Page 11 of The Secret to a Southern Wedding

Her mom looked in the pots on the stove. The smell of spaghetti and garlic bread filled the kitchen. A bowl of salad sat on the counter next to a variety of dressings and a pitcher of sweet tea. For a second Imani felt guilty for ruining the dinner, but then the memory of her mom leaning into Preston flashed before her eyes. Breaking things up before they got too far was exactly why she was here.

Linda pursed her lips while frowning at the pot of bubbling sauce. “What’s wrong with using those words now? Guess we’ll be eating a lot of spaghetti.” Linda returned the pot and picked up one of the plates stacked next to the stove.

Imani braced her hands on the counter. “What’s wrong is that you always said that you wouldn’t be silly over a man again. You preached to me to never trust men, to always look for an ulterior motive behind their sweet words. Don’t be a fool over a man has echoed in my head with every guy who’s shown interest in me since I turned fourteen. Now I’m seeing you melting and just going along with whatever he says? Of course, I’m gonna ask what that was.”

Linda sighed as she dished spaghetti noodles onto her plate. “Oh, so your lack of dating is now my fault.”

“Mom, that’s not what I said, and you know it. I care about you, and when you act completely different...yes, I’m going to worry.”

Linda set down the plate and gave Imani a hard look. “When you haven’t seen me in over a year and the time before that was a quick weekend for my birthday that you spent mostly on the phone with the hospital, you might not have noticed that the change in me, as you call it, wasn’t all of a sudden.”

The fight left Imani and guilt dropped like lead on her shoulders. “Mom...”

Linda held up a hand. “I’m not mad about that. I understand you’re busy and you live in a completely different state. I’m proud of you and your work as a doctor. The fact that you’re doctor of the year is proof of how hard you work. I understand you didn’t want to stay in Peachtree Cove—and there’s nothing wrong with that. But you have to admit that you don’t know everything I’ve done or how I’ve changed in the time you’ve been away.”

“We talk almost every other day. You never once mentioned him.”

“That’s because I knew you’d react like this.”

“Like what? Worried?”

“Suspicious,” her mom said. She picked up her plate and put sauce on the noodles.

“I’m concerned. And yeah, I’m suspicious about a guy I’ve never heard you mention before but now say you’re marrying. How do you expect me to be?”

“That’s why I asked you to come home. I want you to get to know him and his son. They’re both good men. And I’m not just saying that because I’m marrying Preston. Everyone around town likes him and Cyril. They’ve become a part of the community.”

Imani bit her tongue instead of saying what immediately came to mind. What she remembered of the Peachtree Cove community didn’t give her a lot of confidence in them. The small towns depicted in books and on television weren’t as ideal in real life. In real life gossip, pettiness and stagnation were the rules, not the exceptions.

“How long have they lived in Peachtree Cove?” she asked.

“About five or six years. Moved down from Maryland. Near Baltimore.”

Imani’s suspicions rose even more. What on earth made a person leave Baltimore to come to Peachtree Cove, Georgia? “Do they have family down here?” Her mom shook her head and Imani frowned. “Does he have a wife up there we don’t know about?”

Her mom gave her a side-eye before grabbing a piece of garlic bread. “He’s a widower. We both agreed to leave our pasts out of things.”

Imani threw up her hands. “What? That means anything could be in his past. Mom, you can’t just openly trust people. You know that more than anyone.”

“I also know that I’m tired of living in fear. You know what your dad did? He sent me a letter from Puerto Rico. Apparently, he’s engaged.”

Imani gasped. “What? How?”

After the disaster her dad’s mistress had caused, he’d moved out of Peachtree Cove after the divorce at her mom’s request. He bounced around from place to place and barely kept in touch, which was how both Imani and her mom liked it. He may not have pulled the trigger, but his claims that her mom was “holding him back” had fueled his girlfriend’s delusions that getting rid of Linda would be the key to her happily-ever-after.

Linda rolled her eyes. “Some woman who works at the bar near wherever he’s staying. She’s thirty. Younger than you! He wrote and asked if I could give him your address so he can invite you down to meet her.”

Imani’s hands clenched into a fist. “What? I don’t want to see him or meet her.”

She hadn’t visited her dad once since his girlfriend’s conviction. She never wanted to see him again. The trial had brought out all of the other women he’d been cheating with. Her dad, the man she’d looked up to and cherished, had turned out to be a master of manipulation and deceit. How could she trust him after what he did?

Her mom shook her head. “I told him that. Don’t worry, he knows not to come bothering either of us.”

Imani’s shoulders relaxed and she let out a breath. “Good.”

“I don’t like him contacting me, but this time something struck me.” She put the plate on the counter and crossed over to Imani. When she spoke, her eyes were sad but determined. “I let what he did stop my life. I lived in fear and mistrust and I closed my heart off to ever being happy while this asshole is dating and getting married again.” She grunted and shook her head. “I’m not doing that anymore, Imani.”

“So you’re going to marry the first man you met after my father contacted you?”

---