Magnolia Dawn

Prologue

S
mall Miracles occupied the first floor of a pristine brownstone on Boston's trendy Boylston Street. Rush Cousins gazed at the building, then checked the address again. The proprietor of Small Miracles had called on his firm to quote a renovation to the brownstone, but from where he stood, the building didn't even need to be cleaned. He shook his head. Maybe the inside told a different story. Rush crossed the street, smiling at a woman in a miniskirt as she gave him an appreciative once-over. After a last glance, he climbed the steps to the shop's door. Before he'd even finished ringing the buzzer, a woman who reminded him of a cross between a good fairy and a leprechaun opened the door.

“You must be Rush,” she said, smiling brilliantly. “I'm Marla.” She threw the door wide. “Welcome to Small Miracles.”

Rush returned Marla's smile, instantly liking the little woman. She radiated enthusiasm and zest for life. “It's good to meet you, Marla.”

“You, too.” She rubbed her hands together. “I've been anxious for you to get here so we could get started. This is terribly exciting. Don't you think?”

Rush laughed. “I do like my work, Marla. Especially renovations.” He stepped across the threshold and into the antique shop, looking over the interior as he did. “Although I have to say, this place is in great shape. I don't know what you have in mind, but—”

She stopped him with a fluttery motion of her right hand. “Fiddle-dee-dee. Don't give
that
a second thought.”

Rush lifted his eyebrows in amusement. Obviously money wasn't an issue here. Neither was logic. “How did you hear about Cousins's Building and Restorations?”

Marla met his eyes. Hers were the clearest blue he'd ever seen. Looking into them was like gazing up at the cloudless heavens. Her lips curved as with a private joke. “Your name popped up, Mr. Cousins.
And I took it.” As he opened his mouth to ask where it had `popped up,' she added, “Do you know much about antiques?”

“No.” He swept his gaze over the room. “But I do admire their craftsmanship. Most people are more concerned with quantity than quality. That's too bad, I think.” He slipped his hands into the front pockets of his blue jeans and tipped his head toward the ceiling, admiring the ornate ceiling medallion above him. “That's why I love these old places. They fascinate me, really.”

Marla beamed at him. “A perfectly wonderful answer.”

Rush laughed again. “Was I taking a test?”

Marla laughed, too, then clucked her tongue. “All we do today is hurry. What's the sense of it? For myself, I believe the really good things in life take time. Have a look around, Mr. Cousins. I'll get us coffee.”

She started for the back of the store, then paused and looked over her shoulder at him. Her blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “Pay special attention to the items on the Chippendale side table behind you. They're very special.”

“Thanks. I'll do that.” Smiling again, Rush swung around, his thoughts moving to the day ahead. After this appointment, he was meeting the contractor in charge of the Fairfield job. Before he did, he needed to call Joe about the invoices in ques—

Rush's thoughts stopped short. On the table Marla had mentioned sat one item only, a domed music box. Its workmanship and materials were top-notch—lavish, even. A glass dome rested on a luminous wood base decorated with gold filigree. Inside the dome, a porcelain replica of a Southern belle in a billowing hoop skirt and picture hat held a bunch of flowers.

Rush sucked in a sharp breath, a sense of recognition balling in his chest, fighting his heart and lungs for space.

He'd seen this music box before.

Drawing his eyebrows together, he racked his brain for the time, the place, he recognized this object from. But even as he did, Rush acknowledged his effort as wasted. His memory of this thing came from his shadows, from the time before St. Catherine's Orphanage and the Sisters who had taken him in, a time before the string of foster homes or his days of living on the street. This memory came from a place and time he knew but couldn't quite touch.

Rush reached for the box and closed his hands carefully around it. The feel of it was like a shock to his system. His head filled with sensory memories—of heat and moisture and of a slow, even languorous pace. And with the smell of flowers, rich and ripe and sweet.

His hands began to shake. Oh, yes, he had seen this box before. He had held it, just like this, sometime, somewhere in his past.

