Lowcountry Summer Read Free Page A

courthouse. That’s for sure.” Matthew smiled at me and I remembered what it was like to fool around with him not so long ago. God, he was hot. Probably inappropriate for me, but white-hot, honey. By the look in his eyes I could see that he was still interested. I blushed. Okay, I didn’t blush. I twitched in the South.
    “Frances Mae?” Trip shook her shoulder. His voice was filled with disgust. “Frances Mae?” There was no response. The fumes coming from her were powerful enough to cure a string of bass. “She’s as drunk as a goat. Out cold.”
    “Obviously,” I said.
    “The SUV is still in the ditch,” Matthew said. “Fender’s messed up.”
    “I’ll call a tow truck directly,” Mr. Jenkins said, and opened the cabinet where we kept the phone book. “Won’t be the first time. Won’t be the last.”
    “Jenkins?” Millie said. “Don’t you be scratching they mad place!”
    “Humph,” Mr. Jenkins said. “My age? Say what I please.”
    At that precise moment, Eric and Amelia appeared at the kitchen door.
    “Do you want us to light the candles on your cake, Mom?”
    “Yeah, Eric’s eating all the icing around the edges with his finger, Aunt Caroline.”
    “Gross, Eric!”
    “You do it, too, Mom!” he said.
    “Mother would never do something so vile, son,” I said with a wink, and handed him a pack of matches from the drawer.
    “Yeah, right,” he said, and then he added, “Hey! What happened here?”
    “Aunt Frances Mae wasn’t feeling very well and she accidentally ran off the road into a ditch,” I said, without missing a beat. After all, we had become accustomed to spinning this sort of situation into some reasonable explanation over the past few years.
    “Mom!” Amelia called out.
    Frances Mae raised her head and opened her eyes. “Yewr sisters are li’l bitches. Woulna drive Chloe,” she said, and once again, her head went down and her lights went out.
    She referred to her other daughters—my namesake Caroline, known as Linnie, and Isabelle, called Belle, as in southern, and she was anything but.
    “Holy shit!”
    “Eric!”
    “Sorry! But she’s baked!”
    “In the parlance of the young people? Duh,” I said, and gave Chloe a kiss on the hand. Poor thing. “Tell Miss Sweetie and Miss Nancy I’ll be right out. The Wimbleys were never ones to let a situation ruin a party.”
    “A party?” Matthew said.
    “Another birthday,” I said, and put the back of my hand over my forehead, feigning the next step to a swoon.
    “Well, I should be moving on, then,” he said.
    “Heavens no!” I said, and took him by the hand. “Come have a slice of cake!”
    Matthew smiled. “Well, thanks! Don’t mind if I do.”
    His entire six-foot-two frame just radiated testosterone. What was I thinking? Hmm, maybe he’d like to play with the birthday girl later on? I know, shame on me.
    “Tell Rusty I’ve got my hands full here,” Trip said.
    “Oh, now. You go on out and sing for your sister’s cake,” Millie said, attaching a Band-Aid to Chloe’s forehead. “Mr. Jenkins and I have this all under control.”
    “I want cake!” Chloe whimpered. “Can I please?”
    “Of course! Just wash your hands and skedaddle!” Millie smiled and helped Chloe jump to the floor.
    The candles were lit and everyone sang, wishing me a happy birthday. Happy birthday? My pig-farmer boyfriend was in absentia, the county sheriff was the current cause of some very naughty thoughts, my drunk sister-in-law was passed out at my kitchen table, and my dead mother had sent me balloons. What else could a girl want?

2

Excess
    D O NOT THINK FOR ONE minute that I was going to let Frances Mae Litchfield’s—okay, Frances Mae Litchfield Wimbley ’s—self-indulgent escapade ruin my birthday party. As you might remember, I simply left her in the kitchen with Millie and Mr. Jenkins. But it was a little bit of divine justice for that day to have been the occasion on which Frances Mae would once again show