A Kiss is Just a Kiss
Melinda Curtis
Copyright © 2017 by:
Melinda Curtis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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Introduction
Welcome to the Magnolias and Moonshine series, where you’ll fall in love with the South.
Twenty New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling authors joined together to bring you a taste of Southern charm in this brand-new Magnolias & Moonshine series.
There is something for everyone with these ten sweet and ten sizzle contemporary romance novellas. You’ll enjoy stories with cowboys, weddings, county fairs, lovers reunited, and much more.
Step into the world of the South and hear the cicadas, taste the mint juleps, see the stars, and smell the magnolias.
Authors in novella release order:
Ciara Knight (Sweet)
Hildie McQueen (Sizzle)
Beth Williamson (Sizzle)
Susan Hatler (Sweet)
Lindi Peterson (Sweet)
Kymber Morgan (Sizzle)
Amanda McIntyre (Sizzle)
Lucy McConnell (Sweet)
Sharon Hamilton (Sizzle)
Lisa Kessler (Sizzle)
Kirsten Osbourne (Sweet)
Susan Carlisle (Sizzle)
Tina DeSalvo (Sizzle)
Raine English (Sweet)
Amelia C. Adams (Sweet)
E. E. Burke (Sizzle)
Melinda Curtis (Sweet)
Merry Farmer (Sizzle)
Shanna Hatfield (Sweet)
Jennifer Peel (Sweet)
Prologue
Dorothy Summer loved all her grandchildren, but she took special pleasure in her youngest son’s five girls.
Those five girls were pistols, had been from birth. And Tim, her youngest and most challenging son, deserved a kick or two–maybe five!–from karma. (He really had been a most difficult child.) She’d raised him in the era when Dr. Spock (the pediatric doctor, not the pointy-eared fellow) was the only one giving child-rearing advice. Dotty could’ve used Dr. Phil’s help.
But those girls…
There was Maggie, the youngest. Could a child be born with a love of black wardrobes, dark eye make-up, and Army boots? From the moment she could walk, Maggie had followed her own path. She’d been a rebel searching for a cause. Why, one summer she ran away to follow a band on tour, only to return and lead a protest against the pollution emitted by Summer Coal Mining, a company run by her father. Signs were waved and Tim was hit on the head. Maggie and several others wound up in jail. Today, Maggie was almost done with her veterinarian training. She still had a penchant for black wardrobes, but she was about to be married (and wearing white, which was a shocker).
Sweet Aubrey was the next youngest. Tim had once boasted Aubrey was his one angel. Surprise! That angel had taken her high school graduation money and hopped on a ship intent upon saving the whales. She’d returned a year later, older, wiser, with arm and leg hair that hadn’t seen a razor since she’d left New York City. Thankfully, Aubrey’s sisters were able to convince her that shaving and deodorant weren’t the evil plan of the establishment. These days, when Aubrey, a botanist working for Bon-Bon Chocolate, walked into the room she smelled of bonbons, not B.O.
Now, the twins, Lily and Violet, were born chatterboxes. One time, Tim and the twins had driven Dotty to see her sister in Georgia, and the girls had talked non-stop the entire trip. Their gift of gab had tickled Dotty pink, but annoyed Tim until he was blue in the face. In their teens, the twins had developed a fondness for poetry slams, pivotal rap, and personal podcasts. Truthfully, Dotty wasn’t entirely sure what a podcast was and she’d never understood why their “slamming” events were always held at night and in a part of New York City Tim said was dangerous. To protect them, he’d tried to keep the twins at home, going so far as to install a security alarm on the door and windows in their room. To his surprise, they always managed to slip away. Today, Lily was a junior state congresswoman and Violet a college professor. It was still hard to get a word in edgewise when they were around.
Any one of those girls could have been the leader of the pack, but it was Kitty, the oldest, who took charge. Kitty was the one who’d first recognized Maggie’s independent spirit and dressed the toddler like a Goth soldier. Kitty was the one who’d swiped Tim’s home security codes and set the teenage twins free every night, along with paying off their bodyguard. Kitty was the one who’d convinced shy Aubrey to follow her heart and test her principles in the Antarctic. When Tim said no, the girls might just as well have been deaf. When Kitty said no, the girls stopped what they were doing.