Even as he told himself his thoughts were ludicrous, Rush turned the small gold key at the box's back. A moment before the tune began to play, its lilting notes filled his head.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, his hands shaking in earnest now, his heart thundering against the wall of his chest. It couldn't be. But it was.

In his hands he held a clue to his past.

His past, Rush thought again, stunned. That cavernous space whose faceless shadows and intangible sensations had been a part of him for as long as he could clearly remember.

He drew in a sharp breath. Why now? he wondered, watching the tiny belle as she circled the base. He'd grown accustomed to being a man whose past didn't exist before age five. He no longer cared why he'd been abandoned or by whom. He had been; those were the facts of his life. Knowing his past wouldn't change them. It wouldn't change the man he'd become.

“Here we are,” Marla called brightly. She set a tray laden with a silver coffee service down on a table in front of a dainty-looking settee. “Oh, good. I see you've found the box.”

Rush frowned. “Where did you get this?”

“Excuse me?”

“The box,” he said, trying to harness his impatience. “Do you know where it's from?”

“Of course,” she answered mildly, as if not at all surprised by his interest—or sudden surliness. She sank onto the settee. “Don't worry, Mr. Cousins. I will tell you everything you need to know. But first…” she patted the space next to her “…sit and have a cup of coffee.”

Although every fiber of his being urged action, Rush did as she asked. Marla filled a translucent china cup with coffee, then handed it to him. The tiny cup felt awkward in his big hand, and he set it down. “The music box,” he prompted, the impatience pushing at him, refusing to be quieted.

“Ah, yes. It's lovely, isn't it?” Marla took a sip of her coffee, then patted her mouth with a napkin. “The box is from a Mississippi plantation named Ashland. Have you heard of it?” When he shook his head in the negative, she continued. “Ashland was one of the great Mississippi plantations. And also one of the few plantation homes to remain in the hands of its original family.”

She lifted her shoulders. “Although there are now only two descendants left, a brother and a sister. They're having a difficult time keeping the house up and have been forced to sell off the plantation's furnishings and other family heirlooms. Like the music box. Sad,” she finished, taking another sip of her coffee. “Tragic, really.”

Ashland, Rush thought, testing the sound of it in his head. He expected some sort of bell of recognition to ring, some shock similar to the one he'd experienced when he'd seen the music box. Instead, he drew a blank.

He made a sound of frustration. “Where in Mississippi is… Ashland?”

“Ames. Between Vicksburg and Greenville, in the Delta. The town was named after the plantation family. That's the way it was often done in those days.”

It sounded so familiar, Rush thought. And so foreign. Did he recognize these names, this story? Or did he merely want to? He shifted his gaze, looking once again at the music box. His recognition of the box wasn't a fabrication of his imagination. He'd known its tune before it had played. He
had
held that box in his hands sometime in his past. Unless…

Rush looked at Marla. “Is it possible that there's another music box exactly like this one? Or at least one that's similar but plays the same tune? Could there—”

“Oh, dear, no.” Marla shook her head and her riotous red curls bounced against her cheeks. “This music box was commissioned for the third mistress of Ashland. It's a one-of-a-kind.”

Rush sat back. What would he find if he went there, to Ames, Mississippi, and Ashland Plantation? Would he once and for all learn the truth about those lost five years of his life? Or would he find…nothing? More shadows?

Memories of his childhood—these crystal-clear and razor-sharp—filled his head. Memories of the times before he'd understood the rules; times when he'd barreled in, his heart and hope on the line, and had been coldly turned away. He'd promised himself he would never be that kind of fool again.

What he was considering was ridiculous. After all, what would he say to the brother and sister of Ashland? Hi, I think I may belong here. By any chance are you missing a family member? And how would these owners of Ashland respond? Sure, come on in. Help yourself to the family silver.

Right. Rush curled his hands into fists. He didn't need to know his past. It didn't matter. He'd long ago let go of the yearning to know who he was and where he'd come from.

“Fascinating, isn't it?” Marla murmured, interrupting his thoughts. “How sometimes in finding the past we learn our future.”

Rush looked at the woman, his pulse
beating slowly and heavily in his head. “What did you say?”

