Southern Bride Read online

  Southern Bride

  Ciara Knight

  Southern Bride

  A Gone With The Brides Book

  Copyright ©2018 by Ciara Knight

  All rights reserved.

  First edition published 2018

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by BKR Editorial Services

  Copy Edit by Jenny Rarden

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Also by Ciara Knight

  Chapter One

  Aunt Cathy shooed away the apple puff-pastry I offered her. The one item that used to be her food kryptonite before she found a new man, new diet, new life. “Avery Dixon, you listen to me, child. You are not meant to remain here and work your sister’s bakery forever.”

  “I’m not,” I sighed with a hurmph for extra emphasis on the end. Avoiding eye contact, I focused on the perfect silver-and-pink wallpaper that whispered southernly sweet. “If you’d let me finish before you rolled me in your sticky dough of condescension and baked me in your over controlling-aunt oven…”

  Cathy leaned away a smidgen and lifted her chin like a true Southern belle. “Fine, go ahead. I’ll listen. I’m a reasonable woman.”

  It took everything I had not to fall on the newly constructed Sassy, Sweet, & Southern bakery floor doubled over in laughter. Cathy was many things… Reasonable was not top of the list. “I’ve found my own purpose in life.”

  Sadie came out from the back kitchen with a tray full of Cath-oodles, Magnolia Corners’ favorite new go-to treat since the cookies won first place at the Magnolias and Moonshine fair last year. “You know what you want to do?”

  Great. Not only was I facing overbearing aunt-itis, but now I had monumental meddling from my eldest sister added to my diagnosis. I peered into the kitchen to see Zoey happily cutting summer-shaped cookies. It was great to have her home on summer break, but I hoped she remained in the kitchen. One sister was enough to deal with at a time. “Yes. It’s perfect for me, too. And you’ll be happy, Sadie. I’ll be remaining in college.”

  “Really?” Sadie squealed at my news. After a second, she cleared her throat and did her It’s-okay-I’m-cool impersonation. She set the tray on the counter, opened the bakery case window, and slid it into its display home. “I mean, that’s great if it’s what you want to do.”

  Even Cathy joined in the eye roll. “Please, Avery, continue.”

  Aunt Cathy really had changed since marrying Devon West. Of course, every so often Mrs. Mitchell would pop through her Mrs. West façade.

  I took a deep breath, not sure why my skin heated. I hadn’t been working in the kitchen this morning, so I couldn’t blame the oven. “I’m going to school to be a social worker.”

  Silence.

  More silence.

  The only thing filling the room was the smell of cinnamon and chocolate and fear. My fear. I had waited until the week I was signing up for classes before I said anything. I knew it wouldn’t be well received. Not when Sadie had practically bought me an airline ticket to the farthest destination from Georgia. The girl married into money, and she thought she could throw it at me to get me out of town.

  I wasn’t that easily bought. She meant well—everything she did was out of misguided sister-turned-instamom love. Of course, I’d never made it easy on her, being the troublemaker in the family. How many times did she have to bail me out of trouble with teachers or the law when I was in my unruly adolescence?

  “That’s nice, dear,” Aunt Cathy managed with her twisting-mouth-disapproval look.

  Sadie straightened and removed her rag from her apron pocket to wipe the spotless counter. “Right, um…that’s great news. I’m happy for you.”

  “Thanks.” I eyed them both and figured I might as well rip the last of the duct tape off that was holding us all to southern manners. “I plan to remain here and work while going to school and then get a job with the county. Sadie is working on expansions on the north side of town, so I can help her run the one in Magnolia Corners while I take classes.”

  “What? You don’t even like living here. Why would you do that?” Sadie paced around the table, wiping the top with such aggression she was lucky it couldn’t charge her with assault. “As a kid, you dreamed of a big life, full of adventure, but you broke, and you're hiding here in Magnolia Corners. All those pictures you had on your dream board of the Arch de Triumph, Coliseum, Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, and things I don’t even know what they are. It's time for you to let go of this place. As for my business, I will hire a manager for the bakery here.”

  Sadie had always looked out for me. Even now when she needed help, she didn’t want to burden me, but I owed her so much. She’d sacrificed her own education, dates, and sanity raising me, and I hadn’t made it easy on her. It was time I paid her back for everything she’d done for me.

  I opened my mouth, but before I could get another word in, Mrs. Mitchell reared up and attacked. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was Halloween instead of summer with the scary look she gave me. “You listen to me, child. I know you don’t want to live here. Since you were a little girl you dreamed of seeing the world. Sadie is married and has Ashton now. You don’t have to stay for her.”

  I looked at the hot-pink sign on the wall behind Aunt Cathy that read:

  Sweet people come and stay.

  Southern people enter with a smile.

  Sassy people sit and squabble.

  Snooty people will be shot on sight.

  A gift from Ashton after his mother visited the bakery the first time and criticized Sadie into tears.

