The Wedding Audition

by Catherine Mann

  “Burlap and recycled lace curtains do not add up to clothing in any universe,” her mother shot back. “I’m actually grateful for the white straw atrocity on my head to ensure no one sees my face in this sack you call a skirt.”

  “Scarlett O’Hara wore curtains, mom. Embrace your southern side.” Annamae passed a window on the exterior wall of the room and peered out to look for signs of Wynn. He’d driven them to the retirement center and walked them into the party, but promptly disappeared to take a look around outside.

  As much as she’d like to wish he were paranoid, his constant vigilance made her wary. She didn’t like doing things that could draw attention to him or his farm so no matter how much her mother groused, they were remaining incognito tonight.

  “Besides,” she continued. “At least this way I can be sure you’re not secretly filming footage to send home.” Annamae searched the crowd for a Hazel Mae sighting but didn’t see her grandmother. “I know you’d never appear on television that way, although I think you look great.”

  The musicians changed the tempo. Slowing things down with an old Patsy Cline song. As the party quieted, a loud laugh caught her attention. And her mother’s too. Their heads turned as one to see Annamae’s grandmother stride through the hay and daisy arch with a younger man on her arm.

  “Will you look at her?” Delilah shook her head and sipped her lemonade. “You should thank your lucky stars you got her genes. I’ve never seen such good skin on a woman older than me. Although why she always insisted on that horrid color for her hair—.”

  “Mom.” Annamae turned on her. “Stop it. You are not on camera. No one wants to hear catty comments. In the real world, it’s not entertaining. It’s just mean.”

  She kept her voice pitched low, but she couldn’t take any more Acting Up behavior in Beulah.

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed as if she debated going in for round two. But she took another sip of her lemonade and said, “Fine. Just fine. Let’s go get this family party over with, okay?”

  As concessions went, it was practically graceful.

  Not wanting to push her luck, Annamae headed through the crowd toward her grandmother and hoped that she could pull her away from the party discreetly.

  “Hazel Mae,” she said softly just behind her grandmother’s ear.

  Making the older woman jump.

  “You scared me, young lady!” Hazel Mae looked ready to start a scene, her hand clutching her chest, when she seemed to recognize Annamae. “Er—watch yourself, dear. You should go check out the laser light show outside. If you go early you’ll get a good seat.”

  Annamae nodded. Her grandmother could have a second career working undercover. For all Annamae knew, Hazel Mae might have. She was still a mystery. And probably a far better actress than her.

  Heading back toward her mother, Annamae linked her arm through hers and explained their destination. For a moment, the gesture of walking with her mother minus the cameras, felt normal. As if this was what it was like to be mother and daughter. As if this was what she had been missing for years. Family sans cameras. “We’re meeting outside. I’ll get your sweater.”

  Sidling out of the hoedown through a side door, Annamae almost ran into Wynn stalking along the wide porch in his black Stetson and an old leather duster. He looked like he’d just stepped off a Western film set. Or like he’d finished a set on stage for a country music show. Even in disguise, he was hot.

  “Excuse me,” Annamae mumbled as she brushed past him, knowing better than to speak to him. He’d schooled her on how things would go this evening before they left the house. He was driving them. He was looking out for them.

  But they were to have as little contact as possible.

  Annamae averted her eyes and kept walking with her mother. She forced the memory of last night—and the promise of tonight—out of her mind. It was time to focus on family. She’d deal with her feelings for Wynn later.

  Her mother harrumphed under her breath, but Annamae, in turn, had schooled her mom on the etiquette required for staying in Beulah. No antics. No cameras. No revealing their identities at anytime, to anyone.

  It didn’t matter that the town knew Annamae had been there. As far as anyone else was aware, she’d already left. And it needed to stay that way for her sake. For Wynn’s safety.

  She swallowed hard as she led her mom out onto the back lawn where chairs were set up for the light show. They were empty except for one amorous-looking couple off the side. Annamae was debating where to sit when Hazel Mae exited the building from another door and stalked off toward the garden.

