You don’t know me, but you have my husband’s heart.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be contacting you. It’s wrong and foolish, and probably illegal, considering I received your e-mail address through confidential medical records.
You have every right to turn me in.
Hell, maybe there’s a part of me that wants you to. I don’t know how to live in this world without him, anyway. Prison could be a welcome distraction to the knee-buckling pain I’m faced with day after day.
But there’s also a part of me that hopes you won’t—a desperate, twisted part that is begging for you to find sympathy in that heart I’ve come to know so well.
A part that will wait for you to write me back.
No names. No personal details.
Just a conversation.
The only thing I have left of him is inside you.
— Magnolia
—ONE—
I’ve always had a weak stomach.
Skinned knees, roadkill, slasher films. Even a rare steak makes me woozy. So, when I slice my finger on the serrated knife and blood pools to the surface, I go ashen.
Charlie leans across the table, snatching up my hand and examining the wound. “Nice one, Mel.” He shoots me a sympathetic smile, then wraps my finger in the dinner napkin from his lap. “You okay?”
“I’m only panicking on the inside,” I croak, reining in my nausea.
The handsome face shining back at me settles my swelling anxiety as I blow out a breath. Amber-infused eyes dance across my features, assessing fondly, bathing me in a warm familiarity. Like peach pie.
I compared Charlie to peach pie on the night we met. I was deliriously drunk on Schnapps—peach-flavored, coincidentally—and thought he had the sweetest, warmest eyes I’d ever seen. Just like peach pie. Charlie was somehow swept off his feet by my intoxicated babbling, slurred words, and strange correlation to dessert, and even though I ended that night by puking on his Sketchers, he asked for my hand in marriage one year later.
That was seven years ago, and today we’re celebrating our five-year wedding anniversary.
With peach pie, of course.
I heave in a rattled sigh, unwrapping my finger and zoning in on the tiny cut as I pucker my lips. “It’s fatal,” I decide.
“Clearly. The infection is spreading already.”
“Only a kiss can save me from a slow, painful death.”
Charlie tsks me with his tongue. “You’ve been watching too many Disney movies,” he chides. “You can only be saved by a highly skilled sex machine, willing to ravish you with his ultra-healing weapon.”
My husband’s ensuing eyebrow waggle has me holding back an unladylike snort. I gasp at his audacity. “Where on Earth will I find such a noble savior in a place like this?” Glancing around the restaurant for effect, I eyeball our waiter. “Geoffrey. He was very efficient in providing us with sustenance. He must be skilled in other areas.”
“False. I caught Geoffrey flirting with the bus boy—he’s not the one,” Charlie assesses, then sighs with an overly dramatic breath. “However…”
I straighten in my seat, intrigued. “Yes?”
“There is someone willing to perform this harrowing task. He’s ridiculously good looking.”
“Go on.”
“He always remembers to put the toilet seat down.”
I place both hands over my heart. “Impossible.”
“He doesn’t snore. He never steals the covers. He cooks a mean goulash, enjoys doing the dishes, and has quite an impressive… weapon.”
A wink follows, and I swoon. “I love goulash.”
“We must act now. Time is running out.”
“But…” My bottom lip juts out, pouty and adorable. “Peach pie.”
We both glance down at the half-eaten confection adorning my plate, gooey and glazed, topped with a heaping dollop of whipped cream. As much as I love Charlie’s “ultra-healing weapon,” there’s no way I’m leaving until I finish this pie.
“Fine,” Charlie relents, leaning against his seat until the chair tips back on two legs. I always scold him for it, but he does it anyway. One of these days he’ll fall, and I will laugh. “I suppose it’s hard to compete with that. At least you’ll die happy.”
A smile breaks out across my face as I dig the tines of my fork into the warm dessert, my gaze still fixed on the man across the table. His bangs fall over his forehead in a swirl of chocolate and caramel, a boyish charm that adds to his youthful appearance. His dimpled grin is the icing on the cake.
Or… the whipped cream on the pie.
My tongue licks at the sweet cream coating my fork, and I watch my husband’s amber eyes heat with bronzed flames.
I’m an evil tease.
He captures his lip between his teeth. “On second thought…”
Five minutes later, the bill has been paid, Geoffrey has been generously tipped, and all thoughts of pie scatter from my mind as we skip out of the bar and into the setting sun.
The southern Wisconsin air feels fresh and musky, a prelude to springtime and new beginnings. The faint scent of impending rainfall fractures the heady Saturday night aroma of downtown pizza joints, mingling with engine fumes from the stream of traffic beside us.
I swing our interlaced hands back and forth as we glide down the sidewalk, my smile bright and beaming like the string lights connecting one lamppost to the next. Passersby return the sentiment with their own cordial waves, head bobs, and smiles to rival mine.
“I’ll never understand it,” Charlie murmurs, his feet trying to keep up with my swiftly moving legs as I pull him forward, reveling in the way the breeze dances across my skin.
“Understand what?”
“How you suck everybody in like that. You’re like a happy vacuum.”
My giggles have me doubling over, so I squeeze his palm to keep me upright. “God, Charlie. You can’t be slinging those sexy nicknames at me in public.” His rumble of laughter floats up to me, and I shoot him a nose crinkle over my shoulder. “And I can’t take all the credit. It’s Saturday night. People are always happier on Saturday nights.”
He gives me a tug until I’m falling back against his chest, two arms encircling my waist in a protective grip. “No, Mel. It’s all you.”
People dodge us when we come to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk, but we’re uncaring, totally oblivious to the world around us. It’s just Charlie and Melody standing beneath quiet rainclouds, a new chapter blooming like the magnolia trees budding in our backyard. My eyes close through a sigh of contentment.
Charlie’s chin rests atop my shoulder, his warm breath kissing the curve of my neck. “Do you think it worked?”
A grin curls my lips. I twist around in his embrace, catching the quick flash of nerves in his eyes. “You make it sound so technical.”
“Well, it sort of is. It’s science.”
“You’re really bringing your sexy A-game tonight. You do want to get laid, right?”
Charlie presses his forehead to mine, tawny bangs tickling my hairline. And then his hand crawls up the back of my thigh, landing on my backside and cupping gently, our groins melding together. “What do you think?”