adie stood to one side of the heart-shaped arbor, the second in a line of bridal attendants covered in hot-pink taffeta. The wood and wire arbor was covered in roses and tulle. Sadie fought the urge to yank up the top of her strapless dress. When she had the dress fitted, she hadn’t had it on for more than a few minutes, and she’d never realized the dress was so low across her breasts. The other girls in the wedding party didn’t seem to think anything of it, but Sadie had never been a fan of short and tight. It just wasn’t comfortable or, in her line of work, appropriate. She wasn’t used to anything that pushed her up and out, but she supposed if she were still in her early twenties, she’d think the pink taffeta dress was cute. The other wedding attendants looked cute, but she was thirty-three and felt ridiculous.

“If there is anyone who can show just cause why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace,” the minister said as he neared the middle of the ceremony.

Directly behind Sadie, bridesmaid number three, Becca Ramsey, whispered something, then sniffed softly. The night before, Becca’s boyfriend, Slade, had been caught cheating with “that slut Lexa Jane Johnson,” and Becca wasn’t taking it well. She’d arrived at the Sweetheart Palace Wedding Chapel with puffy red eyes and runny nose. As they’d all sat in salon chairs getting their hair and makeup done, Becca had cried and carried on until Tally Lynn had had enough. She’d stood, big hot rollers in her blond hair, one false eyelash freshly glued into place, and white “I’m the Bride” robe around her skinny shoulders.

“You will NOT ruin my day, Becca Ramsey!” she’d said in a voice so scary even Sadie had pushed back in her chair. Tally Lynn’s eyes narrowed and a vein popped out on her smooth forehead as she pointed one perfectly manicured finger at her bridesmaid. “This is MY day, not yours. Everyone knows Slade’ll hump any hound that’ll hunt. He’s been skirtin’ around on you for two years. You’ve been puttin’ up with that no-good dog, so shut the hell up about Slade. And if any of the rest of y’all are thinkin’ of ruinin’ my day, you can follow Becca out the dang door.” Then she’d sat back down and motioned for the makeup artist to continue as if she hadn’t just turned into a female Satan. “More eyeliner, please.”

Sadie had smiled, proud of the fierce little cousin she didn’t know very well. Proud despite the fact that Tally was making her wear a mini prom dress and big Texas hair. The kind she’d never even worn when she’d considered herself a Texan.

“You may kiss your bride,” the minister announced, signaling the groom to grab Tally Lynn, bend her over his arm, and lay one on her. A little twinge of something fluttered across Sadie’s heart. It wasn’t envy. It was more like a reminder that someday she’d like to find someone who wanted to stand in front of a minister, promise to love her forever, and bend her over his arm.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy Steagall.”

Sadie turned and prepared to follow the bride and groom back down the aisle and into the foyer. Maybe mixed with the little twinge was that tiniest dab of melancholy.

She moved from the arbor and wove her free hand through Rusty’s arm. She wasn’t quite sure why she felt even the tiniest dab of melancholy. She wasn’t sad about her life. She liked her life.

“Ready to party?” Rusty asked out of the side of his mouth as they moved down the aisle.

“Yeah.” She could use a glass of wine. Maybe it was seeing her cousin and Aunt Bess and Uncle Jim so happy. Maybe it was her bubble gum dress and the small bouquet of pink and white flowers in her hand. Maybe it was being back in Lovett where the purpose in life was to marry and have children. She wasn’t quite sure of the origin of her sudden mood, but felt very single and alone. Even Rusty was on loan to her. His girlfriend was in the crowd somewhere. As far as she knew, she and newly single Becca were the only solo girls at the Sweetheart Palace. Even her cougar aunt Charlotte had managed to find herself a date.

Sadie took her place in line for pictures. She smiled for the photographer and pretended that her mood hadn’t flatlined. She was happy for her cousin. Truly. But she couldn’t wait to get back to her real life where she didn’t feel like quite the manless loser.

After the pictures were taken, they all moved to the dining room swathed in pink and gold and white. Tally Lynn grabbed Sadie in a tight hug against her white meringue of a dress. “I’m so glad you could come.” Her face all lit up with love and plans of a happy future ahead of her, she added, “Gosh, Sadie, I just know you’re next.”

