Ciji Ware (75 page)

And then, of course, there is my own family, without whom the publication of this novel wouldn’t mean what it does at this time in my life: my sister, Joy McCullough Ware, who walked the walk with me on this one; my wonderful son, cinematographer/editor/photographer Jamie Ware Billett and his wife Teal, whom we welcome with great love and affection into our crazy clan; my amazing cousin, Alison Thayer Harris, an R.N. and backyard organic gardens expert, her husband, David, and godchildren Gracie and Andrew; the multitalented Cook family; and, most appreciatively, my husband Tony Cook who once said “yes” to buying a Creole cottage in the lower French Quarter.

And, of course, my humble thanks to the late, great Cagney Cat. His paw prints are all over this novel.

Ciji Ware

Sausalito, California

Ciji Ware enjoys hearing from readers at www.cijiware.com

About the Author

Ciji Ware has been an Emmy-winning television producer, a reporter, writer, event speaker, and host of radio and TV programs. A Harvard graduate, she has written numerous fiction and nonfiction books, including the award-winning
Island of the Swans
. When she’s not writing, Ciji is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel fancier and dancing aficionado. She and her husband live in San Francisco Bay Area.

Return to the sultry world of the deep south, past and present, in

A Light on the Veranda

Available March 12 from Sourcebooks Landmark

Read on for a sneak preview.

Chapter 1

March 14

Daphne Whitaker Duvallon always suspected that jilted fiancés could spell trouble, and—in certain circumstances—might even be downright dangerous.

Of course, nobody thought that on the night the classical harpist ditched Jack Ebert
at the altar
in front of five hundred wedding guests at Saint Louis Cathedral in the heart of New Orleans’s French Quarter. Most folks thought that Jack took the public humiliation remarkably well. However, from that candlelit evening onwards, any unbiased observer would say that Daphne’s life became the female version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

Even so, how could she have known that an entirely
new
path would emerge from the supernova her life had become, or that the orbit of nature photographer Simon Chandler Hopkins was destined to intersect her own? Looking back, she realized that surely the stars must have shifted in the heavens the instant she retrieved that fateful voicemail message one raw, rain-filled night in New York.

“Hey there, Botticelli angel girl! How y’all doing up there in Yankee land?”

Daphne pictured her older brother clasping an amber bottle of Dixie beer in one hand and his cell phone in the other, perfectly at ease chatting to his sister’s voice mail in faraway Manhattan.

“It’s a lovely spring evening here in New Orleans, and I just wanted you to know that your only sibling’s still
very
much a man in love. So guess what, darlin’? Corlis and I are finally going to do the deed! Kingsbury Duvallon is—at last—getting married. Next week, in fact.”

Next week?

The mere mention of a wedding—
any
wedding, even her beloved brother’s—made Daphne’s heart pound erratically and her breath come in short gasps. It had been just over two years since she’d fled back to New York after her eleventh-hour bailout of her own Christmastime marriage extravaganza—a hundred-thousand-dollar event replete with nine bridesmaids; three flower girls; twin-boy ring bearers; acres of roses and pine boughs, supplied at cost from Flowers by Duvallon; seven limousines, supplied gratis from the Ebert-Petrella chain of funeral homes; not to mention sixty-six tall, ivory tapers affixed one to a pew at twenty dollars a pop and the stillborn reception at the posh New Orleans Country Club. And of course, who could forget the television crew in the church balcony sent by WWEZ-TV to cover the “wedding of the season”?

Was it any wonder, Daphne thought, that King’s reference to nuptials involving her family in New Orleans made her feel as if she might slip off her kitchen bar stool in a dead faint? She scanned her minuscule, fifth-floor walk-up and wondered if her cordless landline phone would still work if she stuck her head out of the window to get some cool, northeastern air.

“To make up for such short notice,” her brother continued carefully, sounding as if he could imagine her discomfort when she heard word of this impending family gathering, “you’ll probably be mighty pleased to hear that we’re
not
tying the knot in the great state of Louisiana.”

“Amen,” she murmured, closing her eyes and offering up a prayer of thanks to whatever voodoo gods were handling her case. She leaned her elbows against the kitchen counter for support and held onto the phone receiver like a life preserver. Someone in the next apartment slammed a door and yelled a curse in Spanish that was immediately answered with a string of Anglo-Saxon epithets. Five stories below, car brakes screeched and horns honked furiously. “Manhattan cab drivers,” she muttered.

“Corlis and I have decided our little shindig’ll work just fine in Natchez, instead of New Orleans, so you have
no
excuse not to be there,” King’s voice message continued. “We’ve almost got the church lined up, with the rest of the details—like the reception—to follow.
Y’have
to come, Daph.”

King’s mellifluous Southern drawl was soothing. Daphne would bet a new set of harp strings that her brother and his fiancée were lounging on King’s elegant, fern-strewn gallery overlooking the French Quarter, relaxing after work.

She could imagine her brother’s tall, lean figure slouched in a chair, his handsome dark head framed by a fan of white wicker, his feet propped up on the wrought iron railing. Even over the phone line she could hear the sound of a jingling harness, the faint clip-clop of a mule passing by on Dauphine Street below, and the shout of a tourist-carriage driver speeding toward the city’s livery stable a few blocks away. According to her kitchen clock, it was still early evening in New Orleans. The gas lit street lamps would be glowing through a riverine mist obscuring the modern skyscrapers that loomed over the Quarter. Those steel-and-glass monstrosities towering above Canal Street had made King’s efforts as an architectural historian to protect the city’s remaining store of venerable old buildings a
cause cèlèbre
in the Big Easy—and justly earned him the title “The Hero of New Orleans” in the
Times-Picayune
. To his younger sister, however, King had been a hero long before that. He’d been her rock. Her bulwark against—

“Guess I’m taking up all the space on the ol’ voice mail,” her brother said apologetically, jolting her back to reality. “Call us, sugar, ASAP. And don’t let any of this wedding stuff freak you out. It’ll all turn out just fine. Take good care, y’hear?”

