A Few Pecans Short of a Pie
Author: Molly Harper; Amanda Ronconi
Date: 2019-02-04 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Romance; Contemporary; Humour; Adult
Description: Sexy school principal Kyle faces the biggest challenge of his career: getting his (pregnant) event planner girlfriend Margot down the aisle before the baby arrives! Readers first fell in love with big city event planner Margot in the first Southern Eclectic novel, Sweet Tea and Sympathy , as she discovered a long-lost branch of her family—the McCreadys, of McCready's Bait Shop & Funeral Home. To Margot’s surprise, she's taken a liking to life in small-town Georgia...helped along by a romance with the hot elementary school principal. The two of them have been taking it slow—or they were until M
Publisher: Gallery Books

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The McCready Family Tree

1

MARGOT CARY WANTED an ice cream sandwich and a beef quesadilla, but she wanted even more to stop throwing up every time she smelled sunscreen.

She groaned, her head hanging over a wastebasket her fiancé had thoughtfully placed on her side of the bed. Kyle Archer was nothing if not a thoughtful man.

Every time with the damn sunscreen. Coconut was a “trigger smell” for her morning sickness—along with raw meat and Kyle’s laundry detergent. And half of the tourists who came through McCready’s were slathered in tropical-scented sun protection. She didn’t begrudge them the SPF; she would just like to get through the workday without throwing up.

Also, she called bullshit on whoever coined the term morning sickness. She vomited whenever she was awake. And once when she was asleep, which was unfortunate, and had pretty much traumatized her poor fiancé, who now slept in a raincoat.

Fiancé.

There was a word Margot had never thought would apply to her. Before arriving in Lake Sackett, she hadn’t been in any kind of relationship for years. And a serious relationship? She couldn’t say she’d ever been in one of those. She’d been so focused on building her career that she’d never had time. And she hadn’t exactly had the healthiest example of a marriage.

Her late mother, Linda, had left flaming tire tracks on the highway outside Lake Sackett in her effort to get away from small-town Georgia and her soon-to-be-ex-husband—Margot’s father, Stan McCready. She’d moved Margot to Chicago and effectively erased their Southern roots, telling Margot nothing about Stan and replacing him with a nice, bland, emotionally unavailable doctor. Margot had been raised in the upper-middle tiers of the Chicago social scene. She’d attended the right schools and gotten a job at an elite event planning firm. Margot hadn’t known anything about Stan until she’d been fired for letting a flock of flamingos stage a shrimp raid at a gala filled with the city’s most prominent people (not technically her fault, but still). Her great-aunt Tootie had tracked her down via her special brand of Internet sorcery, and now Margot found herself working for her estranged father’s family funeral home and bait shop, organizing services for the bereaved and wrangling the local PTA. While pregnant. And still not married.

She shifted, rolling her face on the blue-and-white farmhouse quilt her great-grandmother had made by hand. Margot had never met the woman, but Stan told her that Ellie had been a lovely, patient saint who smelled of rosewater and always had a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies in her potbellied-pig-shaped cookie jar. It seemed fitting to make the quilt the centerpiece of redecorating her bedroom with Kyle, with the colors reflected in the denim blue on the walls and the blown glass trinkets on the shelves. The swirling, abstract glass pieces weren’t worth much, but they were kept high above the reach of Kyle’s daughters, for safety’s sake—yet another new dimension to her life that she never saw coming.

She was going to be a mother, not just to this baby in her belly, but to Kyle’s two young girls. She didn’t want to play favorites, but since they weren’t the ones making her vomit, the girls had earned some chocolate chip cookies of their own later. Margot just had to summon the strength to get out of bed.

“Aw, honey, I’m so sorry.”

Even the familiar and much-beloved voice of her fiancé—that word again—from the doorway wasn’t enough to make her lift her head. “Hey,” she mumbled into the comforter. “What are you doing home in the middle of the school day?”

She heard Kyle’s footsteps round the bed. “Your dad called me.”

Margot groaned into the mattress and pulled a pillow over her head. “Oh no!”

“Yeah. Did you really throw up on the side of the hearse?”

She nodded, moving the pillow back and forth. Kyle settled on the bed next to her, his warm hand rubbing the small of her back. She moaned, wiggling her tailbone toward him. She was just finishing out her fifth month, but she’d noticed a growing tension in her lower back. She felt like her entire body weight was settling between her hips.

“I was holding the floral spray while Dad got the casket into the hearse for the graveside service. The Reillys were gathered around the porte cochere, arguing over who got to ride with Meemaw to the cemetery. And you know the Reillys are so pale they’re nearly transparent.”

“Notoriously ill-behaved gingers, the whole family,” Kyle said.

“Well, Nessa Reilly pulled out a tube of SPF fifty to slather up her kids before the sun exposure they were about to get in the cemetery. And it was Tropical Sunshield.”

“The most intensely coconut-scented sun block on the market.” He sighed, his tone sympathetic.

“And before I could say, ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ I turned and threw up down the side of the hearse.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“The kids all started screaming, and poor little Cammie Reilly got sympathy vomit all over her brother’s shoes. You can only imagine the riot that caused. My dad panicked and nearly dropped the casket trying to help me, which didn’t impress half of the male Reillys very much. They started yelling at Dad, and the other half of the male Reillys started yelling at their cousins to ‘shut their damn mouths’ because ‘Meemaw would whoop their sorry butts’ for being rude to a man worrying over his pregnant daughter. And then MaryLu Reilly made a crack about how my Meemaw would be spinning in her grave having a granddaughter who’s pregnant out of wedlock. And that clearly my mother didn’t raise me right in that den of inequity otherwise known as Chicago.”

“Well, she’s not wrong about Chicago.”

Margot rolled her eyes and continued, “And because I’m just a big ball of hormones, the yelling and the embarrassment and the unwed-mother judgment all just manifested in me bursting into snotty, uncontrollable sobs. Honestly, give me rampaging hangry flamingos and hysterical socialites anytime.”

Kyle pulled her pillow away from her face, revealing his in all its bearded glory. “Hi.”

He was as effortlessly handsome as ever, with his tousled sandy hair and deep brown eyes. He was wearing his typical “respectable elementary school principal” gear, khakis and a crisply ironed blue oxford shirt with his brass name tag still clipped to his chest. It was a far cry from the whole “haunted lumberjack” aesthetic he’d embraced when she’d first seen him, but it was still damned attractive. She felt nearly frumpy in comparison, in her yoga pants and faded green McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop T-shirt.

When they’d started dating, Kyle hadn’t had sex in years, not since his wife, Maggie, had died of cancer. And Margot hadn’t been in a relationship for much longer. Was it any wonder that, as far as she could figure, she’d gotten pregnant the first time they’d been together? They hadn’t even been Facebook official yet and he’d knocked her up like a virgin on prom night.

“At least you missed the casket,” Kyle said, his voice brightening.

She groaned, trying to pull the pillow back over her face. Kyle disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a damp washcloth, which he pressed to her forehead while handing her a Dixie cup with Disney princesses printed on it. She swished the water around her mouth and swallowed, feeling better for it.

“Come on, honey, sit up, drink that,” he said, reaching toward the nightstand and handing her an enormous glass of sweet tea, properly brewed, certified-Southern sweet tea, which Tootie had been supplying to her by the gallon every day at McCready’s. “Your dad said it would make you feel better.”

Margot snorted. Stan insisted that she’d been addicted to the stuff when she was a toddler, to the point that he nicknamed her “Sweet Tea.” But as an adult, she hadn’t developed a taste for it until she’d gotten pregnant. Her pregnancy stash was decaffeinated and contained about half the normal amount of sugar, but Tootie insisted it still counted.

Margot stuck the straw between her lips and sucked in a mouthful of the earthy, hypersweetened drink. She knew it wasn’t very healthy but sweet tea was one of the few things that she could still enjoy without nausea. If it weren’t for iced tea and dry toast, she wouldn’t have gained any pregnancy weight at all. Considering she’d seen some expectant mothers riding around town on dirt bikes, helmetless, with cigarettes dangling from their lips, she figured she was doing okay.

Setting the glass on the nightstand, she lay down next to Kyle on the bed. She snuggled into his shirt, enjoying the warmth against her face. He’d switched from his usual laundry detergent to an unscented brand after the Sunny Fresh scent triggered one of her first rounds of morning sickness. She sort of missed its inclusion in his spicy, woodsy scent, but the absence of vomiting was pretty important to her peace of mind.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Kyle told her. “You’re growing another human being. It’s a big undertaking. You’ve got all those extra hormones running through your system. And it’s not like you were throwing up because you were drunk, which is more than most of the Reillys can say by this time of day. And as for MaryLu, well, that’s just the local attitude about women and pregnancy. It’s not very evolved, but it is super entrenched and pretty much everywhere.”

She lifted her head and scowled at him. He tilted his head. “Yeah, that sounded better in my head.’

“I know it’s been hard on you, too,” she said, stroking her hand along his scratchy bearded cheek. “The PTA meetings have basically become Real Housewives reunion shows, and you’re the Bethenny.”

“The passive aggression has been very pointed. But it should slow down after the wedding,” he said. “It’s bizarre how suddenly everybody supports your marriage and your pregnancy as the ring slides on your finger. It’s one of the great hypocritical mysteries of Lake Sackett.”

She groaned again.

Wedding planning was something she’d expected to be easy for her. She was an event planner, for goodness sake. She was an expert in tablescapes and floral design and catering plans. She’d always thought she knew exactly what she wanted: a quiet, elegant affair at one of the old-guard society hotels in Chicago, with an orchestra playing jazzy dance music and food acceptable to those with unadventurous palates (also known as her stepfather’s British relatives). She’d thought her biggest battle would be fighting her mother for control of what Linda Cary would see as the Ambitious Social Climber’s Olympics.

But now that it was reality, she was frozen in indecision. There was no venue available in Lake Sackett that she wanted. The Dirty Deer was perfectly nice for an after-work beer but didn’t exactly scream bridal. And one of the two florists in town still wasn’t talking to her after she poked fun at the “Jesus Called Her Home” phone-shaped floral arrangement, which made working for a funeral home super fun. Also, after a predictably dry, emotionally distant conversation with her stepfather, she realized that she didn’t have to accommodate any members of his family, because neither Gerald nor his relatives planned on making the trip from England just to see a stepdaughter he hadn’t had a close relationship with in years get married to someone they didn’t know. So now her wedding slate was full of endless possibilities . . . but completely blank. She tried to picture herself walking down the aisle in a big white dress in front of all their friends and family, and the very idea seemed to make her brain recoil into itself like a snail.

“Still no big ideas, huh?”

“Oh, no, I’m overflowing with ideas. Most of them aren’t mine. Everybody has all of these really helpful suggestions as to how they can be involved in the wedding. Delilah Dawkins offered to be a bridesmaid.”

Kyle jerked his shoulders. “I think it would be kind of avant-garde to have a seventy-six-year-old bridesmaid. Just imagine the dress possibilities.”

Margot laughed. “And Sweet Johnnie Reed says we can use her kegerator. Apparently it’s vitally important to the function of a reception.”

Kyle chuckled, making a sympathetic noise as he pulled her close. “Yeah, that’s also super normal. Don’t feel like you have to do anything you don’t want to just to make somebody else happy. This is our wedding. It’s about what we want, not what they want.”

“I know. But it’s sort of easy to say that when it’s not your well-intentioned relatives standing in front of you, earnestly suggesting you use the funeral chapel for the ceremony.”

“Wow,” Kyle said, recoiling slightly. “Uncle E.J.J.?”

She nodded. “He said it would be nice to have a happy occasion in the funeral home. And I could ride up in the casket elevator to make a special entrance.”

Kyle’s mouth worked open and shut a few times. “You know, I know that I said I didn’t have a lot of hard limits with this wedding, but I’m going to have to draw the line at the word ‘funeral’ appearing anywhere on the invitations. Also, the words ‘casket elevator’ being involved in the ceremony.”

“I feel that is very fair,” she assured him.

“We’ll get it worked out,” he promised. “Anything you want—I want you to have your dream wedding.”

“What about what you want?” she asked.

“I just want to spend the rest of my life with you and our kids.”

She stroked her fingers through Kyle’s hair. It had been a shock, finding out they were pregnant so soon into their relationship. And she worried that she was rushing Kyle into something he wasn’t ready for, considering how deeply he had mourned Maggie for the first few years after she died. But the moment he’d found out about the baby, he’d popped the question. And she’d damn near said no. She didn’t want a marriage based solely on an unplanned pregnancy. But then he’d presented her with the ring he’d bought just before the night she blurted, “Oh my God, I’m pregnant.”

And how was she supposed to resist that?

Of course, that tasteful platinum-set solitaire didn’t fit on her increasingly sausage-like fingers anymore, but it looked nice on a chain around her neck.

Kyle had changed a lot of things in her life. Before Kyle, she’d never imagined herself getting married. Before Kyle, she’d never imagined herself as a mother. Before Kyle, she’d never imagined wanting either of those things. So why was she dragging her feet about a day that was a celebration of everything she was gaining?

“We can serve pizza at the reception,” Kyle said, smirking because he knew the best way to wind her up was over their fundamental pizza differences. “New York style.”

“I am not serving your structurally unsound, tasteless cardboard shingles at the reception. It’s Chicago deep dish or nothing.”

He shuddered. “All that unnecessary tomato sauce on top is not a good combination with fancy wedding clothes.”

“Which won’t be a problem because Chicago style actually holds its shape, as opposed to folding and falling apart in a greasy heap,” she shot back, poking him playfully in the ribs.

“We could make it a taste test,” Kyle said, grinning. “People can decide for themselves what they like better and then we can ceremonially toss all the leftover Chicago style in the garbage.”

“Too far,” she said, making him chuckle. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to school?”

“Yeah, it’s Taco Tuesday,” he said, shuddering. “That can get really ugly without a strong male figure policing the cafeteria. It’s basically Thunderdome with crispy corn shells.”

“Well, that’s what you get for serving hard-shell tacos. Someone could lose an eye. You should get back there before poor Miss Clarice hates me even more.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Kyle said, his lips pinching together at the mention of the school secretary who filled the role of “disapproving mother-in-law” in Margot’s life.

She propped herself up on her elbows as Kyle climbed out of bed. “She left a pamphlet on your desk titled ‘Don’t You Think It’s Time to Plan Your Vasectomy?’ ”

He nodded. “Yes, she did.”

He leaned in to kiss her, but she shook her head. “You’re going to want to rethink that.”

“Haven’t brushed your teeth, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, fine,” he said, leaning toward her middle and kissing her shirt over the swell of her belly. “Peanut, you’re in charge. Do me a favor and stop being so mean to your mom.”

Kyle glanced up at Margot, shaking his head. “He or she says they make no promises.”

“I could have told you that,” Margot muttered.

“Get some rest, honey.”

“I will. Wear your poncho!” she called after him as he left the bedroom. “Those pants are not taco-proof! And they’re dry-clean only!”

She rubbed a hand over her baby bump. “I would be offended that he put you in charge of me, kiddo, but we both know you’re pretty much in charge anyway.”

2

WHILE SHE WANTED to call in “threw up on a hearse” to work, Margot was back at her desk bright and early the next morning. She was wearing the last of her city clothes that fit, the extra-forgiving “just got back from vacation” pants with the elastic waist. A paper cup of Aunt Leslie’s high-octane coffee was sweating condensation onto her desk. Her only consolation was that the punishing Georgia summer temperatures hadn’t set in yet, so she was not sweating condensation onto her desk.

Margot sat back in the ergonomically friendly black chair Uncle Bob had insisted on buying as a “welcome to our office” present. It was the newest item in the cramped wood-paneled room, with its monstrous metal filing cabinets and outdated laminate furniture. She’d made it through the meeting with the Harmons about the plans for their great-uncle Winthrop, and the delivery of Mrs. Allen’s body, both without getting sick. She considered that a pretty good start, especially with the spring warmth creeping into the day like an unwanted houseguest. Not to mention the smell of Aunt Leslie’s daily special—fried shrimp balls—wafting in and out of the building.

“Yep, I am a pregnant badass,” she muttered, slipping the Harmon funeral plans into the filing cabinet behind her. She closed her eyes and silently congratulated herself on completing the task. “Just one day, that’s all I ask, peanut. One day where I get to leave the office with some dignity. We can do it. Go Team McCready-Hyphen-Archer. Come on.”

Inside her belly, she felt the baby nudge against her ribs, something that thrilled her every time it happened. “I’m going to consider that an internal fist bump and a tacit agreement that you’ll take it easy on me.”

The McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop had been an institution in Lake Sackett for nearly a hundred years. Margot’s family had lived in Sackett County since the 1840s, long before the Army Corps of Engineers created the lake by damming the Chattahoochee River at Sackett Point. Her whole extended family lived on what could only be called a compound of cabins on the original family homestead, which happened to be lakefront property now.