Her cousin meant it as a kindness, a reassurance, and Sadie pushed up the corners of her lips and managed a cheery “Maybe.”

“I had you seated at a table with a couple of the aunts.” She pointed to one of the round tables tricked out with roses and pink tea light centerpieces. “They’re just so happy you’re here and it will give y’all a chance to catch up.”

“Fabulous.” The aunts. Sadie walked between the tables covered in white linen and crystal, Caesar salad on each china plate. She moved slow and steady toward the inquisitioners with white cotton candy hair and red rouge on their octogenarian cheeks. “Hi, Aunt Nelma and Ivella.” She placed a hand over her cleavage and bent forward to kiss each of them on their thin skin. “It’s wonderful to see you two again.”

“Lord, you look like your mama. Nelma, doesn’t she look just like Johanna Mae when she won Miss Texas?”

“What?”

“I said,” Ivella shouted, “doesn’t Sadie look just like Johanna Mae!”

“Just like,” Nelma agreed.

“It’s the hair.” She sat across from her aunts and next to a bigger girl who looked a little familiar.

“Such a sad thing,” Ivella said with a shake of her head.

What was a sad thing? Her hair?

“Poor Johanna Mae.”

Oh that sad thing. Sadie placed her linen napkin on her lap.

“Her heart was just too big,” Nelma yelled. She might have problems with her hearing, but there was nothing wrong with her voice.

The older Sadie got, the more her memories of her mother faded. And that was a very “sad thing.”

“Too big,” Ivella agreed.

Sadie turned her attention to the woman on her right and offered her left hand. “Hi, I’m Sadie Hallowell.”

“Sarah Louise Baynard-Conseco.”

“Oh, Big Buddy’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

“I went to school with Little Buddy. What’s he up to these days?” She picked up her fork and took a bite of lettuce.

“He’s working in San Antonio for Mercury Oil.” Like all the people around Sadie, Sarah Louise’s voice was thick, and words like “oil” came out sounding like “ole.” Sadie used to sound like that, too, but not so much these days. “He’s married and has three kids.”

Three? He was a year younger than Sadie. She signaled a server, who poured her a glass of merlot. She took a long drink before she set the glass back on the table.

“How’s your daddy?” Nelma loudly asked.

“Good!” She took a few more bites of her salad, then added, “He went to Laredo this morning to breed a horse.”

Ivella put her fork down, a frown pulling her thin white eyebrows together. “Why on earth would he leave while you’re in town?”

She shrugged, remembered her neckline, and pulled up the top of the dress. He’d left before sunup and she hadn’t even told him good-bye. She knew him well enough to know that he intended to tell her good-bye before she left Texas, but he’d put her on the back burner until he got back.

While they ate, everyone chitchatted about the wedding. The dress and vows each had written and that kiss at the end.

“Very romantic,” Sarah Louise said as the salad plates were taken away and the entrée was placed on the table.

“When I married Charles Ray, we had our first kiss in front of the preacher,” Nelma confessed loud enough to be heard in Dalhart. “Daddy didn’t let us girls go around with the boys.”

“That’s true,” Ivella agreed.

Sadie took a close look at the dinner plate. Steak, whipped potatoes, and asparagus tips.

“There was none of this sleeping around before the marriage!”

If not for sleeping around before the marriage, she’d still be a virgin. She took a bite of her steak. Although lately, she’d seen so little action, she might as well be a virgin. She’d reached the point in her life when quality mattered most. Not that it hadn’t always mattered, but these days she’d just gotten less tolerant of lousy lays.

“Are you married?” Sarah Louise asked.

She shook her head and swallowed. “Are you?”

“Yes, but my husband lives out of town. When he gets out, we’re going to start our family.”

Out? “Is he in the military?”

“San Quentin.”

Sadie took another bite instead of asking the obvious question. Sarah Louise provided the answer anyway.

“He’s in for murder.”

Sadie’s shock must have shown on her face.

“He’s totally innocent, of course.”

Of course. “Did you know him before he... he... left?”

“No. I met him through a prison pen pal site. He’s been in for ten years and has ten more to go before he’s up for parole.”

