Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Summer
Today was a beautiful day to get married, but I willed the clock to slow down.
“Look at it all come together.” My youngest sister, Wynter, leaned over me, fluffing my veil in the mirror.
Her blond hair was curled into ringlets and bound back so the corkscrew strands could cascade down her back.
The silver dress she wore washed her skin out, making her light tan pale.
I should’ve insisted on letting my sisters choose their own color.
She spread the sides of my veil out. With the light over our heads in the church room I was holed up in with my attendants, the fabric gave me a halo.
Wynter feathered her fingers over the lace at my shoulders. “Such lovely material.”
She’d been making comments all day. About the nice church that Boyd and his family had chosen. The nice dress. The nice vacation in Bali.
Everything was so nice.
A bride wanted more than nice for her wedding day.
A bride wanted more than her sisters trying to make it seem like everything was okay.
My stomach roiled and I pressed my fingers to my lips.
“Oh my god,” Wynter whispered. Her wide gaze darted to Junie, our more worldly and second-youngest sister, as if Autumn wouldn’t understand what she was worried about. Autumn wasn’t as naive as everyone thought.
I rolled my eyes. “God, no, Wynter. I’m not pregnant.”
Fear speared right through my heart at the thought. Shouldn’t that be disappointment? I was in my mid-thirties, and I was finally getting married. I wanted a family, yet the thought of getting pregnant now left me almost as sick as the idea of loading into a tin can with wings afterward.
A goddamn plane. Boyd knew how I felt about flying.
Yet he’d surprised me with the tickets to Bali like my claustrophobic ass should jump up and down. Tomorrow morning, I’d be sitting in first class, as if that made it better to be stuck in a coffin with a hundred other people. My chest squeezed and tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
I blinked rapidly and smeared my mascara. “Shit.”
“Let me get a wipe.” Autumn jumped off the stool. Her dress swished, not at all the summer dress I’d pictured when I’d fantasized about a wedding as a kid.
Her red hair was done similarly to Wynter. A nice, elegant style. To keep the tears at bay, I glanced around the room in the mirror. Plush couches. Gallery-worthy artwork. Crown molding. This wasn’t the church I’d grown up in, the one I’d thought I’d be married in, but the room was nice.
So. Nice.
“Got it!” Autumn brandished a makeup wipe like it’d solve all my problems.
Wynter stopped her by putting a hand in front of my face. “That’ll take all the foundation off.”
“Oh, right.” Autumn narrowed her eyes on me and contemplated the issue with Wynter.
Junie stood and joined them, her doe-brown eyes contemplative. The three stood in a half circle in front of me, focused on goddamn makeup like it was their lifeline. Anything to ignore how melancholy I’d been today.
“It’s fine.” I held my hand out for the wipe. “I don’t care if the dark bags show through.”
The three blinked at me. More tears threatened to well. My hand shook.
“Summer,” Wynter said quietly. “Whatever you want to do, we’ve got your back.”
She wasn’t talking about the makeup. Hope surged inside me but I tamped it down. What was I thinking? Boyd was a good man. A nice guy.
Nice. Fuck me. Which he also did, in his methodical, predictable way.
He also bulldozed over me at the most inconvenient times.
Like with this wedding. “He was so excited about getting married after being at your wedding, Wynter,” I said in a near whisper.
I’d been enchanted too. Wynter and my new brother-in-law, Myles, had radiated happiness on their big day.
They were meant to be together, and I’d wanted that for myself.
So when Boyd had proposed the day after—so as not to impose on the happy couple’s special day, and that was considerate, dammit—I had thought it was an indication of what I should do.
Like Mama sometimes said, “Piss or get off the pot.”
When I’d said yes, I’d ignored the small voice in my head chiding me about how a sudden wedding wasn’t what I wanted.
Boyd had said four months was plenty of time.
A Valentine’s Day wedding would be perfect.
He’d never forget our anniversary, haha.
I’d laughed at that, when inside, I’d felt let down in some small way.
But my baby sister had gotten married. I was so much older than her, had always looked out for her, yet she’d found the love of her life.
I had Boyd.
The insistent voice in my head was back, listing Boyd’s shortcomings. I’d shut her up for so long, it was second nature, but today that bitch refused to be quiet.
He asked me to dress extra nice when we were meeting his fellow associates. Did he think I was a frump otherwise?
He’d tossed some of my favorite old shirts, and I’d had to hide a blanket an old boyfriend’s mother had crocheted me so he wouldn’t throw it out too.