The funeral home and bait shop was located several miles down the shoreline, accessible by boat if the family was ever running really late for work—not that Margot had ever tried it. She was not the most boat-oriented McCready, despite Kyle’s passion for sailing. The business had sprung from a pair of brothers, John McCready and Earl Jr. Earl and his wife, Kate, used the army money Earl saved from serving in World War I to build a little bait shop, selling bait, tackle, and lunch baskets to fishermen on their drive to the river. John, who had always been far more interested in carpentry than fishing, developed a reputation as one of the best cabinetmakers in the county. And then the flu pandemic hit and the county’s dwindling population needed coffins a lot more than they needed John’s beautiful storage creations.

With the high coffin demand, John needed more space to build and asked Earl to use the back of the bait shop as a workshop. Since Earl and Kate were friendly with John and his wife, Ellie, there were no problems in their sharing close work quarters. The bait shop blossomed, because people loved Kate’s extra-tart lemonade and Earl’s ability to raise legions of the fat, slimy night crawlers the local fish loved best. The funeral home’s business doubled and then tripled, because death still came knocking, even during Prohibition, the Depression, and war. Kate and Ellie figured out how to make people comfortable even in the worst times of their lives with soft piano music and arrangements of roses grown in Kate’s garden. And when the river was dammed, the water stopped right at the shop’s back door, as if the business were always meant to be a fully operational marina.

The McCreadys added extra services and buildings on to the business over the generations, and the locals adapted to smelling diesel fuel and freshly caught fish while mourning their dead. Aunt Donna and her son, Duffy, sold tackle, chartered boats, and ran fishing tours out of the dockside bait shop. Aunt Leslie’s snack stand was the heart of the marina operation, filling the tourists with the volcanic black battery acid Leslie called coffee before sending them out on the water. Even mourners were known to drown their sorrows in the crispy salt-sweetness of a deep-fried Oreo, when they could duck away from the chapel.

Margot had taken over a corner of Bob’s office, to help with the sales and planning aspects of the business. While Bob had a talent for the logistics and paperwork of funeral planning, he was not known for his skill in interacting with the public. He was a handsome, charming man who somehow managed to say the wrong thing every time he spoke to a non–family member.

Margot sighed as she heard the small framed paintings rattling against the hallway walls, the way they always did when someone walked toward her office. Though half of the colorful paint-by-number Jesuses had been culled (and respectfully buried) since Frankie clashed against a teenage pinhead with a penchant for breaking and entering, the remaining painted saviors provided an excellent early warning system when people were coming to interrupt her work.

Her great-aunt Tootie strode into the office, and for the first time in Margot’s memory she was not accompanied by her pack of somewhat ill-behaved dogs. Petite and blessed with a cloud of thick white hair held back with a purple sun visor, Tootie was every old Southern lady stereotype and yet none of them, with her weekly poker games, her track suits, and her canine companions. She was far more tech-savvy than the average octogenarian, but would debate the finer points of appropriate cornbread recipes until nearby relatives felt like leaping into the lake.

At the moment, Tootie was carrying a red metal gallon thermos clinking with a wealth of ice cubes inside, which she set on Margot’s desk with a flourish. Instead of Tootie’s usual four-legged companions, Aunt Leslie was at her heels, a broad grin on her elfin face.

“Here’s your morning delivery, honey. Decaffeinated, and I took it easy on the sugar,” Tootie said, nodding to the thermos. Her blue eyes seemed to catch on the white paper coffee cup on Margot’s desk. “You know what the doctor said, your blood pressure is sensitive to caffeine. You can’t drink coffee.”

“I wasn’t drinking it, I just wanted to smell it,” Margot protested as Tootie poured the coffee into a nearby potted plant and dropped the cup in the garbage. Margot had serious concerns about the plant’s future. “I know better than to expose an unborn child to Leslie’s brew.”

“That’s fair,” Leslie conceded. “But not necessarily something you should say to the person who brought you your wedding binder, which you forgot at home!”

Margot didn’t understand how a slight woman like Aunt Leslie managed to heft the lace-covered nightmare onto her desk. Margot hadn’t even known they made five-inch three-ring binders, but Leslie had special-ordered one over the Internet and created “Margot’s Wedding Binder,” covered in sequins and scraps of tulle and lace, with an extremely unflattering photo of her and Kyle on the front. The photo was framed in tiny rosebuds made from ribbon in an unearthly shade of peach. She hadn’t been aware that this color existed, but apparently Aunt Leslie thought it was the height of bridal elegance. She had, in fact, used that exact shade for her bridesmaids’ dresses when she and Uncle Bob got married in her big white wedding at the Lake Sackett First Baptist Church in 1973. The pictures had been . . . eye-opening.

“Oh, thanks,” Margot said weakly.

“Now, I noticed that you’d gotten a pretty good start on a guest list,” Leslie said. “I hate to bring it up, but you didn’t invite my sister’s in-laws. And if they find out my sister was invited but they weren’t, they’re going to get all offended because they think they’re just as close to the McCreadys as my sister is and it’s going to make Thanksgiving with my side of the family very difficult.”

“I’ve never met your sister,” Margot noted. “Or her in-laws.”

Aunt Leslie grimaced, an unfamiliar expression on her normally cheerful face. “I know, honey, but it’s only nine more people and it would really make my life easier. And just think of all the extra gifts you’ll get.”

“If you give me their information, I’ll put them on the list,” Margot said.

“I already wrote their addresses down on your list!” Leslie chirped. “And I put some names in the section for ‘favors.’ Now, I know your taste is more ‘understated and modern,’ but people around here expect a little flash. And my friend Geri, her son owns a printing shop two towns over and he’s willing to give you the ‘friends and family’ discount on commemorative glasses for your favors. Look, he even made you up a sample.”

Leslie pulled a small object out of her apron pocket and handed it to Margot. The tiny glass was printed with KYLE AND MARGOT—TAKE A SHOT WHILE WE TIE THAT KNOT in the same shade of peach as her binder decor.

“This is a shot glass,” Margot said.

“Oh, it’s real common around here. Shot glasses, beer koozies, coasters. You want people to have something they’ll use later and think back on your wedding with fondness.”

Margot’s lips pulled back at the corners while Tootie stepped behind Leslie and shook her head briskly. “But a shot glass? At a wedding where I will be very obviously pregnant?”

Leslie frowned. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“How about we just table the favor discussion until I have time to think about it?” Margot suggested.

“But you’ve said that about just about everything and time’s running out if you want to have a summer wedding, even a late-summer wedding. You’ve got to get moving and make some decisions.”

“I know that, Aunt Leslie, but I don’t think I’ve found the things I want for the wedding yet and I don’t want to make agreements with vendors until I’m ready.”

“Well, that doesn’t include caterers, right?” Aunt Tootie asked. “Because I may have told Jude down at the Dirty Deer that he should save his weekends in June.”

“Aunt Tootie!” Margot exclaimed. “I told you I wasn’t settled on the Dirty Deer catering the reception. I’m still looking at caterers in Atlanta.”

“I know, honey, but Jude’s aunt Lucille is in my poker circle and it was becoming real awkward trying to give her reasons why you weren’t calling him.”

Margot sighed and dropped her head to her desk.

“All right, all right,” her cousin Marianne called, sweeping into the office and dropping a white to-go cup and small white paper box next to Margot’s head. “Everybody out. You’re driving poor Margot crazy.”

“But we need to talk about the wedding!” Leslie exclaimed. “How are we ever going to get everything done in time?”

Tootie, however, seemed to sense that she’d pushed Margot too far, and nudged Leslie out of the room. “Come on, Les, we’ll talk about it later. Margot’s got a lot on her mind.”

“But—but—” Leslie protested as Marianne said, “I love you, Aunt Leslie, but I’m closing this door in your face.”

And then she did. Which was why she was Margot’s favorite cousin. In addition to Duffy and Frankie. It was a three-way tie.

“Is that coffee?” Margot asked, picking up the cup with a hopeful expression.

Marianne shook her head, tossing her dark auburn waves. “No, it’s calming herbal tea. I could practically hear your blood pressure rising from across town.”

“You no longer have my attention,” Margot muttered, standing up and double-checking that the vents above her head were closed. There wasn’t a service going on in the chapel, but she didn’t want their voices to carry through the air-conditioning system.

Marianne dropped into the chair across from her desk. “Rough week, kiddo?”

Margot groaned and drank most of the “calming” tea in one swig. “I am not calm. Your tea is a lie.”

“Planning a wedding in a small town is really difficult, Margot. It’s not you.”

Margot threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t get it. Why does everybody seem so emotionally invested in something that is not at all about them? I mean, some of the people who are walking up to me in the grocery store, telling me that they sure hope they’re invited, I only know from seeing them at the grocery store. And why are so many women offering to let me wear their wedding dresses? What is that about?”

“A wedding carries a lot of power around here. It’s one of the greatest opportunities for a Southern matriarch to flex her muscles and show everybody what sort of hostess she is and how close she is to the bride, how much social mojo she has. And to be blunt, your mama has passed and you don’t have a local mother-in-law, so as far as they’re concerned, the position of matriarch is up for grabs.”

“So that’s what Tootie and Leslie have been doing?” Margot demanded, feeling more than a little hurt.

“No, no, I don’t think so. But the random women at the grocery store trying to get you to wear their wedding dress from 1964? Yes, they are trying to horn in.”

“I feel dirty. And not in the fun way that got me into this situation,” Margot muttered.

“I keep telling you, if you just let the baby’s gender slip out, they’ll back off and start making you baby quilts,” Marianne said.

“We’re not finding out the gender!” Margot insisted. “It’s one of the few really big surprises left in life.”

“Well, this is the price you pay for being a dirty hippie.”

“Yes, clearly, I am a huge hippie,” Margot deadpanned. “How did you handle your wedding to Carl? Did you tell Leslie you were allergic to the color peach?”

Marianne laughed, smiling fondly at the thought of her improbably perfect high school sweetheart. “I had the smallest wedding possible, at the pavilion at the state park, in a dress I ordered over the Internet, with Frankie as a maid of honor and Duffy as best man, and did not involve my mother at all.”

Margot pursed her lips. Marianne’s relationship with her mother, Donna, was strained long before Margot arrived in town. They just seemed diametrically opposed, like reverse-charged magnets. No matter what Marianne said, Donna felt the opposite. And, well, Donna was just ornery in general.

“I can’t imagine Donna being all that interested in wedding planning,” Margot offered feebly.

“She wasn’t. But me not involving her in the planning at all pretty much put the final straw on the camel’s back for our relationship.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Well, you have to realize that my mother is a special case. Our relationship was teetering on the brink of extinction anyway. The wedding was just the meteor that finished us off,” Marianne said. “How’s the guest list coming?”

Margot slid the binder across the desk. “Apparently, the social structure of Lake Sackett is a very delicate ecosystem. The McCreadys are related to ninety percent of the county by genes or marriage. If I don’t invite one second cousin three times removed, I will reignite some sort of blood feud.”

“I would say that’s an exaggeration, but I have seen two grown women throwing peaches at each other at the Food Carnival over a snub involving a one-year-old’s birthday party, so . . . yeah, you’re going to need to be really careful.”

Margot chuckled and sipped her tea, which was perfectly nice, but not exactly the same as her tea-flavored liquid sugar.

“Your side is looking a little hefty compared to Kyle’s,” Marianne noted, looking down the list. “Which is, no offense, surprising.”

“Kyle’s side is mostly friends from Lake Sackett,” Margot said. “His parents are getting older and can’t really make the trip down here. His extended family is all up north, and he said they probably won’t come down for a second wedding.”

“What about Kyle’s former in-laws?”

“I have no idea how to handle the Kellers,” Margot admitted.

Maggie’s parents had approached her cautiously when they realized Kyle was dating again, but they’d been perfectly polite . . . right up until the moment they heard that she was expecting. And then they pretty much turned into a stone wall. Of all the people she’d met since returning to Lake Sackett, she’d never been flat-out snubbed by anybody. But Mrs. Keller had actually crossed Main Street to avoid her the previous week. She tried not to take it personally. Margot couldn’t imagine what it was like for them, losing their daughter so young and then watching another woman stepping into her place.

“It seems insensitive to invite them but rude not to invite them,” Marianne agreed. “I would leave that to Kyle.”

“But we both know who gets blamed if Kyle’s decision offends them,” Margot said.

“Yeah, this is a classic ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. Which is the premise of most Southern socializing.”

“So far, the only thing I’ve managed to accomplish is making an appointment at a bridal shop in Atlanta. I’m hoping that my emails with the sales assistant will mean I only have to try on a handful, but zipping up clothing is becoming an increasingly depressing venture.”

“Did you invite Leslie and Tootie to the appointment? Because otherwise you will have to go in secret, under the cover of night, possibly using an assumed name. Leslie is not above tackling a pregnant woman.”

“I wasn’t sure about it, because I’ve watched those TLC bridal shows and having a bunch of people along seems to frustrate the bride to tears.”

“Look, you’re good at saying no, just tell them no!” Marianne exclaimed.

“I hate to hurt their feelings.” Margot sighed.

“They’ll get over it.”

“If they’re this wound up over the wedding, what’s going to happen when I go into labor?”

Marianne shook her head. “The great thing about having a baby in this family is that our relatives are hands-off. They respect your decisions. They don’t hover. They fill your icebox with casseroles and then get the hell out.”

“Dammit. So it’s just weddings that make McCreadys crazy, then.”

“Just weddings. And dogs. And people who don’t yield to emergency vehicles.”

Margot cocked her head to the side. Marianne added, “There was an incident with an ambulance at an accident scene. Uncle Stan damn near got run over by a tourist.”

Margot balanced her chin on her palm. And realized that the white bakery box next to her actually smelled good, in a way food hadn’t smelled good to her in months.

“What is this?” she asked, straightening in her chair and opening the purple-and-white seal on the box.

“An offering from the new bakery in town. I happen to have noticed your pregnancy sweet tooth and I thought you might appreciate it.”

“The place that’s not even open yet?” Margot opened the box and found a small pecan tart, beautifully formed with a hand-pinched golden crust, shiny with egg wash. Perfectly aligned pecans sprouted from the center in concentric circles, topping a custard filling that crackled with brown sugar and sweet possibilities.

“This smells amazing. I want to eat it n—” she said, glancing up to see Marianne offering her a plastic fork.

“The secret to surviving pregnancy is to find the food you can tolerate and then eat as much of it as possible,” Marianne told her.

“This is why you’re my favorite cousin.”

Margot was almost sorry to break the pecan topping, but break it she did, shoveling an enormous bite into her mouth. She moaned, and the sound was downright indecent. This was everything she wanted in food, sweet and rich and filling.

“How do I get more of this?”

“It’s one of Duff’s old friends from—hell, since forever,” Marianne said. “Lucy Bowman. He’s head over ass in love with her, has been since high school, but he’s too damn stubborn to do anything about it.”

“I need to meet this pastry temptress, soon.”

“You’ll love her. The bakery she’s opening, Gimme Some Sugar, is over on Main Street.”

“I’m very much in favor of that. Though, if I keep eating like this, I’m not going to fit into these pants for very long,” Margot said, sitting back in her chair.

“Honey, you’re holding on by a safety pin as it is,” Marianne said, nodding toward her waist, where an extra-large diaper fastener was the only thing securing her pants.

Margot patted her belly. “I know. I ‘popped’ about a week ago. I just wanted to stay in my old clothes as long as possible. I worked for a really long time to build a wardrobe of designer classics . . . also, the maternity wear I’ve seen online looks like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale. So many empire waistlines . . . so many.”

“I told Kyle not to let you watch that show.”

3

STAN PULLED THE funeral home van in front of Kyle’s house, a modern Cape Cod saltbox on the shore of Lake Sackett. The house was gray with blue shutters, and on either side of the front door were enormous pots just recently planted with purple and yellow pansies that scented the air with their waxy citrus fragrance every time Margot stepped outside.

Somehow, her father managed to keep his navy suit crisp, even with the seat belt pinning his clothes to his chest. By comparison, Margot’s safety pin had given up the fight after lunch.

“Thanks for driving me home, Dad. I could have driven myself, but I didn’t get to see you for most of the day, so this was nice.”

“I know I’m fussin’ a little bit, but thanks for humorin’ me. I worry about my grandbaby driving his mama crazy,” Stan said, his smile digging deeper furrows around his dark brown eyes. “I’ll have somebody drop your car by the house later.”

“I much prefer your fussing to Leslie and Tootie’s fussing. And E.J.J.’s, for that matter. He found me putting an urn on a display shelf in the showroom and he took it out of my hands and tried to make me go take a nap. Where he wanted me to lie down, I have no idea, but I suspect Frankie’s slab would be involved.”

