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Gordon followed her back inside the house. As she flicked on a floor lamp with a fringed shade, the despair that had been nibbling at her for weeks took a bigger bite. Fifteen years ago she’d left Parrish in perfect arrogance, a foolish, vindictive girl who couldn’t conceive of a universe that didn’t revolve around her. But the universe had gotten the last laugh.
She wandered over to the window and drew back the dusty curtain. Above the row of hedges, she saw the chimneys of Frenchman’s Bride. The name had come from the original homestead. Her grandmother had pla
In the old days, she would have given in to tears at life’s unfairness. Now, she dropped the curtain and turned away to feed her disagreeable dog.
Colin Byrne stood at the window of the second-floor master bedroom of Frenchman’s Bride. His appearance conveyed the brooding elegance of a man from another time period, the English Regency perhaps, or any era in which quizzing glasses, snuffboxes, and drawing rooms figured prominently. He had deep-set jade-colored eyes and a long, narrow face broken by sharp cheekbones with comma-shaped hollows beneath. The tails of those commas curled toward a thin, unsmiling mouth. He had the face of a dandy, vaguely effete, or it would have been were it not for his nose, which was huge—long and bony, aristocratic, and vastly ugly, yet perfectly at home on his face.
He wore a purple velvet smoking jacket as casually as another man would have worn a sweatshirt. A pair of black silk drawstring pajama bottoms completed his outfit, along with slippers that had scarlet Chinese symbols across the toes. His clothing had been perfectly tailored to fit his exceptionally tall, wide-shouldered body, but his big workman’s hands—broad across the palm and thick fingered—served notice that everything about Colin Byrne might not be exactly as it seemed.
As he stood at the window watching the lights go on in the carriage house, the line of his already stern mouth grew even harder. So . . . The rumors were true. Sugar Beth Carey had returned.
Fifteen years had passed since he’d last seen her. He’d been little more than a boy then. Twenty-two, full of himself, an exotic foreign bird who’d landed in a small Southern town to write his first novel and—ah, yes—teach school in his spare time. There was something satisfying about letting a grudge ferment for so long. Like a great French wine, it grew in complexity, developing subtleties and nuances that a speedier resolution wouldn’t have allowed.
The corner of his mouth lifted in anticipation. Fifteen years ago he’d been powerless against her. Now he wasn’t.
He’d arrived in Parrish from England to teach at the local high school, although he’d had no passion for the profession and even less talent for it. But Parrish, like other small Mississippi towns, had desperately needed teachers. With a view toward exposing their youth to a larger world, a committee of the state’s leading citizens had contacted universities in the U.K., offering jobs complete with work visas to exceptional graduates.
Colin, who’d long been fascinated with the writers of the American South, had jumped at the chance. What better place to write his own great novel than in the fertile literary landscape of Mississippi, home of Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Te
He’d fallen in love with the bloody place the first day—its hospitality and traditions, its small-town charm. Not so, however, with his teaching position, which had gone from being difficult to becoming impossible, thanks to Sugar Beth Carey.
Colin had no specific plan in place for his revenge. No Machiavellian scheme he’d spent a decade mulling over—he would never have given her that much power over him. Which didn’t mean he intended to set aside his long-held grudge. Instead, he’d bide his time and see where his writer’s imagination would take him.
The telephone rang, and he left the window to pick it up, answering in the clipped British accent that his years in the American South hadn’t softened. “Byrne here.”
“Colin, it’s Wi
He’d been working on the third chapter of his new book. “Sorry, love. I haven’t gotten around to checking my voice mail. Anything important?” He carried the phone back to the window and gazed out. Another light had gone on in the carriage house, this time on the second floor.
“We’re all together for potluck. The guys are watching Daytona highlights right now, and no one’s seen you in forever. Why don’t you come over? We miss you, Mr. Byrne.”
Wi
“Of course.”
He gazed across the lawn, wishing he weren’t the one who had to break the news. “Wi
Several beats of silence stretched between them before she replied in a voice that was soft, almost toneless. “She’s back.”
“It seems that way.”
Wi
Wi
Wi
The four other women in the kitchen stopped what they were doing. Leea
As Leea
Leea
The slotted spoon Meryli
“We knew she was coming back.” Heidi’s forehead puckered in indignation. “But, still, how could she have the nerve?”
“Sugar Beth always had plenty of nerve,” Leea
“This is going to cause all kinds of trouble.” Amy Graham fingered the gold cross at her neck. In high school, she’d been the biggest Christian in the senior class and president of the Bible Club. She still had a tendency to proselytize, but she was so decent the rest of them overlooked it. Now she set her hand on Wi
“I’m fine.”
Leea
“Always,” Amy said. “But we love you anyway.”
“And so does Jesus,” Meryli
Heidi tugged on one of the tiny silver teddy bear earrings she was wearing with her red and blue teddy bear sweater. She collected bears, and sometimes she got a little carried away. “How long do you think she’ll stay?”