  Perfect.

  “This way.” She led her mother past the water-spouting angels. Only a few trees were lit at night, leaving most of the garden in darkness. She took a different path than her grandmother, but she had the feeling she knew where they’d both end up.

  Right where they’d spoken last time.

  “Hell’s bells, girl. What did you bring her here for?” Grandma’s voice lifted as she recognized Delilah.

  Shushing her, Annamae backed the group toward a brick bench around a small water fountain.

  “Bet you hoped you’d never have to see me again, didn’t you, Hazel?” Delilah taunted.

  “Not in that get-up, that’s for sure.” Hazel flicked a glance over the burlap skirt. “What in tarnation are you wearing?”

  “Oh don’t go all hillbilly on me, Hazel. Is this how you charmed my daughter, by pretending to be a harmless little redneck from backwoods Alabama?” She fluttered her lashes in an affectation of innocence.

  “We are not creating a scene,” Annamae announced. “I mean it. I’m here for answers and I’m not interested in posturing, so both of you can either get on board with being forthright or we’re done here.”

  Night birds chirped in the silence that followed. Sounds of steel guitars and fiddles drifted on the cool air.

  “I am ready to be civil,” her grandmother announced.

  “This is your show, honey,” her mother managed through gritted teeth.

  “Excellent.” Annamae thought she felt her backbone stiffen. She was actually making headway here. “Grandma, meeting was Mom’s idea. She hoped we could get everything out in the open so—.”

  “Halleluiah.” Hazel Mae lifted her hands to the heavens. “So she told you how I tried to get custody of you? That’s how much I wanted you in my life, sweetheart. I tried. But who could fight with the kinds of lawyers her rich sugar daddy could afford?”

  Annamae slumped back on the brick bench. Had she thought she’d grown a backbone? The news seeped all the newfound steel right out of her. Why had her mother lied and lied to her?

  “What kind of grandmother tries to steal a mother’s birth right?” Delilah was saying.

  Only with more venom.

  Annamae realized she’d need a dedicated referee to get to the bottom of this. And having this conversation here wasn’t a good idea. Anyone could pass by the garden without being seen, the foliage thick and the night dark.

  “Grandma?” she interrupted the quarrel, feeling far too weary for seven p.m. “Would you mind coming to stay with us for a day or two so we can have this discussion without worrying about… er… prying eyes?”

  Both the other women looked over their shoulders, the gestures so alike they could have been the ones who were related.

  “Of course, sweetie.” Hazel Mae stood. “I’m a resident here by choice, not because I’m on my death bed. I’ll just call and let them know I won’t be home tonight.”

  “Heaven help us.” Delilah swigged her lemonade down so fast Annamae would have sworn it must be spiked, but she’d had a glass too, and it was just the tasty, homemade real thing.

  “Come on.” Annamae gestured toward the parking lot. “Let’s get out of here and we’ll figure this out at home.”

  Home?

  When had Wynn’s place become so dear to her? More emotions to sort out later.

  Darting across the dew-damp lawn with
her mother and grandmother—dressed in burlap and bandanas—Annamae had to laugh. She’d been in the carriage house for just a few days, but that’s exactly how it felt—like where she belonged.

  All those years she’d wanted to be a part of a perfect family portrait and hadn’t quite fit. Yet right now, with two feuding women at her side and stealing through the night like thieves, she felt more a part of a family than she ever had before.

  *

  The Jessup presence in Beulah was growing every day.

  Wynn fumed silently as he drove Annamae and company back to the farm. He should have never opened that gate to her the first time. Every minute spent off his land was a risk to his safety, to the trial. Every new person who set foot on his property was a risk. Knowing Annamae had forced him to take too many chances.

  With himself. With her. With a case that meant too much to him to screw up now.

  They needed to talk tonight. Get everyone out of town—preferably out of the state of Alabama—and out of his life before his whereabouts was exposed.