Stan tried to hold in a laugh, his craggy face crinkling while he patted her hair. “It will all work out, Sweet Tea, I promise. Everybody is just trying to show you that they care about you and they’re worried about you . . . but they’re doing it in the most obnoxious way possible, because they’re McCreadys. And that’s what McCreadys do.”

She laughed and put her hand over his. “Thanks, Dad.”

Stan grinned, like he always did when Margot called him Dad. Things had been very awkward with her father when she’d returned to Lake Sackett. Margot didn’t know the man, and what Linda had told her throughout her childhood hadn’t been good. She hadn’t known anyone on his side of the family. Her first few weeks in town, all of these people kept coming forward with memories of Margot that she didn’t share and it became so frustrating. But her father had been so maddeningly patient as she rejected him over and over.

Margot had expected her stay in Lake Sackett to be a short one. She wasn’t built for small-town Southern life. She’d thought she would bide her time until she found a job with one of the lesser firms in a smaller but still high-market city, and then she’d climb her way back to the elite level. But then she had met Kyle and he’d complicated the hell out of her life. So much so that Margot had given her father a chance to be paternal, and they’d somehow found their way back to this more comfortable medium.

Linda had always blamed the end of her first marriage on the fact that Stan was an alcoholic. And while that certainly hadn’t helped things, Margot also knew that Linda had hated everything about life in Lake Sackett. She’d craved the busy city and all its cosmopolitan charms. For some reason Margot still didn’t understand, Linda seemed to have thought she married into wealth when she married a McCready. And when she’d realized her mistake, she’d towed Margot to a target-rich environment where she could access the kind of money and lifestyle she wanted from a new partner.

Stan had been sober for years now. He’d stopped living at the funeral home, in the apprentice apartment, and had returned to the family cabin on the McCready compound—something he’d found too painful after Linda’s departure. And he seemed far more content than Margot had been when they first reconnected. The pair of them were never going to be as close as they could have been, but they had a comfortable relationship. One of the few things she was absolutely sure about when it came to the wedding was that she wanted her father to walk her down the aisle, something she’d always thought she could live without before.

“Kyle and the girls will be home from school soon?” he asked.

“Yes, I will be properly supervised in just a few minutes. And Kyle is picking up dinner later from the Rise and Shine, because he’s convinced that the baby needs protein in the form of red meat.”

“The baby needs whatever you feel like eating,” Stan said. “I know the doctor said no caffeine, and I respect that. But it seems like you girls drive yourselves crazy trying to eat organic, vegan, no artificial colors. And that’s fine, but all that stress has to be just as bad for the baby as some red meat and food dye.”

“This is why your baby book didn’t make the bestseller list,” she told him. He snorted as she opened the van door. “Drive safe, Dad.”

“Good night, Sweet Tea.”

Margot used her key to let herself in. The house was, as always, clean but cluttered, and there was considerable evidence of Margot living there. One of great-grandma Ellie’s quilts was thrown over the back of the sofa, the earth tones a contrast to the dark blue cotton upholstery. Kyle’s paperback novels and academic journals were still piled high on the coffee table next to Margot’s magazines. Big picture windows framed a beautiful view of the lake with new blue and green curtains she’d ordered from her favorite draper in Chicago. The girls’ toys were stored in big canvas bins Margot had ordered, with their names embroidered on them. While the house hadn’t been super messy when she’d moved in, she liked to think she brought a little more organization with her.

She also brought a fluffy mutt named Arlo, who was now barreling out of the kitchen and threw himself at her knees. He was soon joined by Charlie, a black-and-tan dachshund whom the girls had adopted from Tootie just before Margot adopted Arlo. The addition of two dogs to the household meant Kyle had spent much of her first week in the house installing a doggie door to the backyard. The arrangement had worked well over the winter, until the night a possum had let himself into the kitchen and helped himself to the contents of the fruit bowl. Kyle hastily replaced the old-school door with a higher-tech model that only opened when it read RFID chips implanted in the dogs’ collars.

“Hi, guys, how are you?” she asked, crouching down to pet the puppies. She felt the safety pin at her waist give and her pants popped open. Her frustrated growl was barely audible over the dogs’ happy barks. “Of course.”

THIRTY MINUTES AND ONE PAIR of yoga pants later, Margot was standing at the kitchen counter debating the relative merits of eating an apple for a snack or consuming the entire bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in the cabinet. She liked standing near this window, where she could look out on the lake and see Kyle’s sailboat—just taken out of winter storage—bumping against the dock.

A framed photo of Kyle’s late wife, Maggie, balanced carefully on the windowsill. She’d been a beautiful woman, with glossy dark hair and laughing brown eyes. Maggie’s photos with the girls were displayed just as prominently throughout the kitchen and living room as they had been the day Margot first visited the house. She’d been adamant with Kyle that she didn’t want that to change just because she was living in the house. Frankly, she felt like she was still on somewhat wobbly ground with his older daughter, Hazel.

Hazel had more memories of her mother, and was much more reluctant to accept Margot into their family circle. She hovered in the periphery, watching as June and Margot played together. She didn’t wrap herself around Margot’s hip like June did or demand bedtime kisses. And Margot didn’t blame her, really. She didn’t want to try to replace their mother. Maggie was a difficult standard to live up to, and not just in the Rebecca way. Nearly everyone in Lake Sackett remembered her as kind, funny, and smart. Even Margot had to admit that in an ideal world, Maggie would still be there to raise the girls. Instead, they were left with Margot, someone who hadn’t been sure she wanted children until she met them. (Which was fortunate, considering the state of her gut.)

But she was so afraid of messing up, she sometimes felt she kept herself too distant. She didn’t want to make mistakes with the girls, the way her own mother had botched up her childhood. And it felt like every decision she made was a potential minefield of emotional trauma. She hoped that maybe, after the baby was born, she would feel more confident in her choices.

But it didn’t seem likely that the ticking grenade of hormones and sleepless nights she was carrying about in her uterus was going to make split-second decisions easier.

The dogs’ heads perked up at the sound of the front door opening. June came running into the kitchen wearing a minidress printed to look like the TARDIS and turquoise rain boots. Since spending more time with Frankie, June had found several “fandoms” that she loved, including Dr. Who and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She wasn’t allowed to watch the scarier Whovian episodes, but she was a staunch Ninth Doctor girl and was planning to be Rose Tyler for Halloween that year. Kyle had not relented on allowing June to dye her hair crimson like Frankie’s, but had given her a set of rainbow hair chalks as a compromise.

“Hi, Mom!” June cried, hugging her leg. “We did a volcano science experiment at school today, but Joey Childress knocked over vinegar and baking soda and it made a huge mess on Ms. Marcum’s desk. It looked like the Adipose! It was so cool!”

Margot froze, her hand suspended over June’s head. Did June just call her Mom? Margot pressed a hand over her belly and felt her knees go a little weak. She’d expected to be stressed or panicked when someone called her Mom for the first time, but this felt right. She loved June. She took care of her. She wouldn’t trade anything for having June in her life. So . . . maybe this was what motherhood was supposed to feel like. It was certainly preferable to the whole constant-morning-sickness thing.

She glanced up at Kyle, who had just walked into the room with Hazel. He was watching the interaction carefully, the corner of his mouth curving up. Margot stroked her fingers over June’s mussed hair. She swallowed thickly, determined not to make the situation weird. “That’s too bad for poor Ms. Marcum, sweetheart, but it sounds like you had fun. You want a snack?”

“Peanut butter Daleks, please!” June said, skipping into the living room. Margot snickered. “Peanut butter Daleks” were just apple slices covered in peanut butter with a few strategically placed chocolate chips, but June swore they were exact replicas of the Doctor’s mortal enemies. It was the only after-school snack she’d tolerate at the moment.

On the rare days Margot had managed to anger her mother by disagreeing with Linda’s carefully constructed life plans, her mom would hiss in her carefully cultivated non-Georgian accent, “I hope that one day you have a little girl just like you. And then you’ll know how much it hurts to have all your efforts thrown back in your face.” Of course, Linda never could have foreseen Margot receiving a daughter like June, who wanted to dress and act just like her cousin Frankie. Linda probably wouldn’t have relished that idea so much.

“I will smooth the peanut butter on with my sonic screwdriver,” Margot said, waving a butter knife. “How about you, Hazel?”

Hazel, whose eyes were already narrowed and shiny, scowled at Margot, then threw her backpack on the floor with a thunk and ran up the stairs. Margot turned to Kyle.

“What did I do?” Margot asked.

“I don’t think it’s you. I think Hazel is feeling a little bit betrayed,” Kyle said.

“June doesn’t have to call me Mom if it makes Hazel uncomfortable.”

Kyle wrapped his arms around her.

“I don’t want to do anything to make her upset,” she whispered.

“Well, that’s not very fair to June. If she wants to call you Mom, she should be able to. The girls have to move at their own pace. Let me talk to Hazel.”

“Should I go, too? Or go fetch her some cookies or brownies or something? Sugar is usually the answer here, right?”

Kyle glanced upward as the Kidz Bop version of “Bad Blood” started from Hazel’s bedroom overhead—which was as close as a well-supervised nine-year-old got to angry heavy metal. “Probably not.”

“Just don’t make her feel bad. She can call me Margot every day for the rest of my life if she wants to. I mean, it was amazing to hear June say it, but that’s June and she doesn’t remember her mom like Hazel does. And I just—” Margot took a deep breath. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

“I know.” Kyle kissed her. “You’re a good woman, you know that?”

“I have my doubts every once in a while.”

He grinned at her. “I don’t care what anybody else says.”

“Go on. I’m just going to be here, rubbing butter on that sick burn you just gave me,” she muttered.

Kyle grinned again as he slipped out of the kitchen. Margot braced herself against the counter and caught her breath. As much as June’s calling her Mom had knocked her knees out from under her, she was surprised that Hazel’s rejection didn’t sting. Hazel was hurting. She was a child who missed her mother and was feeling very adult emotions about changes to her family she couldn’t control.

Months ago, when Margot still fit into her pants and had something resembling a five-year-plan, she probably would have cited Hazel’s feelings as reason enough to end the relationship. Old Margot didn’t do emotional complications. Hell, she probably would have taken it pretty personally. New Margot was crying for the girl and trying to figure out how to make it better with baking. Well, someone else’s baking. Margot hadn’t become that domestic yet.

She wasn’t sure if that meant she was growing as a person or losing her edge. Probably a little bit of both.

“Oh, emotional maturity.” She sighed, taking a bite of a tart Granny Smith apple from the nearby fruit bowl. “You fickle mistress.”

4

WHILE MARGOT HAD made peace with the charms of small-town life, she had to admit it was nice to drive to Atlanta and enjoy chain stores and upscale restaurants and malls that didn’t have the words flea market in the title.

It gave her a thrill to look out the van window and see the bright neon lights of big-box stores. Hell, even recognizable gas station chains made her smile. In what she considered to be a stroke of Machiavellian genius, she’d included Frankie, Marianne, Tootie, and Leslie in this wedding dress shopping excursion. She hoped that giving them a lot of input in a short shopping session—and then ignoring it and getting what she wanted—would make them feel like they were included.

Margot had even invited Aunt Donna, who gave her the patented you just said something too stupid for me to dignify with a response eye roll and shut her front door in Margot’s face.

June had begged to come to the pretty dress shop and look at wedding gowns, but Margot thought it would be a little too much for her to manage two girls and the frustration of trying to find a stylish outfit that would fit over her baby belly without broadcasting Knocked up at the altar! She’d promised that she would take the girls on their own special flower girl dress search and lunch at a fancy restaurant soon. But since she’d never taken children shopping, she would probably need Marianne to help wrangle them. And maybe a SWAT team.

Hazel was still cutting Margot a pretty wide berth, but the looks she gave Margot were more angry than wounded . . . which seemed promising? Angry she guessed she could work with; hurt was harder to negotiate. After their conversation, Kyle confirmed that yes, Hazel was angry with June for calling Margot Mom. And angry with Margot for existing.

Kyle had very patiently explained to Hazel that while he cared very much about her feelings, Margot was a part of their family and was not going away. And that Hazel wouldn’t decide for June what sort of relationship she had with Margot. Hazel seemed to accept this but clearly wasn’t happy about it. She wouldn’t even eat the smiley-face eggs and toast Margot made for breakfast the next day—and that was the only breakfast Margot knew how to make.

Kyle assured her that this was normal, that the child therapist Hazel had spoken to after her mother’s death had assured him that it was typical for big changes to be met with hostility. The duration of that hostility would determine whether she needed to start talking to the therapist again.

Marianne parked the van in the chic shopping center in the Brookhaven area, which boasted several high-end boutiques Margot hadn’t visited since she left Chicago.

“Are you sure you wanna shop here, honey?” Tootie asked. “It looks awful fancy.”

“We have an appointment. And I’ve been saving up, Aunt Tootie. It will be fine.”

“I just don’t see how you’re going to get a better deal here than at the Bridal Barn,” Leslie said. “And you know my dress is still available if you want to wear it. Lucille Bodine is a real dab hand with alterations.”

Margot pursed her lips. “Aunt Leslie, you’re about eight inches shorter than me. I don’t think anyone is that good at alterations.”

“And you promised I could use your wedding dress this Halloween for my evil ghost-bride costume,” Frankie added.

Leslie frowned. “Oh, yeah, I did say that.”

A text message popped up on Margot’s phone. It was from Frankie and read, I’ve got your back.

Margot texted back a gif of Leslie Knope pointing and yelling, “THANK YOU.”

“Everything okay, hon?” Tootie asked.

“Oh, sure, it was just a reminder text for the appointment,” Margot said, smiling. “Everybody ready?”

The group cheered and they spilled out of the van like fire ants in a flood. The mall was a labyrinth of carefully cultivated high-end shops interspersed with leather couches, potted palms, sunglasses kiosks, and quarter-fed carousels. The air smelled faintly of gardenias.

“Well, this is . . . cozy,” Leslie said with a sniff as they approached the glass doors of Juno’s Designs.

“This store has the largest selection of maternity bridal dresses in this end of the state. It’s the best hope I have of finding a flattering dress that doesn’t look like I’m smuggling a beach ball.”

The moment she walked through the door, she was grateful she hadn’t brought the girls with her to the appointment. As well-behaved as they were, this place would have made them lose their ever-loving minds. It was basically a grown-up Disney store, with enormous display rooms of big white princess gowns, veils, and all manner of jewelry, strategically lit so every rhinestone sparkled to advantage. The walls and floors were done in subtle shades of ivory and gold so as not to compete with the silken splendor of the bridal gowns. Hell, Margot was having a hard time not tearing across the room and shoving a tiara on her head.

Their assigned bridal consultant, Brooke, met their party at the door with a tray full of champagne glasses. She was tall, willowy, and olive-skinned, wearing a sleek black designer dress—the silhouette of which, frankly, made Margot twitch a little with jealousy. And her accent was all peaches and smoky bourbon, the voice you wanted to hear saying grace because her prayers alone could make the food taste divine. “Hello, McCready family. Welcome to Juno’s, where we celebrate every bride’s inner goddess! We have a selection of dresses in the second salon, chosen based on your appointment survey. And we hope that we can make this the most enjoyable shopping experience possible.”

“Thank you. We’re really looking forward to it,” Margot said, glancing toward her family. Marianne was already nose-deep in her champagne flute, and Frankie was eyeing a pair of Swarovski-encrusted Keds near the shoe display. But Tootie was frowning deeply and glaring at what had to be a five-figure voluminous sequined ball gown on a mannequin, set high on a pedestal, where it could be admired but not touched. Aunt Leslie was clutching her handbag to her chest like someone was going to snatch her wallet and charge a Badgley Mischka gown to her credit card. They did not look like they were enjoying this at all.

“Would you like a glass of champagne?” Brooke asked her aunts.

“It’s ten in the morning,” Tootie said, her brow furrowing.

“A mimosa?” Brooke offered. “To tide you over until after lunch?”

“How long do you expect this appointment to last?” Tootie asked dryly.

“Maybe some sparkling water,” Brooke offered, her smile never faltering.

“I’ll just have some tap water,” Leslie said.

Margot was more than a little confused by Tootie and Leslie’s attitude. They usually weren’t this defensive about “big city” restaurants or shops. Was it just because this visit was about the wedding? Because Margot was rejecting their wedding dresses to choose her own? She didn’t think it was the champagne making them uncomfortable. Leslie’s family made moonshine so strong it could be used to strip boat engines.

“Of course,” Brooke said, offering Margot her own glass with a little white bow. “Margot, a glass of sparkling cider for you?”

