CHAPTER ONE
Summer
Today was a beautiful day to get married, but I willed the clock to slow down.
“Look at it all come together.” My youngest sister, Wynter, leaned over me, fluffing my veil in the mirror. Her blond hair was curled into ringlets and bound back so the corkscrew strands could cascade down her back. The silver dress she wore washed her skin out, making her light tan pale. I should’ve insisted on letting my sisters choose their own color.
She spread the sides of my veil out. With the light over our heads in the church room I was holed up in with my attendants, the fabric gave me a halo.
Wynter feathered her fingers over the lace at my shoulders. “Such lovely material.”
She’d been making comments all day. About the nice church that Boyd and his family had chosen. The nice dress. The nicevacation in Bali.
Everything was sonice.
A bride wanted more than nice for her wedding day.
A bride wanted more than her sisters trying to make it seem like everything was okay.
My stomach roiled and I pressed my fingers to my lips.
“Oh my god,” Wynter whispered. Her wide gaze darted to Junie, our more worldly and second-youngest sister, as if Autumn wouldn’t understand what she was worried about. Autumn wasn’t as naive as everyone thought.
I rolled my eyes. “God, no, Wynter. I’m not pregnant.”
Fear speared right through my heart at the thought. Shouldn’t that be disappointment? I was in my mid-thirties, and I was finally getting married. I wanted a family, yet the thought of getting pregnant now left me almost as sick as the idea of loading into a tin can with wings afterward.
A goddamn plane. Boyd knew how I felt about flying.
Yet he’d surprised me with the tickets to Bali like my claustrophobic ass should jump up and down. Tomorrow morning, I’d be sitting in first class, as if that made it better to be stuck in a coffin with a hundred other people. My chest squeezed and tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
I blinked rapidly and smeared my mascara. “Shit.”
“Let me get a wipe.” Autumn jumped off the stool. Her dress swished, not at all the summer dress I’d pictured when I’d fantasized about a wedding as a kid.
Her red hair was done similarly to Wynter. A nice, elegant style. To keep the tears at bay, I glanced aroundthe room in the mirror. Plush couches. Gallery-worthy artwork. Crown molding. This wasn’t the church I’d grown up in, the one I’d thought I’d be married in, but the room was nice.
So. Nice.
“Got it!” Autumn brandished a makeup wipe like it’d solve all my problems.
Wynter stopped her by putting a hand in front of my face. “That’ll take all the foundation off.”
“Oh, right.” Autumn narrowed her eyes on me and contemplated the issue with Wynter.
Junie stood and joined them, her doe-brown eyes contemplative. The three stood in a half circle in front of me, focused on goddamn makeup like it was their lifeline. Anything to ignore how melancholy I’d been today.
“It’s fine.” I held my hand out for the wipe. “I don’t care if the dark bags show through.”
The three blinked at me. More tears threatened to well. My hand shook.
“Summer,” Wynter said quietly. “Whatever you want to do, we’ve got your back.”
She wasn’t talking about the makeup. Hope surged inside me but I tamped it down. What was I thinking? Boyd was a good man. A nice guy.
Nice. Fuck me. Which he also did, in his methodical, predictable way.
He also bulldozed over me at the most inconvenient times. Like with this wedding. “He was so excited about getting married after being at your wedding, Wynter,” I said in a near whisper. I’d been enchanted too. Wynter and my new brother-in-law, Myles, had radiated happiness on their big day. They were meant to be together, and I’d wanted that for myself. So when Boyd hadproposed the day after—so as not to impose on the happy couple’s special day, and that was considerate, dammit—I had thought it was an indication of what I should do.