Why, take that summer after Maggie completed her freshman year in college. She’d walked into the living room at the family’s beach house in the Hamptons and announced she was in love with a heavily tattooed underwear model. Said model reclined on a lounge chair by the pool in his skivvies.
“You don’t love him,” Kitty had said in that steady way of hers, looking up from a medical textbook. “Not really. Not the way you should.”
“No,” Maggie had replied with a good-natured smile.
Kitty had smiled back, but there was a business-like curve to her lips. “It’s June. In July, we go to Tybee Island.” For the annual family reunion. “How does this underwear model feel about you?”
“I don’t know.” Maggie blinked in wonder, as if the importance of his opinion hadn’t crossed her mind. “And I don’t know if he’s worthy of an invitation to Tybee Island.” Maggie’s gaze drifted to the exhibitionist by the pool and then took inventory of her sisters. “He’s just so beautiful. You think he’d be tempted with a kiss?”
On the couch, the twins were arguing over the latest political scandal. In a high-back chair by the window, Aubrey was hunched over her laptop working on her thesis. They were all in college now, each beautiful in their own right. Dark haired, petite Kitty was in med school; Aubrey and the twins, tall and willowy, were doing post graduate work; and sturdy Maggie was still floundering through her general education courses, trying to decide what to do with her life.
“All men are tempted,” Kitty had murmured with a glance toward their father sitting near the fireplace. He was texting someone while wearing his philandering smile, the one that put a crease in Kitty’s forehead. “All men are tempted. And all men fall.” Her words sounded calculated.
No one would look at Kitty and see calculation. At first meet, she appeared to be the kind of woman everyone would call friend–soft-spoken, a gentle beauty that didn’t intimidate, and a way of looking at a person that made you think you were understood. Oh, her warm, dark brown eyes could seem distant when she was deep in thought. And when that was the case, if you asked her a question you might receive a distant reply. And Kitty had a long memory. She remembered when someone disappointed her, as her father had done on repeated occasions. But she was quick to admit when she was wrong, and she was open to forgiving when others confessed their mistakes.
As for her place among her sisters, Maggie often lamented the fact that Kitty was the only one in the family who understood her. Lily was certain Kitty could get her out of any tangle, while Violet was convinced Kitty was the only sister capable of keeping a secret. Aubrey claimed Kitty was frighteningly brilliant; certainly, those standardized tests they made children take nowadays proved that fact.
And men? To their detriment, men seldom saw past Kitty’s quiet beauty. And she let them. In fact, she had a three-date limit to keep them at arms’ le
ngth. It upset Dotty that Kitty allowed men to undervalue her. Someday, Kitty would find a man she couldn’t resist. Or maybe it’d be the other way around and a man would discover he couldn’t live without Kitty. In either case, Dotty hoped Kitty would find love before she died.
“Which Summer girl should be our temptress?” Maggie had catalogued their sisters with an appraising eye.
“Normally, I’d say you.” Kitty grinned at Maggie. It’d been her idea to vet young men who tried to get serious with a Summer girl with the Kissing Test. She’d seen firsthand how their father’s infidelity had broken their mother’s spirit and her heart. Her mother was a shell of the woman she’d once been. Kitty didn’t want any of her sisters to fall for a beau with a wandering eye.
“I choose to let the cat out of the bag.” Maggie leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Give it your best shot, Kitty.”
Dotty had witnessed this exchange from a corner of the living room, a yellowed book of photographs in her lap. As the girls’ only living grandmother, one who stayed with them part-time, Dotty was generally considered invisible. And sometimes she became lost in her own muddled memories and faded into the past. But she noted everything that was important. The conversation. The rebellion. The love between the sisters. And on that particular summer day, she witnessed the downfall of one overly tattooed underwear model, a man who didn’t try to resist Kitty’s offer of a poolside kiss.
