Home was Magnolia Inn in a physical sense. But home was Jolene Broussard in an emotional sense. He’d fallen in love with the woman, and now all he had to do was give her enough time and room to fall for him.

Jolene felt every word of Garth’s song, and as the words sank into her heart, she let go of the guilt and the pain of the past. She might have missed the pain, like he said, but she would have missed the dance. The good times with her father in his flower garden. The shopping trips with her mother when she was a little girl. She’d hang on to the good memories, however scarce they might be, and do her best to let go of the others.

There was a pause when the song ended, and then a woman in a bright-red dress stood up. She had a microphone in one hand and a hankie in the other.

“Saying goodbye to my precious husband is not easy, and y’all might think that song is crazy for a funeral. But it was our song. We had a rough year in our marriage the year that song came out. We lost both sets of our parents. The kids were young, and Luke had lost his job. We used up all our savings before he finally got another job. We were fighting a lot in those days about money and kids and everything else. One day he came into the house, put a cassette in the player, and held out his hand to me. He wasn’t a romantic man, so I was a little shocked, but I thought maybe . . .” She paused and dabbed at her eyes before she went on. “I thought maybe that he was ready to try a little harder, so I put my hand in his. He pushed the button on the cassette player, and that song started playing. We danced and wept all the way through it. That was the turning point in our marriage. He still wasn’t romantic, but sometimes he’d come in and put on that song again, and we’d dance. He didn’t want a funeral. He didn’t even really want this much. He just asked to be buried by our daughter, Melanie, and for me not to grieve too long. I can do it all, and maybe when the grief gets to be too much, I’ll just put on this song and remember that if I didn’t have this horrible pain today, I would’ve had to miss the dance with a fantastic man. Thank you all for coming—the song as you leave was his choice for today. It’s the one that we danced to the night before he went to be with our daughter in heaven.”

Jolene didn’t even try to keep up with the tears dripping on her jacket as Vince Gill sang “Look At Us.” She watched Carla kiss a single red rose and lay it on the casket. Then Carla sat down, and her shoulders began to shake with sobs.

Tucker left his place with the pallbearers to hug her. “Call me anytime. I’m here for you and the boys.”

“Thank you,” Carla said.

He took a few steps toward Jolene. She met him halfway, and their tears blended together, washing away the past.

He handed her his handkerchief. “I need to say something right now, Jolene, because we might not have anything but this moment. I’m falling in love with you.”

“I never believed that love conquered everything. But maybe, in our case, it could be right.” She wiped her eyes and handed it back to him. “I feel the same about you. Do we go home now?”

“We should go to the house,” he said. “Carla wants to meet you.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Conversation flowed in low tones as they reached the house. Tucker kept her by his side for a while, and then Carla looped an arm in hers and said, “You boys go on in the living room and talk. I want to show Jolene something.”

Jolene sent a frantic look toward Tucker, begging him to make an excuse to take her home, but he just nodded and went into another room with Will and Patrick.

Carla led her into a study, shut the door, and slumped down in a chair. “I love my family, but I need a moment. Please sit down and let’s catch our breath.”

Jolene sat down next to her and crossed her legs at the ankles. She was reminded of how she’d sneaked away after her father’s funeral. All those people milling around. Her mother in tears. She’d felt the walls closing in on her and gone outside. Uncle Jasper had finally missed her and had come out to sit beside her. He didn’t say anything at all, but just held her hand for a long time.

Now it was her turn to be the one to comfort someone—a complete stranger, and yet grief is no respecter of persons. She reached across the distance and laid a hand on Carla’s arm. “Your eulogy was wonderful. So heartfelt and personal. More funerals should be like that,” Jolene said.

“Thank you so much. I want to say something to you, but I’m not even sure where to begin.” Carla fidgeted with the handkerchief in her hands.

“It’s only awkward if we make it that way, so let’s don’t,” Jolene said. There wasn’t going to be anything left of that hankie if Carla kept wringing it. “It’s okay. Tucker told me all about Melanie and how he and her father had made peace with each other the week before he died.”

Carla sucked in a lungful of air and let it out in a whoosh. “I felt like I’d lost two kids when Melanie died and Tucker didn’t come around anymore. I didn’t think he’d ever get over it, and I’m not so sure he would have without you in his life. I know it’s a crazy thing to ask under the circumstances, but I’d like for us to be friends. We, my sons and I, want Tucker back in our lives, and this is going to sound insane,” Carla whispered. “I had a dream last night. You’d think it would be about Luke, but it was about Melanie. I could see her sitting on her tombstone, wearing her wedding dress, of all things, and she told me that she had a new friend named Jolene that was going to help Tucker. Luke told me that you see things different when you’re lookin’ at death. I thought he was bat-crap crazy, but I’ve changed my mind since that dream. The last thing she said as she faded away, leaving just the tombstone, was that I’d like her new friend, too.” She took several sips of her tea.