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“I don’t want Alexander to know I’m here. He purposely didn’t tell me about selling the place.”
Ramon wiped his finger against the dusty, cluttered desk. “Not too sure I want to buy the place after all. Seems like a lot of work.”
“Plus you need to make sure you maintain the history of the place,” she reminded him with a sweet grin.
“Oh yes, that it’s haunted.”
The sweet grin disappeared and Kenzie shook her head from side to side. The button Kenzie swore he’d ripped off had indeed disappeared and he was left with a view of her lacy white bra. Ramon swallowed hard and tried not to stare at the swell of her breasts. Dust flew from her curly hair. Her bun was now loose and her curls dangled.
“Laugh all you want. Try spending the night here.”
“I have several bedrooms at my hotel to choose from,” Ramon said.
Kenzie rolled her eyes. “Yes, I am well aware.” She took a step back and craned her neck for a better view out the window. “Let me get on your shoulders.”
The idea of Kenzie’s legs wrapped around his shoulders did something to him. “No.”
“C’mon, I’m not that heavy.”
Ramon rubbed his hands together and licked his lips. “As much as I like your legs wrapped around me, I don’t think doing it now that we’re friends again is a wise idea.”
Getting the hint, Kenzie pulled her blouse together. “Oh.”
“I’ll check.” He moved closer into the room and peered out the dirty glass. “There are more people.” Like Kenzie had done a few moments ago, he banged on the glass. Behind him his companion began pushing the desk against the wall. Before he had a chance to question her, she kicked her feet out of her heels and climbed on top of the desk. Ramon glanced down at the legs of the furniture wobbling. “That’s not safe—get down from there.”
“The two of us banging together will make more noise.”
Ramon paused at her statement. How could being trapped in a building be so erotic? “Kenzie.”
“Hey! Hey!” she screamed at the window.
The jiggling of her body made the desk move more. Ramon wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her off the top. She kicked the top drawer by accident and the compartment fell down, causing old papers to fall to the dust covered ground. Like a child on Christmas morning, Kenzie squealed in delight and shimmied out of Ramon’s eyes. “Oh my God, what’s this?”
“Old papers,” Ramon answered. He knelt beside her and as she whipped her hair off her neck he whiffed the sweet, magnolia scented products in her hair.
“But what kind? Look here,” she said, lifting up what looked like a legal document stapled to a blue construction-like paper. “Bank papers? Deeds? Oh, look.” Kenzie scrambled around the floor and found a brass key. “What do you think this is for?”
Ramon inspected it. “It’s too big for a desk drawer.” He stood up, went to the office door to close it, where he found a closet. “Throw me the key.” She did, but it landed on the floor halfway between them.
“I was a cheerleader, not a quarterback.”
Grumbling, Ramon retrieved the key. The lock turned but the door wouldn’t open. Humidity often caused wood to swell. Kenzie was already behind him when he shouldered the closet open. Musty air hit their noses.
“Son of a bitch,” Kenzie said from between gritted teeth. “Someone has been in here and tried putting in an air-conditioning unit.”
Ramon followed Kenzie’s glare up to the ceiling of the closet. A silver-coated pipe hung from the top tiles. Rust-colored water stained the walls and the floor. Ramon would rather leave the belongings inside and return with a face mask but Kenzie had already started dragging the plastic bags out. She grunted and tugged at the top bag, an old army-green duffel bag. Ramon took it from her hands and tossed it behind them with ease. The next bags, oddly shaped, weren’t as heavy. Kenzie pulled a picture frame from the top bag.
“The date,” Kenzie breathed. “This photograph was taken over a hundred years ago.” She pressed her finger at the date on the corner of the faded, yellowed newspaper clipping. Ramon wondered if she’d paid attention to the picture first. The image in the article was of a sheriff and his men standing over a body. The sheriff held a most wanted sketch and his deputy held up a picture of a newspaper. The fold of a paper obscured the names tagged in the photo.
“I need to look these names up, of course,” said Kenzie. “What else is in here?”
They found more photographs, including some of the post office they stood in when it was first built. The streets were filled with mud. Instead of a sidewalk there were boardwalks. Mud tarnished the hems of the proud women’s dresses. A box contained old, loose black-and-white photographs from weddings and men dressed up in military garb standing in front of an old bus, being shipped off to war. Another framed photograph showed the original structure of the schoolhouse.
