She turned onto Broadway, the town’s four-block main street. The courthouse clock was no longer frozen at ten past ten, and the fountain in the park had shed its grime. The bank, along with a half dozen other businesses, sported maroon and green striped awnings, and the Confederate flag was nowhere in sight. She made a left on Valley and headed toward the old, abandoned train depot a block away. Until the early 1980s, the Mississippi Central had come through here once a day. Unlike the other buildings in the downtown area, the depot needed major repairs and a good cleaning.

Just like her.

She could postpone it no longer, and she headed toward Mockingbird Lane and the house known as Frenchman’s Bride.

Although Frenchman’s Bride wasn’t one of Parrish’s historic homes, it was the town’s grandest, with its soaring columns, sweeping verandas, and graceful bay windows. A beautiful amalgam of Southern plantation house and Queen Anne architecture, the house sat on a gentle rise well back from the street surrounded by magnolia, redbud, azalea, and a cluster of dogwood. It was here that Sugar Beth had grown up.

Like the historic homes on Tyler Street, this one, too, was well cared for. The shutters bore a fresh coat of shiny black paint, and the fanlight over the double front door sparkled from the soft glow of the chandelier inside. She’d cut herself off from news of the town years ago except for the bits and pieces her Aunt Tallulah had condescended to pass on, so she didn’t know who’d bought the house. It was just as well. She already had enough people in her life to resent, with her own name at the top of the list.

Frenchman’s Bride was one of only three houses on Mockingbird Lane. She’d already passed the first, a romantic two-story French Colonial. Unlike Frenchman’s Bride, she knew who lived there. The third house, which had belonged to her Aunt Tallulah, was her destination.