“Now wait a minute—”
“And I’m keeping the ring.” Mama didn’t raise no fool.
“Let’s go, Edward.” Britney propped up her boyfriend and pulled him toward her.
How was this my life? How had this happenedagain?
At thirty years old, this was my second broken engagement. I thought I’d finally found the one. Looked like Rosie wasn’t the only one watching a dream die. “Wait!” I cried.
Rubbing his sore jaw, Ned slowly turned.
“At least tell me why I wasn’t enough.” I swallowed past the knot in my throat and dashed away the final tears. “You owe me that.”
Those scrawny shoulders beneath his suit lifted in a most pitiful shrug. “I’m so sorry, Hattie.” His next words would forever tattoo themselves onto the interior of my heart and be with me the rest of my lifelong days. “One day I realized that…you’re just not the one I want.”
Chapter Three
Five Months Later…
Ah, picturesque Sugar Creek, Arkansas.
Home of more antique shops than you could shake a doily at, plus so much nature you could cry from all the beauty, then swear with all the mosquito bites and allergy flares.
Sugar Creek was also the destination of Sylvie Sutton’s grandchildren when nursing a broken heart.
I was previously betrayed, newly single, and still surfing atop a swell of anger. So, of course, I had packed up what little I hadn’t sold in a desperate garage sale back in Nashville and driven the 560 miles to the bosom of dear, sweet granny.
I’d barely sat a suitcase down on the porch when her front door swung open. “Hello, my little honey bunch of bitterness. Do give your grandmother a hug.”
Ignoring the moths circling us beneath the light, I went into Sylvie’s arms, the tears starting anew. I thought I’d gotten all the waterworks out of my system on the long drive, thanks to much time alone with my thoughts and Loretta Lynn’s entire music catalog. Never mind that Ned’s paramour had, indeed, been woman enough to take my man.
“Hi, Sylvie.” I breathed in my grandmother’s comforting, familiar scent of expensive perfume, high-dollar shampoo, and buckshot. Though she had over ten grandchildren, she refused the name of grandma or any variation of its kind. And while a little unconventional, Sylvie was still the very best grandmother God ever created. “Thanks for letting me come back.”
“Come back?” She took a step in retreat, studying my face in the dim light of night. “Sugar, this is your home. Always has been and always will be.”
I sniffed indelicately and glanced back at her driveway, which looked more like a used car lot. “You didn’t mention I was arriving during a party. You could’ve just left me the rental keys under the mat. I don’t want to intrude.”
She curled her toned arm around my shoulders and led me inside her remodeled Victorian. “It’s only the Sexy Book Club girls. Your sisters and cousins are here. Everyone will be happy to see you.”
“Wait. Everyone?” I tried in vain to stop, but Sylvie pushed me right through the foyer.
“Hattie!” My youngest sister, Rosie, was the first one to tackle me in a hug. Ever the exuberant one, Rosie hugged me fiercely, as if squishing a body imparted extra love.
“Hey, quit hogging her.” Next to accost me was Olivia. She hugged a little more politely, as one who didn’t want to muss up her designer outfit and freshly blown-out hair. “It’s been ages.”
“It’s been five months,” I said, warily surveying the crowd in my grandmother’s house, most of them eyeing me right back. Many had been at the dramatic funeral, then days later saw me at Ned’s sister’s bridal shower bawling my eyes out over a punch bowl.
“Moving back here is the right thing to do,” Rosie said. “Sylvie will fix you some cookies and make everything okay again.”
Sylvie gave a dramatic sigh as she brushed an errant chunk of my brown hair from my face. “Why do all my grandchildren keep coming back to me romantically bamboozled? Didn’t I raise you better than this?”
Weighed down with road snacks, my purse strap slipped from my shoulders. “You didn’t raise us.”
“And right there’s the problem.” Lips that had been discreetly plumped now curved into a smile. “Frannie, look who finally showed up.”
My aunt-by-way-of-family-adoption came at me holding a plate piled high with cupcakes and a look of sympathy on her face. “Hey, baby. Bring it on in for a great big, handsy hug.”
“Hi, Aunt Frannie.”
