The Secret to Southern Charm Read online

  Praise for Kristy Woodson Harvey

  “A major new voice in Southern fiction.”

  —Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author

  “Harvey pulls the reader into the hearts and souls of her characters.”

  —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author

  “Southern fiction at its best. . . . Beautifully written.”

  —Eileen Goudge, New York Times bestselling author

  “Sweet as sweet tea on the outside and strong as steel on the inside. . . . Kristy Harvey is a natural.”

  —Ann Garvin, author of On Maggie’s Watch and The Dog Year

  Praise for Slightly South of Simple

  “Kristy Woodson Harvey really knows how to tell a southern tale. Every single time her stories unwind gently, like a soft wind in Georgia, then that wind catches you off guard and throws you into her characters’ tumultuous lives. Slightly South of Simple is the same. One gracious, old home inherited from Grandma, one mother who has so many secrets if the walls talked they would pour out like lemonade on a hot summer day, and three headstrong sisters, all working their way through the chaotic mess and joy of life, together. I loved it.”

  —Cathy Lamb, New York Times bestselling author

  “Kristy Woodson Harvey cuts to the heart of what it means to be a born-and-bred Southerner, complete with the unique responsibilities, secrets and privileges that conveys. Discover four women who are at once different yet utterly the same, and a town that you won’t ever want to leave. Interior design, family secrets, life on the coast . . . it’s easy to see why everyone is buzzing about Slightly South of Simple.”

  —Cassandra King, author of The Sunday Wife and The Same Sweet Girls

  “Heartfelt and warm, Slightly South of Simple deftly explores the familial ties that bind us—and those that have the power to break us. Kristy Woodson Harvey’s cast of characters—and the charming beach town of Peachtree Bluff—will crawl into your soul and stay there.”

  —Colleen Oakley, author of Close Enough to Touch

  “Fans of Nancy Thayer and Patti Callahan Henry will devour this story of the first of three sisters, the men in their lives, and the mother who bonds them all.”

  —Booklist

  “Harvey’s devotion to realistic character development pays off by the end of the novel, which provides clear resolutions to some plots and leaves other hanging in a way that practically begs for a sequel . . . Slightly South of Simple is so warm, inviting and real . . .”

  —Bookpage

  “My prediction is that writers come and writers go, but Kristy Woodson Harvey is here to stay. The warmth, wit, and wisdom of this novel pave her way into the exclusive sisterhood of southern writers.”

  —Huffington Post

  “With a charming, coastal Southern setting, Slightly South of Simple is a heartfelt story about the universal themes of love, loss, forgiveness and family. I’m thrilled to hear that this book is part of a series and look forward to getting to know this cast of strong Southern women even better.”

  —Deep South Magazine

  “Harvey, considered to be the ‘it girl’ of Southern fiction, introduces the first novel in the Peachtree Bluff Series this spring. Child, this book is everything! We’re hoping to see this soapy read on the Hallmark Channel.”

  —Jamey Giddens, Daytime Confidential

  “Full of heart, emotion, and Southern charm . . .”

  —PopSugar

  “If you’re looking for a new series to get lost into, this story of three sisters and their mother will have you flying through the pages.”

  —Glitter Guide

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  To my mother-in-law, Dottie Williams Harvey, who loves a good story as much as I do

  ONE

  home

  sloane

  Time had lost its meaning. I only realized it was night because the water outside my bedroom window at my mother’s home in Peachtree Bluff, Georgia, wasn’t blue anymore. It was black and shining like fresh-paved asphalt. But inside, in my room, on my TV, it wasn’t night. It was Saturday morning, the third precious birthday of my son Adam, Jr., or AJ, as we called him. My strong, national hero of a husband, in his off-duty khaki shorts and collared shirt, was holding our other son, six-month-old Taylor, in one arm. I was behind the camera cooing, “Smile for Daddy one more time. Can you smile for Daddy?” Taylor smiled. Who wouldn’t smile for the handsome man holding him?

  It was almost funny to see that six-foot-three soldier with his big, sculpted arms and huge hands made for protecting holding that tiny baby. But Adam wasn’t just a strong and loyal soldier. He was my husband. He was my boys’ father. He was my home.

  His arms were the only place I had truly felt safe, special, and loved. His smile was the one that changed my life, had convinced me to marry, to have children, to put myself out there and love this big. His heart was the one that, after a decade of feeling so terrorized by my father’s death, had made me feel safe again. Adam had changed absolutely everything.

  His dark hair, peppered with gray, was buzzed short. His kind brown eyes twinkled at me through the camera as he said, “Three, Sloane. Can you believe he’s three?”

  We were in front of our town house on post in North Carolina. Adam liked the idea of us being in a town home, of having other families close by. He didn’t say it, but he liked the idea of other families being close by because he wouldn’t always be around. It was inevitable. He felt like we were safe here when he was away.

  The video panned over our house, a sweet Carolina blue with a front porch on a street, like all the streets on post, named after a World War II battle campaign. My mother had decorated the generic four-bedroom interior, converting one of the bedrooms into a playroom and sparing no expense on the open-floor-plan living room, dining room, and kitchen downstairs. It was almost embarrassingly beautiful.