She smiled, and again he was caught by the cloudless yet mesmerizing blue of her eyes. “That you seem a man whose instincts are good, Rush Cousins. I think you should follow them.”

Chapter One

A
week later Rush stood at the entrance to Ashland, the unrelenting June sun beating down on the road beneath his feet, the heat emanating back up at him in invisible waves. Behind him the Mississippi River flowed peacefully, yet the levee facing it served as a stark reminder of its unpredictable and often-violent moods.

Before him, a grove of magnolias stretched from the road to the house, lining the pathway that led to Ashland Plantation, creating a living canopy of green. The magnificent trees, easily six feet in diameter, were in full bloom, their dark, glossy tops dotted with huge white blossoms. Even from his position beyond the grove, Rush could smell their ripe, sweet scent.

He turned his gaze from the magnolias to the house, visible at the end of the alleyway of trees. The huge Greek Revival structure rose up from the ground to dominate all around it. A living vision of the past, looking at it brought to mind romantic stories of the Old South, of ladies and gentlemen and codes of honor. And it brought to mind other stories—bloody ones imbued with neither romance nor glory.

Rush stared at the house, a dozen different emotions churning inside him. Awe at its magnificence. Admiration for its beauty, for its having endured the ravages of war and weather and social changes that made it both object of beauty and picture of corruption.

But déjà vu? Rush shook his head, frustrated. He couldn't say for sure.

A woman stepped out onto the gallery. From this distance Rush could make out nothing of her except her sex, and that, only because of the light-colored dress she wore and the way the wind caught the fabric and billowed it around her knees.

Annabelle Ames, he thought. Mistress of Ashland. He'd been in Ames nearly a week, posing as a drifter. As is the way in small towns, people had been only too eager to gossip. He'd learned much about Annabelle and Lowell Ames. Many of the things he'd learned had been less than flattering.

They'd called her a spinster. They'd described her as plain and prim as a Sunday morning, but kind and hardworking, as well. She taught first-graders at the local grammar school, and the children loved her; she could be a bit uppity if she didn't get her way, and downright regal if crossed.

And she was obsessed with saving her family home. She'd devoted her life to it, spending every free moment—and every spare cent—on its upkeep. They thought her crazy for her obsession.

Of course her brother Lowell, they'd said, was no good at all.

Looking at Annabelle Ames now, at the picture she made standing alone on the veranda of that glorious house, something stirred inside him. Something bittersweet and dangerously close to emotions he'd felt before. Ones like longing. Like alienation.

Rush frowned and hiked his duffel bag higher on his shoulder, conscious of the music box carefully wrapped and tucked inside. It wouldn't do to forget the lessons of his past. It wouldn't do to allow himself to feel too much. He'd come to Ashland for answers, plain and simple. And if, indeed, there were any here for him, he would find them.

Rush tightened his mouth in determination. Annabelle Ames was looking for a handyman to help her make repairs to Ashland. According to Bubba at the Feed and Seed, she'd had no takers and was getting desperate. The same as every year.

Rush smiled and started for the house. Today was going to be Annabelle Ames's lucky day.

* * *

Annabelle drew in a lungful of the morning air, heavy with the pungency of summer. Yesterday at this time she'd been in a classroom, trying to contain a group of six-year-olds who knew the next day would be their first of summer vacation. And doing it while her own thoughts had been just as focused on the summer ahead.

Annabelle smiled, relishing the freedom of her first day, looking forward to spending the days and weeks ahead at Ashland. The people in town, her friends and colleagues, even her own brother, thought her love of Ashland strange, thought her determination to save it more than a little crazy.

She knew the things they said about her, knew what they called her. She shook her head and moved her gaze over the view before her, taking in the ancient live oaks, draped in Spanish moss, the gardens, wildly overgrown but still thick with azaleas, camellias and gardenias, the classical fountain, its cherubs desperately in need of repair but deliciously whimsical.

Ashland was her home—it had been home to six generations of Ameses. Everything about this place struck a chord of beauty and peace inside her.

But how could she explain that to her critics? How could she verbalize the way Ashland made her feel or how much preserving it meant to her?

