ISBN: 9780373534265

"Jo, tell me. Have wedding jitters taken a toll on you yet?" Erica Sanders glanced across the table, thinking that only April, her close friend since junior high school, would have the n… More...

"Jo, tell me. Have wedding jitters taken a toll on you yet?" Erica Sanders glanced across the table, thinking that only April, her close friend since junior high school, would have the nerve to ask her something like that with a straight face. April North knew her so well. She could tell Erica's anxiety and stress were mounting, only a couple of weeks from the engagement party at which the couple's families would officially meet. Erica was so not looking forward to that affair unless her mother's attitude changed drastically. "Yes, I'm a little stressed," she admitted. "My sanity is barely holding up. But it's to be expected of every bride, isn't it?" She figured if anyone should know, surely April would. After all, her best friend had walked down the aisle three times already. "Umm, a little stress is to be expected of every bride. But in your situation" April left the words unsaid. Erica's mother was driving her crazy. With one breath Karen Sanders would rant and rave about Brian Lawson not being good enough to marry her daughter, and with the next breath she'd give the wedding planner hell because she intended for Erica's wedding to be the social event of the year. It would be a wedding befitting the great-great-granddaughter of one of the founding fathers of Hattersville, a small town of seven thousand, noted in the history books as one of the first cities for freed blacks in Ohio. Erica had lived in Hattersville all twenty-seven years of her life, except for her college years in Wisconsin. Living in another city those four years had opened her eyes to a lot of things, especially how closed-minded and snobbish some of the residents of her hometown were. But not all of the citizens were privileged. Her friend April had been born on the other side of the tracks, in the Fifth Wardsomething Erica's mother liked to remind her of every chance she got. But to Erica, what side of the tracks someone was born on didn't matter, and her close friendship with April had always been special. Besides, April, who had always been a beautiful person, had gone from rags to riches and was now a world-famous model. That proved that anyone who put her heart and mind to it could become successful, despite her humble beginnings. Needing to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the town even more than Erica did, April had traveled west to attend UCLA, where she'd met husbands one and two. Husband number three, whom she'd divorced a year ago, was someone she'd met in Great Britain. "You know as well as I do," April continued to say while eating her salad, "that Ms. Karen's idea of a dream marriage is one between you and Griffin." Erica knew that was true. Griffin Hayes's family, like hers, represented old money in Hattersville. Naturally some people, especially her mother, assumed she and Griffin would grow up and marry. There were those, again namely her mother, who figured that doing such a thing was not only politically correct, but wo Fiction Fiction eBook, Kimani Press<