Chances Are by Barbara Bretton Read Free Book Online Page A

Lassiter and our Crystal here with colorful anecdotes for the documentary, but let’s not get carried away. We’re here to toast Maddy’s upcoming wedding and to start making plans.”
    From the looks on her aunts’ faces, you would think her mother had suggested a mass suicide into the salad bar.
    Which, considering the way the day had unfolded so far, just might be an improvement.
     
“TELL ME IT’S over,” Gina said as they exited Bernino’s parking lot two hours later. “Tell me it was all a bad dream.”
    “It’s over,” Maddy said, laughing, “but it wasn’t a bad dream. It was our family.”
    Gina flipped on her directional and turned right at the traffic light. “You mean I’m not going to wake up and find out Harriet Nelson is my birth mother.”
    “Not unless DiFalco was her maiden name.”
    Gina sighed loudly. Her cousin usually had a high tolerance level for family chaos. It must have really been terrible if Gina had noticed it. “They were in rare form today.”
    “And you wonder why I ran away from home after high school.”
    “Hell, no. I wonder why you ever came back.”
    Bless Gina. She always understood.
    “Thanks for drawing some of the fire in there. It’s nice to know somebody else in this family pisses off the aunts,” Maddy said as they waved good-bye to Denise and Rose. “I was beginning to think I had that honor all to myself.”
    “Not as long as I’m still around.”
    Some of the afternoon’s tension finally started to drain away, and Maddy leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “Did you know Rose and I fought in the dressing room after she threw everyone out?”
    “Try telling me something the whole family doesn’t know.”
    “You heard us?”
    “We didn’t have to. The seismic activity was a dead giveaway.”
    “I told her Aidan wanted us to elope.”
    “Get out!”
    “He said we should grab Hannah and Kelly and elope to Vegas.” She started to laugh. “Let Rose throw us a party when we got back and charge it to the PBS crew.”
    “Oh yeah,” said Gina, starting to laugh, too. “I’m sure our Rosie would be up for that.”
    “It’s not like I’m thinking of doing it or anything, but the second she told me to try on that strapless Band-Aid dress, I was looking to pick a fight with her.”
    “Bet you got our Rosie’s blood pumping.” Gina merged onto the highway behind Aunt Lucy’s Buick. “So now what are you going to do?”
    “Run away from home again.”
    “Not an option anymore. You’re here to stay.”
    Maddy feigned a shiver. “A life sentence in Paradise Point.”
    “Within shouting distance of every single DiFalco relative on the planet.”
    “Stop the car,” Maddy said. “I have a sudden urge to play in traffic.”
    Of all the cousins, Gina was the one who understood text and subtext. She always laughed where she was supposed to, but she saw beneath the black humor to the heart of the matter. There was more to Gina than her bawdy persona would lead you to believe. Maddy was one of the few people who was allowed to see the woman behind the laughter.
    “I thought things were getting better for you and Rosie.”
    “They were,” Maddy said, then corrected herself. “They are. We’ve both been trying hard to be more understanding, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit we’ve had some rough spots since Aidan and I got engaged.”
    “I thought she was crazy about him.”
    “She is. I think it’s the wedding that’s making us both crazy.”
    “Maybe not. Maybe it’s the documentary that’s fraying everyone’s nerves. All this looking back isn’t doing any of us any good.”
    Maddy looked closely at her cousin. “I thought you were enjoying the attention.” Gina’s salon stood to receive a fair bit of airtime when the documentary finally ran as part of a feature on the new wave of female entrepreneurs who were reshaping the old shore town.
    “Dig deep enough, and you’re bound to find something someone wanted to