Page 2

Magnolia Steel

We flew into the tiny regional airport, the type that has one rental car company with an actual bell on the counter. Now we’re weaving down the familiar two-lane road toward Robin’s house.

Coming back here is equivalent to reopening a scar you’ve convinced yourself was healed. Small towns don’t forget. They pretend to overlook and forgive, smiling while they whisper about you behind church bulletins and gas pump handles.

And this town? It’s always eager to remind me of everything I try to forget. Every humiliation I endured. Every quiet shame I swallowed. Every time someone looked at me as though I was trash.

We pass the rusted water tower. The old dairy bar with the sliding-glass window you walk up to and place your order.

Little plastic signs poking out of the ground— JESUS LOVES YOU, HAVE YOU FOUND HIM?

, HE’S COMING BACK SOON —like the second coming is being advertised alongside yard sales and lost cats and dogs.

Every landmark is a breadcrumb on the trail back to the version of me I’ve spent years trying to outrun.

Alex lounges in the passenger seat, calm and curious, taking it all in.

“You okay?” he asks, glancing my way.

I nod, but it’s a lie. “Yeah, just dreading this.”

He watches me for a beat. “You don’t have to protect me from whatever’s waiting. I’m not here to judge where you came from. I’m here for you.”

A thick swallow catches in my throat as my gaze locks on the cracked stretch of road ahead. “You need a heads-up about my mom. And Charlene.”

Alex chuckles. “Babe… I’m pretty sure I have a decent idea of what to expect.”

“They’ll be all Southern sweetness when they meet you. Call you darlin’ and talk like they’ve been baking casseroles for church potlucks their whole lives. Make no mistake. It’s an act.”

He hums. “I’ll do my best not to tell them to go to hell for the way they’ve treated you. But I make no promises.”

I laugh under my breath. “If the urge hits, don’t hold back on my account.”

“Noted.” A beat passes. “You never told me where we’re staying.”

“Hotel downtown.”

He lifts a brow. “We’re not staying with your mom?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You stayed at my grandparents’ fale in Samoa in the middle of nowhere. Even shared a room with three of my cousins and was a good sport about it.”

“That was different.”

“How so?”

“Because your family can be trusted.” I grip the wheel a little tighter. “It has nothing to do with the house, Alex. Although it’s not a place I want to stay. It’s about her .”

His silence invites more. And dammit, I give it.

“I don’t trust her around you.” Those are some hard words to admit.

“As I told you before, she has a history of crossing boundaries with men. And she is going to think you are too handsome, too charming, and too rich to resist—the ultimate temptation. And trust me, Robin’s never met a line she didn’t want to cross. ”

I stare straight ahead, jaw tight. “I’m not giving her the chance to be inappropriate. Not with you.”

“Favorite, there is no universe where I’d ever be interested in your mother.”

“I know. This isn’t about that. I trust you. I don’t want to put you in a position where she makes you uncomfortable. Or where I have to pretend everything is okay to keep the peace.”

“If she so much as breathes in my direction wrong, I’m following your lead. No fake smiles. No playing nice for people who don’t deserve it.”

A laugh slips out—dry, disbelieving. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s absurd that this even needs to be said to the man I’m marrying. “Thanks for being in my corner.”

He reaches over, giving my thigh a gentle squeeze. “Always. Yours is the only side I’ll ever be on.”

We check into the newest hotel in town—sleek, fresh, still smelling of paint and new carpet. It’s not luxurious enough for a bellhop, but it tries. Clean lobby. Modern fixtures. Muted gold accents that want to whisper elegance. It’s not Sebring Hotels—nothing ever is—but it holds its own.

The road to Robin’s place curves through a past I’ve never quite outrun—familiar mailboxes, peeling porches, ghosts of sixteen still clinging to every turn.

I grip the wheel, gaze fixed ahead, shoulders coiled tight.

Beside me, Alex is all quiet composure, his hand loose on his knee.

But the closer we get, the heavier the air sits on my chest.

This isn’t the house I grew up in—Robin’s been bouncing from one rental to the next ever since her last landlord had enough. But the bones of this place feel familiar in all the worst ways. Weather-beaten siding, a front yard with more weeds than grass, and a porch swing that creaks.

I step out of the car, and I’m seventeen again—raw at the edges and bracing for impact.

Robin shoves open the screen door before we’re halfway up the walk, arms wide and smile stretched a little too tight. “Well, look at you,” she says, her eyes dragging over Alex like he’s the dessert tray she didn’t order but plans to sample anyway. “Aren’t you something else?”

Charlene appears behind her, cigarette perched between two fingers, lipstick smeared on the filter. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she drawls, giving Alex a slow once-over. “You sure did good for yourself with this one, Maggie.”

Alex steps forward with the ease of a man raised to respect women no matter how much they test his patience.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Robin, Ms. Charlene,” he says with a polite nod.

His smile is practiced—the same one he offers reporters who poke too close to the truth.

It’s perfectly charming, perfectly controlled, and nowhere near his eyes.

Robin flutters toward Alex, already playing hostess, already laying it on thick, acting the part of the doting mother of the bride. Her voice lifts with a laugh too sugary to be sincere. “Come in, come in! We’ve been dying to meet you and hear all about the wedding.”

Charlene links her arm through mine as though we’re bosom buddies. “Honey, I want to see that ring. I bet it’s gorgeous.” She grabs my left hand before I can stop her, yanking it up for inspection. “Well, damn. Would you look at that rock?” She whistles low. “Is that thing real?”

