The Magnolia Sisters Read online

  “Can I see the rest of the place?” she asked. “Even if you can convince us not to sell, it’s going to take a ton of work to clean out the house.”

  Carrie swallowed and flashed a grateful smile. “Sure. The upstairs isn’t quite as bad as down here.”

  Not quite, but close. A cloying sense of frustration grew heavier on Avery’s shoulders as Carrie gave her the tour. Furniture, knickknacks and stacks of newspapers were crammed in every room.

  “Why did he buy all this stuff?”

  “I recognize some pieces from his more recent paintings,” Carrie told her. “I’m guessing he was looking for inspiration in the antiques or reminders of a time in his life that felt happier. We’ll need to get Meredith here, whether she likes it or not. It all belongs to her in theory.”

  “And I thought I got the raw end of the deal with the tenants who pay no rent.”

  Carrie started down the steps again, but Avery paused at the top. “Is this an attic?” She placed her hand on the antique brass knob of the three-panel door.

  “Don’t go up there,” Carrie snapped, the sharp edge of her tone a surprise.

  Avery lifted a brow in question.

  “It’s just storage,” her sister explained quickly. “There’s nothing but junk, and the floor isn’t stable in a few areas. Part of the roof was destroyed by a storm a few years back. There’s water damage that hasn’t been fixed.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” Avery glanced between Carrie and the closed door but didn’t take her hand off the knob. “Is that where you keep the art you don’t want to talk about?”

  “I told you it’s storage space,” Carrie said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. “Seriously, it’s hotter than Hades. I need to have a contractor come out and look at the floor before anyone can go up there.”

  Avery studied Carrie. She wasn’t sure why Gray’s comment about Carrie being a talented artist stuck with her. As far as she was concerned, Niall Reed had been the artistic version of a snake oil salesman. He’d been better at marketing his vision than creating it. But her gut told her that his effervescently sentimental paintings masked a man with some deep insecurities and possibly an inferiority complex.

  Avery’s mom might not have been the chocolate-chip-cookie-baking type, but she’d wanted her daughter to be successful.

  “I’m going up,” she announced, quickly opening the door and bounding up the steep steps before Carrie could stop her.

  “No,” Carrie shouted but Avery was already at the top. She flipped on the light switch, expecting to see another space crowded with more junk.

  Instead, the long, narrow room was practically empty, covered in a layer of fine dust but otherwise untouched by the passing of years.

  But what caught and held her attention were the canvases leaning against the far wall. So many of them, the largest at least four feet in length and five feet tall. It looked like they were stacked eight deep in some of the rows she counted.

  They weren’t Niall’s commercialized works. These paintings were done in a style that was a fascinating combination of modern and impressionism. Ordinary objects painted with an attention to light and shadow that made Avery’s breath catch in her throat despite years of dust obscuring them.

  “Are they yours?” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder to where Carrie had stopped at the top of the steps, arms folded tightly across her stomach.

  “He wouldn’t let me take them when I moved out,” she answered tightly. “That was what we argued about. It doesn’t matter now. They’re going to the dump.”

  “What are you talking about?” Avery took a step forward. It felt like she was discovering something magical in this moment, like she’d stumbled upon an artistic version of Narnia in this dusty attic. “These are amazing.” She turned to face her sister. “Were they all done while you were in high school?”

  Carrie gave a barely perceptible nod. “Mostly. I was putting together a portfolio for my college application. I had my heart set on New York City. It was a long shot at best.”

  “You’re undeniably talented,” Avery countered. “Any art school would have wanted you.”

  “I doubt that,” Carrie said. “Although, I guess I’ll never know. Mom left at the end of my junior year, and after that it was clear Dad needed me.”

  “We could sell these at the gallery.”

  “No way. Come on, Avery. This is private and I wasn’t joking about the water damage in the floor. No one has been up here in years. It’s not safe.”

  “Seems fine to me.” Avery turned back toward the paintings. She wanted to clean off the canvases and see them in natural light, not just under the glow of the dim fixture hanging from the center of the attic’s ceiling. She moved toward the dormers near the front of the house, their windows covered with heavy drapes. If she could just convince Carrie—

  A loud keening sound split the air, much like a glacier calving. Avery screamed as the floor beneath her suddenly gave way. Life in Magnolia was full of surprises, and most of them were turning out to be unwanted.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TEN MINUTES LATER, Gray threw his truck into Park, grabbed his tool bag from the passenger seat and ran up the front lawn toward the old Reed house. In all the years he’d been friends with Carrie, he’d never been in her father’s home. That privilege had been saved for denizens of the community back in Niall’s heyday, when he and his ex-wife had hosted parties for society types who came to Magnolia just to meet the eccentric painter.

  Carrie appeared in the doorway as he approached, gesturing him in with a frantic wave of her arm. “I don’t think she’s badly injured,” his friend told him. “But I can tell she’s in pain.”

  “Show me.”

  With a nod she turned and led him through the house. He registered the furniture, stacks of paper and general clutter that seemed to cover every square inch, but his attention remained focused on getting to Avery.

