“Of course. I want her to find her purpose. And I don’t think cleaning bathrooms is something she enjoys.”
Victoria wrinkled her nose. “Nope.”
Excited to have a woman who would work as hard as I did, I nodded. “Well, you’re hired.” I paused. “I can’t pay you a ton right now—”
She waved away my words. “I’ll work with what you can give me.”
I capped my pen and extended my hand. “Then you’re hired.”
Just as Victoria and I shook on it, Anna’s daughter, Fiona, approached the table. She looked tired as she plopped down on the chair Shari had dragged over.
“Hey, guys,” she said softly.
We all greeted her.
“Are you okay?” Clementine asked as she wrapped her arm around Fiona’s shoulders.
After rubbing her temples a few times, Fiona nodded. “I’m getting there.” She reached out, grabbed a napkin from the dispenser in the center of the table, and fiddled with it. “Jackson’s getting in tonight with his sister.”
A hush fell over the table as all the offshoot conversations stopped.
“Naomi?” I asked. This was the first I’d heard that she was coming to Magnolia.
Maggie glanced over at me. “You know her?”
“When I was trying to track down Jackson, I went totheir house in North Carolina.” I paused. “She’s coming here?” I pointed toward the floor as if I needed to emphasize whereherewas.
Fiona nodded. “She was in a terrible car accident a month ago. She’s coming here so we can take care of her.”
My stomach sank. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. She had been so sweet to me. The idea of her almost losing her life weighed on me.
“I’m not sure what to think. Jackson is hush hush about it.” She nodded toward me as if I would understand this more than anyone. She wasn’t wrong. “He won’t tell me what to expect. I fixed up her room as best as I knew how, but now I’m freaking out that I might have done something wrong.” She set her hands down on the table and rested her forehead on her fingers.
“I’m sure you did fine,” Shari said as she reached across the table and patted the part of Fiona’s fingers that was visible.
I nodded. “I agree. She’s a really relaxed person. I’m sure she’ll appreciate anything you do for her.” I offered her a small smile when she lifted her head to meet my gaze.
“I just want to make a good impression. We’ve never met, and…”
“And you’re in love with her brother,” Victoria finished.
All gazes landed on Fiona again.
“Have you guys said love?” Maggie asked. From the corner of my eye, I saw my daughter fiddle with herwedding band. A sense of love washed over me as the memory of her wedding to Archer ran through my mind.
I was so happy that my daughter had found her Prince Charming.
Fiona’s cheeks flushed, and she nodded. “Yeah.” She pinched her lips for a moment as a wave of affection moved through her gaze. “Blake called him dad last week.”
A collective “aah” moved around the table.
Her eyes filled with tears, and I felt happy for Fiona. From the snippets that Maggie told me, I knew she’d struggled. Finding happiness was the purpose of life, and I was glad she’d experienced that.
When I looked around the table, I began to realize that everyone here had experienced that. There wasn’t one member of this book club that wasn’t currently in a relationship…except me.
And I didn’t count since I wasn’t actually a member of the book club.
If I was, I might feel a tad out of place. It wasn’t like I wasn’t interested in finding Mr. Right. I guess I’d just gotten to the point where that didn’t seem in the cards for me anymore. I was a woman who was stuck in her ways, and there had never been a man who wanted to break through the walls that I’d built over the years.
