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Leea
Silence fell over the kitchen. Amy broke it by saying what all of them were thinking. “Wi
Because Wi
Sugar Beth had come up with the idea for the Seawillows when she was eleven. She’d chosen the name from a dream she’d had, although none of them could remember what it was about. The Seawillows would be a private club, she’d a
At its peak, there’d been twelve members, but some had moved away, and Dreama Shephard had died. Now, only the four women standing with Wi
Heidi’s husband, Phil, poked his head in the kitchen. He handed over the empty Crock-Pot that held the Rotel dip the men insisted on having at every gathering, a spicy tomato and Velveeta concoction for dunking their Tostitos. “Clint’s making us watch golf. When are we eating?”
“Soon. And you’ll never guess what we just heard.” Heidi’s teddy bear earrings bobbled. “Sugar Beth’s back.”
“No kidding. When?”
“This afternoon. Leea
Phil stared at them for a moment, then shook his head and disappeared to pass the word to the other men.
The women set to work, and for a few minutes silence reigned as each fell victim to her own thoughts. Wi
Amy pulled a ham from one oven, along with a dish of her mother’s famous Drambuie yams. From the other oven, Leea
As born and bred Southerners, the Seawillows dressed up for one another, which meant they spent the first part of every get-together discussing what they were wearing. This was the heritage passed on to them by mothers who’d do
Leea
“Did you get hold of him, Wi
Wi
“He’s always working.” Meryli
“Remember how scared we used to be of him in high school,” Leea
“Except for Sugar Beth,” Amy pointed out. “And Wi
“God, I wanted him,” Heidi said. “He might have been weird, but he sure was hot. Not as hot as he is now, though.”
This was a familiar topic. Five years had passed since Colin had come back to Parrish, and they’d only just gotten used to having a man who’d once been the teacher they most feared as part of their adult peer group.
“We all wanted him. Except for Wi
“I wanted him a little,” Wi
“What did I do with the oven mitts?”
Wi
“I wonder what he’ll do?”
Amy stuck a serving fork on the ham platter. “Well, I for one don’t intend to speak to her.”
“If you get the chance, you know you will,” Leea
Blond and perfect, Wi
Colin, who’d been such a misfit himself, had understood. He’d been kind to her from the begi
“He reminds me of this tortured young English duke who wears a big black cape that snaps in the wind, and every time there’s a thunderstorm, he paces the ramparts of his castle because he’s still mourning the death of his beautiful young bride.”
Colin had become the Duke, although not to his face. He wasn’t the kind of teacher who inspired that sort of familiarity.
The men began to wander in, drawn by the smell of food and a desire to hear their wives’ reactions to the news of Sugar Beth’s return.
Meryli
The men ignored her, just as they always did when it was time to eat, and the women began their familiar dance around them, carrying the food from the kitchen to the late-eighteenth-century sideboard that occupied one wall of Wi
“Does Colin know Sugar Beth’s back?” Meryli
“He’s the one who told Wi
“And you sweet thangs complain because nothing ever happens in Parrish.” Amy’s husband, Clint, had grown up in Meridian, but he knew the old stories so well they sometimes forgot he wasn’t one of them.
Brad Simmons, who sold home appliances, chuckled. He was Leea
Wi