Southern Lights (30 page)

“I know,” Alexa said quietly. He had told her as much himself. “And you’re right, I don’t want him now. But I did then.”

“I know, Mom,” Savannah said, putting her arms around her mother. “So you’ll come?”

“Yes, yes.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll send the reply card back tomorrow.”

“I already told Scarlette I’d go,” Savannah giggled.

They spent a lovely last night together, and Alexa left for the airport when Savannah went to school the next morning. She had thought it would be her last visit to Charleston, but it appeared there would be one more, for the wedding.

Alexa told her mother about it when she got home.

“I don’t know how I let Savannah talk me into it,” Alexa complained. “And now I have to buy a dress.”

“It might do you good. Maybe you’ll meet someone,” Muriel said hopefully. It had always seemed ironic to both of them that Muriel had more of a love life than she did.

“That’s all I need is to meet some other southern charmer,” Alexa said ruefully. “One is enough in a lifetime. Been there, done that. I don’t need another one.”

“They’re not all like Tom,” her mother reminded her.

“That’s true. Or like Luisa. But their society is certainly inbred at times, and if you’re not one of them, you’re screwed. I hope Savannah doesn’t wind up there, and comes back to New York after college.”

“God knows where she’ll want to be, depending on her jobs, or who she falls in love with. I managed while you lived in Charleston.”

“Yeah, but you had Stanley even then. I don’t. I have Savannah.”

“Maybe you need more than that in your life,” her mother reminded her again. “You can’t hang everything on her. It’s not healthy for either of you.”

“Well, I’m about to get dumped anyway, when she leaves for college.” Alexa was worried about it, but their time apart for the last four months was a good practice run. Alexa was terrified of the empty nest thing. And even in the last four months, the apartment had been agonizingly quiet without Savannah. Alexa was glad she was only going to Princeton, and no farther. “Do you want to go shopping with me this weekend?” she asked her mother. “I need a dress for the wedding. It’s black tie.”

“I’d love it.” Muriel sounded delighted, and they made a date to go to Barney’s on Saturday, and have lunch.

“I haven’t bought an evening gown in years,” Alexa said, sounding excited … eleven years … since she was married to Tom…and now she was going back, not as his wife, but as her own person … the prosecutor from New York, as Savannah put it …how life had changed.

When Savannah graduated in Charleston, her mother was already back at work, handling a number of small cases that were a breeze after the Quentin case. She was still very much a local star for that. Several magazines had wanted to interview her, and she had declined. But she had admitted to Jack that she was a little bored with the minor cases she was handling now. It was hard to get back to routine cases after one as challenging as the one she had just done. And she was surprised to find she missed working with the FBI. Jack wondered if she was burned out, but didn’t ask.

At Savannah’s Charleston graduation, the girls wore white dresses under their gowns, and the boys wore suits. The girls carried flowers, and everyone cried when they sang the school song. It was emotional and tender and everything it should have been. And her father gave her a lunch afterward at the country club. Travis and Scarlette came, and Turner, Daisy, and her father of course, and Grandmother Beaumont came to the graduation and lunch. Luisa had been invited to both but made no pretense of caring and declined. At least, she was true to what she felt till the end. The only thing she wanted to celebrate was Savannah leaving in two days. And she was still furious that she was coming back for the wedding. She hoped that it would be the last they would see of her for a long time. She didn’t want her in Charleston again, although Tom was already making noises about Thanksgiving. Luisa wouldn’t hear of it. No one missed her at lunch.

It was lovely in the garden of the country club. Her grandmother gave her a small pearl necklace that had been her own mother’s, and her father gave her a very handsome check and told her how proud of her he was. She said she was going to buy what she would need for college. And she was coming back to Charleston to see Turner in August, and all of them of course. Tom hoped that Luisa would be away then, visiting her family in Alabama, as she did every summer. She had relatives all over the South.

For the two days after graduation, Savannah spent as much time with Turner as she could. He had a job working in the oil fields in Mississippi for June and July, and he was going to miss her terribly when she left. She was the love and light of his life. He was coming to New York for her other graduation the following week but could only stay for two days, but they were grateful for that.

