Something clinked in the kitchen, but it had nothing on the panic crashing through her core.
Deb knew.
She knew Anna was divorced, and she knew her son could do a lot better than a divorced, undereducated, okra-hating, middle-class woman from Podunk, Minnesota.
And she wanted to make sure Anna knew it too.
What Anna wouldn’t have given for her label maker. There wasn’t even anything to straighten in front of her. She’d left no crumbs to straighten on the tablecloth, and she would’ve bet the freaking grains of wood beneath it were evenly spaced too.
She’d learned a lot about Southern hospitality in her time here, but she’d also learned there was an unspoken pride in being born Southern that she would never fully understand or like.
She was an outsider, and they wanted to make sure she knew it.
If this were anyone other than Jackson’s family, she’d make her excuses and leave, because none of this made her feel comfortable, and she didn’t even know what she’d done wrong other than show up as his friend.
She tried to match Deb’s pleasant expression, but suspected she looked like the collard greens had given her food poisoning instead. So she tried a lighthearted laugh.
Which came out about as pleasant as a chicken choking on the carcass of its first cousin. She cleared her throat and went back to the food poisoning look.
Was divorcesad? Deb certainly had the Southern way of understating things down pat. “Well, of course.” Anna tried the choking chicken sound again and winced. “But really, can you imagine the alternative? That’d be a lot of dead husbands.”
Too late, she realized she was the only one laughing at her bad joke.
Deb snatched her water. The intricate diamonds of the crystal goblet cast unsteady prisms on the walls. Russ shot her one of those concerned husband looks, the kind that spoke of history and private stories and understanding of moods and hot buttons.
Louisa’s face went pale. Her eyes were a blue question mark of hurt, wavering between her mother and Anna.
Maura gaped at all of them.
Jackson shot back into the room, somehow managing tomake what classified as a breakneck pace for him seem like a casual stroll through a pecan grove. He settled into the seat beside Anna and gave her knee a soft squeeze. “Awful nice of you to let Craig out for the game tomorrow,” he said to Maura.
Her perpetual smile wobbled. “He’s earned it.”
Russ cleared his throat. “Heard there’s a petition going around our homeowners’ association to lower the speed limit. You got a homeowners’ association over there in Georgia, Jackson?”
“Sure do,” Jackson drawled. His thumb brushed Anna’s leg, while his drawl went past comfortable to somebody’s-getting-rednecked. “Had to take down that there Ford I had up on blocks in my front yard. Fines were more’n I paid for the old piece of junk in the first place.”
The groove between Deb’s eyes grew deeper with every word he spoke. Russ’s jaw tightened.
Anna struggled for her voice. “Those collard greens are the best I’ve had since I moved down south,” she said. She tried to smile at Deb. “You must have a secret ingredient.”
“Are you divorced?” Louisa said.
“Louisa,” Jackson said on a low growl.
Anna put her hand over his. She was who she was, and her past was what it was. “Yes.”
Louisa was the only one at the table who seemed surprised. “For real?”
“Yes.”
The younger girl’s chin shifted back and forth. “But you don’t have any kids.”
“No.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
Anna tensed. Jackson jerked in his seat. Louisa let out a yelp. She glared at him, but he cut her off with a curt, “Enough.”
