Free A March Bride by Rachel Hauck Page B

her towel, tipped back her head, and raised her hand toward heaven. “ Thank You, Lord. Finally. ”
    “ I ’ m not in the mood, Mama. ” Susanna kicked her suitcase against the deck rail to let a young family pass.
    Mama hollered toward the kitchen door. “ Bristol, you got customers on the deck. ” She joined Susanna at a table. “ So, you were heading home? ”
    Home? Brighton was home, wasn ’ t it? “ I wanted to surprise Nathaniel. ”
    “ What happened? ” Mama ran her strong, soft hand over Susanna ’ s hair, brushing it away from her neck. Her unexpected tenderness brought Susanna ’ s tears to the surface. “ What made you decide to go back? ”
    “ I prayed a prayer. ” Susanna recapped her conversation with Reverend Smith, leaving out the part where she cried over her childhood. Mama didn ’ t need piled-on guilt.
    “ So why aren ’ t you winging it toward Brighton? ”
    “ Mechanical problem. The part won ’ t arrive until Friday. ”
    “ It ’ s going to be all right, Susanna. ”
    “ You don ’ t know that, Mama. ” She vaulted off the picnic table bench. “ The more I think about it . . . the longer I ’ m away from Nathaniel, he ’ s not going to want me back. What kind of woman slips off her engagement ring because the life of her intended comes with certain requirements? I mean, if he was the head of Apple and I was a peon at Microsoft, I wouldn ’ t think twice about resigning. ”
    “ But he ’ s not asking you to quit your job, Suz. Like you said, he ’ s asking you to give up your very identity. You ’ d no longer be an American citizen with all of our family ’ s heritage and tradition. You ’ re moving a long way from the poor Irish farmers who came to this country looking for a better way of life. ”
    “ Wait, now you ’ re saying I did the right thing by leaving? ”
    “ No, I ’ m saying I understand why you panicked. You were right to take time to think about it. Did you overreact? A bit, but you ’ ve made a lot of very big changes in the last year and a half. ” Mama flicked the towel at Susanna ’ s legs. “ I ’ m proud of you. ”
    “ I ’ m not so proud of myself, but— ”
    “ Susanna! ” She whirled around to see Aurora emerging from the pines and palmettos that lined the path to the beach. “ What in the world? ” Aurora called out. “ You ’ re not supposed to be here. ” The woman scurried up the deck steps wearing a mismatched outfit of a summer dress over jeans with an oversized men ’ s sweater that might have been the style in the 1950s.
    “ Came home to think. ”
    Aurora, with her white-blonde hair and bright red fingernails, circled the picnic bench where Mama sat and glared at Susanna through narrowed eyes.
    Her testimony was a simple one-line pitch. “ I went crazy and returned to my right mind, and to my God. ”
    “ Listen to me. ” Susanna flinched as Aurora jumped up on the bench, startling Mama. “ You belong in a palace. ” She fired her hand in the air, pointing east, toward the Atlantic and Brighton ’ s shores. “ You don ’ t know, Susanna. You don ’ t know . . . ”
    “ What don ’ t I know, Aurora? ” The woman wafted so much between the natural and the supernatural that at any given moment she might be speaking from the Spirit or from the craziness of her own soul.
    Let the hearer beware . . .
    “ Such a time as this. ” She wagged her long, skinny finger at Susanna. “ Such a time. Such a time. ”
    “ That ’ s what Reverend Smith said. ”
    “ Then there you have it. ” Aurora jutted her hand to her waist, standing on the bench like a skinny, worn-out Wonder Woman. “ Glo, what ’ s cooking? ” She sniffed the air.
    “ You know what ’ s cooking, Aurora. You hungry? ” Mama exchanged a glance with Susanna. She always leaned toward Aurora being crazy. But Susanna knew better. Aurora had declared, “ The prince is coming, ” just days after Susanna met her prince under Lovers ’