Good God. Sadie was always amazed that, one: any woman would marry a man in prison, and, two: she’d talk about it like it was no big deal. “That’s a long time to wait for a man.”

“I’ll only be thirty-five, but even if it’s longer, I’ll wait for Ramon forever.”

“What’d she say!” Nelma asked, and pointed a fork at Sarah Louise.

“She’s tellin’ Sadie about that murderin’ man she hooked up with!”

“Well bless her heart.”

Sadie kind of felt sorry for Sarah Louise. It had to be rough living in a small town and being known for marrying “that murderin’ man.”

Aunt Nelma leaned forward and yelled, “Do you have a boyfriend, Sadie Jo?”

“No.” She raised a glass of red wine to her lips and took a sip. It was past seven and she’d actually managed to avoid that question until now. “I don’t really have time for a man right now.”

“Are you just being notional? Are you one of those women who thinks you don’t need a man?”

Growing up, whenever her thoughts and ideas had seemed different from the herd, she’d been accused of being notional. “Well, I don’t need a man.” There was a difference between wanting and needing.

“What did she say?” Nelda wanted to know.

“Sadie doesn’t need a man!”

Great. Now the whole room knew, but the aunts weren’t through yet. They were such matchmakers that they looked at each other and nodded. “Gene Tanner is available,” Ivella said. “Bless her heart.”

Gene Tanner? The girl who wore a crew cut and flannel all through high school? “She still lives in Lovett?” Sadie would have bet good money that Gene would have moved and never come back. The girl had fit in even less than Sadie had.

“She lives in Amarillo but still visits her mama just about every weekend.”

Sadie stilled and waited for the jab about her infrequent visits with her father.

“She works for the park service and probably has a good health plan.”

Sadie relaxed. This was her mother’s side of the family, and they’d never cared a great deal for Clive Hollowell. They’d made no secret that they’d found him too cold and unfeeling for their Johanna Mae. “Dental, do you think?” she asked to be a total smart aleck.

“I would imagine.” Before Nelma could ask, Ivella cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Sadie Jo wants to know if Gene Tanner has a dental plan!”

“A girl could do worse than a lesbian with a dental plan,” she mumbled, and took a bite of potato. “Too bad I’m leaving in the morning.”

Sarah Louise looked a bit horrified that she might possibly be sitting next to a lesbian, but who was she to judge? She was married to “that murderin’ man” who wasn’t even up for parole for ten years.

After dinner, everyone followed the bride and groom into the ballroom and Sadie escaped the aunts. Beneath the room-glittering chandeliers, the newlyweds took their first turn on the dance floor to “I Won’t Let Go” by Rascal Flatts. It was really a beautiful moment of young love on the brink of a wide-open future, and again, it made Sadie feel old.

She was only thirty-three. She took a glass of wine from a passing tray and stood beside a ficus tree draped in pink and white ribbon. She was old and alone at thirty-three.

Next, Tally Lynn danced with Uncle Jim to “All-American Girl.” They smiled and laughed and Uncle Jim looked at his daughter with undeniable love and approval. Sadie didn’t ever recall her own daddy looking at her that way. She liked to think that he had and she just didn’t remember.

She turned down a dance with Rusty, mostly because she didn’t want to fall out of her dress, but also because he looked to be really into his girlfriend.

“Hey, Sadie Jo.”

Sadie turned and looked into a pair of deep brown eyes. Over the sound of the band she said, “Flick?”

Her tenth grade boyfriend spread his arms wide and showed his slight paunch beneath his American flag dress shirt. “How are you, girl?”

“Good.” She offered her hand but of course he grabbed her in a hug that sloshed her wine. She felt his hand on her butt and remembered why she’d dated Flick Stewart for only a short time. He was a groper. Thank God she’d never slept with him. “What have you been up to?”

“Got married and had a couple of kids,” he answered next to her ear. “Got divorced last year.”

Married and divorced? She extracted herself from his arms.

“Wanna dance?” he asked above the music.

With Flick the groper? Suddenly, hanging with her aunts sounded like a great time. “Maybe later. It was good to see you again.” She moved out into the foyer and found Nelma and Ivella chatting at a table with Aunt Bess. Bess was her mother’s youngest sister by ten years, which put her in her midsixties.

