The Magnolia Sisters: An Excerpt

I grew up in Ohio but have lived in Colorado for over twenty-five years. No matter how long I’m here, I’ll always consider myself a Midwestern girl at heart. I write sweet and sexy contemporary romance and have published over thirty books. I’m so excited about the release of The Magnolia Sisters, which kicks off my first single title series with Harlequin. I love doing anything outside — lots of hiking with my dogs.

My kids are teenagers so a lot of free time is spent on the sidelines of their activities. And we also foster kittens for a local animal rescue. Pretty much anything with fur — I’m in!

The Magnolia Sisters is a series that focuses on three women who discover they share the same father after he dies and how they manage to forge a bond in the small town of Magnolia, North Carolina. In the first book we meet Avery, a big city transplant who is starting over and definitely not looking for love (spoiler alert: she finds it with a sexy firefighter). I loved—as always—writing an emotionally charged romance but also having the opportunity to explore the relationship between the three sisters.

I read across genres and news stories, especially human-interest stories. Sometimes a kernel of an idea will come to me from that. A little off topic but the dog in The Magnolia Sisters was inspired by a story I read on Facebook about a little rescue dog who needed to lose weight. I just had to put her into the story because the cute factor overwhelmed me. 

MAGNOLIA SISTERS: AN EXCERPT

The house was one of the oldest in Magnolia, with ten-foot ceilings even on the second floor. That fact gave the room an open feel, despite how crowded it was. But it wasn’t going to make it any easier to get Avery unstuck.

“Gray’s here,” Carrie called, and Gray saw the legs go tense.

“I’m fine.” Avery’s tone was exasperated but he could hear the thread of pain in it. “I don’t need help.”

“Where’s the attic?” he asked Carrie.

She backed out of the bedroom and pointed to an open doorway across from the main staircase. “I warned her not to go up there.”

“This isn’t the time for ‘I told you so,’” Avery shouted.

Carrie gave him a look and lowered her voice. “Get her out, Gray. She’s irritating as hell, but I can’t have her hurt in this mess of a house.”

“She’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “I’m going to try to make this work from above instead of below. I’ll need reinforcements if we’re going to move the furniture. That’ll take too long.”

He climbed the steps, waving a hand in front of his face until the dust that filled the air cleared.

“You sure know how to make your mark on a place,” he said casually as he surveyed the scene.

“I don’t need your help,” she snapped. “Doesn’t Carrie have a helpful neighbor she could call?”

“She called me,” he answered simply. He kind of liked Avery Keller’s attitude and admired her calm in the situation, but right now he was all business. “Can you tell if the floor joists around you will hold my weight or are they too damaged?”

“The ones in front of me will give,” she answered. “I’m wedged in here tight and when I try to shift my weight to lift myself up, everything feels like it’s sagging.”

“Then don’t move.”

“Thanks for the tip,” she muttered. “In case you care, I also have a piece of splintered wood lodged in my left arm. So I can only use the right one at the moment.”

His gut tightened at the thought of her in pain. “Do you think anything’s broken?” He stepped gingerly toward her, making sure to test each section of floorboard before he moved. He couldn’t very well help her if he ended up in the same predicament.

“Bruised,” she admitted, “but not broken. Do you think Clark Griswold knew how lucky he was to land on that bunk bed?”

“That’s the Hollywood version of this scenario. This is real life.”

“Does that mean I’m not going to get a happy ending?”

“You’re going to be fine,” he told her, placing his tool bag on the floor and pulling out a small saw.

“You must practice that commanding tone at the firehouse.” She laughed softly. “It’s weirdly reassuring.”

“My job is rescuing people. I’m good at it.”

“Great.” For the first time since he’d encountered her at the convenience store, Avery sounded defeated.

It bothered him more than he cared to admit.

He began talking her through his plan, mostly making it up as he went along. The floor joists behind her seemed to be structurally sound, but he wasn’t going to risk putting the weight of his entire two hundred pounds on them.

“Can you get her out?” Carrie called from below them. “I climbed over the mess in here and I’ve got pillows to cushion a fall just in case.”