He dominated all the nights that used to be girls’ nights, planning festive and fun dates instead until all my friends had moved on without me.
That voice was getting loud now, echoing through my head and blowing the blinders off.
Junie squeezed my shoulder. Her hair was streaked with red, which I’d heard about from Boyd and his mother.
I told my sister the color didn’t matter.
I wanted Junie at my side, and if she had neon-yellow or ink-black hair, I didn’t care.
Her style differed from Wynter’s and Autumn’s.
She’d covered the red by tying her hair in a knot at the base of her neck.
“Are you trying to hide the red in your hair, June?” I didn’t use her nickname, so she’d know I wanted a straight answer.
Guilt and fear flashed across her face.
I narrowed my eyes. “Did Boyd talk to you?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. In her was a war—tell me the truth or lie. “Mrs. Harrington did,” she finally said.
Corinne Harrington. Boyd’s mom and a downright witch. Was she the reason Boyd had urged me to add more and more blond highlights to my strawberry-blond strands? Why was hair color an issue anyway?
Why was I doing everything he asked?
Boyd’s mother was also on that voice’s list. Corinne had casually mentioned that we had to limit our numbers to somehow exclude the fosters my adoptive mom had taken in.
Mae Bailey loved all her foster children, and while Lane and Cruz had only started working with her this summer, and while they were adults, they were already engraved on her heart as hers.
Not only were they Myles’s brothers, they were decent men.
Guests I had refused to let her leave off the invites.
But the crowding, Summer, Corinne had said. The church should not be bursting at the seams.
Boyd had given me the silent treatment for two days after I’d told his mother that if my family and friends weren’t here, I wouldn’t be either.
Now they were present, and I didn’t want to be.
“Summer?” Wynter asked, grabbing a stool and dragging it over, heedless of the train of her dress or her eight-month baby belly.
I had wanted to wait to get married until Wynter had the baby.
I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable on my happy day, and I didn’t want her to stand in heels when she was ready to deliver any day.
Mrs. Harrington thought Wynter’s baby belly would be a disgrace. A blemish in all the pictures. Her aghast reaction was the only reason I’d sided with Boyd to have the wedding earlier.
Why wait for spring when we can be expecting our own child by then? he’d asked.
I’d looked forward to having kids, but when he’d continued to ask when I’d get my IUD taken out, I had said after the wedding. I’d made the excuse that I didn’t want my hormones in turmoil during the ceremony. No clue if that was a thing, but he’d quit pressuring me.
How many times had I formed workarounds for his personality?
My heart stammered again. I pressed my palm against my chest. What was going on?
“Summer,” Wynter said again. I didn’t realize I’d taken my gaze off her and was staring at the perfectly polished hardwood floor.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to get married?”
I nodded, but tears welled and spilled onto my cheeks. “No,” I whispered. I shook my head, blinking and getting mascara on my cheeks. Waterproof my ass. “No, I’m just stressing.”
Junie gripped my shoulders and leaned down so we were eye to eye. “What would you tell me if I was in your position?”
The answer came easily. I’d tell Junie it wasn’t too late. I would tell her she didn’t have to go through with it, and I’d have her back. I’d tell her to leave now, and I’d take care of it.
More hot tears flooded my eyes. “I can’t cancel. It’s too late.”
“Do you love Boyd?” Autumn asked.
I licked my lips, the saltiness of my tears stinging my tongue. “Yeah?”
Wynter exchanged a knew it look with the other two. “If he loves you, he’ll understand.”
“It’s not a question you have to answer right now either,” Autumn said. My three sisters once again surrounded me like a tripod. “I think you have to tell him to call this off, that you’re not ready, and then later, you figure out if you love him and whether you want to stay with him.”
Tell Boyd the wedding was off. A tremor passed through me. He’d be so upset. I’d be on the end of that coldness he developed when he was angry. “It’s just so rushed.”
I didn’t specify what was rushed, but they all nodded, their expressions solemn.
“Want me to get him?” Junie asked.
I shook my head and carefully took the veil off. Autumn snagged it from my hands like she was afraid I’d put it back on and forge ahead. She hung the beautiful headpiece up across the room, far out of my reach.
I’d made the first, tiny step. I could take another. Then another. I wouldn’t face him in this room, the one that had my veil hanging on a garment stand or my luggage for the Bali honeymoon he wanted to take.