“Thank you,” Margot said, accepting the glass as Brooke led them into the salon. It looked like a luxurious living room with a huge ivory raw silk couch for the relatives to sit on while Margot tried on dresses. The opposite wall was basically a bay of mirrors, angled to reflect her from every side. Brooke motioned for the nonbrides to sit and showed Margot the elegant A-line dress she’d put on a dress form at the end of the couch. Margot didn’t trust a strapless, considering the unpredictability of her new body, so she’d asked for something with spaghetti straps, an empire waist, and subtle beading at the cleavage. In general, she hated maternity clothes with empire waists, but frankly, if there was any chance of deemphasizing her belly in the wedding photos, it was an empire waist with an A-line skirt of gauzy ivory material. Brooke had sent her a photo of this dress before the appointment, and Margot had been hopeful that she would have that indefinable “bridal” feeling when she tried it on, but now that she saw it in person, she wasn’t really blown away by it. It didn’t feel like her.

Just stay positive, stop being the depressive bride from every Lifetime movie with “Wedding” in the title, she told herself.

This dress could look amazing when she tried it on. And it shouldn’t surprise her that a dress didn’t fit her personal style when she was basing the choice on her changing body and not her preferences.

“So you will be trying on this dress in your size, I just wanted to make sure it matched the specifications we discussed in your e-mails,” Brooke said.

“It’s awfully . . . dull,” Leslie said, frowning at the off-white. “What about something a few shades lighter?”

“I don’t think I want to wear white.” Margot sighed. “With my complexion, anything brighter than eggshell is just going to wash me out.”

Frankie nodded. “And the baby bump kind of ruins the virgin-bride illusion.”

Margot scratched her nose with her middle finger. Marianne clutched imaginary pearls at her throat, making her pregnant cousin snort.

“It’s not that,” Leslie said, blushing. “I just don’t know if I like it. We never would have gone to a church wedding with those little bitty straps back in my day.”

“It’s not really about whether we like it, Mama, it’s about whether Margot likes it.”

“And there’s no lace,” Leslie objected. “How are you going to have a wedding dress with no lace?”

“Well, Leslie, just let the girl try it on,” Tootie said, sitting down on the couch with her glass of water. “Come on, have a seat. Go on, honey. See what you can find.”

Brooke led a slightly deflated Margot down the silent corridor lined with numbered doors. Honestly, the setup, with its restful turquoise walls and ivory doors, reminded her of a hotel corridor. Margot did wonder at the change of paint scheme in this hallway—was it meant to calm brides as they stormed back to their dressing rooms in dresses rejected by their mothers-in-law?

Margot opened a door to a spacious little suite complete with a chaise lounge and vanity table. A maternity ivory silk robe hung on a hook on the wall. And the first dress hung in a clear plastic garment bag next to it.

Brooke gave her a kind smile. “You just change out of those clothes and let me know when you need help climbing into the dress.”

“I will, thanks.”

Brooke closed the door with a soft click. Margot chewed her lip and considered the room. Now that her last pair of slacks didn’t fit anymore, she’d worn a pair of black yoga pants with a roomy blouse and a pair of comfortable low heels, hoping to pass them off as real pants. She stripped out of her bra and turned toward the mirror, gasping at her reflection.

She had largely avoided full-length mirrors until this morning, and she barely recognized her body. She stepped closer to look at herself. She loved what her body was doing, but the way she looked right now? It wasn’t the belly. She sort of loved her belly. She liked watching the curve of it grow and the way that sometimes when the baby kicked, she could see it nudge against her skin. But the rest of the “aesthetic” aspects of pregnancy . . . pretty much sucked. She didn’t know how she was swelling up so much when the bulk of her diet was sweet tea and toast. She had varicose veins for the first time in her life. Her boobs looked like something out of a German opera. She always looked sweaty and red-cheeked. (The “glow” was a lie.)

Oh, and her feet and legs were beginning to swell, something she hadn’t noticed until now. She thunked her forehead against the mirror. “Dammit.”

When her school friends got married, they went on juice cleanses in the months before the ceremony so they were as fit and photogenic as possible. And she was getting married just when she felt the most unattractive she ever had. Yet another part of this wedding that hadn’t been in her plans. Which was sort of devastating for someone who literally made her living planning events. All the things she’d pictured for her wedding as a little girl were blown away by a swelling belly and loving, but overbearing, relatives.

“Margot, how’s it coming?”

“Um, just a second.” She reached into her shoulder bag to pull out the strapless maternity bra she’d ordered off the Internet. She turned her back to the mirror, because no one needed to see themselves naked and wrestling into a five-hook bra.

She stepped into the dress as carefully as possible and called for Brooke to come in. Brooke turned her and zipped her up. For the first time in weeks, a garment zipped easily over her stomach, which was sort of worth the swollen feet discovery. Brooke fastened a few clips to the back of the gown to fit it a little closer to her form.

“Hey, Brooke, as much as I’d appreciate some tailoring, I don’t know how much bigger I’m going to get before the wedding. We haven’t set the date yet.”

“Good point,” Brooke conceded, taking off the clips. “Now, don’t look until you get out to the salon, okay?”

Brooke nudged her gently out of the dressing room and toward the salon. “The lighting and the mirrors in there are much more flattering and I want you to see yourself in the best light.”

“If that was the case, you probably should have taken the full-length mirror out of the naked space.”

“Right?” Brooke whispered, looking around as if she was trying to avoid being overheard. “That has never made sense to me. Why would you start off an already emotionally fraught appointment with full-on, unfiltered nudity?”

Margot pursed her lips. “I like you, Brooke.”

Brooke snickered as they entered the salon. The gasps and aws Margot expected from her family were not forthcoming. While Marianne was smiling sweetly and Frankie was filming her entrance on her phone and giving a thumbs-up, Leslie and Tootie were silently studying her, their heads tilted at matching angles.

“I think it looks just darling on you,” Marianne told her as Margot turned to the mirrors. She smiled, but there was no wow there. The ivory made her skin look rosy instead of ruddy, and the A-line skirt made her look curvy, instead of lumpy. It was a perfectly nice dress, but it didn’t give her any sort of special feeling. Maybe that was something people on bridal reality shows made up?

“I don’t think it does much for you,” Tootie said. “It definitely doesn’t look bad. You’re still pretty as a speckled pup, but there’s not a lot of va-va-voom there.”

“Lack of va-va-voom,” Margot said, nodding. “Got it.”

“How do you feel about it, Margot?” Tootie asked.

“Eh.”

“ ‘Eh’ is a very common response, especially with the first dress,” Brooke promised her. “Don’t panic because you’re not getting that bridal feeling.”

“You are really good at this,” Margot told her.

“It’s the job,” Brooke said, grinning.

“I think you’re not getting that ‘bridal feeling’ because of the lace,” Leslie insisted. “It’s just not a wedding dress without lace.”

“Mama, there’s a reason I’m wearing your dress as a Halloween costume,” Frankie said kindly. She looked to Margot and, with no subtlety, shook her head. Leslie smacked her arm.

“I can see you, you know,” Leslie grumbled. “You’re in a room with nothing but mirrors.”

Frankie cackled. Margot pointed at her, looking like a modern version of Miss Havisham. “You’re laughing because you’ve forgotten your turn could come in a few years.”

Frankie shrugged it off. “I’m eloping.”

“Don’t you dare!” Leslie told her. “I will track you down and tan your butt.”

“I’m just kidding, Mama. I think I’d like to get married on the dock over at Eric’s place. And no offense to your store, Miss Brooke, because it is amazing, but I’ve already designed my dress, which will be embroidered with ‘one ring to rule them all’ around the hem in Sindarin.”

“Well, that could be . . . all right, I suppose,” Leslie said, chewing her lip.

“Really?” Margot said. “I guess I never figured you for the marriage type. Then again, I never really considered myself the marriage type, so I guess you never know.”

Frankie sipped her champagne. “Oh, no, I think that when you find the person you believe you should spend the rest of your life with, you should declare that in front of your friends and family in the most personal, romantic way possible.”

Leslie got more than a little misty-eyed and patted Frankie’s arm. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s just beautiful.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Margot said, feeling more than a little ashamed of her own slightly mercenary approach to wedding planning. “So why do you want to get married on Eric’s dock? That’s a little random.”

“That’s the first place we had sex,” Frankie said, making Leslie spit her water back into her glass. “Well, the first place we had sex after we learned each other’s names.”

Marianne grinned into her champagne flute while Tootie shrugged and said, “I’ve seen the boy. I can’t get mad at her for that.”

Leslie mopped water from her chin.

“But if Dad asks, it’s because we went stargazing out there or something, okay?”

Leslie slapped her palm over her beet-red face. “Frankie, honey, I liked it before you started therapy, when we were less honest with each other.”

Margot glanced to Brooke, as if she’d just realized this exchange was being witnessed by someone unfamiliar with Frankie’s unique sense of humor. “I’m so sorry.”

Brooke said, “It’s not the raciest thing I’ve heard in an appointment. This is why we have private salons.”

“So far, no one has gotten hit in the face, which makes it way classier than the Bridal Barn,” Margot said.

“I’ve heard that about the Bridal Barn. Back on topic, if you want a lacier option, I have this lovely number right here,” Brooke said, holding up another A-line gown with a heavy lace overlay.

“Yes!” Leslie thundered, making Tootie flinch. “Try on that one.”

“All right, I’m trying that one,” Margot said, though there was no enthusiasm in her voice or body language.

“Well, only if you think you’ll like it, hon,” Leslie added hastily.

“Yeah, yeah,” Margot muttered, picking up the skirt and heading down the hall.

She was starting to understand why the TLC show brides seemed so on edge by the end of the episode.

A few minutes later, she stepped out of the dressing room wearing the much more formal eggshell gown with fitted lace sleeves that went to her wrists. The lace covered every inch of the bodice and then split over the satin underskirt.

“Now, that is a wedding gown,” Leslie insisted. “I wish it was white, but I like this much more than that plain one.”

Margot looked in the mirror, and again, while this was a perfectly nice dress, it just didn’t strike her as her dress. She gave Brooke the “eh” response, and so it went for five more dresses. All perfectly nice dresses in different silhouettes, but not her dress. And while Leslie looked much happier when Margot reentered the salon in a bright white tulle princess ball gown, she couldn’t help but notice Leslie was now holding a garment bag of her own, marked CLEARANCE.

She wasn’t really considering the princess dress. She’d caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror of the dressing room, despite Brooke’s warning, and she looked like a weirdly shaped white parade float. Also, she wasn’t about to crow about it, but she’d been right, the bright white fabric made her look sallow and brought out the circles under her eyes.

Leslie didn’t even spare a glance at the parade-float gown because she was shaking the clear plastic garment bag at her, squealing, “Look, honey, I found something that looks just like the wedding dress your mama wore when she married Stan.”

Margot had never seen pictures from her parents’ wedding, but their marriage probably wasn’t one she needed to commemorate. Also, it happened in the eighties, so . . . she couldn’t imagine the style could be anything less than horrifying. How could she put this in a way that wouldn’t hurt Aunt Leslie’s feelings?

But the best she could come up with was a weak “I don’t think so, Aunt Leslie.”

“Oh, come on, I know Linda didn’t hold on to her wedding dress, but it would be so sweet to see you in something like she wore. Things didn’t work out with her and Stan, but they had a beautiful wedding, and you look so much like her. And it’s on sale! You can’t pass up a good sale! Just give it a try.”

Brooke protested, “Generally, we like to keep the dress selection to the gowns that I pick out, just so the appointment is as productive as possible.”

“Oh, it’s just one little dress. What could it hurt?” Leslie insisted, shaking the dress at Margot.

“Mama, I think Margot’s got enough dresses to choose from,” Frankie protested.

“It is that creamy color you like, shug. Maybe it will look better on a person than on the hanger,” Tootie suggested, though even she didn’t sound convinced.

“Okay, I’ll try it on,” Margot said with a sigh.

Brooke didn’t say a word as they retreated to the fitting room.

“I’m sorry about that,” Margot told her. “There’s a lot of emotional baggage attached to my parents’ marriage. I only reconnected with my dad’s family last year. And the reactions since I announced my engagement have been kind of weird . . . and really, really involved.”

“Truly, Margot, don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t believe the hissy fits I see here every day. Last week, we had a mother of the bride and mother of the groom get into an honest-to-God fistfight over who got to wear bigger rhinestone earrings. So your aunt? That was nothing. I just don’t want you to buy a dress you don’t want because of pressure from your family.”

“Well, it is a maternity dress, and it is in my size. None of my choices worked out. Maybe a palate cleanser will help us get back on the right track.”

“Just so you know, we can make another appointment for you to come back later,” Brooke said. “Without so much . . . company. A lot of brides find that to be helpful.”

Margot huffed as Brooke helped her out of the massive tulle ball gown. “I’m sure they do.”

Margot knew it was a bad sign when Brooke didn’t say anything after zipping her into Leslie’s dress. She simply opened the door to the dressing room, solemn as a prison guard walking someone down death row. Margot shuffled into the salon and deliberately didn’t look at the mirror until she was in the sweet spot where she could view herself from all angles.

She gasped in horror at the apparition before her. There were ruffles, ruffles everywhere: at the hem, at her throat, around her waists, both her natural waist and her empire waist. The long sleeves trailed from her elbows and snagged on the narrow bell-like skirt that only served to emphasize the distension of her middle. If her hair were in a bubble bouffant, she’d look like a Grand Ole Opry act gone horribly, horribly wrong.

“It’s not that bad,” Marianne said kindly.

“Oh, honey,” Tootie said, shaking her head.

“You look beautiful!” Leslie crowed.

Frankie took her mother’s hand. “Mama, I mean this in the nicest way possible. Are you high right now?”

“Frances Ann!” her mother exclaimed.

“I just think I need to know what sort of substances are in your system, and if you would be willing to share those substances with your daughter.”

“Oh, hush your mouth, Frankie! Margot looks just adorable.”

“Mama, just look at the unhappy expression on Margot’s face. Do you really think she wants to stand up in front of her friends and family looking like she’s swallowed a persimmon?”

“Is this from some sort of collection that’s supposed to punish the bride for getting pregnant before the wedding?” Tootie asked.

Thinking about the tub of Ben & Jerry’s in her freezer was all Margot could do not to cry. How could she be this bad at being a bride? How could nothing in this store remotely interest her? Sure, her family was driving her nuts, but they weren’t the ones making the dresses look so tragic on her. Was it because her mother wasn’t here?

Didn’t most women want their mothers at a time like this? She searched her reflection, which did happen to look a lot like Linda. She tried to imagine what Linda would do if she were standing in the bridal store with Margot, besides chasing off Stan’s relatives because Linda couldn’t stand them and vice versa.

She couldn’t imagine her mother looking at her like Leslie would look at Frankie, with pride shining in her eyes and hands pressed to her lips as she took in the image of her daughter ready to start a brand-new life with someone she loved. Margot and Linda never had those moments. They had never been close. Linda was so focused on herself, on making a name for herself in the Chicago social scene, on keeping her marriage to Gerald secure, she just didn’t have time to connect with Margot. Most of their conversations focused on what Margot could be doing better, which girls from better families she could befriend, which schools she should be applying to, how she could make the most of all the advantages Linda had provided for her.

When Margot thought about her mom standing there with her, all she could think of was the list of excuses she would have had to come up with to prevent that from ever happening. She was relieved her mother wasn’t there. Linda would have sniffed at the “insufficient” supply of designer dressers at the store. She would have analyzed each dress for how it revealed the “weaknesses” in Margot’s figure and let her know which of her friends’ daughters would have looked much better in the dress. So, no, Margot did not miss her mother’s presence today.

Margot didn’t want her mom. But for the first time in a long time, she really, really wanted her daddy.

“I’m going to need a minute,” Margot told Brooke and marched back to the dressing room. She sat on the chaise lounge and pulled her phone from her bag, hitting speed dial. Stan picked up before the second ring.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, Sweet Tea. How’s dress shopping going? Have you found any winners yet?”

Margot gave a watery laugh. “Oh, sure, it’s going fine. We’re having a lot of fun. I’ve tried on a bunch, but we haven’t really found one that works yet.”

“Honey, you don’t sound okay. You sound kind of wobbly.”

“I’m fine. I just wanted to hear your voice, that’s all,” she promised, trying to keep her tone airy.

“Margot.”

“It’s just really hard,” Margot whispered, her voice growing hoarse. “I feel so weird. I don’t look how I thought I would look, which is okay, but none of the dresses really feels right. And Mom’s not here and I don’t miss her and that feels so wrong. I mean, what sort of person is relieved that her mother isn’t around for these big life moments?”