  “There are too many heavy pieces in the spare bedroom for me to get a ladder under her,” Carrie explained, reiterating what she’d told him on the phone.

  He’d been at the station when she called, now thankful for a slow morning. As Carrie hurried up the main staircase and into a room lined with built-in bookshelves but crammed with tables and chairs piled up like the makings of a bonfire, he saw the pair of shapely legs clad in dark jeans dangling from a hole in the ceiling. Tufts of pink insulation clung to her hips.

  The house was one of the oldest in Magnolia, with ten-foot ceilings even on the second floor. That fact gave the room an open feel, despite how crowded it was. But it wasn’t going to make it any easier to get Avery unstuck.

  “Gray’s here,” Carrie called, and Gray saw the legs go tense.

  “I’m fine.” Avery’s tone was exasperated but he could hear the thread of pain in it. “I don’t need help.”

  “Where’s the attic?” he asked Carrie.

  She backed out of the bedroom and pointed to an open doorway across from the main staircase. “I warned her not to go up there.”

  “This isn’t the time for ‘I told you so,’” Avery shouted.

  Carrie gave him a look and lowered her voice. “Get her out, Gray. She’s irritating as hell, but I can’t have her hurt in this mess of a house.”

  “She’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “I’m going to try to make this work from above instead of below. I’ll need reinforcements if we’re going to move the furniture. That’ll take too long.”

  He climbed the steps, waving a hand in front of his face until the dust that filled the air cleared.

  “You sure know how to make your mark on a place,” he said casually as he surveyed the scene.

  “I don’t need your help,” she snapped. “Doesn’t Carrie have a helpful neighbor she could call?”

  “She called me,” he answered simply. He kind of liked
Avery Keller’s attitude and admired her calm in the situation, but right now he was all business. “Can you tell if the floor joists around you will hold my weight or are they too damaged?”

  “The ones in front of me will give,” she answered. “I’m wedged in here tight and when I try to shift my weight to lift myself up, everything feels like it’s sagging.”

  “Then don’t move.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” she muttered. “In case you care, I also have a piece of splintered wood lodged in my left arm. So I can only use the right one at the moment.”

  His gut tightened at the thought of her in pain. “Do you think anything’s broken?” He stepped gingerly toward her, making sure to test each section of floorboard before he moved. He couldn’t very well help her if he ended up in the same predicament.

  “Bruised,” she admitted, “but not broken. Do you think Clark Griswold knew how lucky he was to land on that bunk bed?”

  “That’s the Hollywood version of this scenario. This is real life.”

  “Does that mean I’m not going to get a happy ending?”

  “You’re going to be fine,” he told her, placing his tool bag on the floor and pulling out a small saw.

  “You must practice that commanding tone at the firehouse.” She laughed softly. “It’s weirdly reassuring.”

  “My job is rescuing people. I’m good at it.”

  “Great.” For the first time since he’d encountered her at the convenience store, Avery sounded defeated.

  It bothered him more than he cared to admit.

  He began talking her through his plan, mostly making it up as he went along. The floor joists behind her seemed to be structurally sound, but he wasn’t going to risk putting the weight of his entire two hundred pounds on them.

  “Can you get her out?” Carrie called from below them. “I climbed over the mess in here and I’ve got pillows to cushion a fall just in case.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t wear a skirt today,” Avery said through clenched teeth.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he reassured her, earning a snort.

  She shifted to look over her shoulder at him, and the floor around her heaved.

  He heard Avery’s gasp, along with Carrie’s worried cry from the bedroom.

  “Stay still,” he commanded, then called to Carrie, “Don’t stand directly underneath her.”

  “I don’t want to fall,” Avery said, more to herself than to him.

  He answered anyway. “You’re not going to fall.”

  She drew in a ragged breath. “I might be starting to panic. I don’t usually panic.”

  “No reason to.” He bent to his knees, then crawled forward, stretching out to reach her. The ideal way to handle this would be clearing out the spare bedroom and having some of his crew supporting her from below. But there was no guarantee that more of the floor wouldn’t give way while they waited for backup to arrive. Plus she was in pain, and he wanted her safe on solid ground as soon as he could manage it.

  “I’m right behind you,” he said as he got closer. “I’m going to cut the piece of wood that’s got you wedged in here.”

  “I feel like a chicken skewer.”

  One side of his mouth curved, and he inched forward. Narrating his movements for her, he managed to saw through the splintering section of wood.

  Avery let out a sigh when it fell away from her arm. She had a deep cut, but it wasn’t bleeding badly at the moment.

  “Now I’m going to lift you back toward me. Use your elbows to brace on the joists on either side of you.”

  “I can do three pull-ups in my CrossFit class,” she announced. “Who knew all my upper body strength would come in so handy?”

  “Exactly,” he agreed, knowing it was fear driving her seemingly casual chatter. “Do you upend tires, too?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly it’s a lot of burpees and suicides.”

  “I hate burpees.” He positioned his hands under her arms. “You’re strong, Avery. You’ve done a great job holding steady. Just a few more seconds and...” He half lifted, half dragged her up out of the hole, quickly moving both of them away from the water-damaged section of the attic.