She couldn't; she'd tried. Annabelle smiled. Let them think what they would; their opinions meant nothing to her.

Except for Lowell's. Her smile faded and she leaned against one of the massive columns, its plaster cool and damp despite the warmth of the sun. What had she done to make her brother resent her so? How could they have veered so far apart that they couldn't even speak to one another without arguing?

Sadness curled through her. And regret. They were family, all that the other had left. If only they could be close, the way they once had been.

If only she could make him happy.

Anna forcefully turned her thoughts from ones of her brother to ones of Ashland and the job she had to do. She had the summer, only three short months, to undo the damage of nine. A meager one hundred and twenty days to keep destruction from Ashland's front doors. And an even more meager amount of money to do it with.

She had to begin repairs, handyman or not. She drew in a deep breath. Skilled help would make a world of difference in what she could accomplish this summer. With someone who knew what they were doing, she could get two, maybe three times the repairs done that she had last year with the high-school student she'd hired.

But where would she find help like that when she had only minimum wage to offer?

A man appeared from beneath the magnolia canopy, and Anna straightened. He walked toward her, his stride long and brisk. From this distance he looked big and powerfully built. Dressed casually, in worn blue jeans and white T-shirt, he had a duffel bag flung over his shoulder.

Anna sensed his gaze upon her, although he didn't call out or lift his hand in greeting. Her heart began to thrum, her palms to sweat. She knew everyone in Ames; she'd never seen this man before.

Anna took a step back from the gallery railing. The river and hundreds of acres of undeveloped land isolated Ashland Plantation from the rest of the community, and she was absolutely alone here.

Turning, she strode to the door and whistled. A moment later Blue, her black Labrador retriever, shot through the door. He caught the stranger's scent immediately, and growled low in his throat.

“Good boy,” Anna whispered, slipping her fingers through his collar to hold him at her side. She crossed to the steps and waited for the stranger.

The man stopped at the bottom of the stairs and tipped his face up to hers. Her first thought was that he reminded her of Blue, big and brawny and deceptively fierce. Her second was that he was handsome, in a brash, outdoorsy way. His sandy hair was thick and almost wavy; his eyes, a rich hazel, were creased at the corners from years of amusement or squinting against the sun. Although a man of her age, there was something boyish in his demeanor, as if he laughed often and enjoyed life fully.

As she silently assessed him, he smiled. The lifting of his lips, slow and somehow cocky, cut a deep dimple in his right cheek. The smile transformed his face from handsome to irresistible. And transformed him from an ordinary man to a charming rogue. A sexy rascal. The kind of man who made her feel awkward and plain.

The kind of man a woman should never trust. Especially a woman like herself.

“Good morning,” he said, his dimple deepening. “By any chance are you Annabelle Ames?”

Not only big and handsome, but Yankee, too.
She silently swore. “By any chance,” she replied haughtily, “can I help you?”

“Maybe.” He smiled again. “But maybe it's I who can help you.”

She tightened her fingers around Blue's collar, but arched her eyebrows coolly. “Is that so?”

He laughed and climbed the stairs to stop before her. He held out his hand. “Rush Cousins. I've come about the job.”

Annabelle gazed at his outstretched hand a moment, then placed hers in his. His fingers closed over hers gently, yet she could feel their strength. His skin was warm against hers, his palm callused. His touch made her feel small and vulnerable. And trapped.

Heart thundering, she slipped her hand from his. He seemed not to notice her discomfort, and crossed to one of the columns, to a place where the plaster had chipped away to reveal the understructure of mud and brick. “Beautiful place,” he murmured. “Must be a devil to keep up.”

“Or a joy,” she countered. “Do you know much about the construction of plantation homes?”

“I've done some reading about them. Recently.” He moved his fingers over the column. Although he was big and rough looking, there seemed something gentle, almost tender, about the way he explored the surface of the column.

“Then you'll know that all the bricks were made right here on the plantation.”

“From river clay,” he finished
for her. “The mortar is an incredibly durable combination of moss and mud. As I understand it, except in rare cases, only indigenous materials were used in building plantations. River clay, moss, cypress and oak.” He moved his fingers over the surface again, and again she caught herself staring at them. “Fascinating stuff.”