Daphne inhaled shakily, pushed the “save” button on her voice mail system, then speed dialed the familiar number in New Orleans. As expected, she got King’s voicemail. Daphne knew he routinely screened his calls to avoid any unexpected verbal confrontations with Magnolia Mama, as their mother, Antoinette Kingsbury Duvallon, was known among her intimates.

Daphne’s brother concluded his taped greeting with his customary wry dispatch. “Y’all have a decent day, y’hear?”

Before Daphne could leave a congratulatory message, call waiting kicked and King’s caller ID appeared.

“Hey! Daphne!” King’s deep voice broke in when she clicked the line. “Corlis said it’d be you. Whatcha think, angel girl?”

“I will be forever in your debt for
not
getting married in our hometown.”

“Cousin Maddy, up in Natchez, is over the moon ‘bout us holding the wedding in the Town That Time Forgot,” he replied with deliberate irony. Natchez, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, sparred in an age-old rivalry as to which riverside city was held in higher esteem by historians, or possessed the most revered architecture. “She’s offered us that tumbling down ol’ mansion of hers, overlooking the river, as Wedding Central.”

“You’re getting married at Cousin Maddy’s
house
?” Daphne asked incredulously. A mental picture of her elderly cousin’s chaotic abode materialized in her mind: the lopsided veranda supported by six shaky Corinthian-style front porch pillars, five years of magazines stashed under priceless antique furniture throughout four floors, and a good half inch of cat hair dusting every horizontal surface. Cousin Maddy was a sweetheart and a superb music teacher, but a tidy housekeeper she was not.

“Oh, good Lord, no!” King assured his sister. “Our
very
abbreviated bridal party’s just sleeping there ’midst the rubble, since everything in town was booked for Spring Pilgrimage.”

“You’re getting married during the home tours? You
are
brave.”

“The ceremony’s planned for First Presbyterian on Pearl Street. We’ll know for sure later today if we got the church, but I’m pretty sure we lucked out there.”

“Mmmm… it’s gorgeous… and a lot
smaller
…” Daphne murmured into the receiver.

“I just don’t think any of us could have stomached seeing those same ol’ people in that same ol’ cathedral on Jackson Square this time ’round.”

“I’m afraid my stomach might have made me a no-show,” Daphne admitted sheepishly.

“Naturally, Mama’s fit to be tied not being able to over decorate Saint Louis Cathedral with Flowers by Duvallon again, but what else is new?”

“Nothing,” Daphne declared, pronouncing the g distinctly. She’d worked hard on losing her Southern inflection in a conscious effort to sound like other New Yorkers.

“First Pres being only a third the size of the cathedral means most of Mama’s friends will be
highly
insulted
not to be invited—as she informed me this morning—but it’ll all work out, eventually. I keep telling her that the bride gets to pick the church, but you know those magnolias… they think they rule the world.”

“You got
that
right,” Daphne agreed with more pique than she intended. How could things “work out eventually” when her mother and father had refused to speak or communicate with her in the twenty-seven months since she’d bolted from her wedding at the absolute last second?

“Now, don’t you start worrying ‘bout Jack getting wind of this. He’s moved to Dallas. And besides, everyone on this end’s sworn to secrecy—even ‘bout the date of this thing. Waylon claims he’s goin’ fishin’ next weekend, so there won’t be trouble on
that
score, either,” he added with an uncharacteristic edge of bitterness. Daphne’s throat tightened at her brother’s oblique reference to another family problem.

“Oh, King…” she murmured. “Daddy’s so impossible sometimes…”

“You gotta trust me ‘bout all of this, Daphne,” King insisted. “We’ve tried to think of everything.”

“Of course I trust you,” she replied in a rush. “I’m really touched you and Corlis are thinking so much about
me
when—”

“Of course I’m gonna look out for you, darlin’. You’re my baby sister, aren’t you?” he teased gruffly.

The lump in Daphne’s throat swelled to the size of a pecan and she found she didn’t dare say another word. At the time of her breakup with Jack, everybody, including her brother and her, had learned that Daphne’s father, Waylon Duvallon, was not, in fact, King’s biological father. She was still recovering from the shock that she was merely King’s half sister, and things within the family would never be the same.

Don’t go there. Just don’t go there.

In the background, her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Corlis McCullough, was saying something. “Oh, yeah… ’course.” King chuckled into the phone. “Here, ask her yourself, California.”

Corlis’s happy voice interrupted her melancholy musings. “So. Are you surprised we’re finally getting hitched, girlfriend?”

“A little,” Daphne admitted. “But I’m really thrilled about it, Corlis. I hereby declare you my
real
sister, and not just a sister-in-law. You and I’ve got to stick together in this clan.” Daphne silently thanked the mysterious fates that the Duvallons were acquiring such a welcome addition to their ragtag ranks.

“Count on it, sweetie pie,” Corlis said, suddenly sounding solemn.

“And brava for finally saying yes to the poor guy!”

“Oh, I said yes to the guy ages ago. I just didn’t have the nerve to say yes to getting
married
. Now, here’s the deal, angel,” Corlis said, becoming serious again. “We would really love you to play your harp at the ceremony. It’d mean a lot to us both.”

“Of
course
I’ll play,” Daphne assured her, though, privately, she wondered if she could actually make it through a Duvallon family gathering.