Start reading this book:
Prologue
May
Meghan Maye slouched in an Adirondack chair. She propped her bare feet up on the surround of the outdoor fire pit and looked around the new outdoor patio of Grandma Millie’s generational family farm. She was still trying to digest the news that their grandmother had put the farm and surrounding acreage in a trust for all four granddaughters.
Sharing a property. What did it mean for her sisters?
For her?
Do I want it to mean something?
The malaise that had snuck up on her over the past year now didn’t necessarily have to be ignored.
Maybe.
But who would she be without her high-powered career and Platinum Pro status at American Airlines?
Impatient with her wavering thoughts, she focused on her older sister, Sarah, a pediatrician, who had always kept her cool, rain or shine.
“Good party,” Meghan murmured.
“It was so sweet,” Sarah said softly staring into the flames. “A perfect engagement party. Chloe glowed. And Rustin couldn’t keep his eyes off her.”
Meghan clocked with a pang that Chloe’s engagement might dredge up painful memories of Sarah’s engagement, though it had been well over a decade ago.
But no, though Sarah had been quiet and contemplative while they’d been cleaning up, she was now smiling, relaxed. “It was wonderful to see Chloe celebrated by so many friends and her vocal and choir students. And Rustin. He stood by her the whole night. Smiled. Laughed. Not a natural state for him I would have said.”
Meghan agreed. Rustin had grown up rough. Tough. To see him so gentle, obviously deeply in love, did something weirdly painful to her heart. She’d always suspected she was chillier than her sisters, too focused on ambition.
And where’s that getting you?
“It’s a little scary. So much happiness that it almost hurts.” Sarah’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Like it can’t last.”
It can’t.
But she kept that opinion, unlike most she had, to herself. Meghan was practical. Cynical. And a corporate attorney in a large firm that often sent her around the world. She excelled at problem solving and smoothing a path, especially when discretion was key. When negotiations started to unravel, Meghan Maye was the fixer.
But can I fix myself?
If she knew what was wrong. Maybe this past year was just one long midlife—at thirty-three—crisis. Perhaps she should buy an impractical car.
She wiggled her toes. Pale pink. The pedicure and color had been Chloe’s idea. She’d wanted a sister salon day before the party to thank the three of them for all their hard work. Meghan regularly received pedicures, but more for the foot massage, wraps, and maintenance rather than brightly colored girly toenails. Baby-girl-blanket pink, as Meghan had dubbed it, much to her sisters’ amusement, was definitely not her style.
But maybe it should be. Her sisters had enjoyed the facials and joint mani-pedis. Chloe had found her confidence and love. Her perfectionist fellow gunner sister, Jessica had been unjustly fired from her accounting job at a huge downtown Charlotte firm to move back to the small family farm to open a niche nursery and restore their grandmother’s once celebrated, but now long-neglected, gardens. Jessica was chasing her own dream now, not their father’s.
But the changes had all happened so fast.
And unexpectedly.
All since Chloe had found that old handbound, handwritten collection of recipes in G. Millie’s outdoor home library. Southern Love Spells.
Meghan was probably the least spiritual of all her sisters, but even she was a little spooked by the book’s arrival and the changes that had ensued.
No. Not spooked. Suspicious.
Jessica had been spooked. Meghan had had no idea her sister was so superstitious, but now she had not only found her passion and started a business, Jessica seemed to have turned a corner with Storm Stevens, who she’d reluctantly hired to help with the nursery design and garden rehab. She’d initially been against Storm’s help and vision, but tonight at the party, Meghan had noted they had seemed more like a couple than colleagues—warm looks, casual touches.
The book again? Jessica, for all her beauty and sweet southern charm, was as stubborn as a bulldog and as controlling as a … Meghan searched for a suitable analogy.
“This is nice,” Sarah said softly. “So quiet even though we are in a neighborhood. We hardly spend time together anymore, so I’ve really cherished this past month.”
Meghan felt a surge of guilt—sure, all four sisters were busy, but they had an active text chain. Necessary as they hardly saw each other—usually because she was out of town.
“I think Jessica and Storm have found each other again,” Sarah sighed, her smile turned sly. “What’s that trope called, as they weren’t exactly high school sweethearts but more like frenemies?”