“Honey, your mother was a difficult woman. And I say that as a difficult person myself. Knowing your limits with difficult people isn’t a bad thing. Knowing that person wouldn’t meet your expectations if they were included in a pretty big moment in your life? Well, that’s just having more common sense than either of your parents ever did.”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

“And you’re also smart enough to know when you’ve had enough. You don’t have to settle on anything today. Just call it a day and regroup. You’ll figure it out.”

“If we keep talking like that, the wedding’s not going to be scheduled until this kid is in college.”

“Well, that’ll give people something to talk about,” he chortled. “Go on and tell the shop that your appointment is over. And then go do something fun while you’re in town. Get your toes done or whatever you call it. Something you want to do. If your aunt Leslie gives you too much grief, you send me one of them texts and I’ll straighten her out.”

“All right, Dad. Thanks. I’m not used to Aunt Leslie being this way.”

“She’s just wound up over your wedding because she’s not sure how Frankie’s is going to play out, and she thinks she might not ever get the chance again. For all we know, that girl could get married in a spaceship-shaped chapel in Vegas by an alien Elvis.”

“That—yeah, that is true. Thanks, this has been very helpful.”

“That’s the job, honey. You’ve got this. The wedding. The baby. The girls. Everything. You handle damn near everything else. Why not this?”

She put her yoga pants and shirt back on and grabbed her handbag. Brooke was waiting for her outside the dressing room with a bottle of water and a tiny box of chocolate truffles. Margot threw her arms around Brooke. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I love you.”

“That’s a very normal reaction,” Brooke assured her, patting her back.

“I’m going to end the appointment now. I may call you to schedule another one. I think I’ve just hit my limit for today.”

Brooke gave her a kind smile. “I think that’s a good idea. And now that I know what you don’t like, I can make better selections for next time. This is all very normal, Margot. It’s when you start getting to seven or eight appointments with no feeling besides ‘eh’ that you need to worry.”

Down the hall, Margot spotted a linen shift dress hanging on a hook near the STAFF ONLY door. It looked delightfully breezy against the Caribbean-blue paint, its handkerchief hem embroidered with pink and yellow tropical flowers. And for the first time since she stepped into the store, Margot’s inner reptilian shopper’s brain quivered with want.

“What’s that?” Margot asked.

Brooke led her down the hall and took the hanger off the hook. Margot inspected the embroidered flowers with their tiny stitched petals in irregular, undulating patterns. “Are these hand-sewn?”

Brooke made a sad little cluck with her tongue. “Yes, one of our clients asked a pregnant friend to be a bridesmaid in her beach wedding, knowing that she’d be about seven months along. But the friend got put on bed rest and she’s not going to be able to leave the house, much less stand out on the beach in the hot sun for an hour for the ceremony. It’s so sad, because it’s a custom dress, made by our in-house seamstress, and it doesn’t really fit with any of our other collections. I don’t know if we’ll even be able to display it. Believe it or not, we don’t get a lot of maternity beach wedding bridesmaids.”

Margot splayed the dress out from the hanger. It had no waistline; it was basically a shift that would drape over her shape unstructured. And it looked more than big enough for Margot, even if she waited to wear it until the ninth month.

“I don’t suppose you’d sell that to me?” Margot asked.

Brooke beamed at her. “Really?”

“Well, if nothing else, I’ll take this for the honeymoon. I’m pretty sure we’re going somewhere beachy. We haven’t really decided. But no matter where we go, it will be super comfortable.”

This time it was Brooke who threw her arms around Margot. “I could kiss you! My manager said we’d never sell it. I’ll even give you a discount, because I bet I’m gonna get a bonus.”

“Aw, bless your heart,” Margot said. “And I mean that in the nice way, not in the Southern way.”

Brooke laughed and carried the dress to the register for Margot, who returned to the salon and told her relatives it was time to go. Aunt Leslie protested mightily, particularly when Margot declined to show her the dress she bought, telling her that it was something special for the honeymoon. But with Frankie and Marianne lifting Leslie off the couch and damn near frog-marching her out of the salon, she had little choice.

“Margot, honey, I don’t want you to feel bad about not finding a wedding dress in that place. We’ll just go to a few more appointments a little closer to home and we’ll find something for you, I promise,” Leslie told her once they’d reached the central area of the mall. Margot spotted a shop across the corridor called Blessed Beginnings. The windows featured several stylishly dressed mannequins in maternity outfits that almost compared to Margot’s former wardrobe.

Margot was so lost in contemplations of stylish pants she could sit down in that she almost didn’t catch Leslie’s exclamation of “Or I can make a dress for you!”

Margot was shaking her head before Leslie even finished the sentence. Tootie seemed to sense the outburst forming behind Margot’s lips and slipped her arm through Leslie’s, dragging her away. “Leslie, let’s go to that gourmet pet food store down the way there and get some treats for my babies. Girls, we’ll catch up with you in a little while. Go do something nice for Margot. The closest thing to booze you can manage.”

Tootie scurried away with Leslie in tow while Frankie marveled, “Tootie just made a fatal error. She gave us an unparalleled amount of leeway.”

“Not really,” Margot said, nodding toward Blessed Beginnings. “We’re going over there.”

Frankie scanned the store and frowned. “That store looks like the opposite of fun.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a real cautionary tale,” Margot muttered, dragging her toward the storefront.

“Not for me. I’m a grown-up. I know how condoms work.” Frankie snorted, and then winced as Margot smacked her arm.

“You better watch it, she’s hitting for two now,” Marianne told her.

5

LOADED WITH SHOPPING bags from Blessed Beginnings, Margot walked in the door, calling, “I’m home!”

While Blessed Beginnings carried far too many T-shirts with mama’s precious gift written over the belly, they did have some business clothes she felt comfortable wearing to the office, plus maternity jeans and tops that made her feel remotely stylish. Margot had used a considerable amount of her last month’s wages to buy all the office wear and maternity blouses that didn’t make her physically recoil. She’d also gotten some nursing bras and some ginger lollipops that promised to cure morning sickness, and had even picked up some gender-neutral baby blankets and hats. She’d walked out of the store feeling more accomplished than she had in weeks.

“Hey, those look heavy. Let me get them!” Kyle scrambled off the couch to help her carry her burden.

“Thanks!” Margot glanced around the living room, which was devoid of children and clutter. There were, however, several candles lit on un-child-safe surfaces and soft non–Taylor Swift music playing over the speakers. “Where are the girls?”

“Eric picked them up in his sheriff’s truck and took them to his place. He even let them run the blue lights. Frankie’s bringing over pizza and they’re going to keep them tonight. Poor Hercules will be wearing pink glittery nail polish by morning . . . Eric, too, probably.”

“Boy, she must feel pretty bad about that knowing-how-to-use-condoms crack.”

Kyle paused midway to giving her a hello kiss. “What?”

“Long story,” she said, kissing him soundly.

“So how was it?” Kyle asked, eyeing the bags. “I see a lot of baby-related bags, which is great, but no wedding stuff.”

Margot dropped onto the squashy denim-covered sofa and put her feet up on the hassock with a sigh. “I’m trying to think of the male equivalent of the experience . . . but I can’t. Just imagine that really awkward ‘turn your head and cough’ moment of your annual physical, only with more sequins and your relatives telling you that you could cough in a much more stylish fashion.”

Kyle blanched. “Well, that is horrifying.”

“Oh, and you’re super out of shape, and the medical paper gown thing only draws attention to it.”

“Aw, honey. I’m sorry you didn’t have fun.”

“I had some fun. I mean, I got to see Frankie mortify Aunt Leslie in front of a bridal store clerk.”

Kyle pulled her into his side, kissing her neck. “I can only imagine.”

“I found out what I don’t like in a wedding dress. Had a nice heart-to-heart with my dad. I got some pants I can wear to work without the aid of a safety pin, and some relatively cute tops. So it was a pretty productive day.”

“I know you’re not feeling at your most gorgeous right now.” Kyle placed a warm kiss behind her ear. “I happen to think you look beautiful having my baby.”

“You, sir, are biased,” she said.

“Yes, I am,” he said, easing her back on the couch. “I love you and think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, no matter what tragedies befall your belly or your feet. And I am going to prove it to you, right now.”

“On the couch? The scandal!” Margot gasped against his mouth as he worked her yoga pants down her legs and carefully settled his weight at her side. He peppered her cheeks with kisses, thumbed at the buttons of her blouse to reveal the new lacy red maternity bra she’d purchased at Blessed Beginnings. It was a far cry from the plain beige cotton number she’d left the house in.

Kyle grinned at the sight of her radically increased bust encased in red lace. “I don’t have the words to describe how happy I am right now.”

He kissed her deeply and took his time doing it. Between Margot’s unpredictable pregnancy symptoms, his work schedule, and the fact that they had two children living with them, it had been a while since they’d been able to enjoy long, slow kisses. She stroked her fingertips down the sharp lines of his jaw, his neck, while he took advantage of her exquisitely sensitive breasts to tease the nipples into points so tight they nearly hurt.

She pulled at his shirt, happy that at least one of them got to hold on to their pre-baby body, and tossed it over the back of the couch. She felt him growing hard against her thigh, and was at last grateful for one of the side effects of pregnancy—a ridiculous libido.

Beyond the warm bay rum spice of Kyle’s scent, she picked up another, sweeter aroma and inhaled deeply as he worked her enormous panties down her thighs. When she couldn’t find it on his skin, she lifted her head from the couch cushion and sniffed.

“What’s that smell?” she asked.

Kyle hopped to his feet and ran for the nearest wastebasket, hauling it back to her—no small feat with his pants around his ankles. “Here.”

“What are you doing?” she said, propping herself up on her elbows.

“You said ‘What’s that smell?’ Usually that means you’re about to get sick.”

“No, there’s a sweet smell in here,” she said, sitting up and sniffing again. “It’s nice. Did you buy a new scented candle or something?”

“Not since the ‘too heavily scented pumpkin spice’ tragedy over Thanksgiving, no,” Kyle told her, climbing back onto the couch next to her so he could return to kissing her neck.

Still sniffing, Margot glanced over at the kitchen counter, where she could see a purple-and-white bakery box sitting near the fruit bowl. “What’s that?”

Kyle lifted his head and peered over the back of the couch. “Oh, Duffy dropped it off for you. It’s from his friend Lucy. And this is the most convoluted message I have ever relayed, but he said that Marianne said you would know what that means.”

Margot leaped off the couch so fast she knocked Kyle to the floor. “Yipe!”

With her shirt half-buttoned, Margot scrambled across the house to the box. She broke the seal, a lavender-and-white sticker that read gimme some sugar. Inside was a much larger version of the little pecan tart Marianne had given her—bigger, crustier, more perfect. The golden custard was leaking a bit at the edges, perfuming the air with warm notes of vanilla and cinnamon. And it was hers. All hers. Margot had to wipe her chin, because she was actually drooling.

“Hey, honey, um, we have the house to ourselves and we kind of got something going here,” Kyle said, motioning toward the couch.

“Pie first, sex later,” Margot told him. She didn’t even bother to get a fork, she just scooped an enormous chunk of pie out of the pan and shoveled it into her mouth. She groaned indecently, bracing herself against the counter as her knees gave way at the pure, buttery sweetness of the filling.

“I don’t know how I feel about ranking second to a pie,” Kyle told her as he poured her a glass of milk and joined her at the counter.

Margot washed down her mouthful of pie with half of the glass of milk. “I will engage in unspeakable acts of lewdness if you give me ten minutes alone with this pie.”

Kyle’s eyes went wide. “Why do you have to be alo— Unspeakable acts of lewdness? What does that mean? Because I like to think we’ve gotten pretty lewd a few times already.”

“Acts so lewd, we cannot speak their names,” Margot whispered against his lips.

He nodded. “I’ll be upstairs. Waiting.”

“Or, I could just bring the pie upstairs with me.”

Kyle snatched the pie off the counter and ran up the stairs to the bedroom. Margot followed as quickly as her belly would allow.

IT TURNED OUT TO BE a banner week for solo adult time in the Archer-Cary household, because the next weekend, Margot got to attend the Sweethearts’ Dance with Kyle while the girls spent the time with Marianne’s boys over at Tootie and E.J.J.’s place. The Sweethearts’ Dance was a local Sadie Hawkins Day–type tradition. Back before the lake even existed, two Sackett County families, the Dewberries and the Walkers, went full-on Hatfields and McCoys over the placement of an outhouse on someone’s property line. No one could remember who was trying to build the outhouse on whose property line, only that afterward, the Dewberries only made their homes on the east side of the Chattahoochee River and the more affluent Walkers transplanted their entire homestead over to the west side, just to get away from the Dewberries. Right after the Civil War, a young girl named Eunice Walker fell in love with Pruitt Dewberry, and what followed was a series of extremely misguided attempts by both families to keep them apart, which served only to push them closer together. Pruitt’s father decided to send his son to work on a hog farm in Macon, hoping to distract him with sweaty work and absence.

So Eunice stole her daddy’s johnboat and, under the cover of night, piloted it down the river to the Dewberries’ property. She snuck up from the riverbank, then climbed up to Pruitt’s window using a ladder Mr. Dewberry had been foolish enough to leave leaning against the house. She stole Pruitt out of his bed and tossed him in the boat, carrying them to a chapel nearly two counties over operated by a very understanding minister who believed that shared grandbabies were the best way to convince two feuding families that they were being idiots.

While most of the Walker-Dewberry descendants had moved on to economically greener pastures, locals still celebrated with a Sweethearts’ Dance at a different location around the county every March. In the tradition of Eunice Walker-Dewberry, girls asked the boys, but the good thing about being knocked up by your live-in boyfriend was that it was assumed you had a date to such things. Margot was wearing one of her Blessed Beginnings purchases, the maternity version of a little black dress—a long-sleeved wrap ensemble that gave her curves and emphasized the length of her limbs. And she’d managed to walk in her strappy black heels without hurting herself, so she was flying pretty high at the moment.

The Main Street square practically oozed in-your-face romantic schmaltz. Strings of Edison bulbs hung between the streetlights to offset the cheesy green fluorescence of safety lighting. Red and white balloons and streamers fluttered around the perimeter of the square, giving it an insistently cheerful air. People had set up camp chairs in little clumps on the sidewalk, far enough from the action that they weren’t in the way, but close enough to watch the couples on the dance floor.

Overall, the effect was charming, even if it tried a little hard, though Margot could think of about a dozen things she would have done differently with the table placement, DJ booth, and the stand where Aunt Leslie would be selling deep-fried cake balls from Duffy’s friend, the pastry goddess.

Speaking of which, she spotted Duffy in the crowd, standing awkwardly near a petite redhead in an absolutely adorable red party dress, crinoline and all. Duffy was done up in his Sunday best for the occasion—dark wash jeans, a white dress shirt, and a gray blazer—and his entire body was oriented around the girl at his side. Margot considered this girl a vast improvement over his ex, Lana, who was the living embodiment of everything awful that people said about ex-wives.

Margot had thought Marianne had been exaggerating when she called her former sister-in-law an “evil she-demon with a gate to hell between her thighs” . . . and then Margot met her and realized Marianne was underselling it. She would support any and all efforts by Marianne to end the on-again-off-again hookups between Duffy and his ex. This girl was clearly a better option, and not just because it would secure Margot’s access to the best pecan pie she’d ever had.

Margot grabbed Kyle’s hand and practically dragged him across the square like a pastry-seeking missile.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to go meet Kyle’s friend who makes the magical pies,” she said.

“We’re not going to tell her what we did with that pie, right?” Kyle asked, glancing around.

“Oh, no, that might endanger our ability to get more pie.”

“How are you able to do this in heels?” Kyle marveled as she pulled him along.

“Duffy, hey!” Margot cried, throwing her arms around her cousin. “You clean up nice!”

“Thank you, thank you, I do try,” he said, shooting his cuffs and giving his gingery hair a self-conscious pat. “Lucy, this is my cousin Margot and her soon-to-be husband, Kyle. Margot and Kyle, this is my good friend Lucy.”

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Margot said, reaching for Lucy’s hand, pumping it gently. She didn’t want to damage the pie-making hands.

“You, too!” Lucy said, giving Margot a timid smile that made Margot want to hug her. Margot knew the signs of someone who was holding on to her polite veneer by a thread—shaky smile that didn’t quite meet the eyes, clammy hands, constantly shifting from foot to foot, eyes darting to every person who passed like they were a potential source of trouble. This was not a woman who was comfortable with her surroundings, no matter how many people she was connected to in the crowd. What was going on with this poor girl?

Lucy said, “Marianne and Frankie have had nothing but great things to say. I’m so glad they finally have someone to balance their, uh . . . I don’t want to say ‘lack of judgment,’ because that sounds mean . . .”

Margot laughed, watching as Duffy’s arm slipped around Lucy’s waist. Lucy’s whole body relaxed, melting against Duffy’s side like he was the only fixed point on the planet. The tension bled from her face and her eyes flicked toward Duffy. Her smile warmed and became more confident.

