“Because we can’t deny it.” His lips were practically on hers. He tasted the sweet lemon frosting on her breath.
“Mr. Torres, is that you?” someone yelled and banged on the outside glass.
Kenzie pressed her head against Ramon’s chest and grabbed the lapels of his jacket while Ramon cursed in Spanish. “Think my offer over, sweetheart.”
“And what are you going to do?” Maggie Swayne asked, sitting with her legs crossed on Kenzie’s pale pink cushioned couch. She grabbed a pink-and-gold-accented throw pillow and placed it in her lap, clearly desperate for more details of what had happened this afternoon.
Kenzie’s traumatic episode this afternoon granted her an excuse to not attend Corie’s rehearsal dinner tonight. With fifty Hairstons, Kenzie didn’t think she’d be missed. Her mother, Paula, had already excused her. Maggie took the pardon to include herself, too. “Corie’s wedding is tomorrow.”
The big day had been circled on Kenzie’s custom-made calendar on her stainless steel refrigerator in her downtown Southwood apartment. Each month featured a picture of a particular tiara Kenzie had won over the years propped up at one of her favorite historic places around town. This month’s image was an old photograph of the Miss Southwood crown on a low branch of a blooming magnolia tree last summer. A year ago, when Kenzie took the job, glad to finally put her degree to use, she never thought it would be so unglamorous. She combed through old newspapers, donated family photo albums and yearbooks. Sometimes she went out in around town and took pictures of trees with sweetheart initials carved in the trunk. On one occasion Kenzie brought her well-earned tiaras along with her and made her own calendar. “I don’t need to be reminded,” Kenzie said from the kitchen entrance in a clipped tone.
“I mean, we can skip the rehearsal dinner tonight with no questions asked but Auntie Bren is going to have questions tomorrow for you.”
“I like the way Mama excused me from attending and that includes you for everything but Auntie’s wrath.”
“Because the last time she got on FaceTime with me and asked where my boyfriend was, I reached over into the nightstand and showed her.”
Auntie Bren had a habit of being on the stuffy side. Kenzie could only imagine the old woman’s face.
“You’re so crass.” Kenzie shook her head at her sister, who poked her tongue out in response. “And I have answers for her,” Kenzie said with a shrug. She joined her sister in the living room on the couch with two glasses of wine.
The windows were drawn open. The bright lights of the nearby amphitheater shone through, changing colors on the high ceiling. One of the perks of her apartment was the free concerts. She saw all the performances without ever having to leave her place. The downside was the noise level for the concerts she wouldn’t have paid for nor taken free tickets to. Tonight’s event included a young preteen pop singing group. Kenzie wasn’t sure what was louder, the music or the screaming little girls in the audience.
Maggie took a loud slurp of her red wine before setting the glass down on the magazine-covered coffee table. “What are you going to say?”
“I’m going to tell her I worked my behind off at Georgia State until I received a PhD in Southern history two years ago, and becoming Dr. Mackenzie Swayne has occupied my time.”
“Meanwhile your bed remains unoccupied,” Maggie mumbled.
“Maggie,” Kenzie gasped.
“What?” Maggie blinked her hazel eyes innocently. “I’m merely saying what she’ll say.”
“I’m not discussing my sex life with her because she won’t bring it up.”
Maggie snorted and reached for her glass. “Want to bet?” She cut her eyes over to Kenzie. Kenzie concentrated on swirling the beverage around in the glass. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So why won’t you take this Ramon up on his offer? Hell, moan is in his damn name.”
“Because being around Ramon makes me a different person,” Kenzie answered honestly. “I was so mad at him I became bitter.”
“But the two of you spoke today and worked things out. No one says you two have to sleep together. He needs help and so do you.”
Sometimes Kenzie told her older sister too much. Granted, they were considered Irish twins, born nine months apart, but they bared all the features of twins. Kenzie was outgoing and loved to be around people. They favored each other in looks, with their reddish curly hair, although Maggie’s maintained a better hold than Kenzie’s. But Kenzie and Maggie were complete opposites. At eighteen Maggie couldn’t wait to get out of Southwood. She’d planned on never coming back to live here and had almost lived up to her promise. The Swayne family fortune in pecans made it possible for the kids to never have to work. Kenzie and her brother chose to work for a living. It helped keep their parents out of their lives. Maggie opted not to. Right now Maggie lived in Atlanta as a socialite living off her trust fund—her true calling in life. Coming back to Southwood was a step back for Maggie, yet when she did, she always scheduled a secluded, two-week break in the family’s cabin in the woods over in Black Wolf Creek, away from her social connections in Southwood. Kenzie partly understood her sister’s dilemma. Their last name was Swayne but everyone always asked them if they were Hairston girls. As a teen, Kenzie hated the reminder but going away to college, she missed the recognition. The red hair gave them away. Maggie’s was lighter than Kenzie’s and Maggie wasn’t plagued with freckles.
“Maybe I’ll tell him something next week for Felicia’s wedding.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re going.”
“She was one part of the tiara squad.”
“I’m not friends with the girls I competed with,” said Maggie. “For Christ’s sake, it’s called a competition, not a friendship pageant. You almost lost your chance to be the last Swayne to ever win Miss Southwood.”
“Felicia is always nice to me. When she found out her brother was moving back to town, she sent me a box of magnolias.”
“You were banging her brother,” Maggie pointed out, then shivered with a gagging noise. “Alexander was a creep then. He just wanted to date a beauty queen.”
What Alexander wanted was none of Kenzie’s concern. At least Maggie knew to drop the subject. Both girls glanced over at the curio cabinet filled with beauty pageant memorabilia. Maggie had her own set. The Swaynes were big on pageants, a tradition passed down from generation to generation. Their mother, Paula, met their father, Mitch, through a pageant, when Paula allegedly stole the tiara from his sister, Jody Swayne. Mitch had fallen in love immediately. The Swaynes didn’t speak to their son the first year of their marriage.
Aunt Jody held on to her bitter loss for ten years and stayed away from Southwood. Aunt Jody attended family reunions but she vowed never to step foot at another Southwood pageant ever again. And she kept that promise, even when Maggie and Kenzie competed. Kenzie forgave Aunt Jody for not coming to her crowning and she secretly hoped she’d come back to Southwood, especially with the sesquicentennial gala right around the corner. With the one-hundred-and-fifty-year celebration one week away from the Miss Southwood pageant, Kenzie prayed Aunt Jody would stay.
“Can you believe Bailey is ready for her first pageant?” Kenzie asked. She reached for the photograph on her end table of the seventeen-year-old beauty.
“It’s about time,” Maggie said, throwing the pillow to the side and reaching for the picture in Kenzie’s hands. “I love our brother dearly but Richard nearly tarnished the Swayne dynasty.”
“Hairston-Swayne