She dragged her gaze away. “I don't recognize you, Mr. Cousins. How did you hear about the job?”

He crossed back to her. Taking a folded paper from his T-shirt pocket, he handed it to her. “From this.” Anna didn't have to unfold it to know it was one of her Help Wanted signs. She took it anyway.

“I saw it in Bubba's front window,” he continued. “I only arrived in Ames a week ago.”

“Really? From where?”

“Boston.”

As if sensing his master's unease, Blue growled again. Anna put her hand on Blue's head, to reassure the animal, but also to remind the man that she wasn't alone. Rush Cousins didn't seem a bit concerned, even though the dog could rip him to shreds, given the word.

“Bubba said you were anxious to find someone.”

Anna frowned, wanting to throttle the loquacious Bubba Percell. “Did he?”

“Called you desperate, actually.”

Embarrassed color heated her cheeks.
Desperate.
The images that word brought forth—ones that had nothing to do with finding a handyman—stung. That's how the people of Ames thought of her. And she had no doubt that that was how they'd described her to this stranger.

Anna stiffened her spine. This big, overconfident and rude Yankee could go jump in the river. She wasn't about to hire him. She didn't need him or any other man. “I'm sorry, Mr. Cousins, but Bubba was wrong. I'm quite discriminating.”

“I didn't mean to offend you.” He smiled again. “I'm a builder by trade. I've done a lot of restoration and renovation work on the East Coast. In fact, I've worked on places older than this one. I suggest you give me a chance. You won't regret it.”

Arrogant, Anna thought. Pushy. The last kind of man she wanted on Ashland. Yet, if he had the experience he said he did… She folded her arms across her chest. “Boston's a long way from Mississippi. May
I ask what you're doing in Ames?”

He hesitated a moment, then slipped his hands into the front pockets of his blue jeans and shrugged. “Road trip. I'd never seen the South and the opportunity presented itself. So here I am.”

He wasn't telling her everything.
His answer had an awkward, almost rehearsed quality to it. As if it didn't fall off his tongue naturally. Anna searched his gaze, wondering what it was he'd kept hidden. And why.

He hiked his bag back onto his shoulder. “Forget it. You're obviously not interested, and there's always a job for someone with my qualifications.” He descended the stairs and started for the magnolia grove. “See you around.”

“Wait!”

He stopped and looked back at her, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. He knew he had her. Damn him.

“I'm only interested in summer help.”

“By September, it'll be time for me to move on.”

“I pay minimum wage.”

“Room and board?”

“Room only. There's a kitchen in the guest quarters.”

“Partial board. I expect cold drinks during the day, and the noon meal.”

Anna narrowed her eyes. The man would endlessly irritate her. What she'd have liked to do was send him packing. But she needed his help, Ashland needed his help. If he had the credentials he promised, he would be a godsend.

She thought of the way he'd moved his hands over the chipped column. This was a man who had worked with his hands, a man who respected craftsmanship and the materials of building. She hadn't a doubt about that. And nobody else with any kind of restoration experience or skills was going to apply. She hadn't a doubt about that, either.

She needed him, and as dismayed as that made her, it was a fact. She drew in a deep breath and let it out on a huff. “You're hired, Mr.—”

“Rush,” he corrected.

“Mr. Cousins,” she repeated stiffly. “We'll start first thing in the morning. Come, I'll show you your quarters.”

Without waiting for him, she started down the stairs and around to the rear of the house, dog at her side. Rush gazed after her, his eyes narrowed. Eighty-five degrees in the shade, and he had frostbite.
Annabelle Ames had the lady-of-the-manor act down to a T. He should know—growing up he'd been dished a lot of that act. He didn't take that garbage anymore, not from anybody.

Yet her hand had been strong, Rush recalled, remembering the feel of it in his. Although small and delicately shaped, her skin had been tough from hard work. And her eyes… Rush cocked his head in thought. He'd caught a glimmer of something incredibly soft and uncertain in her eyes. Something that called to him on some sort of elemental, protective level.