Not to go full Frankie, but Margot officially shipped these two so hard.

“But Frankie did convince a kid that zombies had risen and the world was coming to an end. I get it,” Margot said. “I’m addicted to your pecan-based products. And I regret nothing. Your pies are my pregnancy craving.”

“Subtle,” Kyle murmured in a tone so soft that Margot was pretty sure she was the only who heard it.

“And you’re the elementary school principal?” Lucy asked Kyle. “I’m going to be registering my son for kindergarten this fall. He said you came to visit the preschool the other day to talk to them all about moving up to the ‘big kids school.’ He’s very excited.”

Margot slid her arm around Kyle’s side, a proud smile wreathing her face. One of the things she’d hated most about socializing with her parents as a teen was the way her mother would introduce her stepfather to people: “This is my husband, Doctor Gerald Cary, head of surgery.” As if they were somehow privileged to be in Gerald’s presence because he managed to make it through medical school and snag an impressive title at a prestigious hospital. People in Lake Sackett liked Kyle not because he was principal of the elementary school, but because he was a good man known in his community for doing nice things for people. Margot knew which she preferred.

“Yep, it’s a very rewarding and important job,” Kyle said. “Though most of the time I feel like the guy at the asylum with the big key ring.”

“And then you want to marry into my family, which is so relaxing and low-key.” Margot snorted.

“Hey, I resent that. Just last week, we went two whole days without anybody yelling at work. So how’s it feel to actually attend a Lake Sackett community event that you didn’t have to plan yourself?” Duffy asked her.

“Really weird,” Margot admitted. “I mean, I keep wanting to tell someone how to set up the tables for better foot traffic flow, but I honestly think that would hurt Aunt Leslie’s feelings, which I would never want to do.”

Despite the fact that Leslie seemed pretty comfortable kicking Margot’s feelings around like a greased ball bearing.

“And they told her that her help wasn’t needed,” Kyle said, snickering. “Because I think the little church ladies want to prove they can still plan something without Margot’s supervision.”

Margot tried not to smirk as she slapped Kyle’s chest lightly. It was nice to know people still remembered the spectacular job she’d done with the Founders’ Festival the previous fall. She prided herself on her skills in bringing large-scale events together, and knowing that those skills intimidated other people? Well, it wasn’t very nice of her, but considering all the dents her self-esteem was currently suffering, she’d take it.

“They said I should take the time to enjoy myself before the baby is born,” Margot said, rubbing her belly. “And I happen to think they’re right. Which is why I’m not correcting the table placement.”

“I can tell it’s a struggle for you,” Lucy noted.

“It really is,” Margot told her just as her Aunt Leslie and Aunt Donna came forward to claim Lucy’s attention. Even as Margot exchanged pleasantries with her aunts, her mind was wandering. She’d hoped that she could somehow find a way to request more pecan pies from Lucy, but she supposed that was pushing it from a new acquaintance. Of course, if the majority of her blood weren’t being directed away from her brain, she probably could have figured out how to bring up the request in a way that didn’t seem too demanding. Her growing pecan pie addiction and faster-growing fetus were turning her into someone who couldn’t work a party effectively.

Unacceptable.

“Hey, you want to find a seat while I get us some drinks?” Kyle asked her. “I don’t want you to overdo it.”

“I would argue with you, but sitting down sounds pretty amazing. Can you get me a sweet tea?”

“Sure,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Don’t go dancing with other guys while I’m gone.”

“I would accuse you of being silly, but Nick Burnett did ask me out the other day while I was at the Gas’N’Go.”

“What the hell?” Kyle scanned the crowd as if Nick were lurking somewhere in the square, waiting to steal his fiancée.

“He said it was perfect, because it wasn’t like he could knock me up again,” Margot said cheerfully as she sank into a chair by one of the carefully decorated picnic tables.

“That’s it, I’m finding that guy and kicking his ass.”

“Oh, please, it’s one of the least offensive things someone has said to me since word of our impending spawn got around,” Margot said. “And at least he didn’t try to touch my belly, which is more than I can say for the random guy at the Stephenson visitation, who just laid hands on my stomach and started praying for a boy.”

“Maybe we should consider putting you in some sort of pregnant-lady quarantine habitat, like at the zoo,” Kyle mused.

“Go get me the sweet tea,” she said as he leaned down to kiss her. He snickered against her lips but stepped away and disappeared into the crowd, toward the refreshments table.

Margot sat back and watched her neighbors mill by. It was sort of sweet to see so many people she knew all dressed up, celebrating the people they loved. The big, strong, manly men who wouldn’t cry if you slammed their thumbs in a truck door were staring at their wives all soft and dewy-eyed. Housewives who spent most of their mornings cruising the cereal aisle in sweatpants were dressed to the nines and giggling like coquettes.

One person not giggling was Rosie Keller, Kyle’s former mother-in-law. Maggie’s mother was staring at Margot like she was single-handedly responsible for all of her unhappiness . . . and in a way, Margot supposed she was responsible for a healthy part of it. But Margot had made eye contact with the diminutive brunette, and Southern social protocol demanded she make appropriate small talk.

“Rosie, Hal, it’s good to see you,” she called, smiling politely.

Margot noted the tiny line of irritation furrowing between Rosie’s brows. Now that Margot had made the overture, it would be considered very rude of Rosie not to respond with some minor comment. And Margot was more than a little disheartened that Rosie seemed annoyed by the very idea of basic social interaction with her.

Hal, on the other hand, stepped forward with his hand on the small of Rosie’s back, nudging her toward Margot’s table. He even folded his lanky frame into one of the patio chairs and smiled politely. “You look well, Margot. Carrying agrees with you.”

“Thank you.”

“Where are the girls?” Rosie asked pointedly.

“They’re with E.J.J. and Tootie, having a big to-do with Marianne and Carl’s boys. I suspect we will return at midnight to find all of them sugared up and ready to party. I’ve noticed that grandparents seem to find that sort of thing karmically hilarious.”

“Oh, we do,” Hal assured her with a grin. He looked to Rosie, who seemed to prefer staring at Margot to joining in the conversation. “I’m sure the girls enjoy that. That was something Maggie always wanted for them, a big family, cousins to play with.”

Rosie seemed to snap out of her fog and frowned at him. Hal cleared his throat. “Have you two set a date yet?”

“Not yet,” Margot said. “We’re still trying to figure out the details.”

“Well, you better not wait too long,” Hal said, his salt-and-pepper hair glinting in the Edison lights. “Those granddaughters of mine are chomping at the bit to be flower girls.”

“Oh, I know it.” Margot laughed.

“There’s no need to rush things, Hal,” Rosie said peevishly. “Kyle and Margot still aren’t sure about their relationship and there’s no need to make a decision they’re not ready for, just because of their . . . situation.”

Margot blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s just so soon,” Rosie said. “I mean, I know it’s been years since Maggie passed, but it seems like you and Kyle just met and now you’re getting married? It’s a situation Kyle never would have considered without . . .” Rosie glanced down at Margot’s belly.

Margot couldn’t muster a civilized response to that, so she sat silently, giving Rosie the expression she used to show to chefs who snuck known allergens into the event sponsor’s dinner. She tried to ignore the rage seething inside her gut because she refused to be caught yelling at Rosie in a public square like some sort of fishwife. She would not give the gossips fodder to exchange on the kitchen-and-beauty-parlor circuit. She’d been nothing but considerate of Rosie’s feelings. She’d made every effort not to make the Kellers feel like she was trying to take Maggie’s place in Kyle’s family. And now those efforts were being thrown back in her face.

Hal placed a hand on his wife’s arm, but she shrugged him off.

“I just want to make sure our girls aren’t pushed aside for the new baby,” Rosie said.

“I’m not going to be some awful Disney stepmother!” Margot exclaimed. “I love those girls.”

“Oh, I know you say that now, but it’s just different when the baby is your own. You’re not going to mean to do it, but you’re going to put the baby’s needs ahead of the girls’ subconsciously. You’ll make a favorite of the baby, without even meaning to. It’ll just happen.”

“Well, that’s a very stunted way of looking at it.”

“Rosie, Hal, I’m glad to see you here.” Kyle’s voice broke through the white noise building in Margot’s ears, which she was pretty sure was the sound of her blood pressure shooting up. He sat next to Margot, whose tensed shoulders relaxed as Kyle laid a hand on her back.

Rosie didn’t bother smiling at her former son-in-law. Apparently, they were dropping all pretenses of social protocol. “Kyle, Margot and I were just talking about the wedding plans. And how important it is not to rush things when you’re not sure.”

“We’re not unsure of anything,” Kyle told her. “Other than the date and location of the wedding.”

“Well, for the sake of the girls, I think you should slow things down. With the baby coming, you don’t want to bring on too many changes at once. Maybe after the baby is born, and you see whether things are working out between you, and the girls are adjusted, then you can get married.”

Several emotions flickered across Kyle’s face—outrage, hurt, insult—and it broke Margot’s heart to see just how deeply Rosie’s words were affecting him. Under the table, she slipped her hand into his and squeezed lightly. He glanced at her and his lips quirked upward for a beat. He looked to Rosie. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“It is when it involves my granddaughters.”

“Let’s not say anything we’re going to regret,” Hal said. “Rosie, Kyle has been nothing but respectful of Maggie’s memory. He waited more than enough time to find someone else, and that’s what our daughter would have wanted.”

“Our daughter can’t want anything because she’s dead,” Rosie hissed.

“Look, I would never want to hurt you,” Kyle said in the lowest and most serious tone of voice Margot had ever heard him use. “And I would never try to interfere with your relationship with June and Hazel. But frankly, you don’t get to tell me how my family is going to live. You don’t get to tell me how we’re going to raise the girls. And you don’t get to tell me when and how I’m going to get married. You can be civil and be part of our family, or you can behave like you are now and find yourselves outside of it.”

Hal protested, “Now, Kyle, I think we all just need to calm down here.”

“I agree. I think we should all get up from this table and not speak again until we can all be civil,” Margot said, her voice wobblier than she expected.

“I’m sorry, Kyle,” Hal said.

Kyle nodded sharply and stood, helping Margot from her chair. He pulled her onto the dance floor, where other couples were two-stepping to the strains of one of the rare country-western classics not about heartbreak. He pulled her into his arms, his posture still ramrod straight.

“I’m so sorry about that,” he whispered in her ear.

“You didn’t do anything to cause that. They’re hurting and they’re scared and I’m trying not to hold that against them,” Margot said, leaning her forehead against his. “How are you doing? That had to hurt.”

He nodded. “I’m trying to remember what Maggie would have wanted, without allowing anyone or anything to hurt your feelings.”

She stroked his hair behind his ear. “You know, you’re a good man.”

“I’ve heard rumors,” he said, kissing her lightly.

“I don’t care what anybody else says.”

He snickered.

“But you can’t control everything.” She sighed. “And every once in a while, someone or something is going to hurt my feelings. It will help, knowing that you’re trying to keep the balance. Maybe we should just call it a night and go home?”

Kyle’s eyebrows winged up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I don’t want to spend the rest of the night trying to avoid eye contact with Rosie and Hal. Plus, let’s face it, I’m approaching the end of my tolerance for standing in these heels. And since everybody’s here, maybe we can go back to the parking lot at the Dirty Deer and relive the night we met,” she said.

He gasped, and then glanced down at her belly. “Are the mechanics of that even possible?”

“If we push the passenger seat all the way back.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Can you go get me, like, six of those cake ball things?”

Kyle nodded, his expression quite serious. “I think that can be arranged. I have a contact on the inside.”

“I’ll just go wait in the truck.”

Kyle kissed her thoroughly, considering that they were standing. “You are already the most amazing wife ever.”

6

NOW THAT SHE had seen the inside of Juno’s, she knew to vet the children’s store where she planned to buy the girls’ dresses. She managed to avoid several miniature pageant dress nightmares just through the magic of Google. Tiny Togs in Alpharetta was definitely more oriented toward “nice clothes for children in formal situations” than “stick your child in these many layers of ruffles and sequins so the judges don’t notice she’s a toddler and not a twenty-one-year-old debutante.”

There were little suits with matching ties and elegant lace dresses proudly displayed against a backdrop of subtle pastels and carefully framed illustrations from old fairy tale books. It was bright and cheerful without being too babyish to appeal to the elementary school customers. And the accessories section was set up to look like Ali Baba’s cave, a treasure trove of sparkly objects to try on in front of a dozen fancy vintage mirrors.

Hazel and June were beside themselves with joy, running all over the store, squealing over dresses, demanding to try on multiple tiaras at once.

“I think I have made a mistake,” Margot whispered as June got a fourth tiara tangled in her dark blond hair.

“No, this is normal,” Marianne promised her. “Just let them run off a little steam while you find some things for them to try on. I’ll keep an eye on them and prevent any property damage. And just remember, we’re going to lunch after this at that cheesecake restaurant you like so much.”

“Cheesecake.” Margot nodded. “And egregiously large portions of pasta.”

“Exactly, and I carefully packed a pecan pie from Lucy’s place in the trunk of my car, and when we get all this shopping done, I will give it to you.”

“Have I mentioned you’re my favorite cousin?”

“Yes, and it’s well deserved.” Marianne preened.

For the first time in this whole planning process, Margot didn’t struggle with choices. She knew that the girls wouldn’t want matching dresses. June’s style was much more “eclectic” than Hazel’s more classic sensibilities. For Hazel, she found several very elegant selections, but she favored a very feminine sleeveless dress with a natural waist and rounded neckline embroidered with little pearls. It was very grown-up and would complement Hazel’s fair skin tone. For June, Margot was almost overwhelmed by the selection of colorful sashes, but what she loved was the white dress with a tulle overlay in a dozen colors, so it looked like a rainbow springing from her waist.

“Okay, girls!” Margot called. “I have some things for you to try on!”

“But, Mom, sparkly!” June called back, trying to jam yet another tiara on her head.

Margot tried to balance her commitment to the shopping task at hand against the little flip her heart did every time June called her Mom. “We’ll definitely get you a tiara but we need to find dresses for you guys, okay?”

“But . . . sparkly!” June cried again, her voice lowering to what could be considered “possession” territory.

Margot approached the girls, her mouth turned at a thoughtful angle. How would she have handled this when she was still working for Elite Elegance? How would she have placated a temperamental chef or socialite? “Okay, both of you, pick out a tiara and you can wear them while you’re trying on clothes.”

June chewed her plump little bottom lip while narrowing her dark eyes at Margot. “All right.”

June swept past Margot into the little dressing room, her tiara tilted at a rakish angle. Hazel was still hovering near the display of bracelets. Margot turned to Marianne, holding up her hands. “I know, it’s bad parenting to bribe them.”

Marianne’s shoulders jerked. “I have to bribe Nathan with a trip to the bookstore before we go school clothes shopping. I won’t mention the shameful amount of sweet-talking it takes to get Aiden to try on shoes.”

“Thank you, I feel better,” Margot told her, sinking gratefully down onto the rosy-pink couch. “Hazel, honey, you want to come try these on?”

Hazel reluctantly drifted over to the pile of dresses Margot had arranged on the footstool in front of her.

“I think this one is particularly nice and will make you look very grown-up,” Margot said of the sleeveless pearled dress.

And to Margot’s shock, instead of enthusiasm, she could almost see the nope forming behind Hazel’s eyes.

“I don’t want to try that one on,” Hazel said, shaking her head.

“Oh, okay,” Margot said, dropping the dress entirely. “Is there something else you want to try on?”

Hazel shook her head, her face flushing red.

“It doesn’t have to be white. It doesn’t even have to be a dress, if that’s what’s bothering you. You can wear pants or a cute shorts outfit. Anything you want. I just want you to be happy.”

Hazel’s big brown eyes filmed over with tears and her lip started to tremble. And Margot’s insides turned to water. “I don’t want to have to wear anything to the wedding. I don’t want there to be any wedding at all. I don’t even see why you and Dad have to get married in the first place. Lots of people have babies without getting married.”

Having only just recovered from Rosie’s opinions on her marriage to Kyle, hearing Hazel practically quote her grandmother verbatim felt like a blow to Margot’s chest. She glanced over to Marianne, who was already pushing up from the couch. She patted Margot’s shoulder as she passed. “I think I’m just going to go check on June.”

“It’s not that I don’t like you, Margot. You’re nice to June and to Dad. And I like that you’re living with us now. And I like that you’re having a baby. But I don’t see why you and Dad have to get married.”

Margot nodded, breathing deeply through her nose. “Okay, thank you for telling me what you think. I can tell it’s bothering you a lot. And your dad and I are getting married because we love each other, and we want to spend the rest of our lives together. And we want to be a family, and yeah, there are a lot of people out there who make families without getting married, and that’s fine. Everybody does things their own way. This is how we want to do things for our family. But honestly, it’s your family, too, and if you want to go home right now and talk to your dad about this, we can talk about putting the wedding off for a while.”