  Now, he checked the rearview mirror again, and saw the same pair of headlights that had been behind him earlier. Even though he’d taken a few convoluted turns that took them farther from the farm.

  No doubt about it, the truck was being followed while he had three generations of women in cowboy gear and not a gun to be had between them. How had he let himself ignore his instincts? He should have kept the women at his place.

  For seventeen days?

  “We’re being followed,” he announced in his best controlled voice, the one he used to talk jumpers away from the ledge. He had training. Now was the time to use it.

  A slightly tipsy Delilah swatted his shoulder from the back seat. “Don’t be silly. No one lives out here and you took the back road.”

  “Precisely my point, ma’am.” He pointed to the rearview mirror, headlights glowing behind them.

  “Oh,” Delilah stretched up until her face popped up into the mirror’s reflection too.

  Hazel Mae hissed, grabbing her seatmate by the neck scarf. “If we’re being followed, don’t block his view with your hundred dollar hairdo.”

  “I did my hair myself this morning, I’ll have you know.”

  “Well, goodie for you. Glad to know your six weeks in cosmetology school taught you something.”

  “Mom?” Annamae had been quiet up until now. “You went to beauty school?”

  “I did not,” Delilah insisted.

  “Liar,” Hazel retorted.

  Annamae shook her head. “I can’t believe the press missed that detail.”

  “Ladies,” Wynn interrupted, taking a quick turn that slid them all sideways in their seats. “If y’all want to keep talking, could you at least duck down where I don’t have to worry about some crime lord or drunk redneck shooting the back of your head off?”

  All three women hit the floorboards.

  Annamae peered up at him, the dashboard glow reflecting off her face. “You don’t have to be that graphic. You could scare my grandmother into a heart attack.”

  Delilah harrumphed. “We should be so lucky.”

  Hazel waved over the seat. “No worries, granddaughter dear. I’m just fine. Having the time of my life actually. Anyone else hoping for a hot renegade like one of those sexy Sons of Anarchy?”

  “Ha,” Delilah answered, “your wish isn’t going to come true tonight. Because unless I miss my guess, the lights on that car belong to a man who’s only going to be out to shoot me and my daughter.”

  Wynn’s eyes narrowed as he yanked the steering wheel into a hard turn. “Care to enlighten me?”

  “From what little you let me see in the rearview mirror, I am almost certain that’s my husband following us.”

  Wynn noted the shape of the headlights as the sports car sped up. The distinctive nose and the glint of a hood ornament appeared right before the Georgia State vanity plate came into view.

  JESSUP1

  Holy hell.

  “So much for keeping a low profile.” He hadn’t asked his contact back in Miami to investigate the whole Jessup family, but now he wished he had. This guy was the TV producer.

  The Dimitri family had entertainment world connections. That was a fact. If the media were here. Well, he was in more danger than he could imagine. Danger he had practically invited in.

  “He must be worried about Mom.” Annamae adjusted her mirror. “Can we talk to him back at the farm?”

  Wynn didn’t think forcing Jessup off the road and into a ditch was an option, but he took his time contemplating it anyhow.

  And ended up circling back toward the farm.

  “I am not comfortable having all these people on property I’m trying to keep secure.” He needed to get rid of everyone but Annamae.

  Although a smarter man would have sent her packing too.

  “Would you have rather we had this discussion on the side of the road? Because once he started tailgating us, there really wasn’t any other option but to bring him with us.” Annamae twisted a leather bracelet around and around her thin wrist.

  “Anyone else in the family you want to invite in before I put this place on lockdown?” he asked, a knife-edge in his voice. He slowed as he approached the gate, reaching for his remote and thumbing in security clearance codes.

  From the jump seat, Hazel Mae leaned forward, her eyes on the fence swinging open electronically.

  “You turned the old Hastings place into Fort Knox!” She clapped Wynn on the shoulder. “You might not know it, but this place hasn’t had prize-winning apples in a long time, young man. There’s not much worth locking up back here anymore.”

