Free Spring Fever by Mary Kay Andrews Page B

and criticized the new bride in front of Mason. That wasn’t Sallie’s style, but the slow drip-drip-drip of her constant nitpicking had the effect of sand in Annajane’s newlywed sheets.
    Annajane knew it was no good trying to extricate their life from Mason’s family, or his family’s business. They were too tightly woven together now.
    And it was all Pokey’s fault.
    She’d shown up, unannounced, at Annajane’s studio apartment in Raleigh, on a freezing weeknight in February.
    “Guess what?” she’d demanded, as soon as she’d stepped into the room. “I’m pregnant!” And next came, “You’re gonna be my maid of honor. And I won’t take no for an answer.”
    Pokey had been in no hurry to finish college. She’d declared herself on the six-year plan, until she met Pete Riggs at a fraternity party in Chapel Hill. He was from a wealthy Charleston family who owned a chain of fine furniture stores. He was tall and redheaded and had earned a full four-year golf scholarship to Wake Forest. Fun-loving Pokey called Annajane that night, dead serious, to announce that she’d met her future husband. And as always, what Pokey wanted, Pokey got.
    Before Annajane knew it, she was being dragged to bridal boutiques for fittings and, yes, back to Passcoe, for a seemingly endless round of brunches, teas, dinners, and showers.
    Mason was a no-show for all of the prenuptial hoopla. He was working as a regional manager for Dr Pepper, in Memphis, with his father’s blessing, to gain experience outside his own family’s business. He was, Pokey confided, being a major pill about the whole thing. “Mason doesn’t approve of Pete, and he doesn’t approve of me getting married and dropping out just a semester short of graduation, and he most definitely doesn’t approve of me having a baby. He threatened to put a beat-down on Pete for knocking me up, until I admitted I actually got myself knocked up on purpose. But if you ever tell that to Sallie, I’ll never speak to you again,” Pokey said.
    “Too bad,” Annajane had murmured, trying to sound unconcerned about Mason’s opinions. She was desperate to see him again, and desperate to pretend he’d never entered her life. It wasn’t until she had to walk up the aisle on his arm, the day of Pokey’s wedding, that Annajane allowed herself to remember how she felt when Mason Bayless touched her. It wasn’t Mason, she told herself, it was just spring fever.
    Still, she tried to avoid him at the reception, dancing with every man in the room who was under the age of seventy and hiding out on the veranda of the country club, behind a huge potted palm, between dances.
    That’s where he found her, leaning against the veranda railing, sipping a glass of lukewarm champagne toward the end of the evening.
    “Shoes hurt that bad?” he’d asked, gesturing toward the high-heeled silver slingback sandals she’d slipped out of.
    “They’re killing me,” Annajane said, taking a large sip of champagne, hoping he wouldn’t notice her suddenly flushed face in the darkness.
    He picked up the sandals and flung them high into the air and out over the women’s practice green.
    “Great,” she said glumly. “Two hundred dollar shoes. Gone.”
    “I’ll buy you another pair,” Mason offered. “Maybe a pair you can actually walk in?”
    She didn’t smile. “What do you want, Mason?”
    He sighed. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
    “Did you?”
    “I was a shit heel,” he said, resting his back against the railing.
    “A deflowerer of virgins,” she said, nodding her head in agreement.
    He winced. “If I told you I never stopped thinking about you, all this time, would you believe me?”
    “No,” Annajane said, unsmiling. “Because if you’d thought about me, even once, I’m pretty sure you could have figured out how to get in touch with me over the past two years.”
    “You’re not easy, are you?” Mason said, with an exaggerated sigh.
    “Not anymore,