AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My pictures are already going to be ruined by the rain anyway! You know how flat my hair gets when there’s moisture in the air.” Her crying picked up speed, and so did my pace.
I slipped past her chair on soft feet, making a beeline straight for the coffee maker. Daddy raised his mug in salute, the newspaper lying open on the table in front of him. The man was never going to switch to the online version of the paper. I took one of the mugs someone had placed out on the counter and filled it as high as I could while still leaving room for some cream.
“Sissy, the rain’s supposed to stop in a couple hours,” Mama soothed from in front of the stove. “It’s going to be a beautiful afternoon. This is why you have a wedding planner, honey. She made contingencies for bad weather. You need to take some deep breaths and calm down. Your wedding is going to be perfect, and you’ll be a beautiful bride.”
She turned her attention back to the stove, and I placed a quick kiss on her cheek on my way to the fridge. My hand went straight past the creamer and landed on the bottle of Bailey’s. It might have been older than I was, but it blessedly still contained some liquid. I was willing to risk it today. I added a splash to my cup and replaced the bottle.
“Sutton.” Mama’s voice halted my progress out of the kitchen. “You need to eat breakfast. We’re not going to have a lot of opportunities to eat today, and you know how cranky you get when you’re hungry.”
She wasn’t wrong, but I really didn’t want to listen to Sissy’s dramatics a second longer than I had to.
“I’ll just grab a bagel or —”
She spun around, pointing the spatula at me.
“You will sit at the table and eat some of these eggs, Sutton Louise Buchanan.” I immediately marched to the table and sat down, clutching my coffee mug in front of me like it could shield me from Mama’s wrath.
“She’s stressed, and Sissy’s breakdown isn’t helping,” Daddy whispered, leaning closer to me. “She’s cooked enough food to feed an army.”
Mama cooked when she was stressed. Her go-to was baked goods but it was too early for pies. The more stressed she was, the more food she made, and judging by the three Crockpots lining the counter and the biscuits cooling on racks, she had reached max stress.
“Mama,” I ventured, “Why don’t you come sit down? I can finish up the eggs.”
“They’re almost finished.” She waved the spatula in the air without turning away from the skillet. “But thank you for offering.”
“Did you make some egg whites?” Sissy managed to take a break from her hysterics to look up. “You know I don’t want a lot of dairy and carbs today. I always look bloated when I eat dairy and carbs, and it’s bad enough that I’ll have flat hair and puffy eyes.”
“Ooh, where’s the Strip?” Skye asked, looking up from her phone screen. “I found a doctor on Facebook who works out of this strip mall place and is offering a BOGO sale on Botox and filler. We could totally go get your face fixed this morning, Sissy.”
“Absolutely not,” Mama and Daddy said at the same time. Somehow this made Sissy start crying even harder.
“Baby!” Macon’s voice rang through the hallway.
I sat up straighter, my eyes widening in alarm. I glanced down at my bike shorts and oversized Garfield T-shirt. Don’t judge me, the cat and I had a lot in common. The bralette I was wearing didn’t do much for the girls and my black shorts were barely visible below the hem of the shirt. I didn’t even want to know what my hair looked like. It wasn’t that I wanted Macon to find me so beautiful that he would suddenly realize he was marrying the wrong sister — it was probably more out of habit than anything. I doubted that he would tell Holden that I’d been sitting at the table drinking spiked coffee and looking like a gremlin, and even if he did, Holden had already seen me with the flu.
“Oh, thank God,” Mama muttered, patting the bandana tied around her curlers.
“We called in the cavalry,” Daddy explained, his voice still soft enough for only me to hear. He pointed to the cooling racks, “the homemade biscuits” I’d noticed earlier.
Mama only made Grandma’s homemade biscuit recipe for company. She had given in to the lure of pre-made biscuits years ago.
“Good morning,” Macon greeted us, not seeming the least bit perturbed by Sissy sniffling at his side. “Thanks for inviting us for breakfast today, Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan — or should I say ‘Mom and Dad’?”
Mama laughed lightly, coming to peck Macon on the cheek. Daddy grunted.
“Come on in and eat, everyone.” Mama ushered Macon into the kitchen, and my spine stiffened in my chair as Holden stepped around the corner behind him, his eyes searching the room until they landed on my surprised expression. The urge to slide off my chair and hide under the table warred with the desire to see him.
He’d been so busy with work the past week that I hadn’t seen him since the night we’d both fallen asleep on the couch. He had woken up before me in the early hours of the morning and snuck out like a thief. I’d woken up alone with a stiff neck, feeling disappointed that he was gone without a goodbye. There was a text waiting for me; he apologized for leaving without saying goodbye but he had an early morning appointment. If it were anyone else, I would think “an appointment early on a Saturday morning” was just a pathetic excuse to sneak out, but Holden was the type of person to work on the weekends, and I’d never known him to lie.
“I hope you don’t mind an extra guest,” Holden said, his voice warming me more than the coffee my hands were still clutching. He moved around Macon and Sissy to take the seat next to me.
“You’re always welcome,” Daddy replied with a smile, actually setting aside the paper. “How —”
“OMG, hi,” Skye interrupted, leaning across the table toward Holden. “Are you an actor?”
Holden’s gaze locked with mine, and my lips curved into a smile even as I rolled my eyes.
“Uh, no, I’m an attorney.” Holden leaned back as Mama set a heaping plate of food in front of him. “Thank you.”