  “Matter of opinion, ma’am.” Wynn tried not to glare at her as he drove through and let Annamae’s stepfather do the same.

  “You’re mad and I understand,” Annamae said softly once her grandmother leaned back in her seat. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Damn it, Annamae, don’t go all reasonable on me and deflate a solid pissed off moment.”

  “I need to talk to my father, but after that, maybe I can convince him to take Mom back home.” She slid off the red bandana she’d worn for the hoedown.

  His eyes went to her profile, hungry for a glimpse of her even though he had every right to be angry about how this night had turned out.

  “You might as well bring them to the big house.” He wanted her in his sight at all times and he hadn’t appreciated how aggressively her stepfather drove when he knew his wife and Annamae were in the other vehicle. He’d be keeping an eye on the guy. “You’ll never fit all of them in the carriage house.”

  “Thank you.” Her eyes found his in the dim interior as he pulled to a stop. “I’ll try to wrap things up fast—before my mom and my grandmother eat each other alive.”

  Already, her mother was bolting out of the truck and calling to her husband. Hazel Mae followed more slowly, grumbling about “self-aggrandizing pompous asses.”

  “You promised to see me tonight,” Wynn reminded Annamae, even though he’d been wrestling with the idea of her ex-fiancé for the better part of the day.

  He wasn’t cut out for the convoluted family dynamics, the over-the-top behavior or the superficial lives the Jessups led. And while he saw something different in Annamae, he also couldn’t deny the running away from her celebrity wedding was exactly the kind of reality TV stunt that he didn’t need in his life.

  His world was dangerous. And undercover. Or at least, it had been until the Jessups descended on it.

  She kissed his cheek before she slid out of the truck. “That’s a promise I can keep.”

  Making him wonder how many others she wouldn’t.

  Chapter Nine

  ‡

  Had she endangered Wynn?

  The fear niggled while she stood outside the farmhouse living room listening to her stepfather rattle on about how far he would go to protect the Jessup family empire.

  As if sportswear was such a crucial commodity?

 
Tuning him out long enough to collect her thoughts, Annamae still didn’t enter the room, hiding in the shadows as if she was back in the family mansion in Buckhead. It was back to beige, back to her role as the dutiful spineless daughter, she supposed.

  The thought gnawed at her stomach almost as consistently as blowing Wynn’s cover. She took a deep breath. Then another. This didn’t have to be her story. Somewhere, deep down, she knew that.

  By now, she was used to disappointing Spencer Jessup III. But she wasn’t used to being so thoroughly disappointed by him. The reality show may give his brand visibility and be great for sales, but what about what was good for Annamae?

  Sure, he had no way of knowing that he endangered Wynn and everyone else on the farm by showing up in Beulah. But he did know that she wanted privacy and some time out of the spotlight. She’d texted her family the request on her way out of Atlanta. At least her mother had attempted to keep a low profile. Her stepfather, on the other hand, drove a flashy sports car with his name on the plates, assuring he’d be noticed. This was just the kind of publicity to spike Acting Up’s ratings. The runaway bride dragged back home from a reprieve in the countryside. This kind of drama could ensure national syndication.

  If his need for publicity cost Wynn his case—or worse—she’d be handing the Jessup name back to him.

  With a sigh, she turned on her heel and entered the room. Even though there was no camera rolling, it struck her how her parents staged themselves without even receiving direction. Years of constant cameras meant the Jessups naturally arranged themselves in the most dramatic shots.

  Delilah’s posture was perfect as she sat on a padded Queen Anne chair on one side of the room. Spencer stood to her right, one hand on her shoulder. They looked like they were shooting a promotional video for the next season. Annamae’s mind whirred. This is why she needed space. To figure out what reality actually looked like.

  On the opposite side of the sparsely furnished area, Hazel Mae had claimed the faded floral couch for herself.