  We shared a driveway with my friend Maryanne and her husband, Tom, who was a part of Adam’s unit, and their four kids. Tom called, “Hey, Sarge!” and gave Adam a double thumbs-up. We were all still basking in the glow of Adam’s promotion to sergeant first class. There were a lot of perks that came with the job.

  But hands down the perk that meant the most to Adam was the respect, the feeling of a job well done. Junior enlisted soldiers would come to him, asking for advice, wanting his opinion. He always said he was raising men, and he didn’t just mean his sons. Those boys were his now, even though he wasn’t much older than some of them. It was his job to protect them, to instill in them morals, values, and a sense of pride in their country and in themselves.

  Adam was an imposing man, a strong leader, but he also had a kind heart. Maybe the Army didn’t care about that. But I had to think his empathetic nature was a factor in his promotion.

  We loved living there, surrounded by other military families, the only ones who could truly understand the life we had chosen.

  Four of our favorite couples and their small children were scattered around our postage-stamp front yard, each of them, from the largest officer to Maryanne’s newborn baby, wearing a Mickey Mouse party hat. AJ was attempting to ride his new mini scooter through the grass, the red Keds and white Jon Jon with the red fire
truck Mom had sent him for his birthday seeming more than a little out of place amidst the other children in their shorts and T-shirts.

  My husband had protested the outfit, but I had simply kissed him and said, “Oh, sweetheart, he’s only little once. Let me have this.”

  Adam had pulled me to him then, kissed me longer, and said, teasingly, “If you get the girly outfits, I get buying him a BB gun for his sixth birthday.”

  This was a common joke between us. I was, ironically, very anti-gun. He was a soldier, a card-carrying member of the NRA, a proud Second Amendment supporter. We would never agree on this. We would never agree, in fact, on a number of things. But that’s what made us work.

  Back on the screen we were all singing, “Happy birthday, dear AJ! Happy birthday to you!”

  We cheered as it took him not one, not two, but three tries to blow out the three candles on his cake.

  “Third time’s the charm?” Adam asked me, looking into the camera.

  We both laughed, sharing that private moment, my favorite man in all the world holding one of our sons, his arm around the other.

  Adam smiled into the camera, that special smile he reserved just for me, a secret we would never let the rest of the world in on. I hit pause on my sticky remote. Sticky from what I couldn’t say. Popsicle? Go-gurt?

  I pulled the two down comforters I had wrapped around me up closer to my chin, trying to soothe the perceptible chill that ran through me as my mind pulled out of that world, where Adam was here and we were happy, and back into the present, the real world where life was bleak, empty, and so cold it felt like the depths of the arctic instead of a seventy-eight-degree night in Georgia.

  My bed was covered with letters Adam had written me over the years, the ones I carried in a leather portfolio my mom had gotten me when I was accepted into art school. Whenever I traveled, it was the first thing that went into my suitcase. This trip to Peachtree had been no exception. A few of the letters fluttered when I disturbed the comforter.

  I glanced over at the nightstand to see my dinner untouched on its tray. My mom was trying, bless her heart. I almost smiled because nothing ever changed, not really. I did the same thing with my sons now, putting the broccoli on their plates even if I knew they wouldn’t take a single bite.

  The mere thought of eating turned my stomach, made bile rise up the back of my throat. I couldn’t remember the last time I had even gotten out of this bed or had a sip of water. I certainly hadn’t bathed in far too long. How long had it been since I heard Adam was MIA? Two days, a week, a month? It terrified me. Who had been taking care of my children? Even if I couldn’t eat, I would bathe tomorrow. I would face my boys. But this was something I thought every day.

  I looked back at the TV, studying Adam’s smiling face, so joyful and alive. He was my home. He was my everything. I sank even deeper into the covers, and the sobs, so powerful they seemed like they were in danger of stealing the very life from me, overtook me as I realized it: I may never be home again.

  TWO

  red sky at night

  ansley

  The sun had nearly set when I sank into the plush cushion of the outdoor sofa on my front porch in Peachtree Bluff. Despite my exhaustion, anxiety, and sorrow, there was something about this porch and this particular sunset, a burning red and hot orange, that always soothed my mind.

  My grandson Taylor’s fever from the day before seemed to have finally broken, and I hoped beyond hope that AJ, snuggled safely in my bed instead of his own, wouldn’t be woken again by nightmares.

  I looked down at the piles of sand on the front porch, the clumps that had fallen out when AJ decided to strip off his bathing suit and run naked through the sprinklers. That little rascal. I smiled. That was the thing about children. All day, the stinkers can drive you nuts, but the minute they’re asleep, you want to gaze at them, drink them in, suppress the urge to wake them for one more cuddle, one more giggle, one more moment in time.