And somehow, this only served to make things worse. The tears that were only threatening before were now spilling down her cheeks. “No, because that’s just going to make him upset. He wants to marry you. He’s said so. And you guys are making all these plans . . .”

“There is nothing we have bought or planned that is more important than you, okay?”

Hazel shook her head. “I just can’t talk to him about this and I don’t want to tell him to put the wedding off!”

Hazel started crying, huge shuddering sobs that shook her little body. Margot carefully stroked her hand down Hazel’s crown, smoothing her hair. “I’m trying to listen to what you’re saying, but I don’t get what it is you want me to do here.”

“I don’t want to call you Mom,” Hazel sobbed into her hands.

“Oh.” Margot sighed, wrapping her arms around Hazel and hugging her close. “Honey, you don’t have to. It won’t hurt my feelings, I promise.”

“Really?” Hazel hiccupped.

“Really.”

“But June is already calling you Mom.”

“Yeah, and that’s June. She wanted to call me Mom, so she does. You and I don’t have to have the same sort of relationship that June and I have. I won’t feel any differently about you if you don’t call me Mom,” Margot assured her. “You call me whatever makes you comfortable. Unless, you know, it’s one of those words that would get you in trouble at school. I really need to learn not to give you carte blanche opportunities like that.”

“What does that mean?” Hazel asked, frowning.

“It means I give you a lot of leeway because I love you so darn much.”

“I like you a lot, too,” Hazel said, hugging her back. “I don’t know if I love you, but I don’t hate you the way that Jenny at school hates her stepmom.”

Margot grimaced into Hazel’s hair. Fifth grader Jenny Brownley was somewhat famous in the elementary school set for drawing inappropriate mustaches in black Sharpie on her sleeping stepmother’s face.

Hazel sniffled. “I’m afraid I’m going to forget about her. Dad tries to make sure we have pictures of her around the house so we can remember her face, but the memories I have, sometimes I have trouble making them come up in my head. It’s like I’m trying to make a movie play, but it won’t work.”

“That’s normal,” Margot told her. “From everything I hear, that’s totally normal. I lost my mom a few years ago, when I was much older than you, and there are times when I have trouble remembering exactly what she looked like without photos.”

“I forgot that your mom died, too,” Hazel said, tilting her head against Margot’s side. “Jenny said that when her dad married her stepmom, her stepmom moved all of the pictures of Jenny’s mom out of the house. I won’t be able to remember Mom at all if there are no pictures of her in the house.”

Margot pulled her close against her chest, sighing in relief. This was what had been sticking in Hazel’s craw over the last few weeks. She wasn’t angry; she was scared. Margot could work with scared. Because she was scared, too.

Margot struggled for a steady voice, nuzzling her cheek against Hazel’s head. “Oh, Hazel, I promise, I’m not going to move your mom’s pictures out of the house. I’m not going to change things around. I’m not going to try to replace your mom or do anything to make you try to forget her and leave her out. That wouldn’t be right. Your mom is always going to be a part of your family, and her picture belongs in the house with the rest of us. That’s what families do. They make room for people they love. When I came back to town, no one in my family really knew who I was, but they made room for me, they included me. You loved your mom, and that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for you to love me, too. Someday, if you want.”

Hazel thought about that for a long moment and then patted Margot’s arm. “Okay, you can marry my dad now.”

“Thank you.” Margot laughed, a watery sound that was covered up by June exploding out of the dressing room in a flurry of rainbow color and tulle.

“I LOVE IT!” June thundered, twirling so the stripes of rainbow tulle swirled wide. She stopped suddenly at the sight of Margot’s and Hazel’s faces. “What happened? Why are you crying? Did someone hurt your feelings? Where are they?”

With an expression that reminded Margot uncomfortably of Frankie, June’s eyes darted around the store for the rude person she must punish to avenge her sister’s feelings.

“No, sweetheart, we were just talking. Everything is fine. And that looks great!”

“Can I wear it to school?” June asked. “Every day?”

“Probably not,” Margot said. “But we will buy it, because it is clearly the dress and gives you the dress feeling, which must be recognized and respected.”

“What’s the dress feeling?” Hazel asked, sitting up and wiping at her cheeks.

“It’s that feeling you get when you try on a dress that makes you feel beautiful and you know it’s going to be perfect for whatever you need it for, and you have to buy it. It only comes along every once in a while, so you have to pay attention to it. If you’re getting that feeling all of the time, you don’t have the dress feeling, you have a compulsive shopping problem.”

Marianne snickered.

“So have you had the dress feeling when you were looking for wedding dresses?” Hazel asked.

“Not yet, kiddo.”

“Well, that’s too bad.” June said, flouncing her skirt. “Because this is amazing. Especially with my tiara.”

Margot snorted. “Okay, sassy mouth, go change out of the dress and we’ll take it up to the counter to pay for it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” June skipped out of the room.

“I think I want to try that one on,” Hazel said, glancing across the store at a longer dress with a similar tulle skirt to June’s but with silk rose petals in every color loose inside the looped overlay.

“Okay,” Margot said as Marianne went to take the dress off the rack. “But you don’t have to get a rainbow dress just because June got one.”

“I know,” Hazel said, taking it from Marianne. “But I like the way the petals move around inside the skirt. And I like the colors. It doesn’t hurt to try something different.”

“Great, let us know if you need help zipping up,” Margot said as Hazel ran off to the dressing room.

“Okay!”

Marianne flopped onto the couch next to Margot and put her arm around her cousin. “You handled that really well. I heard most of it from the dressing room.”

“Thanks. Did June hear?” Margot asked.

“Nah, I kept her distracted.”

“Thank you.” Margot leaned into the side hug Marianne gave her. “This ‘being a grown-up’ thing is rough.”

“Indeed, it is.”

The baby nudged Margot’s belly, making it jump beneath her shirt. Margot glanced down at her middle. “Oh, what would you know about it?”

7

MARGOT STEPPED THROUGH the front door of Lucy’s shop, Gimme Some Sugar, grateful for the elastic panel at the front of her pants because she planned to do some damage to the adorable little display of cupcakes Lucy had arranged on a two-tier pastry tray.

Of all the wedding planning tasks, this was the one thing she was really looking forward to. Sure, they couldn’t decide on a caterer or a dress she didn’t feel hideous in, but if there was anything she was qualified for, it was determining which flavors of cake she liked. Honestly, the cake was a pretty minor detail overall, considering they didn’t have, say . . . a date and place. She just wanted to complete this one task and she would feel like she had actually accomplished something in regard to her wedding.

The bakery was adorable. Lucy had painted the walls a playful shade of light purple with white trim and framing. It made for a comfortable space but kept the customers’ focus on the display case—which was empty, as the shop wasn’t open that day. A section of wall covered in chalkboard paint and framed by what Margot knew to be Duffy’s work listed the daily specials in curlicued chalk letters. But Margot focused on the cupcakes, each swirled with perfectly symmetrical mounds of piped frosting. This was probably the most sophisticated and trendy establishment in the whole of Lake Sackett, and if the cakes were as good as her pecan pie, Lucy already had the job.

Margot finally tore her eyes away from the luscious display of cupcakes and looked at the baker herself. Lucy looked pale, and not just in a “didn’t sleep well last night” sort of way. Her mouth was set in angry lines and her eyes looked red and shiny. Margot stopped as quickly as her new “maternity width” heels would allow. “You okay, sweetie? You’re looking a little ‘down in the mouth,’ as Tootie might say. I wouldn’t say it, but the term definitely applies to you this morning.”

“No, I’m fine, just fine,” Lucy assured her, wiping lightly at her eyes. “And I hope you’re ready to eat sweets for breakfast.”

“I can’t tell you how much we’re looking forward to this,” Margot said, keeping her expression neutral as she walked toward the table. Something was very wrong with Lucy, and if she knew her dopey cousin, it probably had something to do with his awful ex-wife. Duffy wasn’t dumb enough to piss off a girl as sweet as Lucy, but he also wasn’t smart enough to tell Lana to back off and leave Lucy alone.

Margot sighed. She was going to have some very stern words with Duffy McCready. She might even sic Donna on him.

Wait, no. No one deserved that.

For the next hour, Margot fully indulged her sweet tooth, enjoying all of Lucy’s carefully prepared creations—simple white cake, lemon cake with Swiss meringue, devil’s food cake with double chocolate frosting that she wanted to make her second husband. But even with so many delicious choices, Margot was no closer to making a decision for her wedding cake.

At this point, she wasn’t sure she would be ready for a Christmas wedding. An odd weight settled over her chest, and suddenly, even with cake involved, she wanted to end this appointment as quickly as possible. She was so tired of anything and everything to do with this wedding. And she hated feeling that way. She hated the pressure. She hated feeling like she was carrying the whole community’s emotional weight on her shoulders—because that was probably overdramatic and extremely self-centered. But still, she just wanted to walk out to her car and go home.

And apparently, she was not as good at masking her emotions as she thought, because Lucy noticed her sudden shift from happy pregnant snacker to glum bride-to-be. Lucy plied her with more cake and questions, which ended in Margot confessing, “It’s not that I don’t want to be married. I love Kyle. I want to be with him, and only him, forever and ever. I don’t see my life working with anyone else, or without the girls, even if things have moved a lot faster than I thought they would. It’s taken a lot of work for me to recognize that it was my mother’s marriages I was afraid of, not the institution itself. It’s the idea of the wedding and all those people and . . . I know what some of them still think of me, even though they smile and call me ‘Stan’s girl.’ ”

“You don’t have to do a big white wedding.”

“I know.” Margot sighed. “But if I don’t, that would hurt Stan’s feelings, Tootie’s feelings, Aunt Leslie’s feelings—everybody’s feelings, basically.”

“And your feelings in all this are . . . where?”

Margot’s eyes narrowed. “Please don’t be wise and insightful with me right now.”

“Seriously, this is the limit of my folksy wisdom. If you weren’t knocked up, I would be plying you with booze,” she said, hugging Margot. “Talk to Kyle and see how he feels about paring things down a bit. I’ll still make the cake, no matter how small. Hell, I’ll make you a wedding cupcake if you want.”

“I hate wedding cupcakes, they’re a cop-out,” Margot mumbled into her shoulder.

“See, that’s one decision made, right there, though thousands of brides disagree with you,” Lucy said, laughing and pulling away from her. “And you didn’t like the white cake, so that’s another. You favored the lemon and the chocolate. And if you decide you like any of the other flavors, we can do a bit of everything. Lots of people do multiple flavors in tiers or cupcakes. It’s more interesting and you cater to your guests’ tastes. The mark of a considerate bride.”

“You’re right.” Margot sniffed. “I’m overreacting. It’s just these stupid hormones and feelings, and I’m not used to having either. I don’t get paralyzed over decisions. I don’t cry over things like this. I make people cry.”

“You sound oddly proud of that.”

“I am, a little,” Margot confessed.

“It happens to everybody,” Lucy said. “When I was eight months pregnant with Sam, my dad gave me this awful Raggedy Andy doll that my mama had kept in storage for me, from when I was little. I mean, this doll was the stuff of nightmares. And I cried happy tears so hard I scared my dad.”

“That sounds oddly familiar,” Margot said.

“You want some more cake?” Lucy asked.

Margot nodded. “Desperately.”

Lucy spun the tiered tray again and offered her another cupcake. “Now, I like to call this my Almond Joy cupcake.”

Margot gagged slightly as the scent of the cake wafted over her. She clapped her hand to her mouth as the hot rush of acid spread up her throat.

“Is that coconut?” Margot asked, feeling the blood drain from her face.

“Yeah, chocolate cake with a coconut cream frosting.” Lucy said.

A sickly sweet liquid filled Margot’s mouth—a sensation she recognized all too well. “Lucy, I’m really sorry about this.” Margot leaned over the wastebasket and let loose a horrifying torrent of vomit.

“Oh, hell, is that one of your morning sickness triggers?” Lucy gasped and lobbed the offending cupcake over the counter, into the kitchen.

Margot groaned as Lucy pressed a water bottle into her hand. “Coconut, and raw meat, and fucking peanuts, of all things.”

“Yeah, motherhood is a disgusting miracle.” Lucy patted Margot’s back as she leaned back over the trash can to throw up one last time. “You know, there was a lot more vomit involved in this bridal appointment than I expected.”

“Me, too,” Margot grumbled.

MARGOT HEADED OUT FROM THE bakery with a pecan pie Lucy had given her as a sorry my baked goods made you throw up present. Instead of continuing to work, she went to see Kyle at the elementary school. On the drive over, she considered the Sweethearts’ Dance, and Eunice Walker, and how that girl, who was so much younger than Margot, had braved disapproval and the real possibility of bloodshed to marry the man she loved. Here Margot was sniveling about not getting to find a dress or food without hurting someone’s feelings, and Eunice had to face ladders and rivers and shotguns.

And Margot walked into the Lake Sackett Elementary School building with new resolve.

For a building that contained hundreds of small children, it was remarkably quiet as Margot walked through the door. She noticed that the bright yellow PET SHOW-AND-TELL DAY banner was torn down the middle and hanging from the ceiling in strips.

That couldn’t be good.

Clarice Yancy, a plump woman with iron-gray hair, was sitting behind her desk in the office with an ice pack over her left eye. The other eye flicked down to Margot’s belly as she entered the office, and somehow Clarice managed to look even more disgruntled at the sight of her.

“Miss Clarice.”

“Miss Margot,” Clarice drawled.

Margot nodded toward the ice pack. “Pet Show-and-Tell Day?”

Clarice frowned and sighed. “Pet Show-and-Tell Day.”

“Is Mr. Archer available or is he still dealing with the aftereffects?”

Kyle poked his head out of his office, sporting three long scratches down his cheek.

“Oh my God, what happened?” Margot exclaimed.

“There was an incident involving Ben Hodgkin’s cat.” Kyle sighed, ushering her into his office and closing the door. “And Lee Jackson’s turtle . . . and Amelia Sturbey’s chinchilla.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, kissing his uninjured cheek.

“The good news is, I think I’ve gathered sufficient evidence to convince the PTA never to host Pet Show-and-Tell Day again. But this little surprise visit brings some sunshine to my day,” he said, pausing to look at her face. “Except that you’ve got that little line between your eyebrows that means you’re upset, so this is probably not going to be a happy surprise visit.”

Margot meant to open her mouth and assure Kyle that she was fine, she was just having a bad day and wanted to see his face. Because honestly, no man should have to deal with a pregnant, not-quite-hysterical-but-getting-there fiancée on the same day he’d been attacked by an ill-tempered chinchilla. But what came out was “I can’t do this.”

Kyle’s face went pale. “What, get married? Honey, I thought we were past this. Is this about what Hazel said? Because you seemed okay the other day.”

“No, no, it’s the wedding!” she exclaimed. “It’s just the wedding! It’s so much pressure. And I don’t want to disappoint anybody, but it seems impossible when there are so many random emotional attachments to things you don’t even expect and cannot predict. And when you’ve worked in the events industry as long as I have, it’s hard to get excited about stuffed mushroom caps and coordinating table linens in different shades of peony. I have seen how the sausage is made. And that kind of ruins sausage for me.”

Kyle frowned. “Ew.”

“I want to get married, but I don’t think I can do the wedding. I want to get married far away from here, where it’s just you, me, and the kids. And my dad. And your parents if you think they’d be willing to make the trip. No bridesmaids’ dresses or monogrammed napkins or canapés or cake or other people and their expectations. Just us.”

“That sounds pretty amazing,” Kyle conceded, sliding into the chair across from her and taking her hand. “But we can’t do that, can we? I mean, won’t it hurt a lot of feelings?”

“Probably, but you’re the one who said the wedding should be about what we want, and you’re right. We should be relaxed and happy on our wedding day. And if we need to smooth over ruffled feathers, we’ll worry about it later. We can do a reception out at the compound in the fall, when all the mosquitoes die off.”

Kyle pulled Margot into his lap, risking the disapproval of Miss Clarice, who could see them through his office window. “What brought all this on?”

“Coconut and Eunice Walker—but mostly coconut.” Margot sighed. “At the cake tasting. I mean, I knew I wasn’t going to get the dress I wanted. And I knew I was going to compromise with my family about the service and the food and everything else. But I really thought that the cake part was going to be fun. And easy. Throwing up in the middle of Lucy’s bakery was not easy or fun. I mean, it’s cake. It should be some sort of law of the universe that pregnancy can’t ruin cake for you. Some things are just sacred.”

