete train wreck.

“It was indeed, but not as humiliating as finding out from Mason Stevenson that you stole Wilson’s car and took off, tail between your legs. We’re Harringtons, Josephina. And Harringtons don’t run. Ever. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I didn’t have my tail between my legs. And I had a key.” Josephina let go a shuddered breath of her own. “I really needed to get to Letty’s house.”

“It’s a dump. And you’re hiding under those ridiculous plans.”

“No I’m not,” she defended, feeling three instead of thirty. “And Fairchild House will be a boutique inn specializing in—”

“Fifty percent of all new businesses fail within the first year.”

Josephina sat on her free hand to keep from ending the call as her father recited all of the same terrifying statistics he’d used as ammo when she had wanted to open her own restaurant. Expecting him to react like a father instead of a numbers cruncher had been her mistake. One she wouldn’t let happen again.

“I know what I’m doing, Dad. I have a solid business plan, a budget.” Well, as solid as a plan could be when pieced together on a road trip. As for her budget, the exterior of the house alone was enough to tell her that she might have grossly underestimated costs.

“Uh-huh,” her dad grunted.

“I’m meeting with the general contractor next week. He came highly recommended,” she lied, purposely leaving out that his name was Rooster and he had been the only contractor in the phonebook—aside from McGraw Construction. “I went to a similar getaway in Italy and had the most amazing time.”

“Tell her that Sugar isn’t Italy,” Josephina heard her mother say in the background, as though she feared her daughter was geographically challenged.

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay, then tell me how many other inns like the one you’ve proposed have managed to succeed without the draw of an exotic destination and solid financial backing.”

 Josephina swallowed and tried not to show her fear. She didn’t know. She hadn’t had time to look into other inns, to see if what she imagined would work here in small-town U.S.A.

 “I am offering people a unique opportunity to experience southern hospitality in an exclusive way. Charming old plantation home, horseback riding, tranquil lake, real cowboys. It will be a novelty for the elite.”

“It’s another disaster is what it is. Which is why I’m sending the jet. There’s a private airstrip twenty minutes south of Sugar. I can have it there in four hours.”

If she told her parents to come get her, she’d what? Crawl back to Manhattan and admit she had once again acted on a whim? Admit the house was a disaster? Admit she had failed?

She looked up at the roofline and prayed that the family of opossums would stay up in the attic. She’d heard them rustling around in the ventilation ducts when she’d been unpacking, and the bed in her childhood room would barely fit her and Boo. Because she wasn’t going anywhere.

Letty’d found her magic at Fairchild House. Not that Josephina expected magic anymore, but she wanted to wake up and look in the mirror and like what she saw. That wouldn’t happen if she went back to New York. It might not even happen if she stayed. But here, in Sugar, she stood a chance.

“You know what, don’t bother sending the jet.” Josephina closed her eyes and pictured what Fairchild House would look like when she was done. “I love you and Mom. And I am so thankful for everything you’ve done for me. But I’ve got to find my own wings now. I’m staying.”

Ignoring the familiar feeling of guilt over disappointing her family, she hung up. When the phone immediately rang again, she took the receiver off the hook and dropped her head back with a thud, sending a loose screen crashing to the porch. Boo yelped and scrambled up into her lap. Resting his front paws on her chest, he licked her face.