Magnolia Dawn by Erica Spindler

surprisingly full mouth?
    A mouth meant for kissing.
    Awareness barreled through him, catching him off guard, stunning him. He sucked in a quick breath and dragged his gaze from her too-kissable mouth.
    â€œTell me more about your life here at Ashland. Your parents. Your childhood.”
    Anna drew her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. She turned her face to his. “When I think of my childhood, most often I think of Daddy. He was a dreamer. A storyteller. I grew up on tales of the Old South, tales of ladies and gentlemen and codes of honor. I was weaned on heroic tales of the Ames ancestors.”
    She laughed lightly. “Daddy took his position as Joshua Ames, master of Ashland, very seriously. Serious in the sense that he believed the stories himself. He believed in his own…stature.”
    She turned her gaze back to the house, with its huge square columns and massive entablature. “Unfortunately, he didn’t have the drive to back up his dreams. By the time I stepped in after Mama died, there was almost nothing left. Daddy had sold off everything to maintain the Ames image and life-style. If not for Mama’s hard work and business acumen, Ashland would have come to the state it is in today years sooner.”
    Anna drew her eyebrows together. “I never saw his weakness. I never knew that it was Mama who ran things, Mama who held us all together.”
    â€œYou didn’t want to.”
    â€œI guess not. I guess I believed the image, too.” She lifted her shoulders. “Daddy gave me my love of this place, my love of the South. Mama gave me my strength.”
    â€œBut it was different for Lowell.” Rush regretted the words the moment he uttered them. He saw her stiffen, felt her withdrawal as an almost physical thing.
    â€œTell me one of your father’s stories,” he said quickly, cursing having mentioned her brother, hoping he hadn’t ruined the mood.
    â€œYou’d really like to hear one?” When he nodded, she smiled. “Okay, I’ll tell you my favorite.” She sat up and drew her knees to her chest. “The story’s about an extremely wealthy and flamboyant planter from Louisiana. On the occasion of the simultaneous wedding of two of his daughters, he imported large spiders from China and had them set free in the oak alley that led to the house. The spiders spun great webs, and the morning of the weddings, servants were given bellows of gold and silver dust. They coated the webs, and that night the couples were led by torchlight under the glittering canopy.”
    â€œVery romantic.”
    Annabelle sighed. It wasn’t the sigh of a young girl’s longing, but of a grown woman surrounded by bittersweet memories. The sound tugged at him in a way that was both unfamiliar and warm.
    â€œDaddy told me that story for the first time when I was four. He promised he would do that for me when I married. The whole thing.” A flicker of regret crossed her features. “As a little girl I had no idea of the cost of something like that, or of the fact that I might…never marry.”
    Why hadn’t she? Rush wondered, cocking his head. She was attractive and smart; she was from a prestigious family. How had a girl with so many traditional ideas grown into such a nontraditional woman?
    He thought of her friend Travis Gentry, and drew his eyebrows together. He recalled the warmth in her eyes as she’d gazed at the other man, recalled the way they’d embraced. Maybe the right man had never asked. Rush frowned, irritated by his own thoughts.
    Annabelle tipped her head and
met his eyes. “Daddy told me a lot of fantastic stories. Ones about duels being fought for honor, about great balls and star-crossed lovers.”
    â€œWhy, Annabelle,” Rush drawled, “you’re a romantic.”
    She lifted her eyebrows in genuine surprise. “Not at all.”
    â€œYou are.” He leaned toward her.