Sarah took a last swallow of her tea and carefully placed the mug under her chair.
“I overheard them arguing that he’d eaten one of her practice tortes for the party—the one Jessica baked using the love spells book. She’d left that unusual fairy she’d found in the garden watching”—Sarah made air quotes for the last word—“while she cooked. She was convinced Storm would declare undying love from the book’s magic rather than falling in love with her naturally.”
“Do you think the book has a touch of magic?” Meghan asked, curiously.
Sarah was always calm in every storm—not given to flights of fancy and wild bouts of imagination like Chloe, or dramatics like Jessica, nor did she have a contentious bone in her body like Meghan.
“It’s kind of a sweet idea, isn’t it?” Sarah asked.
Her green eyes looked luminous with emotion, and it struck Meghan hard in her chest that perhaps Sarah, who’d seemed like she’d be a widow forever, was lonely. Ready to bust out of her widow weeds or whatever they called them in the ridiculous historical romances Sarah and Jessica had loved so much in high school.
“Do you want to fall in love again?” Meghan asked, feeling rather stupid that she hadn’t thought about it before.
Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.
“Love does feel magic,” Sarah said, dreamily. “Have you ever been in love before, Meghan? Do you want to be?”
Meghan felt spotlighted. She looked at the book, propped up on one of the Adirondack chairs like it was listening. Chloe had brought the book out earlier when they’d made s’mores and shared a bottle of bubbly to cap off the evening.
“We were talking about you,” she hedged.
“No.” Sarah tucked feet up on the chair, and played with her long, silky dark auburn hair—taking it out of its customary French twist, running her fingers through it.
She sat forward, expression intent. “We weren’t. We were talking about the book. Jessica and Storm. Chloe and Rustin.” She wound her hair back up again, but looser, a few tendrils falling. “I feel like we’ve all been suspended in a way. Waiting. And then Grandma Millie made her announcement last Christmas that it was time we all stepped up and became more involved in the community. Chloe naturally jumped all in, found the book, and has thrown us all into change chaos.”
“Change can be good,” Meghan said, not sure she believed it.
Sarah laughed, clearly hearing the doubt.
Meghan frowned at her across the fire and tried to ignore the book looking back at her, the remaining gold leaf in the title winked in the firelight. She felt mocked.
“What? I can change.” Not that she had to. Right? Her career was the envy of many of her law school classmates.
“What would you change?” Sarah asked, her expression speculative.
“What would you?” Meghan countered.
“So, like a lawyer.” Sarah’s mouth made a moue. “I moved to Belmont, bought a house, and joined a new practice last year.” She held up her pinkie finger. “Jessica moved to the farmhouse and started rehabbing the greenhouses and supervising some remodeling and designing Grandma Millie wanted to do.” She held up her ring finger. “And”—her middle finger joined it—“Chloe hosted the Movable Feast and fell in love and got engaged.”
Sarah used her index finger to point at her. “What’s next for you?”
Meghan felt pinned to her chair. Judged. Ridiculous as Sarah was the least judgy person she knew.
I’m so alone. Stuck.
The words—plucked from her subconscious—startled her, and she barely swallowed them before blurting them aloud.
“Dream a little, Meghan,” Sarah said softly. “If I had a wand…” She held her arm up and out like she was about to conduct a symphony orchestra and waved her hand like she held the sparkly magic wand she’d received one Christmas long ago. “Or better, yet…” She smiled and picked up the book. “If you could change one thing about your life now, what would it be?”
Meghan grabbed the book from her sister. It felt warm to the touch though the evening was cool. She didn’t want to play this what-if game. They’d done it as kids, and her eyes burned with the memories, and her chest felt compressed. For a moment, she was terrified that she would confess her growing fear that she was on the wrong path. That she barely recognized herself and who she’d once been. She opened her mouth to say … what? She had no idea, but they both turned at the sound of feet running on the newly laid pea gravel.
“Sarah, come quick.” Chloe’s pansy eyes were wild with fear. “It’s Grandma Millie. Something’s wrong. We’re taking her to the hospital.”
Meghan tossed the book aside on the fire surround and raced alongside her sisters back to the house.
End of Excerpt