“Before Southwood High and Southwood Middle,” Kenzie began, “everyone was taught in the one school. Now it’s used as a shed by the elementary school.”
“I remember my folks talking about being taught in one school back in Villa San Juan.” Ramon had grown up in a Florida island town so small, they’d only needed one for a long time. He realized Southwood and Villa San Juan weren’t so different.
“It wasn’t until the late fifties the little school had enough students and funding for a total of three brick and mortar buildings. After the Second World War, while African-Americans from other towns were coming back to the same segregation they’d left, Southwood’s citizens banded together as they always had since the Civil War.”
“Why don’t you teach history?” Ramon inquired. “Didn’t Mr. Myers retire?”
Kenzie pulled her hair up into a bun, exposing her long neck. “I wouldn’t mind. I’ve substituted before. I can’t possibly think about teaching right now. That’s all I need my great-aunts and uncles to hear. I’m going to show up at these weddings and be labeled the spinster teacher. And now it looks like I’ve just hit the jackpot of artifacts. I can’t wait to show all this off at the gala this month, providing the new buyer lets me keep them.”
Ramon knew she meant him. He shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t decided yet. There is a lot of damage and I’ve got to keep up the historic regulations.”
“True,” she agreed, still rifling through the closet.
Ramon glanced around the room. The closet had now been turned inside out. In Kenzie’s search, she tossed some things on top of the original bag. Small pieces of paper spilled out from a hole on the side.
“What’s this?” he asked, picking up a square card.
“I have no idea,” Kenzie said, inspecting it in his hand. “I can barely make out ‘Southwood’ at the top. Damn the water damage. I can’t tell. What do you think it is?”
“My gut says an election ballot,” he half teased her. “Maybe the current mayor didn’t win.”
“I wish.” Kenzie frowned. “I hate Anson with a passion. Unfortunately, when he came along, we were doing electronic ballots. No, these look much older. Hmm, the mystery grows. I told you this place was haunted—you may want to rethink buying it.”
“I don’t believe for one minute it’s haunted.”
“You don’t sound too sure.” Kenzie poked his chest. “Scared?”
“I need to come up with a proposal for how I’m going to keep the historic features intact. Maybe I need a historian, someone who can help me with the Economic Development Council.”
“Good luck,” Kenzie huffed and folded her arms across her chest.
“Kenzie, c’mon, why don’t you help me?”
“Why would I want to help you buy this place and turn it into something stupid like a hotel?”
“I already have a hotel. I can offer you something you don’t have.”
Chin jutted forward, Kenzie squared her shoulders. “What can you offer me?”
“If you’ll help me with the proposal, I’ll be your date for all your functions this month.”
“No thanks,” Kenzie quickly responded with a frown. The corners of Ramon’s mouth turned upside down. “Oh come on,” she breathed, “you don’t think I would allow you the chance to stand me up again.”
“We’ve moved beyond that, Kenzie.”
“Oh sure,” Kenzie said, rolling her eyes. “In a matter of minutes we’ve moved on. Whatever. Besides, anyone in town will know we hate each other.”
“There’s a thin line between...”
Kenzie stopped the following sentence from flowing by pressing her two fingers against his lips—that almost kissed her a few moments ago. The same lips that kissed her naked body on a bed of magnolia petals under the full moon.
“You know we can sell chemistry.” Ramon wrapped his left hand around her fingers and kissed the tips.
Kenzie waited a beat or two before pulling away with a step backward. “How so?”
Ramon stepped forward and as if in a dance move, Kenzie backed up against the wall, right where he wanted her. He pressed his hands on the wall on either side of her head. Beneath her blouse her skin rippled with goose bumps. When he dipped his head lower toward hers she pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. Chuckling, Ramon caressed the side of her face.
“Because we can’t deny it.” His lips were practically on hers. He tasted the sweet lemon frosting on her breath.
“Mr. Torres, is that you?” someone yelled and banged on the outside glass.
Kenzie pressed her head against Ramon’s chest and grabbed the lapels of his jacket while Ramon cursed in Spanish. “Think my offer over, sweetheart.”
Chapter 3 (#u4f0bb17b-58f3-5dec-941f-652c23dd50af)
“And what are you going to do?” Maggie Swayne asked, sitting with her legs crossed on Kenzie’s pale pink cushioned couch. She grabbed a pink-and-gold-accented throw pillow and placed it in her lap, clearly desperate for more details of what had happened this afternoon.