  “Avery, please.” Sadie pleaded not only with her words but her big-sister eyes. “I love you, and I want whatever you want, but I know you don’t want this. It isn’t…you.”

  “What? You don’t think I’m nice enough to be a social worker? You think that is more of a Zoey job? I know you think I’m selfish and stubborn—”

  “Stubborn yes, selfish no.” Aunt Cathy approached, but Sadie cut her off.

  “Aunt Cathy, would you mind if I speak to my sister alone? It’s time we had a sister-to-sister chat.”

  That wasn’t good. Would Zoey be called in from the kitchen for backup? There had only been two sister-to-sister chats ever called in all our years. The first one was when Mom ran off. The second one was when I got in trouble with my ex-boyfriend and my sisters thought I was running down the self-destructive path after Mom. Now? I was worried because I wasn’t sure what Sadie had planned for this sistervention. She had something, though, or she wouldn’t have used that term.

  “Fine,” Aunt Cathy said after a long staredown southern-style, with hair flips and chin lifts. “I need to head back to Creekside anyway. Devon has me signed up for something at the Veteran’s center. I’ll call you later, Avery.”

  I knew better than to let her leave mad. Last time I let someone leave mad, he didn’t return at all. Of course, that was what people did…leave. Everyone except my sisters. And me. I stayed. I wasn’t my mother. At least I tried not to be like her.

  Aunt Cathy opened her arms to my h
ug-it-out Dixon-style routine. She might be a West, but she was still blood enough to know the rule of the sisterhood. Never leave on a long trip without a heartfelt hug.

  “Thanks, Aunt Cathy. It was good to see you.”

  Sadie took her turn. When they broke their embrace, Cathy left in a blur of indignation with a jingle of the bell over the door. I glanced at Sadie and waited for a good old-fashioned duel of wills. Only, based on her pursed lips, I guessed she was hiding some incognito ammo. Something with shotgun power and sniper precision. I guess that came with the sass portion of her bakery.

  “Avery, I’ve let this go a long time because I didn’t want to hurt you, but I can’t let it go any longer. Not if it means you’ll ruin your life.”

  I saw her load her weapon with the ugly past, and I retreated “Don’t go there, Sadie. There is nothing to talk about.” A sting raced through me, warning me to run from this conversation.

  “You’re staying here because you’re scared to go out there and face the world. It doesn’t take a shrink to know that Mom and Dad leaving was going to mess you up enough, but Dylan’s running out in the middle of the night destroyed you. He was your first love. The kind that leaves a permanent scar. You lost your way, and I’m not going to let you wander around life any longer. If you want to be a social worker, I think you’d be awesome at it. But I know that isn’t what you want. You were the one who always saw beyond this town when you were a kid, but you lost your ambition, hopes, and dreams when life beat you down. If you truly want to be a social worker, fine. Ashton and I will pay out-of-state tuition. Just get out of here. Find your happiness. We both know you haven’t found it here in the last three years.”

  “You mean I’m just like Mom.” Those six words nearly melted my voice box. “You know that’s what you think. Out of the three of us, I’m most like her. The run-away-and-do-what’s-best-for-me type.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.” Sadie lowered her voice and eyed the kitchen. I didn’t have to turn around to know Zoey was trying to decide if she should intervene. That was her role in our messed-up family, the peace keeper.

  “Really? You don’t think so? Well, I would have.” I gripped the cash register, holding tight to the nearest thing that could keep me upright. The pain of the past shot through me before I even allowed the thoughts to enter my head.

  “What are you talking about?” Sadie nudged closer and placed a hand on my shoulder. Another hand touched my other shoulder, and I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Zoey.

  I took three stuttered breaths and forced the searing pain down again. It was time to come clean. If Sadie wanted to exhume Dylan back into our lives, I’d go there. With a step away from them both, I rounded the counter and faced them. “The night that Dylan left without a word, we had a fight.”

  Zoey’s bottom lip protruded with obvious sympathy.

  “I know, but not everyone leaves because of an argument,” Sadie tried, but I cut her off with the truth.

  “Not everyone is Ashton, and before you take pity on me, you should know the entire truth.”

  Zoey shook her head. “Sadie shouldn’t have brought the ex-who-shall-be-shot-on-sight up again. Let’s forget about it.”

  “No. It’s about time you both know what happened. That we fought over leaving Magnolia Corners, leaving you both here without a second thought.”

  “But you didn’t go.” Zoey tried to sooth my emotions, but it was too late. I’d opened the dam of regrets, and it wasn’t closing.

  In a whip, whirling, tidal pool of disgust and self-deprecation, I looked at each of the girls and swallowed the words, but they came back up. “You think Dylan was the one corrupting me, leading me down the wrong path. That’s why you both were happy when he left, but you’re wrong. I’m the one who corrupted him.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sadie asked.

  “I’m talking about the fact that the night he disappeared, he tried to save me from myself. I was doing everything wrong. He believed it was because this place brought so much pain for us both. He believed that we needed to leave Magnolia Corners and never return or think about this place again. He left because I refused to go.”