For all Maggie professed to be in love, she hadn’t shed a tear that day. In fact, she and Kitty had laughed about it. That’s how strong the bond of the Summer sisters was. Or how strong it appeared to Dotty.
But what did Dotty know? She was an old lady on the sidelines. And frankly, Dotty was becoming…well…dotty.
Chapter 1
“I’m going to make a lot of money off Mags.”
Dr. Kitty Summer froze outside the groom’s vestibule in her mint green taffeta bridesmaid dress, the one with the skirt wide enough to fit Kitty, a nurse, and a crash cart. The door was slightly ajar and the insensitive comment by the groom–Becker O’Brien–about the bride–Kitty’s sister Maggie–brought her to a halt. She went numb from tongue to toes.
The back hallways of historic St. Christopher’s church in Boca Rotan were carpeted in red, most likely so the priests could move around without the congregation hearing. Carpeting had allowed Kitty to approach the vestibule undetected by the groom and his groomsmen.
And to think, she’d come over to give Beck her blessing!
Elsewhere in the church, the choir was singing softly and incoming guests were talking loudly. But the only thing Kitty heard were Beck’s insensitive words: Make a lot of money off Mags. Make a lot of money off Mags. Over and over as if her brain was caught in a loop.
“To the groom!”
A chorus of masculine voices echoed the sentiment. The sound of manly guffaws and backslapping was drowned out by the roar in Maggie’s ears.
The wedding was less than thirty minutes away.
Beck was like a gator lurking in a deep swamp. Kitty should have drained the swamp long ago.
Guilt began to pound at her temples. Once her OB/GYN residency began, she hadn’t had time for sleep, much less time to watch over her sisters. She’d chosen herself and her goals over her family and she’d told herself that was okay. She’d told herself she wasn’t hurt when Maggie chose someone else to be her maid of honor. She’d told herself that her job shepherding her sisters was done. She’d protected the girls through childhood from the neglect of an ill mother and a callous father. They were all adults now, and capable of making their own decisions. Besides, Maggie had seemed happy.
That happiness was threatened by Beck revealing he valued money over love. Kitty should have vetted the groom before he ever thought about getting down on one knee.
Guilt found a jackhammer and struck from temples to eye sockets. She had to make this right.
Kitty didn’t want Beck to marry Maggie. And she wasn’t the kind of person who stood by in an emergency wringing her hands. Which meant…
Kitty had to stop Beck from marrying Maggie. Immediately.
A skeleton key protruded from the lock of the vestibule door. Kitty closed the door and locked the men inside. And then she ran to the opposite side of the church to find Maggie.
“Stop the wedding!” Kitty forced her dress through the doorway to the bride’s vestibule like a green grape being squeezed out of its skin.
The Summer half of the wedding party–eleven other bridesmaids, her parents, Grandma Dotty, and the bride–turned to stare disapprovingly at Kitty.
Beck’s sister was a bridesmaid. Her spray-on tan clashed with her mint green dress. She frowned.
Kitty’s father speared his fingers through the blond highlights at his temples. He frowned.
Standing as close together as their Scarlet O’Hara skirts allowed, Aubrey and the twins frowned.
Maggie turned slowly in their mother’s white satin and lace princess gown, frowning, of course.
Everyone was frowning except Kitty’s mother, who was on a heavy dose of anxiety meds, and Grandma Dotty, who smiled at Kitty as if she’d just said the cutest thing. But Dotty had been smiling like that for the past three years since she’d started down the road to Dementia, the road with increasingly fewer side trips to Saneville.
“My sister, the joker,” Maggie said, but there were deep lines carved into the traditional make-up at her eyes as she tried to smile. Her rich brown hair was French braided to one side and fell in soft feminine ringlets over her delicate lace-covered shoulder.