Robin leans in, inspecting. “Lord have mercy. That thing looks like what Rose threw off the Titanic.”

Charlene puts on her Dollar Tree reading glasses. “How many carats is that?”

“I don’t know. That’s not what’s important to me,” I say, slipping my hand free from hers.

“Maggie, come help me in the kitchen with that casserole I made. You’re always so good at that kind of thing,” Robin says, all syrup and smiles.

I laugh—because Robin hasn’t served a damn thing in my entire life that didn’t come frozen or from a drive-thru window. But I go, because I know the drill. Whatever she’s about to serve up is not food.

Robin’s arm slides around my shoulders, steering me toward the back of the house with syrupy insistence. “Come on, honey. Let’s have a little chat while Mama keeps your fiancé entertained.”

I glance back just in time to catch Charlene handing Alex a beer, the can already hissing open while a freshly lit Marlboro hangs from the corner of her mouth.

So. Fucking. Embarrassing.

Charlene’s going on about some kind of nonsense and Alex—bless him—is humoring her with a smile you give someone whose last good idea probably happened in the early ‘80s.

Robin’s barely in the kitchen before she spins on me.

“I googled him, Maggie.” She says it casually, but I know what’s coming. I can feel it in the pit of my stomach.

I cross my arms and lean against the counter, bracing. “Okay.”

“He’s richer than sin, ain’t he?”

There it is.

Alex and I have never talked numbers, so it’s not a lie. Not that I’d lose sleep lying to her anyway. “I’m not privy to Alex’s finances.”

She barks a laugh, full of disbelief and judgment. “You’re marrying him, honey. You mean to tell me you don’t know how much money that man’s sitting on?”

“I didn’t fall in love with his net worth.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Her voice sharpens. “Men like that don’t marry women like us unless there’s a catch.”

I stiffen, blood pounding in my ears. “Perhaps he’s marrying me because he loves me. Because I’m worth loving.”

Robin’s lips twist. “Well, I doubt that.” She leans in, conspiratorial. “It’s time you started thinking about how this could work for you.”

I look her dead in the eye. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on.” She waves her hand like I’m being dramatic. “Not now, but after the wedding, you could help your family. We’ve had a rough year.”

There it is. The real ask.

“I don’t have money to give you, Robin. And I don’t have access to his either.”

“But you will after you’re married,” she says, all breezy confidence. “Unless he’s makin’ you sign a prenup. Is he?”

I grit my teeth. “There’s no prenup.”

She laughs, delighted. “Lord, Maggie, you’re sittin’ on a gold mine. You better hold on to that man tighter than a tick on a hound.”

“His money is his money. I’m still building something on my own, and I’ll keep building it, married or not.”

Robin rolls her eyes. “You need to quit playin’ around and get yourself pregnant. That’s the only way to keep a man like that. Wedding rings slip off easy. A baby? That’s what locks ’em in.”

My body stiffens. “I would never use a child as a bargaining chip. I’m not you.”

She doesn’t flinch. Just smiles, tight-lipped and smug. “You owe this family, Maggie. After everything I gave up raisin’ you, you finally got a shot to give something back.”

I blink, stunned. My jaw works, but no words come—at first. Then it breaks loose, sharp and clean. “You didn’t raise me. You endured me. There’s a difference. You want to cash in on my marriage as if it’s a scratch-off win? Go find another ticket, Robin. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”

No pause. No second look. Only the sound of my steps as I walk away.

Out the front door. Down the creaking steps. Across the patchy yard where sunburnt grass curls around crushed beer cans—leftovers from nights that ended in bad decisions.

The heat slaps me, thick and damp, clinging to my skin. I press a hand to my chest, trying to slow the riot inside me, but my heart’s sprinting.

A moment later, I hear the screen door creak open behind me. Alex’s voice is low and even. “You want company, or should I give you space?”

I shake my head. “Stay.”

He stands beside me. Doesn’t touch me or say anything. Just waits.

“She asked if I’d give her money after I marry you.”

“Of course she did.”

“I expected her to ask for money. Honestly, I was ready for that. But that’s not what got to me. It was when she said I should get pregnant—fast, suggesting that a baby should be used to lock you in. As though love wasn’t enough.”

I shake my head, the words thick in my chest. “It’s not about the greed. It’s the way she doubts your love for me—suggesting I’m not worthy of it. And worse… the suggestion of using my child as a pawn to hold on to you and your money.”

A slow, cleansing breath moves through me as I inhale, steadying my nerves and quieting the noise within.

“It’s silly to keep holding out for a version of her that doesn’t exist. I’m done contorting myself for a woman who never had room for me in the first place.

I choose peace… even if it means choosing distance. ”

Alex steps closer. “We’ll build that space together. As wide and strong as you need it. No one gets through unless you say so.”

His words settle in my chest—quiet, warm, unshakable.

And for the first time since we got here, I breathe without flinching.

We don’t go back inside.

Not to explain. Not to smooth things over. Not even to collect whatever politeness I left sitting on the kitchen counter.

Alex slides his fingers through mine as we walk to the car, and that’s all the closure I need. No apologies. No last scene. Just the clean, quiet break of a woman choosing herself.

Because I don’t owe them anything.

Not a thank-you.

Not a promise.

Not even a goodbye.

And that truth? It tastes like freedom.