  “Do you think I should wake Taylor to give him more Tylenol before I go to bed?” I asked my mom. The thought made me cringe. There would be bribing, bargaining, and selling my soul. Taylor would whine and wriggle until I thought I would lose my mind and promise candy, a trip to the toy store, a pony—anything to make this stop. Then he would finally let me shoot the Tylenol in his mouth, take a sip of water, and reach out for the Popsicle I would have ready to take the edge off the taste. I didn’t want to do it. But I loved those grandbabies more than life.

  I looked beside me at Mom, awaiting her sage answer, and almost laughed. She could have been on a greeting card, dressed as she was in a floral, zip-front housecoat, her hair tightly wrapped in the curlers she would sleep in, her pink satin bedroom slippers hugging her slender feet. Although the frequent Botox and touch-up sessions from her dermatologist in Florida would have indicated otherwise, Mom had been a fixture on this wide front porch, which originally belonged to her parents, for more than eighty years.

  I had replaced my grandmother’s matching rockers with cozy teak chairs and a couch, small white Saarinen end tables, and a teak dining table and chairs on the opposite end. It was the best porch in the world, and I never wanted to leave. Maybe this was why my grandmother had left the house to me in her will. She knew how much I adored this home, that I was the only one capable of loving it as much as she did.

  “Darling,” Mom said, pulling one of the sea-blue Serena and Lily herringbone throws off the back of the sofa and wrapping it around her shoulders, “if the child’s fever spikes in the night, he will wake up. Good heavens, what do you think the pioneers did?”

  I laughed, sinking back into one of the new Dalmatian-print throw pillows I had just gotten. They accentuated this sweeping white clapboard home, situated on the water a block from downtown, with the black shutters I had added after much ado—and digging up a photo from the late 1800s that proved to the historical association that there had once been shutters on the house and, as such, if I could copy them exactly, I could replace them.

  I could hear Emerson’s and Caroline’s voices wafting down from the uncovered, upstairs porch with its six outdoor loungers perfect for sunbathing. My friend and handyman Hippie Hal had added a platform for yoga at the end of the porch, outside the bay window of my bedroom, the largest of the five in the main house.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Mom. I would have made a very poor pioneer.”

  She looked at me seriously. “That you would, darling.”

  In contrast to my mother, I was still wearing the tailored tan-and-white-striped shirtdress I’d had on since I showered from my day at the beach with my rambunctious grandsons. Caroline had picked out this dress for me, and I absolutely loved it. It hit right at the knee and was cinched at the waist. It reminded me of an updated 1950s housewife frock, which, with the cooking, cleaning, and child rearing, I basically was—minus the husband, of course.

  I wished I could be a little more like my mother, comfortable enough to be on my front porch in my bathrobe. But the tourists walking by from downtown deterred me. Had I said that to my mother, she would have replied, “It’s your damn front porch. If you want to sit out here stark naked, you should.”

  I pulled the cork out of the open bottle of rosé and poured “just a splash,” as Mom would say, into each of our oversized Riedel wineglasses. Her splash was more like a third of the bottle, but who was I to judge? The woman was old enough to make her own decisions. And she would.

  I took a sip, trying to dull the pain that, while Emerson and Caroline were up there sharing the secrets of sisters, Sloane, my little wounded bird, was entrenched in the darkness of her room, in the pitch black of her new reality. I took a deep breath and felt a sob welling up within me, but I suppressed it.

  I looked into my mother’s blue eyes, the same eyes I saw each time I looked at my own face in the mirror, and I could feel her strength, the strength I had always borrowed during the toughest moments of my life.

  These past few months with
my girls back in Peachtree Bluff had been one of those hard times, one of those periods in their lives when, though I wanted to save them, protect them, shelter them, I couldn’t. Yet again, the universe had delivered challenges for my grown daughters whom I had loved and wanted so much, those children whom I had sacrificed for, crossed that line between right and wrong quite a few times for.

  I could not erase the fact that Caroline’s husband, James, had cheated on her with a supermodel or that her son had been born in the midst of that, and I could not bring Sloane’s husband, who was missing in action in Iraq, home.

  Quite a few times I had thought that at least Emerson, my youngest, was OK. But I sensed something was slightly askew with her, too. Maybe it was that, though she was filming her biggest movie to date, she hadn’t quite found the acting success she had dreamed of. Maybe it was that she hadn’t found the true love she dreamed of—or maybe, I had to consider, that was only my wish for her.

  The reality was that I couldn’t even handle my own love life, much less hers. So I sat on the front porch, beside my mother, the person who made me feel perhaps the most complicated emotions of all, the one who, though I knew she loved me unconditionally, never felt the way about me that I do about my girls, never felt the need to change it or fix it.

  She took a sip of her wine, and while she looked out over the water, the sunset making it nearly the same shade as her dark rosé, I looked at her. I wondered what was happening in her mind, what complicated firing of synapses was taking place to make her a little different these days.

  But breaking me out of my thoughts, she said, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”

  It’s something she had said to me countless times throughout my life, but this time I felt slow tears rolling down my cheeks. Adam loved to fish, and this red sky would have meant that, in the morning, offshore conditions would be perfect.