“I don’t think any firearms will be required to get Ryan and Harper down the aisle one day,” she said, winking at me.

Mom loved Ryan, especially since he’d been so great after everything with Leigh-Anne.

“So now that she’s home, will you finally get some sleep?” Dad asked Mom.

The lines around her eyes deepened as she smiled. “Sure will,” she said, but rather than heading back to her own bedroom, she walked me up to mine.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” she asked, hovering in the doorway.

“I will be once I take the hottest shower in the world.”

Mom smiled again, but it was faint and kind of sad. And then her eyes drifted to my open closet, where my Cotillion dress was hanging in its plastic bag. “It’s such a gorgeous dress,” she said softly. “I just wish . . .”

I held my breath, waiting for the tears. But this time, Mom gave a tiny shake of her head and said, “Anyway. You’ll be beautiful. Oh, and Miss Saylor called tonight. There’s an extra—”

“An extra rehearsal on Monday, I know.” Twisting behind me, I reached for the dress’s zipper. “Amanda and Abigail told me.”

Mom crossed the room, helping me unzip. “You know I think Cotillion is a wonderful thing, but sometimes I wonder if Saylor doesn’t take it a little bit too seriously. Before she took it over, the girls had maybe three practices for the entire thing. Now it seems like you have three a week.”

Last week we’d had four, but I didn’t say that to Mom. “Miss Saylor just wants it to be perfect.”

Mom pursed her lips, and for a second, it was like she was Old Mom again. The mom who laughed more, who had a weakness for gossip, who didn’t wait up for me before it was even my curfew. “Pine Grove’s Cotillion has been going on for nearly a hundred years, and there was never one hiccup until Saylor Stark took it over. Do you know how much mistletoe she makes the Junior League pay for? I tried to tell her that just because our town’s Cotillion takes place a month before Christmas, there’s no need to rechristen Magnolia House ‘Mistletoe Manor.’ That stuff is expensive.”

Saylor Stark, with her gorgeous clothes and her silver hair and her impeccable manners, was kind of my hero. I mean, I put up with her nephew because I liked her so much. But it was nice having old, gossipy Mom back, so I nodded in sympathy. “She’s also really strict about where we stand. That’s what all the rehearsals are about. Making sure we’re all standing in a perfect circle.”

“Ridiculous,” Mom said on a sigh. “Anyway, go take your shower and get some rest.”