Delicate lace-covered shoulder…
The Maggie Kitty had grown up with wouldn’t be a delicate bride. She’d be loud and non-traditional. She’d rock a wedding dress with a corset waist, black ribbon rosettes, and a streak of pink in her hair. She wouldn’t recreate their mother’s wedding day. She wouldn’t marry some high society, lowly principled scumbag.
“I…” Kitty glanced at Beck’s sister. “Can I talk to you alone, Maggie?”
“No.” Dad charged toward Kitty. At sixty, he should have had wrinkles and maybe a paunch. Instead, he kept himself toned with Botox and Boris, his personal trainer. He was more interested in keeping up appearances and keeping an eye out for his next lover than Maggie’s happiness. “It’s too late to back out now. We already took the bridal pictures.”
Failure lanced through Kitty’s gut with all the ragged precision of a med student cutting his first cadaver.
Stalling, Kitty squeezed herself and her wide skirt behind a stack of boxes that held purses, cell phones and mint green flip-flops for the beach-themed reception. “A wedding should be a sacred joining of two hearts, where the groom loves, honors and respects–” And doesn’t plan to swindle. “–the bride. That love should allow the bride to be true to herself.”
Aubrey and the twins stopped frowning and blocked Dad’s forward progress.
“True to herself,” Kitty repeated, wondering when she’d last seen Maggie wear heavy eye-liner or Army boots.
“Beck is a great guy,” Maggie said in a soft voice that sounded more like Aubrey’s. “I…I love him.”
“You don’t,” Kitty whispered, catching her sister’s hesitation. “Not really.” Maggie couldn’t love Beck. If she did, she’d be wearing a different wedding dress, getting married in Vegas, and having her reception at a Marilyn Manson concert.
“But…” Maggie’s gaze was flat, as if she’d taken one of Mom’s Xanax pills. It drifted toward their father and her voice dropped to a whisper. “All the guests…We took pictures.”
Who was this woman inhabiting Maggie’s body?
Failure grew claws that raked Kitty’s insides until her stomach quivered with ribbons of despair. It couldn’t be too late. She couldn’t be too late. “That doesn’t mean–”
“Did he cheat on me?” Maggie’s gaze bounced back to Kitty with a flicker of life. “Was he…tempted?”
Tempted? Kitty’s despair-ravaged insides sunk to her
mint green painted toes.
This wasn’t an underwear model Maggie barely knew. This was the man who’d supposedly won Maggie’s heart and had been by her side for a year while she and their parents planned this mega-wedding.
No one spoke. Not even Dad. Everyone seemed to be waiting for Kitty’s response.
“I don’t know,” Kitty said slowly and at a socially acceptable volume, when what she really wanted to do was shout. “But–”
“Kathryn.” Her father made it past the sister barricade, clamped his fingers on Kitty’s arm and tugged her toward the door. “Please wait outside, before you ruin Margaret’s day.”
Kitty cast a glance back at Maggie, who looked as though she’d seen a ghost. The ghost of underwear models past? “Maggie?”
“Kathryn.” Her father pushed Kitty into the hall and shut the door behind her.
Kitty nearly sank to the red carpet, as off-kilter and shell-shocked as a woman unexpectedly transitioning to active labor.
This was a disaster. She had less than ten minutes to stop the wedding.
And she could only think of one way to do it.
*
The spectacle was about to begin–Beck O’Brien’s wedding.
Regardless of who he married, Beck had expected some pomp. He’d anticipated his bride would want a lavish ceremony. He was a New Yorker, born and raised. New York was the home of the debutante, and the hub of high fashion. An uptown New Yorker’s wedding was large, lavish, and luxurious.
So he’d smiled when the woman he’d chosen to be his bride wanted twelve attendants. He’d smiled when she wanted to be married in Boca Raton in the same church where her mother and grandmother had taken their vows. And he’d smiled when she wanted to take pictures for two hours this morning.
Because his bride was great. She complimented him in every way–steady when he was volatile, kind when he forgot to be, and forgiving of his long hours. She’d be a vet within the year. How perfect was that for a horse breeder? His bride was as comfortable to him as Bingley, his Golden Retriever.
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