  A smidgen of a smile creased their faces.

  “I had to choose between the both of you and Dylan, and I wanted Dylan. I wanted to run away with him.”

  The hurt in both my sisters’ eyes was more than I could bear, so I studied the magnolia flower in a pot next to the register.

  Zoey whispered, “You didn’t leave, though.”

  “I didn’t leave because Dylan left before I could tell him. So now you can see that I’m just like Mom. You were right all along. I am selfish and only care about what I want. Yes, our mother abandoned us. Yes, our father is MIA, and yes, I’m just like them.”

  “I’ve been so wrong,” Sadie mumbled.

  “Now you understand. I can’t leave here. I can’t be Mother. I need to stay and be the right me, not the runaway-from-everything me. I owe you, Sadie. You’ve done so much for me.”

  Sadie rounded the counter and turned me to face her. “That’s not what I meant, and you owe me nothing.” She closed her eyes and took a long breath before opening them again. “We didn’t have it easy, but we all made it together.” Her chest rose and fell with another deep breath. “I thought I was protecting you, but now I know I should have been honest.”

  “About what?”

  “Dylan has been trying to speak to you. He’s been sending letters the last six months. I always returned them unopened.”

  I thought I’d collapse since my legs felt like useless string instead of bone. “Not true.”

  Zoey cleared her throat. “It’s true. And there’s more.”

  My mind stumbled over the information, clutching at the fact that Dylan hadn’t forgotten about me after all. Yet, I hated myself for even thinking about him at all. He’d left without me, and it was too late to listen to what he had to say now. “I don’t want them. If he sends another letter, send it back again. Now, this conversation is over. There is no reason to ever talk about Dylan again.”

  “I’m afraid there is. He’s in town,” Zoey said in a matter-of-fact tone, not the your-life-just-exploded-and burned-to-ash-tone that matched my heart.

  Chapter Two

  For three days, I hid in our tiny cottage that felt like an empty mansion. I collapsed onto the shag carpet and eyed Zoey’s old bed. I’d celebrated the day she had left for college because I could finally have my own bedroom, but now, I wanted her home instead of staying with Sadie and Ashton.

  I eyed my bed and took a deep, lungful of air, steadying myself for what I was about to face. I retrieved my photo box tucked under my bed behind my old skateboard. My hands shook as I unveiled the memories inside.

  The papers and photos and scraps of a shattered former life sat in front of me. The button from my mother’s favorite dress she’d left behind in her haste to escape us, to my father’s half-smoked cigarette, to my ex-boyfriend’s love notes to me.

  I lifted a slip of worn paper. It took some effort, but I read the faint print on the ticket stub. Little Shop of Horrors. We lived in a small town, and the show was so controversial that Sadie nearly collapsed from shock when she drove by and saw me in my sexy Audrey costume waiting outside for the doors to open.

  Underneath it was a picture of Dylan and I snuggled together in our folding chairs. He rocked those Seymour Krelborn glasses with a hot incognito look. I chuckled at the memory of him acting like a nerd. It was so wrong with his boy-gone-wild normal look.

  “Avery, you here?” Sadie’s voice echoed from the front door to my ears.

  I quickly slammed the box top on and shoved the memories back where they belonged, under the bed in the darkness. “You don’t live here anymore, remember? You should knock before you let yourself in.”

  It only took a few seconds for her to reach my door from the front and peer around at me. “I did knock, but you didn’t answer. We were worried.” />
  “We?”

  Zoey poked her head out from the hall underneath Sadie’s chin. “Hey, sis.” She raised a brow at me. “Whatcha doing on the floor?”

  I thought fast, not wanting to open the door to any further questions. “Just organizing some things.” I didn’t have the energy to get off the floor, but I managed to avoid the sympathetic stares.

  “Oh, okay. I thought maybe you were looking through all that stuff you keep under your bed from your relationship with Dylan,” Zoey said in a sweet, unassuming tone. At least I didn’t fall for her innocent act. I knew better than to let my guard down with her. She wanted peace in our family at any cost, and with Sadie and I not speaking the last few days I knew she was on the offensive.

  “You knew?” I asked.

  “Of course we knew.” Sadie sat on the edge of my bed and patted the mattress for me to sit by her side.

  I acquiesced, knowing I couldn’t hide for long in such a small town, especially when my sisters still had a key to the house.

  Zoey plopped down on my other side for a sisterly prying sandwich. “Listen, you’ve been hiding for three days here. Don’t you think it’s time to go outside again?”

  “I’m not hiding. I’m avoiding. There’s a difference,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe you need to face Dylan once and for all.” Sadie studied her nails. “I mean, what do you have to lose?”

  What did I have to lose? I could fall into a landfill of excuses and lies, unable to claw my way out the minute he looked at me. That was his power over me. Everything. I tried to be strong, but I wasn’t. That boy twisted me around until I didn’t know which way to turn.