“We’ll talk another time.” Celia had just walked into the living room. She stood up, Nicholas rising with her. She stared at Celia, who looked as if she hadn’t slept. Her eyes were puffy and lines of strain bracketed her generous mouth. Closing the space separating them, Peyton hugged Celia. “You look a hot mess,” she whispered in her ear.
Celia returned the hug. “I’m an E.R. trauma doctor supposedly with nerves of steel, but I’m having a meltdown just because I’m getting married.”
“What you need is some comfort food for the Southern soul,” Peyton said. “We’ll stop at a little takeout place and get an order of grits and eggs.” She wanted to tell the prospective bride that getting married was one of the most important events in one’s life, and would change Celia’s and Gavin’s lives forever.
Pulling back, Celia shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to eat anything. And what do you know about soul food?”
Peyton went completely still, struggling to rein in her rising temper. “I know as much about it as you do. And please don’t let the blond hair and gray eyes and the fact I come from upstate New York delude you into thinking I’m not a woman of color.”
Nicholas knew it was time to intervene or Celia would start something with Peyton she had no chance of winning. “Cee Cee, you...” Peyton held up her hand stopping whatever it was he’d planned to say.
“Please stay out of this, Nicholas,” she warned softly. “I can understand what your sister is going through. She’s having premarital jitters, and if she doesn’t get over it real quick I’m going to seduce her drop-dead-gorgeous fiancé. And you know it’s been done before.”
Celia’s eyes grew wide. “You wouldn’t?”
Peyton bit back a smile. Talking about seducing Gavin had shaken Celia from her malaise. “I damn sure will if you don’t stop being a drama queen.”
Squaring her shoulders, Celia straightened her spine. “Okay. I’ll try and eat something.”
“Once you taste Mama Lula’s grits and eggs you won’t be able to stop eating.” Looping her arm through Celia’s she forced her to put one foot in front of the other. Glancing over her shoulder, Peyton smiled at Nicholas. He returned it with a wide grin and a wink.
“Later.”
Nicholas nodded. “Later,” he repeated.
Chapter 2
Peyton knew she was speeding but she wanted to get to Mama Lula’s to pick up the order she’d called in, and then to the salon. If Celia had planned to marry on the weekend she doubted whether they would’ve been able to secure an appointment. The technicians at Unique Creations were usually booked up two to three weeks in advance.
She gave Celia a sidelong glance. She was a feminine version of her brother, reminding Peyton of a doll with her small round face, black curls grazing the nape of her neck, large dark eyes, and pert nose, curved mouth and thumbprint-dimpled brown cheeks.
“I’m sorry I came at you like a rabid dog,” Peyton apologized.
Pressing the back of her head to the headrest, Celia closed her eyes. “And I’m sorry if you misunderstood me. I would never presume to identify your racial designation. I have an uncle with light green eyes whose hair was much lighter than yours. He has a grandson who looks exactly like him even though Alejandro’s parents both have black hair. When Uncle Josh tans his complexion is similar to yours. And he doesn’t bite his tongue when he brags about being an Afro-Cuban down to the marrow in his bones.”
Peyton felt duly chastised. People who hadn’t seen her parents would rudely ask “what are you?” And her pat comeback was “An American.” “I inherited my eye color from my father and everything else from my mother. Mom is very mild-mannered and laid-back, and the only time I witnessed her going ballistic was when I came home to tell her that my second-grade teacher, who was new to the school, asked me what I was. When I’d innocently told her my name she said knew that, but wanted to know if I was white or black. My mother called a lawyer and had the teacher transferred to another school.”
Celia opened her eyes. “Why should it matter what you are?”
Peyton shook her head. “I really don’t know what the big deal is when it comes to a person’s race. Didn’t we elect a mixed-race president?”
“Word,” Celia drawled. “By the way, the Coles are a patchwork quilt of different races and ethnicities.”
“Do you speak Spanish?” Peyton asked.
“Yes. My father and grandmother always spoke to me and my brothers in Spanish. My father felt it was important we know more than one language. It was different with abuela. She didn’t want us to forget our Cuban roots.”
The two women talked about their medical careers, professors, fellow students, course work and internships. Their order was waiting when Peyton maneuvered up to the drive-through window at Mama Lula’s. They had twenty minutes to spare, so they sat in the parking lot behind the salon eating grits, fluffy scrambled eggs and fileted whiting seasoned and fried to perfection.
Celia took a deep swallow of coffee. “Do you think we’re going to be able to fit into our gowns?”
Touching the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin, Peyton nodded. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t. We probably won’t eat anything else until later on tonight.” Their gowns were scheduled to be delivered to the farm at noon.
Celia patted her flat belly. “Thank you for forcing me to eat. I really needed to put something in my stomach.”
Peyton gathered the containers and coffee cups, storing them in a plastic bag. “I knew you would feel better if you ate something.”
A beat passed. “Would you have really attempted to seduce Gavin?”
She looked at Nicholas’s sister as if she’d suddenly taken leave of her senses. “I was just blowing smoke, Celia. I’ve never attempted to seduce another woman’s man and I pray I don’t lose my mind and actually do something that skanky.”
Combing her fingers through the mass of raven curls, Celia held them off her forehead. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I believed you. I lost one fiancé, so it’s always in the back of my mind that I could lose another one.”
“What happened? Talk to me while we walk.”
Peyton listened, stunned when Celia disclosed the gang-related shooting rampage in the Miami hospital emergency room where her fiancé had been one of six murdered in cold blood. Two doctors died that night along with her patient and three other gang members. She and three others were wounded in a mêlée that lasted no more than thirty seconds and had turned the E.R. into a killing field.
“It’s been a year, but I still have nightmares,” she whispered as they entered the salon through the rear door.
Peyton wanted to know how seriously Celia had been injured and what had happened to the shooters, but it was too late to ask when they were approached by the owner of the salon. “Good morning, Mrs. Barnes. I’m Peyton Blackstone and this is Celia Thomas.”
Barbara Barnes, or Babs as she was referred to by her closest friends, pressed