  “You did it,” Carrie shouted from the bedroom below.

  “You did it,” Avery echoed in a hoarse whisper.

  “We did it,” he corrected. He had the crazy urge to wrap his arms around her and pull her close, holding her to him until the tremors he felt rippling through her body subsided. The notion was odd and out of character. He’d rescued plenty of people in his years as a firefighter.

  Hell, just last week, he’d come to the aid of Kenneth Masminster when he’d locked himself in his tool shed. But a seventy-five-year-old gardener who smelled like menthol and mothballs hadn’t elicited near the emotional reaction that Avery did. Avery, with her shiny hair and manicured nails, and the scent of expensive perfume on her skin that was at odds with the hot, dusty attic. A scent that should put him off. As appealing as it was, what the scent conveyed about the woman who wore it made her all wrong for him.

  “Thank you,” she said into the front of his uniform shirt. She seemed as unwilling to let go as he was.

  Carrie’s footsteps sounded on the attic stairs, and Avery pushed away.

  “I have the first-aid kit,” Carrie said, holding up a red vinyl bag.

  “I’m fine,” Avery said, then winced as Gray touched her arm.

  “You need that bandaged. A trip to the ER isn’t a bad idea. We need to make sure there are no splinters left in the wound.”

  “I’ll wash it out here,” she told him, shaking her head.

  “Are you sure?” Carrie asked.

  “Yeah. But first I’d like to get out of this attic.”

  “I’ll boil water,” Carrie offered with almost manic enthusiasm. “And get out the hydrogen peroxide. Meet you in the kitchen.” She turned and hurried down the steps again.

  “She does like taking care of people.” Avery smoothed a hand over the front of her wrinkled and torn shirt.

  “You should see a doctor.”

  “Nope. Niall has already given the people of Magnolia too much reason to talk about me. I’m not adding more to it.” She glanced at her arm. “I don’t need stitches, so I’d prefer no one else know about this little catastrophe. There’s plenty of work to be done on the house without everyone thinking it’s dangerous, as well.”

  “Most people know not to walk through a decaying attic,” he pointed out.

  “I was distracted,” she said, moving carefully toward the staircase.

  Gray kept a steadying hand on her back, and it spoke volumes about her current state of mind that she didn’t shrug off his touch.

  “By the moldy insulation?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “Check out the far wall, funny man.”

  After ensuring she made it to the top of the steps, he turned back to the dimly lit space. “Carrie’s paintings,” he said softly. He hadn’t noticed them when he came up, his attention focused solely on getting Avery to safety.

  “I’m not sure if she or Niall shoved them up here,” Avery said. “We didn’t get to that before my accident. She was too busy shouting at me to ignore them.”

  “I told you she was talented.”

  “An understatement.”

  He nodded.

  “She should be using her talent.”

  He inclined his head to study her. “That comment makes it sound suspiciously like you care.”

  She lifted an arm to wave off his comment, then grimaced. “She’s a potential revenue stream. We need money for repairs. Don’t make me out to be some would-be saint. I’m not Carrie.”

  The bite in her tone ripped into him like getting caught on a jagged rock outcropping. It was exactly the reminder he needed to keep his distance—both emotiona
l and physical—from this woman.

  “She’s waiting in the kitchen,” he said. “I can stay, too, if you need me.”

  Something flashed in Avery’s blue eyes. Vulnerability and perhaps disappointment, like she’d wanted him to argue with her assessment of herself.

  “Carrie will take care of things. It’s fine.” Then she nodded and headed down the steps.

  Gray followed with a sigh. The vague sense of regret rippling through his veins was the reason he kept his life simple. Complications only caused trouble.

  * * *

  AVERY THUMPED HER head to the shiny linoleum that covered the tabletop in the quiet corner of The Bean Bandito before looking across the table at her two half sisters. “Could he have made dividing his estate any more complicated?”

  “You shouldn’t bang your head that way.” Carrie offered a compassionate smile. “Falling through the ceiling might have jumbled your brain.”

  “My brain is fine.” She rubbed her fingers over the bandage wrapped around her arm. “I got a little scraped up. That’s all.”

  “At least eat something.”

  “Or better yet, gulp down another margarita,” Meredith suggested. “Maybe that will help Niall’s insanity make more sense.” She flicked a glance at Carrie. “He was a lunatic, you know?”

  Carrie’s perfectly shaped lips thinned. “Artists are known to be eccentric.”

  Meredith snorted and ran a hand through her chin-length bob. “You have to admit your father royally screwed us.”

  “He’s your father, too.”

  “Don’t say that.” Meredith slapped a hand on the top of the table. “I have a dad. Yours is just a guy who fooled around with my mom and was too stupid or selfish to wear a condom. One more reason for me to hate both of them.”

  Carrie recoiled from Meredith’s anger as if she’d been slapped. “He helped you when you came to him needing a property for the animal rescue.”

  “If he’d really wanted to help, he would have left me the ranch. I don’t need his crumbling hoarder-paradise house.”