A Christmas Affair. Adrianne Byrd

am proud, it’s just … “

      “Country. And country doesn’t work in the big city.”

      “Can we please not argue about this?”

      “Fine. I called to ask why I had to find out about your getting married to Mr. Action-Pack on that little thingy we call down here ‘the boob tube.’”

      Corona’s heart sank. “You saw that?”

      “As a matter of fact, I did. I watched it standing in the middle of Parker’s Gas Station with Daddy and … Lyfe Alton.”

      “What?” Corona blinked and felt like she was being swept back into a time machine. What were the chances of Lyfe popping up on the same day that she had just been reading in her diary about their first time together?”

      “Shocking, isn’t it?”

      “To say the least,” Corona agreed. Her brain started churning out so many questions that she didn’t know which one to ask first. “What … why … how?”

      “Exactly what I asked,” Tess said, picking up on her sister’s shorthand.

      “Well, what did he say?”

      “Not much. Really. Only that he was in town on sabbatical.”

      Chloe nearly swallowed her tongue.

      “Just imagine if you’d just come home for the holidays like I begged you. Who knows, maybe you two would’ve run into each other.”

      She swallowed. “Like that would have been a good thing.” Still, she couldn’t stop herself from imagining what such a chance encounter would’ve been like. Awkward. Painful. Explosive.

      “How long is he in town for?” Chloe asked, trying to sound casual.

      “Don’t know. Didn’t ask.”

      “You didn’t ask?” she said, shocked.

      “Why do you say it like that?”

      “Because I’ve never known you to miss an opportunity to get all up in someone else’s business,” Chloe answered honestly. “Never.”

      “Well, we all were a little distracted with you and Rowan James trying to inhale each other’s faces on national television. Really. Next time, try just getting a room.”

      “Ohmigod. Lyfe saw that?”

      Tess clucked. “With you being in the industry, I figured that you knew how cameras worked. They broadcast to millions of people—even to ones who are just standing in a gas station.”

      Corona felt like she might need to make another run to the bathroom.

      “When exactly were you planning to tell us that you’re marrying a white boy?”

      “Don’t say it like that. What difference does it make what color he is?”

      “I don’t care what color he is, but people like a heads-up.”

      “I know. I know. I’ll call them.”

      “Uh-huh. Right,” Tess challenged. “Looks to me like you were planning to avoid the issue by doing what you always do, run away.”

      “Not funny.”

      “It wasn’t meant to be.”

      “That’s not fair,” Chloe argued.

      “But it is true.”

      Silence.

      “See? You may be good at running your little business up there.”

      “Little?”

      “But when it comes to family issues, you race out of the kitchen before the stove gets too hot. Talk to Daddy. It is waaaay past time for you two to settle y’all’s issues.”

      “I know. I know.” And she did know. Things had never been the same between them since she had left Georgia the way she did. “I’ll talk to him. I promise.”

      “I’ve heard that before,” Tess pressed.

      “Okay. Is there another reason you called—other than to make me feel like crap?”

      “Nope. I just wanted to check that off my to-do list.”

      “Great. Fine. Consider it done.” She was tempted to slam the phone down, but she still had more questions about Lyfe that kept her from introducing Tess to Mr. Dial Tone.

      “So. There’s nothing else you want to ask me?” Tess said, sounding like she knew exactly why her sister hadn’t slammed the phone down.

      Silence.

      “Say … anything about Lyfe Alton that you’re curious to know?”

      “How … did he look? I mean—”

      “Honey, let me tell you—that brother is sooooo freaking fine that the sheriff needs to be handing out tickets.” Tess roared to life. “I ain’t even lying. Tall as a mountain, muscle like POW! and POW! I mean, arms and thighs—but not like those gym muscleheads. I would give my right arm to drip some strawberry sauce all over Mr. Man’s body.”

      “Have you forgotten just who in the hell you’re talking to?” Chloe snapped.

      Tess cleared her throat. “Uhm … actually, yes.” Cough. “Sorry about that. But, Corona, I’m telling you. Out of the Alton six-pack, baby boy ain’t a baby no more.”

      “Thanks.”

      “I mean it. He’s—”

      “I said thanks. I get it. He’s good looking. I kind of figured that much.”

      “Can I have him?” Tess asked meekly.

       “What?”

      “Look, I know that there’s some unwritten rule about dating your sister’s exes. But hell. You don’t come around here no more anyway.”

      “I’m about to hang up on you.”

      “Is that a ‘no’?”

      “Hell yes, it’s a ‘no,’” Corona thundered. If her sister was standing in front of her right now, she was certain that she would have wrapped her hands around the child’s neck and squeezed until she was the same color as a Smurf.

      “Well, I don’t see what the big damn deal is. You’re about to get married and expand the family. Don’t you want to see me happy?”

      “You so much as bat an eyelash at Lyfe, I’ll see you six feet under.”

      “Ooh. Testy. Could it be that you’re not quite over your first love?”

      “I’m hanging up now.”

      “That’s all right. I know how to call back.”

      “You’ll get the answering machine,” she warned. When in the hell is that Excedrin going to kick in?

      “I’d imagine that if you really cared about Lyfe’s feelings that you probably wouldn’t have left him standing at the altar.”

      “There was no altar,” she grudgingly pointed out.

      “Fine. You wouldn’t have left him standing in our backyard in a suit that barely fit and with Daddy pointing a shotgun at his back.”

      “Oh, God, are you ever going to let me live that down?”

      “Uhm, no. Can’t say that I will,” Tess said. “What you did was foul.”

      “Well, excuse me. Shotgun weddings went out about a hundred years ago. My ditching Thomason to come live in New York was the right thing to do and you know it.”

      “Humph!”

      “Fine.