“I’m glad I didn’t wear a skirt today,” Avery said through clenched teeth.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he reassured her, earning a snort.

She shifted to look over her shoulder at him, and the floor around her heaved.

He heard Avery’s gasp, along with Carrie’s worried cry from the bedroom.

“Stay still,” he commanded, then called to Carrie, “Don’t stand directly underneath her.”

“I don’t want to fall,” Avery said, more to herself than to him.

He answered anyway. “You’re not going to fall.”

She drew in a ragged breath. “I might be starting to panic. I don’t usually panic.”

“No reason to.” He bent to his knees, then crawled forward, stretching out to reach her. The ideal way to handle this would be clearing out the spare bedroom and having some of his crew supporting her from below. But there was no guarantee that more of the floor wouldn’t give way while they waited for backup to arrive. Plus she was in pain, and he wanted her safe on solid ground as soon as he could manage it.

“I’m right behind you,” he said as he got closer. “I’m going to cut the piece of wood that’s got you wedged in here.” 

“I feel like a chicken skewer.”

One side of his mouth curved, and he inched forward. Narrating his movements for her, he managed to saw through the splintering section of wood.

Avery let out a sigh when it fell away from her arm. She had a deep cut, but it wasn’t bleeding badly at the moment.

“Now I’m going to lift you back toward me. Use your elbows to brace on the joists on either side of you.”

“I can do three pull-ups in my CrossFit class,” she announced. “Who knew all my upper body strength would come in so handy?”

“Exactly,” he agreed, knowing it was fear driving her seemingly casual chatter. “Do you upend tires, too?”

“Sometimes. Mostly it’s a lot of burpees and suicides.”

“I hate burpees.” He positioned his hands under her arms. “You’re strong, Avery. You’ve done a great job holding steady. Just a few more seconds and…” He half lifted, half dragged her up out of the hole, quickly moving both of them away from the water-damaged section of the attic.

“You did it,” Carrie shouted from the bedroom below.

“You did it,” Avery echoed in a hoarse whisper.

“We did it,” he corrected. He had the crazy urge to wrap his arms around her and pull her close, holding her to him until the tremors he felt rippling through her body subsided. The notion was odd and out of character. He’d rescued plenty of people in his years as a firefighter.

Hell, just last week, he’d come to the aid of Kenneth Masminster when he’d locked himself in his tool shed. But a seventy-five-year-old gardener who smelled like menthol and mothballs hadn’t elicited near the emotional reaction that Avery did. Avery, with her shiny hair and manicured nails, and the scent of expensive perfume on her skin that was at odds with the hot, dusty attic. A scent that should put him off. As appealing as it was, what the scent conveyed about the woman who wore it made her all wrong for him.

“Thank you,” she said into the front of his uniform shirt. She seemed as unwilling to let go as he was.

 

—

Michelle Major is the Publishers Weekly best-selling, RITA award winning author of over thirty sexy and sweet contemporary romances. She loves second-chances love stories, smart heroines and strong heroes. A Midwesterner at heart, she’s made the Rocky Mountains her home for nearly half her life and is thrilled to share her books with readers. Connect with her at www.michellemajor.com.

Kind out more about Michelle on her website https://michellemajor.com/

MAGNOLIA SISTERS

An inheritance brought her to Magnolia, but love just might keep her there…

Avery Keller arrives in Magnolia, North Carolina, with one aim: collect her inheritance and quickly put the quirky town in her rearview mirror. But the father who didn’t acknowledge her when he was alive has left Avery a mess to sort through—along with two half sisters she’s never met and a gorgeous single dad living next door. Soon her plan to keep this colorful, close-knit community at a distance gets complicated….

Grayson Atwell has rescued plenty of people in his firefighting career. His work and his little girl, Violet, are his entire world and there’s no time for anything—or anyone—else. But the vulnerability beneath Avery’s prickly façade brings out a fiercely protective side of him. Despite her protests, Gray can see that Avery’s falling under Magnolia’s spell—just like he’s falling for her. Now the only question is: How can he convince her to give them both a chance at forever?

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