Savannah’s last night at Thousand Oaks was bittersweet, as she lay in bed with Daisy, holding hands, just as they had the first night. It was a hot, moonlit night, and the girls whispered and cuddled until they fell asleep. Savannah wanted her to visit in New York or at Princeton, but both girls were afraid Luisa wouldn’t let her, and they were going to try and arrange it with their father.

Daisy stood crying on the front steps when Savannah left. Jed had put all her things in the car, and Tallulah was dabbing her eyes. Julianne had come to say goodbye too, and was sobbing. And just before she left, Savannah went back inside to say goodbye to Luisa, who hadn’t come out. She found her stiff-backed at the kitchen table, eating breakfast and reading the paper.

“Thank you for everything, Luisa,” Savannah said politely, as her father watched from the doorway with an ache in his heart. Savannah was such a good girl and had tried so hard, and Luisa had no mercy at all. “I’m sorry if I was a nuisance while I was here. It was wonderful,” Savannah said, with tears in her eyes. She was genuinely sad to leave, although happy to go back to her mother. She had gotten something here that she had never really had before, a father. And that wouldn’t stop now.

“You weren’t a nuisance,” Luisa said coldly. “Have a safe trip.” She made no move to come toward Savannah, and then picked up her newspaper again.

“Goodbye,” Savannah said softly, and left the kitchen with her father. It was about as warm a goodbye as she’d ever get from Luisa.

Savannah gave Daisy a last hug and got into the car. Daisy and Julianne and the two old servants were waving as she and Tom drove away from Thousand Oaks. Savannah would never have believed it, but she hated to leave Charleston, and what felt now like her second home. Even Luisa hadn’t been able to spoil it for her. Savannah thought that even though she had missed her mother, they were the happiest four months of her life. She had two real parents now and loved them both.

Chapter 19

Savannah’s New York graduation was the antithesis of the one in Charleston. All her friends wore jeans with holes in them, and tank tops and sneakers or flip-flops under their gowns. No one carried flowers or wore pretty white dresses, and the boys wore T-shirts and jeans, and Nikes or flip-flops, but they let out the same wild war whoop of glee the moment they had graduated, and threw their caps in the air, and then tore off the rented gowns.

Everyone had been thrilled to see Savannah, and she had stayed in touch with most of them by e-mail and phone from Charleston. But it felt strange to be back here now. Everything seemed so different in New York. She wasn’t sure where she was most at home now, she loved both. She didn’t say it to her mother, but she really missed Charleston at times.

Turner had come up for her New York graduation, and she showed him all the sights. All her girlfriends thought he was gorgeous and really nice, and even the boys she knew liked him. And her grandmother took them both to lunch, and she showed him her court. Turner was impressed that her grandmother was a judge, and her mother an assistant DA. His own mom had never worked before she died.

“Neither did mine when she was married to my dad,” Savannah explained. “She went to law school after they got divorced, and my grandma went when my grampa died. Sort of to keep busy and not be so sad.” Turner had admitted to her that his father had a twenty-six-year-old girlfriend and was thinking of getting remarried, and he and his brothers were really upset about it. He was lonely without his late wife.

Savannah and Turner did everything they had hoped to in New York. She took him to the top of the Empire State Building, which he wanted to see, they rode on the Staten Island Ferry, and went to the Statue of Liberty and the museum at Ellis Island. And they went to the Bronx Zoo, saw the animals, and felt like little kids again. And they went to Long Island and walked on the beach. They were already figuring out how they were going to spend time in Duke and Princeton with each other in the fall. They had every intention of continuing their romance. And whenever they were apart, even for an hour, they called and texted each other constantly. They both felt like it was going to be an eternity before she came back to Charleston to visit in August, after Europe with her mother. But at least they had the wedding ahead of them. It was ten days away when Turner left New York.

And the day after he left, Savannah found a dress. Alexa had found hers with her mother the day they went shopping at Barney’s. She had bought something totally out of character for her. It was a peach-colored strapless chiffon gown that was low cut and very sexy, and the skirt was long and graceful. She had bought high-heeled silver sandals to wear with it. She tried it on for Savannah and was worried that it was too low cut and too revealing for her.