“I’m so sorry, honey,” he said, pulling her close as the afternoon bell rang, releasing the kids from school. “We could always elope. You should be okay to travel for another month or two, right?”

“I have a white sundress I could wear. The girls have dresses. In theory, that’s all the prep we need, besides the rings.”

“I wouldn’t have to wear a tux,” Kyle said. “I really wasn’t excited about the tux.”

“We could go right after the kids get out of school,” Margot said, feeling a spark of warmth rising in her chest. Could this be . . . excitement about planning the wedding? When she pictured walking down a beach, on her dad’s arm, toward Kyle and the girls, just that small little group . . . she could see it in full color. Unlike when she imagined a big white wedding with all the trappings, Margot could actually feel goose bumps rising on her arms. That was the wedding she wanted—small, simple, no-frills, nobody trying to shape the ceremony with their ideas.

Kyle rubbed his hand over her belly and the baby chose that moment to kick, hard. Kyle grinned. “I think the baby agrees with the plan.”

“The baby wants to be a world traveler before he or she is born.” Margot snickered. She turned at the sound of the office door opening. The girls bounded through, all breathless energy and flyaway hair.

“Hey, Margot,” Hazel said, throwing herself into her dad’s office chair. “Dad, I still don’t think it’s fair we couldn’t bring Arlo or Charlie to Pet Show-and-Tell Day. Everybody else got to bring their pets.”

“I know, sweetie, I was just so worried about keeping up with our dogs and all of the other kids and their pets. And I didn’t want our dogs to get upset or hurt, so it seemed safer to leave them at home.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense,” Hazel grumbled.

“So, girls, we were talking about the wedding,” Kyle said. “And were thinking instead of planning a big wedding here at home, of maybe going on vacation and having a little wedding somewhere else, and then having a big party later. Maybe even after the baby is born.”

“You’re going to elope?” June asked.

“How do you know that word?” Margot asked.

June leveled a very serious look at Margot. “We have cable, Mom.”

Margot nodded and made a mental note to adjust the parental settings on the remote. “What do you think of us eloping?”

“Does eloping mean we wouldn’t get to see the wedding?” Hazel asked.

“No, we’re taking you with us. You will be there no matter what,” Margot said.

“Can we go to Disney World?” June asked. “You could get married in front of Cinderella’s castle.”

“You came up with that plan awful fast.” Kyle arched a brow and looked to Margot, who shook her head. “We were thinking maybe the beach?”

“That would be nice,” Hazel said. “But Disney World also has beach resorts.”

“You guys are really pushing this Disney thing, huh?”

June raised her hands. “Oh, no, it’s your wedding. Do what you want.”

“So you’re okay with this?” Kyle asked Hazel, patting her back.

Hazel nodded. “It’s going to be okay.”

Margot reached out and squeezed her hand.

“Can I wear a swimsuit under my dress if the wedding’s on the beach?”

“Sure,” Margot said.

“Can I wear a mermaid tail?” June asked.

Margot burst out laughing. “Probably not. You would have a really hard time getting down the aisle, sprinkling flowers.”

“Good point,” June said, nodding. “Who else is going to be there?”

“I’m going to invite my dad,” Margot said. “To make sure he can walk me down the aisle.”

“Will Meemee and Pawpaw come?” June asked.

Kyle and Margot exchanged glances, and Kyle said, “Um, we’ll have to talk about that.”

“I know that Meemee and Pawpaw have never been to Disney World,” Hazel said, shrugging innocently.

Margot cackled. “Not going to let the Disney thing go, huh?”

8

IT TOOK A few days for the elopement plan to come together. Margot struggled for a way to tell her family that she would be getting married in a little over six weeks, after the girls got out of school, on a faraway beach. And that their invitation would involve a high-speed Internet connection and a webcam. Margot had considered just leaving I’ma marry my man and no one’s gonna stop me scrawled on a scrap of butcher paper on her bed and disappearing.

But that was the cowardly route. Effective, but cowardly.

So it may have been a subconsciously intentional gesture that she left the pamphlet entitled “So You Want to Elope” on her desk where anyone in her family could see it. And that anyone just happened to be her father.

“Hey, I have sweet tea for my Sweet Tea,” Stan called as he walked through her door, in the most cheerful tone she could remember him using since . . . ever.

“Thanks, Dad, I’d just about finished with this morning’s jug,” she said, laughing as he set the giant tumbler on her desk with a flourish.

His eyes seemed to snag on the pamphlet, which featured a picture of the back of a classic convertible with JUST ELOPED printed in white shoe polish on the shiny red paint. The smile slid right off Stan’s face, and for a moment, he looked like the hangdog grump she’d met when she’d first moved to town.

“Oh, I didn’t know that was something you were thinking about,” he said, carefully.

“Oh, no! Dad!” Margot blurted out, before she pursed her lips and stood up to close the air vents that piped sound directly into the chapel overhead. “Dad, could you close the door, please? I don’t want everybody to overhear.”

Stan walked to the door like a man shuffling toward the noose. He clearly had expectations for this conversation, and they weren’t good. “Look, honey, I know I haven’t been back in your life for very long. And it’s gotta be weird, having all this pressure on you to involve me in the wedding. Lots of girls walk themselves down the aisle nowadays, female empowerment, not being chattel and all that. It won’t hurt my feelings if that’s what you want to do, but please don’t feel like you have to move the whole wedding just to avoid hurting my feelings.”

Chuckling, Margot threw her arms around her father and felt his frame melt into her embrace. He slid his arms around her and squeezed her as tight as her belly would allow. “No, Daddy. No, I never wanted to have my wedding away from you, that was never the point of this eloping idea. Having you walk me down the aisle, and me being truly happy that you’re there, that was one of the only things I was sure of during this whole debacle. Kyle and I have decided to elope because this wedding-planning thing has just sucked all of the fun out of getting married for us. We want to be married, that’s it. And when we elope, you’re coming with us. We have to have someone as a witness, right? And someone to give me away? And we want that someone to be you.”

Stan’s eyes filmed over with tears and he hugged her again, sniffling into her hair.

“I’m sorry, I know there’s going to be hurt feelings over the big white wedding being canceled,” Margot said, though her voice quavered a bit. “But Kyle and I agree this is for the best. This is how we want to handle it.”

“No, no, Sweet Tea, to hell with everybody else’s feelings.”

“Then why did you get all teary-eyed?” she asked, her voice cracking in an embarrassing fashion.

“You called me Daddy.” He tucked her head under his chin and rubbed her back. “You haven’t done that since you were a little girl.”

“Well, lately I’ve learned that labels have power,” she said, giving him a squeeze . . . and thinking of Hazel.

Stan wiped at his cheeks and Margot retreated for her sweet tea. “So where are you thinking about having this elopement? Most people around here go to Corinth, Mississippi, when they want a quickie justice-of-the-peace thing. I’m not really sure how it got started, but about half of the couples in our church got married there.”

“We—as in you, me, Kyle, and the girls—are going to Florida next month. The girls are pushing for a side trip to Disney. But we’re still trying to figure out whether that would be too much for me in this condition. I’m hoping that Uncle Bob and Frankie might be persuaded to take over your tasks while you’re out. I looked it up: you haven’t taken a vacation in twenty-two years. I think you’re due.”

“You want to see all this in Bermuda shorts, huh?” he said, gesturing to his thin legs.

She cackled. “It’s going to be great. We never really did a family vacation. We can make up for lost time.”

A quick knock sounded on the door, and suddenly, Frankie’s newly dyed purple head was poking through. “Hey, just so you know, I heard everything through the vents to the embalming room and I support you in this elopement thing. I will help wrangle my mom when she inevitably melts down over this. I know how she can be and I just want you to be happy, cuz.”

“What?” Margot glanced around the floor and spotted yet another air-conditioning vent, leading down to Frankie’s break area, beside the morgue—standing wide open.

Margot gasped. “How many vents are in my office?”

WEEKS WENT BY AND KYLE and Margot sat at the familiar booth at the Rise and Shine, holding hands. The elopement plans were set, and so far, Leslie’s and Tootie’s responses had been muted. There were a few passive-aggressive comments about how watching the wedding on the Internet wasn’t the same as being there, but for the most part, they told her to take lots of pictures and prepare for a big party when she got home. Aunt Donna, on the other hand, thanked Margot for not making her dress up.

Margot didn’t know whether it was because they knew there was a reception to plan when she and Kyle returned home or because Frankie had struck some sort of Faustian bargain with Leslie regarding her own wedding, but she was grateful for the peace and quiet. With Kyle and the girls out of school and the bags packed, there was only one more thing to do before leaving town. Kyle’s parents had elected not to join them on the trip, but asked that Kyle bring Margot and the girls up north for a visit around Thanksgiving.

“You sure about this?” Kyle asked as Margot dug into a slice of pecan pie. Ike had recently begun carrying Lucy’s offerings from Gimme Some Sugar on his dessert menu, and they were extremely popular with the locals. But Margot was loyal to her precious pecan pie because it was the food that had carried her through the morning sickness.

“I think we need to talk to Maggie’s parents,” Margot said around a mouthful of pie. “I think that leaving it unresolved until after we’re married is a mistake.”

“But the way Rosie spoke to you last time . . .” Kyle said, frowning.

Margot took his hand in hers. “She’s scared. She’s scared for her grandchildren. And she’s afraid of losing touch. I understand that. And I don’t want to punish her for being afraid. I mean, if she continues to be rude and aggressive, then we’ll talk, but up until the other day she’s tried to keep her distance and be polite, which I have appreciated. I think we should at least update her on our plans.”

“You’re a good woman. I don’t care what anybody else says.”

Margot snickered against his lips as he kissed her.

“That will always be funny. I regret nothing.”

Rosie and Hal entered the diner and joined them at the table, their postures rigid and their faces grave. Margot noted that several people at other tables were “not watching,” trying not to be caught letting their eyes linger too long on the brewing situation between the Kellers and the Archers.

Hal attempted to break the ice with a hearty handshake and a “Hi, there, Kyle, Margot. Where are the girls tonight?”

“They’re at Marianne and Carl’s place, hanging out with their boys and Lucy Bowman’s son, Sam.”

“I hear Duffy has been spending a lot of time with Lucy lately,” Hal said. “Nice to see them together again.”

Margot nodded as Rosie sat there, awkwardly fidgeting with the paper-wrapped silverware. “Everybody seems very happy with that, especially Duffy and Lucy.”

After a long pause, Rosie asked in a far more timid tone than Margot expected, “So, why did you call us here tonight?”

Kyle squeezed Margot’s hand under the table. “Margot and I are going to get married next week. We’re going to take the girls to the beach in Florida and have a really small ceremony with a justice of the peace and then take a family vacation. We’ve set all the details. We just wanted to let you know ahead of time, so you didn’t hear it secondhand.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Hal said, nodding. “Honestly, we don’t begrudge y’all your happiness. But I don’t know if we could watch you get married or listen to other people talk about watching you get married. It’s nothing personal. It’s just hard.”

“And I’m so sorry for what I said,” Rosie added. “I’ve seen you with the girls over the last few months and I know you’re not going to mistreat them. I think I panicked. It’s hard, watching another woman mother your grandchildren. This just isn’t how I thought our golden years would turn out.”

“I know,” Margot said. “I’m trying to keep your feelings in mind. I’m not ever going to try to replace Maggie, because I know I can’t. I just want to love the girls and make their lives as happy as possible.”

After another long moment, Rosie nodded. “That’s all I can ask.”

Kyle put his arm around Margot’s shoulders. “Well, we were thinking that after we get back from the trip, the girls could come stay with you for a few days. You could have some time with them and we could have the house to ourselves to recuperate.”

Rosie smiled. “I think that would be nice.”

“Are you two hungry?” Hal asked, his relief palpable as he sagged against the seat. “I could use a slice of pie.”

“I can always use another slice of pie,” Margot told him, pointing at her now empty plate.

Rosie reached across the table and tentatively patted her hand. “Well, you’re eating for two. You get a second slice whenever you want.”

9

WHEN MARGOT WAS growing up in Chicago, her mother once told her that she took Margot out of Georgia to keep Margot from being “barefoot and pregnant” before she was a teenager. And here she was, barefoot and pregnant, walking down the beach on her father’s arm, toward the man she loved—and she’d never been happier.

The Wednesday morning had dawned over Amelia Island sunny and bright, perfect for a wedding party consisting of the bride, the groom, the couple’s children, the bride’s father, the hotel’s photographer, the justice of the peace, and the justice of the peace’s husband, who had agreed to hold the laptop to broadcast their vows back to Lake Sackett. Marrying on a weekday meant the beach wasn’t too crowded with tourists, and holding the ceremony in the morning kept it from being so hot that Margot was miserable. And her white sundress from the bridal store was perfect for the ceremony they ended up with—casual, low-key, and blissfully quiet.

Planning a vacation turned out to be much more fun than planning a wedding. Margot had managed to arrange a girls’ day at the hotel spa involving manis and pedis for her, Hazel, and June the day before, while Kyle and Stan made a very manly visit to a gator farm on the mainland.

The girls looked downright adorable in their little rainbow dresses. They couldn’t stand to wait for Margot at the improvised flower-covered arbor with their dad, and rushed up to her to shower her with petals from their little baskets.

“You look just beautiful, Sweet Tea. Thank you for bringing me along for the adventure,” Stan whispered as they approached the arbor and Kyle. “It means a lot to me.”

“Thanks for being here with me,” Margot whispered back. “It means more.”

A table to the right of the arbor caught Margot’s attention. They had plans for a wedding brunch back at the hotel later. She hadn’t planned on any food on the beach, because she figured the sand and wind would make it a pretty miserable meal. But there was a white-covered table, with what appeared to be three small stacked tiers of . . . pie?

Stan kissed her cheek as he “delivered” her to her groom, and the photographer got a shot of all three of them being pelted with white rose petals by their enthusiastic flower girls.

“What did you do?” she asked Kyle, laughing as he took her hands.

“It took some very careful and expensive overnight shipping, but Lucy sent the pecan pies down this morning,” Kyle told her. “After your experience with the wedding cake, I thought you might like something different.”

“You are correct. Thank you,” she whispered, and kissed Kyle.

“Don’t thank me, thank Lucy,” Kyle said, nodding to where the witness stood with the laptop. On the screen, she could see her family, as well as Lucy and Sam, crowded around Frankie’s living room, watching the screen of her laptop.

Margot waved and blew a kiss to the laptop. “Thank you, Lucy!”

“No problem!” Lucy called back from under Duffy’s arm. “Congratulations!”

“You look just beautiful, honey!” Leslie yelled.

“Definitely better than the nightmare country-western dress,” Marianne said.

“We love you, Margot,” E.J.J. said. “And we can’t wait to see the pictures when you get back.”

“Thanks, everybody,” Margot said, wiping at the mysterious moisture that seemed to be developing on her cheeks.

“Well, are you gonna get this show on the road, or are you going to stand there blubbering all day?” Donna demanded.

Margot laughed, turning to Kyle. He jerked his head toward the justice of the peace, who was waiting patiently. “Are you ready?”

“Definitely.”

More from this Series

Gimme Some Sugar

Book 6

Sweet Tea and Sympathy

Book 1

Save a Truck, Ride a…

Book 2

Peachy Flippin' Keen

Book 3

More from the Author

Accidental Sire

Where the Wild Things…

About the Author

MOLLY HARPER is the author of the Southern Eclectic series of contemporary romances, as well as two popular series of paranormal romances, the Half-Moon Hollow vampire novels and the Naked Werewolf shifter trilogy. A former humor columnist and newspaper reporter, she lives in Michigan with her family. Visit her on the web at mollyharper.com.

FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Molly-Harper

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SimonandSchuster.com

BOOKS BY MOLLY HARPER

THE SOUTHERN ECLECTIC SERIES

A Few Pecans Short of a Pie

Ain’t She a Peach

Peachy Flippin’ Keen

Save a Truck, Ride a Redneck

Sweet Tea and Sympathy

THE HALF-MOON HOLLOW SERIES

Accidental Sire

Where the Wild Things Bite

Big Vamp on Campus

Fangs for the Memories

The Single Undead Moms Club

The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire

I’m Dreaming of an Undead Christmas

A Witch’s Handbook of Kisses and Curses

“Undead Sublet” in The Undead in My Bed

The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires

Driving Mr. Dead

Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors

Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever

Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men

Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs

THE NAKED WEREWOLF SERIES

How to Run with a Naked Werewolf

The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf

How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf

THE BLUEGRASS SERIES

Snow Falling on Bluegrass

Rhythm and Bluegrass

My Bluegrass Baby

ALSO

Better Homes and Hauntings

And One Last Thing . . .

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2019 by Molly Harper White

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ISBN 978-1-5011-7899-3

Table of Contents

- The McCready Family Tree
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- About the Author
- Copyright