Sweet Southern Trouble (Sample Only)

Sweet Southern Trouble: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Sweet Honey

Becky O'Shea was running from her name more than anything else.  If she had stayed in Rhode Island and lived her life according to her uncle’s decree, he would have pushed another well-dressed, well-paid bore on her in hopes that one day, she would marry. Because the niece of U.S. Senator George O'Shea was getting too old to still be dating casually, especially the types of men she naturally migrated toward.  After all, there were Republican appearances to restore and uphold in a primarily Democratic state, and of course, upcoming elections to win.

“Honey, Rebecca needs a husband,” her Uncle George told his wife, Candie, in his important politician voice just last month while they were dancing at a fundraiser held at the Governor's mansion. “I toiled too long and too rigorously only to have her ruin me with her uncultured behavior. She needs to be tamed and to learn her place in this world.”

Candie agreed, as usual. Becky, however, had only been too happy to prove her uncle's assumptions of her character as accurate. The formal affair had been typically mind-numbing until Becky let loose her inner spontaneity, giving her uncle the perfect opportunity to spurn and reprimand her privately.

Okay, so she insulted the Governor's son to his face. But the pampered, sloshed jerk had asked for it. A tango was a type of dance...not an opportunity to copulate in a room full of monkey suits and raised noses. Even Uncle George could understand that, right?

Wrong, Becky snorted to herself, remembering that night and Uncle George’s tirade clearly enough.  He made it clear that unless she married soon, she would not have a place in his house after his mother finally kicked the bucket.

Becky could barely believe he’d say something like that, to be so crass and unfeeling about his mother’s impending demise. She’d been crying for hours as Gran’s health condition worsened with every passing day.  But Uncle George didn’t seem bothered at all, or patient of Becky’s distraught heart.  He had a ball to attend.  He had hands to shake and babies to kiss.  And husbands to find for his crazy, redheaded niece, so that someone else received the pleasure of dealing with and controlling her. Gran’s declining strength would just have to wait until he found some free time on his schedule.

It was all Becky could do to keep a semblance of a smile on her face that night while her thoughts constantly drifted to her grandmother.  Uncle George had practically forced her to join him and Candie at the Governor’s mansion, but around midnight, just after the tango fiasco and the Senator’s upbraiding, she managed to sneak out the back door and hail a cab back home.  Uncle George had been furious.  Gran, on the other hand, had been delighted in Becky’s covert tactics, but then Gran said she could never suffer through those “stuffy pot-lucks” for very long either.

Now, almost five weeks later, Becky’s ancient Chevrolet truck rumbled freely down a tree-shrouded highway, far away from her Rhode Island home, her Republican responsibilities and what was left of her family after Gran succumbed to the glory light of Heaven.  But that freedom came with a price.  You see, there was a reason Becky O’Shea tossed some luggage in the back of Old Blue, hitched up Gran’s silver camping trailer, and traveled fifteen hundred miles into a part of the country that seemed like a whole other planet -- other than avoiding her next beau handpicked by Uncle George himself.  She was taking Gran home.