Kenzie’s traumatic episode this afternoon granted her an excuse to not attend Corie’s rehearsal dinner tonight. With fifty Hairstons, Kenzie didn’t think she’d be missed. Her mother, Paula, had already excused her. Maggie took the pardon to include herself, too. “Corie’s wedding is tomorrow.”
The big day had been circled on Kenzie’s custom-made calendar on her stainless steel refrigerator in her downtown Southwood apartment. Each month featured a picture of a particular tiara Kenzie had won over the years propped up at one of her favorite historic places around town. This month’s image was an old photograph of the Miss Southwood crown on a low branch of a blooming magnolia tree last summer. A year ago, when Kenzie took the job, glad to finally put her degree to use, she never thought it would be so unglamorous. She combed through old newspapers, donated family photo albums and yearbooks. Sometimes she went out in around town and took pictures of trees with sweetheart initials carved in the trunk. On one occasion Kenzie brought her well-earned tiaras along with her and made her own calendar. “I don’t need to be reminded,” Kenzie said from the kitchen entrance in a clipped tone.
“I mean, we can skip the rehearsal dinner tonight with no questions asked but Auntie Bren is going to have questions tomorrow for you.”
“I like the way Mama excused me from attending and that includes you for everything but Auntie’s wrath.”
“Because the last time she got on FaceTime with me and asked where my boyfriend was, I reached over into the nightstand and showed her.”
Auntie Bren had a habit of being on the stuffy side. Kenzie could only imagine the old woman’s face.
“You’re so crass.” Kenzie shook her head at her sister, who poked her tongue out in response. “And I have answers for her,” Kenzie said with a shrug. She joined her sister in the living room on the couch with two glasses of wine.
The windows were drawn open. The bright lights of the nearby amphitheater shone through, changing colors on the high ceiling. One of the perks of her apartment was the free concerts. She saw all the performances without ever having to leave her place. The downside was the noise level for the concerts she wouldn’t have paid for nor taken free tickets to. Tonight’s event included a young preteen pop singing group. Kenzie wasn’t sure what was louder, the music or the screaming little girls in the audience.
Maggie took a loud slurp of her red wine before setting the glass down on the magazine-covered coffee table. “What are you going to say?”
“I’m going to tell her I worked my behind off at Georgia State until I received a PhD in Southern history two years ago, and becoming Dr. Mackenzie Swayne has occupied my time.”
“Meanwhile your bed remains unoccupied,” Maggie mumbled.
“Maggie,” Kenzie gasped.
“What?” Maggie blinked her hazel eyes innocently. “I’m merely saying what she’ll say.”
“I’m not discussing my sex life with her because she won’t bring it up.”
Maggie snorted and reached for her glass. “Want to bet?” She cut her eyes over to Kenzie. Kenzie concentrated on swirling the beverage around in the glass. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So why won’t you take this Ramon up on his offer? Hell, moan is in his damn name.”
“Because being around Ramon makes me a different person,” Kenzie answered honestly. “I was so mad at him I became bitter.”
“But the two of you spoke today and worked things out. No one says you two have to sleep together. He needs help and so do you.”
Sometimes Kenzie told her older sister too much. Granted, they were considered Irish twins, born nine months apart, but they bared all the features of twins. Kenzie was outgoing and loved to be around people. They favored each other in looks, with their reddish curly hair, although Maggie’s maintained a better hold than Kenzie’s. But Kenzie and Maggie were complete opposites. At eighteen Maggie couldn’t wait to get out of Southwood. She’d planned on never coming back to live here and had almost lived up to her promise. The Swayne family fortune in pecans made it possible for the kids to never have to work. Kenzie and her brother chose to work for a living. It helped keep their parents out of their lives. Maggie opted not to. Right now Maggie lived in Atlanta as a socialite living off her trust fund—her true calling in life. Coming back to Southwood was a step back for Maggie, yet when she did, she always scheduled a secluded, two-week break in the family’s cabin in the woods over in Black Wolf Creek, away from her social connections in Southwood. Kenzie partly understood her sister’s dilemma. Their last name was Swayne but everyone always asked them if they were Hairston girls. As a teen, Kenzie hated the reminder but going away to college, she missed the recognition. The red hair gave them away. Maggie’s was lighter than Kenzie’s and Maggie wasn’t plagued with freckles.