“Mom,” Savannah scolded her, “you’re thirty-nine years old, not a hundred. You
should
look sexy.”

“That’s what Grandma said. I don’t know what you two have in mind. Maybe you’re planning to pimp me out. I have nowhere to wear this afterward.” It seemed like a waste of money, but she had fallen in love with it and hadn’t had a dress like it in years.

Savannah was pleased that her mother had bought such a pretty dress. “You’re wearing it to Travis’s wedding. That’s enough. You look beautiful.”

“Maybe I can have it shortened and wear it to the office,” her mother teased. “It’ll look great in court at my next trial.”

“There is more to life than work,” Savannah scolded her again, and Alexa shrugged.

Sam had called her a couple of times to see what she was up to, and they both admitted that there was a letdown after the trial. Everything else seemed so insignificant compared to what they’d been doing. But serial killers with eighteen victims in nine states didn’t come around often in anyone’s career. It was nice to feel they’d made a difference in the world and done their jobs well. The sentencing was scheduled for the day before she left for Europe with Savannah. They were going to Paris, London, and Florence, with maybe a weekend in the South of France. Alexa was planning to splurge, and they were staying for three weeks. And then Savannah would go back to Charleston to see Turner for two weeks. Alexa had agreed to that too. She didn’t want to stand in the way of romance.

The dress Savannah had bought for her brother’s wedding was a pale blue satin, strapless like her mother’s, though not quite so low cut. It was long too, and she had bought sexy high heels to match. They were both going to be knockouts, Muriel assured them. She and Stanley were going on vacation that summer too. They were taking a long driving trip in Montana and Wyoming, which was what they liked to do, hiking, riding, and fishing. Savannah said it sounded awful. She was much more excited about her trip with her mother, especially Paris.

Savannah and Alexa arrived at the Wentworth Mansion in Charleston on Friday afternoon, even though they weren’t going to the rehearsal dinner hosted by Tom and Luisa, nor the church service, which was only for immediate family and close friends. St. Stephen’s was too small to hold all the guests they had invited to the reception. But they wanted plenty of time to relax and get ready for the next day. They had an appointment at the hotel spa that night.

Savannah called Daisy as soon as she arrived, and her father drove her over to see them briefly. She was all excited about being the flower girl and said she was wearing a really pretty dress. She checked out Savannah’s dress in the closet and liked it, and afterward they went out for an ice cream cone, and then her father took her home. She had to go to the rehearsal dinner that night, and her mother would have a fit if she was late. So it was a short visit, but a nice one. Daisy had thrown herself into Savannah’s arms like a cannonball, and the two girls had hugged and kissed and giggled. It touched Alexa to see it. Daisy was a wonderful addition to Savannah’s life, and the little sister she had always wanted. Alexa had just never expected it to be this one. And Savannah had already promised Daisy a weekend in Princeton and a visit to New York, which Tom swore he would make happen.

Turner had dinner with them that night, after they were finished at the spa. He and Savannah went out for a drive, and he offered to escort them to the reception the next day, which sounded great to Savannah and even her mother. She didn’t want to take a cab or rent a limo and show off.

The reception was at six o’clock, and Turner picked them up promptly at five-thirty, in an old Mercedes he had borrowed from his father, and he whistled when he saw them. Alexa looked like a princess in the peach chiffon gown with her hair in an elegant French twist, and Savannah looked spectacular in the blue dress that was the color of her eyes, with just enough but not too much cleavage. Her mother’s dress wasn’t inappropriate, but a little more daring. Turner said they looked absolutely gorgeous and he was proud to escort them. He was wearing a summer tux, with a white dinner jacket and traditional black trousers with a satin stripe, and the black patent leather pumps that were old-fashioned but proper, and a real black satin bow tie, not a clip-on.

“You are one
very
handsome young man,” Alexa complimented him, happy for Savannah. They looked adorable together, so young and innocent and hopeful, the way people in love should be.