She sat down to take a load off her four-inch pumps, and within seconds, the three aunts started quizzing her again about her life and lack of a relationship. She took a drink of her wine and wondered how much longer she had to stay before she could go home and get out of her tight dress and shoes. Pack her bags, wait for her father to get home, and go to bed. She wanted to hit the road at daybreak.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Sadie Jo,” Aunt Bess said as a sad smile pulled at her lips. “It’s like having a piece of Johanna Mae back.”

At least it was a change of topic, but Sadie never knew what to say to that. She’d always felt like she should know, but she didn’t. Like she should just naturally know how to comfort her mother’s family for their loss, but she was clueless.

“I remember the night she won Miss Texas. It was in Dallas and she sang ‘Tennessee Waltz’ for her talent.”

Ivella nodded. “She sang like an angel. Miss Patti Page couldn’t have done a better job.”

“Well, that’s where the similarities between my mother and me end. I can’t sing.”

“Huh! What’d she say?”

“She said she can’t carry a tune in a bucket! Bless her heart.”

Aunt Bess rolled her eyes and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Where are your hearing aids, Nelma?”

“On my nightstand! I took my ears out so I wouldn’t have to listen to Velma Patterson’s yappy dog, Hector, all damn day, and I forgot to put ’em back in! I hate that dog! Velma makes it bark on purpose ’cause she’s mean as a box of rattlers at a revival!”

A dull pain thumped Sadie’s temples as the aunts bickered about hearing aids and evil dogs, but at least they’d moved off her lack of love life. For the moment, anyway.

Five more minutes, she told herself, and drained the last of her wine. She felt a warm hand on her bare shoulder and looked up past the end of her glass. Past a pair of pressed khaki pants, and blue dress shirt covering big shoulders. The collar was open around his wide neck, and she had to force herself to swallow the wine in her mouth. Her gaze continued over his square jaw and lips, to his nose, and into a pair of light green eyes.

“Sorry I’m late.” His deep, mellow voice put an end to all conversation.

Sadie put her glass on the table and stood. She didn’t know which she felt most. Shock or relief. Shock that he was actually at the wedding or relief that his unexpected appearance had put an end to her familial torture. All three aunts stared, wide-eyed, at the big hunk of hot male in front of them.

“I didn’t think you were coming.”

“Neither did I, but I guess I can’t let you leave town knowing I still owed you. We wouldn’t be square.” He let his own gaze travel down the length of her. Over her bare throat and her breasts pushed together and encased in tight taffeta. Past her hips and down her legs to her feet. “And I had to get a good look at your Bubble Yum dress.”

“What do you think?”

“About?” His gaze traveled back up her body to her eyes.

“The dress.”

He laughed, a deep, rich sound that tingled her spine, for no reason other than she liked the sound. “Like you’re going to a prom and need a date.”

“Funny, that’s how I feel.”

“Who’s your gentleman, Sadie Jo?”

She glanced over her shoulder and into the interested eyes of her three aunts. “This is Vince Haven. He’s in town visiting his aunt Luraleen Jinks.” She motioned to the three women staring back. “Vince, these are my aunts, Ivella, Nelma, and Bess.”

“You’re Luraleen’s nephew?” Ivella struggled to her feet. “She said you were comin’ to see her. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Vince.”

He moved around the table. “Please don’t get up, ma’am.” He bent over slightly and shook each aunt’s hand like his mama had raised him right. Gone was his five o’clock shadow, and his cheeks were smooth and tan.

“Who is Sadie Jo’s young man?” Nelma hollered.

“He’s not mine. He’s—”

“Luraleen’s nephew, Vince!” Bess answered close to Nelma’s deaf ear.

“I thought she said she liked women! Bless her heart!”

Sadie closed her eyes. Just kill me now. There was nothing wrong with being lesbian, but she just happened to be straight, and Nelma yelling that she liked women was as embarrassing as if she’d hollered that she liked men. It made her appear desperate. She opened her eyes and looked up into the dark, handsome face of the stranger in front of her, amusement adding a slight tilt to the corners of his mouth and creases to the corners of his eyes.

“Rescue me,” she said just above a whisper.