“Maybe I’ll tell him something next week for Felicia’s wedding.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re going.”
“She was one part of the tiara squad.”
“I’m not friends with the girls I competed with,” said Maggie. “For Christ’s sake, it’s called a competition, not a friendship pageant. You almost lost your chance to be the last Swayne to ever win Miss Southwood.”
“Felicia is always nice to me. When she found out her brother was moving back to town, she sent me a box of magnolias.”
“You were banging her brother,” Maggie pointed out, then shivered with a gagging noise. “Alexander was a creep then. He just wanted to date a beauty queen.”
What Alexander wanted was none of Kenzie’s concern. At least Maggie knew to drop the subject. Both girls glanced over at the curio cabinet filled with beauty pageant memorabilia. Maggie had her own set. The Swaynes were big on pageants, a tradition passed down from generation to generation. Their mother, Paula, met their father, Mitch, through a pageant, when Paula allegedly stole the tiara from his sister, Jody Swayne. Mitch had fallen in love immediately. The Swaynes didn’t speak to their son the first year of their marriage.
Aunt Jody held on to her bitter loss for ten years and stayed away from Southwood. Aunt Jody attended family reunions but she vowed never to step foot at another Southwood pageant ever again. And she kept that promise, even when Maggie and Kenzie competed. Kenzie forgave Aunt Jody for not coming to her crowning and she secretly hoped she’d come back to Southwood, especially with the sesquicentennial gala right around the corner. With the one-hundred-and-fifty-year celebration one week away from the Miss Southwood pageant, Kenzie prayed Aunt Jody would stay.
“Can you believe Bailey is ready for her first pageant?” Kenzie asked. She reached for the photograph on her end table of the seventeen-year-old beauty.
“It’s about time,” Maggie said, throwing the pillow to the side and reaching for the picture in Kenzie’s hands. “I love our brother dearly but Richard nearly tarnished the Swayne dynasty.”
“Hairston-Swayne dynasty,” Kenzie corrected. After their mother won her pageant, her relatives also tried out and won several if Swaynes weren’t in the competition.
“There you go with your history.”
Kenzie shrugged her shoulders and took another sip. “I can’t help myself, it’s in me.”
“You could help it if someone was in you.” Maggie laughed at her own joke while someone knocked on the door.
As if on cue, Kenzie’s stomach growled. Setting her glass down on the coffee table, Kenzie smoothed her hands down the back of her green cotton shorts. Since she and Maggie weren’t attending the rehearsal dinner tonight, there was no need to concern herself with the dozens of buttons on the back of the skintight black dress. The sexy dress lay across her bed, next to the outfit Kenzie planned on wearing tonight—her bathrobe. Kenzie’s stomach growled again. She hadn’t eaten since the cupcake earlier this morning. The box of desserts she’d left upstairs on the second floor of the post office had been lost in the rubble. Thankfully the pizza she’d ordered ten minutes ago came earlier than expected.
“What am I going to do with you?” Kenzie asked as she opened the door.
“Dressed like that, you can do anything to me you want,” answered a deep baritone voice.
Kenzie realized she hadn’t bothered peeping through the peephole. No one knocked on her door other than delivery men. “Ramon?”
“Ramon?” Maggie repeated, leaning off the couch so far to peer down the hall she fell over. Kenzie heard glass break and winced.
Ramon Torres stood before her, dressed in a black suit and crisp white shirt sans a tie. Gone was the manbun from earlier and now his hair hung loose around his neck. A lavender box protruded from his hands with The Cupcakery logo on the top. In his other arm he held a bouquet of flowers—daisies. So he decided to pop up at my place with the wrong flowers?
Kenzie rested her hip against the door frame to block him from entering. So many questions ran through her mind right then. How did he know where she lived? Last year their fling took place at Magnolia Palace, while she’d stayed for the week and where Ramon had never formally picked her up for a date. Why was he decked out on a Friday night? Why hadn’t she cleaned her apartment? Kenzie hated having to clean. Considering she lived alone, one would think Kenzie could keep up with her own mess. Her project this week had been painstakingly combing through the old photo albums of Southwood High and scanning the pages to archive. But she chose sleeping in a few extra minutes over than tidying up every morning. Irritated with herself, Kenzie blew out a sigh. “Why are you here?”
