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“I’ll see you later for the next one, Ms. Hattie?” Aria asked her as she turned to head inside.
The older woman nodded. “See you then, mama.”
Aria’s eyes went wistful as she smiled and turned away.
When she was gone, Ms. Hattie shot me a grimace. “That girl is going to overdo it this weekend. I can feel it.”
The corners of my mouth twitched downward. “She’ll be okay. I’ve got her.”
“I know you do, sweetheart.” Then her eyes searched my face, and a distinctly mischievous glint entered their depths. “I ran into your grandmother at the market yesterday.”
“Oh?” I felt my stomach twist and knot, a familiar sense of dread wafting over me.
“Yes. I mentioned my son is coming to town.”
Inwardly, I groaned, suspicions confirmed. My grandmother had a knack for making me feel like I was doomed to walk the earth alone for the rest of eternity. As if that same fear didn’t already follow me wherever I went.
I knew I was bad at love. I knew my most successful relationships were the ones I had with the men in my romance novels who didn’t even exist in real life.
But all of that didn’t mean I wanted her to stick her nose into my love life and try to be my fairygrandmother. If I never found love, I’d never get my heart broken. And since I already lived my life feeling like my own emotions were harder to wrangle than seemed fair, that was the ideal scenario.
“Great,” I said to Ms. Hattie, keeping my voice even and matching her benign expression. “Thanks for that.”
Her face softened. “Oh, Lyndi. She just wants to see you happy.”
“No, she just wants to see memarried. There’s a huge difference.”
Ms. Hattie put her hands on her plump hips and cocked her head. “Well, speaking as a veryhappily marriedwoman, I beg to differ.” When I stuck my tongue out at her to take this conversation from pathetic to playful, she dropped her hands with a chuckle. “Brett’s coming with me to your sister’s wedding.”
“You’re taking your son and not your husband? Don’t happily married women like to attend weddings with their husbands?”
“Well, of course. But then your sister decided to get married three weeks before your cousin plans to. Since I’m invited to both weddings, and Brett will be in town for one of them, my husband decided to sit one out. Let’s be honest, there’s been quite an uptick in weddings lately.”
“Uh-huh,” I deadpanned.
If I feared my grandma’s matchmaking, Ms. Hattie was about a gazillion times worse. Her meddling was probably the cause of most of the weddings she’d attended recently, including my sister’s.
Andwow, she looked mighty proud of it.
“Anyway,” she said with a wave of her hand, “Brett’s excited for a night with his mama, and Thatcher can only handle so much socializing.”
I knew the feeling. Give me my core circle of friends, my family, and the people in this town like Ms. Hattie who felt like family even though there was no relation, and I was a happy girl. But if I had to be a guest at all the weddings I photographed? I’d lose my mind. In fact, I preferred the company of a good book to almost everyone on the aforementioned list.
Not that I’d ever tell them that. Though, something told me they already knew.
“Well, I guess I’ll look forward to Grandma’s meddling at Layla’s wedding, then. Or shoot, even before. Let me guess, she asked you to ask me if I’d be his date.”
“Are you bringing a date?” she asked with a too-innocent expression.
“No, I’m not. But I’m not going to stealyours, because then your husband would have to go, and I feel for the guy.”
She smirked. “Well played, dear. Save Brett a dance, will you? That’ll make your grandmother happy, and I wouldn’t hate to see him let loose and have a little fun. He’s so serious all the time.”
“You got it,” I promised half-heartedly.
Ms. Hattie’s son Brett was a stud, no doubt about it. But he lived at a Marine base in Okinawa, so obviously there was no chance I’d take a second look at him. I loved my life in Bluffton, South Carolina, and there was no way I’d fall for a Marine stationed overseas and let him whisk me away to join him.
Besides, ifanyMarine could tempt me into leaving my beloved hometown—and let’s be honest, it wouldn’t work anyway—it wasBeau Devereux.
