Chapter One
In the South, we use our manners for good instead of evil.
Most of the time.
If a hurricane’s coming, we pull in the lawn furniture before it torpedoes through our neighbor’s leaded glass parlor window. If someone dies, we bake their family a casserole loaded with cream-of-something soup and an entire bag of shredded cheddar. And if we pass a broken-down car on the side of a Flat Falls road, we stop and help. No questions asked.
Unless the stranded motorist is from Big River. Then we drive by and toss them a merry wave as we blow past them on the highway.
It’s an unspoken rule around these parts. Manners be darned—if you’re from Big River, you’re the enemy. Which is unfortunate, because I came from Big River. Or rather, my father did.
I had just spent the last hour cruising down every street and circling every parking lot in Flat Falls, searching for my latest bride, who was last seen racing through the town square in her wedding dress. And since I was unable to locate her in town, that meant I was about to cross over into uncharted territory.
Big River.
“She should be easy to spot, Glory,” my aunt Beverlee said, her honeyed drawl echoing through my phone’s speaker. “She looks like a sparkly marshmallow in that gown.”
“Ten bucks says she made a run for it,” I replied.
It was tacky for the wedding planner to bet against the marriage before the union even began, but I couldn’t help myself. When the bride bolted from her final dress fitting and refused to answer her phone, my visions of a fairy tale ending took a high-speed nosedive into the nearest Carolina swamp. Some brides were tougher than others, and Ruby Fowler, daughter of the Flat Falls mayor and beloved hometown girl, was one of the toughest.
As I approached the bridge between Flat Falls and Big River, I squinted at the rusted red pickup truck with smoke billowing from beneath its hood. I slowed my beat-up Honda to a respectable twenty miles an hour as I cruised past, giving the vehicle a once-over to decide if it was somebody from Flat Falls or if I was going to toot my horn and drive on by.
I recognized the bumper sticker first. It featured a line drawing of the mayor’s round face and his latest campaign slogan that read, “Life is short. Don’t die until you vote for Moe.”
“I found her,” I told Beverlee. “She’s driving Moe’s truck.”
“Rookie mistake. Next time, she needs to choose a reliable escape vehicle. Her father’s truck is just as likely to explode as it is to get her out of town.”
I pulled to the side of the road and disconnected the phone. But when I got out of my car and approached the truck, the cab was empty.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of white, and I whipped my head around to investigate.
Standing there in her underwear, heaving what appeared to be a pillowy mass of wedding gown into the swirling water below, was Ruby Fowler.
But it wasn’t her tangled light brown hair or the dark streaks of mascara smudging her cheeks that had me in a panic. It was the mud puddle soaking into the fabric of her train as she dragged it down the bridge to find a better launching spot.
“Ruby,” I said, grabbing the dress before it snagged on one of the seagull stakes jutting up from the railing. I shoved a layer of lace out of the way and looked at my watch. “It’s nine in the morning, and your wedding is in a week. Why are you standing on the bridge in your bra instead of sipping mimosas at the bridal salon?”
She gave a defiant sniffle and snaked her fingers around the hem of the dress, only dropping it to pop up a middle finger at a passing motorist who blasted his horn and shouted catcalls out his open window.
I shrugged out of my cardigan and wrapped it around her shoulders, struggling to tuck the dress under one arm while guiding her across the street toward my waiting car.
“Leave it,” she insisted, bobbing her chin toward the dress. “String it from the top of the tallest ship you can find. I want it to be a warning.”
