“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.