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The Prologue, or a Brief Explanation of How I Ended Up Where I Did

If you’ve ever wanted to get out of an awkward circumstance but had no idea how to go about it without incurring an emotional wound or two, welcome to my world. I happen to know how complex it can be, having had not only the bad luck (read ‘poor choice’) to be involved with a commitment-phobic man but also the threat of a full-blown Burnette Family Reunion hanging over my head like a pall. Being the modern young gal that I am, I opted for a commonsense approach: I turned tail and ran.

I’m getting a bit ahead of the story, though, so let’s get the pleasantries out of the way. My name is Augusta Jerusha Burnette. I know, I know: it’s a terribly old-fashioned handle for a woman of my age – I’ll be twenty-five on my next birthday, for the inquisitive minds out there – and I’ve always been a bit peeved at my parents for opting to use my christening as a peace offering to my mother’s Great-Aunt Augusta Saddler and my father’s eldest sister Jerusha. As you might imagine, it really settled nothing because the order of the names became a new source of conflict.

Families. Can’t live with ’em, and can’t … well, I think I’ll leave it at that.

I am from a minuscule town in the northern part of my state (which shall remain anonymous, to protect the innocent and wicked alike) and, aside from the odd family feud or two, have never had too much in the way of turmoil in my life.

Until David Grant waltzed in, that is, casually snapping up my heart and turning my ingrained moral code on its head. In spite of all the admonitions concerning the wicked wiles of men, I still fell head over heels for a man who not only took my affections but also absconded with my trust: the cad was married, or as he so succinctly put it, ‘in a relational flux’. Be that as it may, I still harbored a pathetic bit of hope that he would make his flux permanent in my favor and we would settle down, raise beautiful children, and live happily ever after.

As my best friend, and cousin, Ellie Saddler might say, ‘Double ha.’

In due course, it was David’s continuous spineless attitude toward commitment that sent me packing. The man rented a nice condo and had planted the idea that I might, indeed, be asked to share it. Someday, he had added somewhat vaguely. And then he proceeded to let me know, in a not-so-subtle manner, that ‘someday’ actually meant ‘never’ and that, while he’d love to ‘remain friends’ (cue the nausea), he’d decided that he needed to ‘find’ himself.

This continuing David-shaped instability, and the upcoming Burnette Family Fiasco, as I tend to think of our reunions, added together to inch me ever closer to the edge of self-imposed madness. So when I came across a classified ad for an ‘Assistant to the concierge’ at a beach-side resort clear at the other end of the state, I applied post-hasteand, before I knew it, was wending my way to a summer without commitment-phobic men or family squabbles.

Par for the course, though, I managed to make the proverbial leap from the frying pan and straight into an inferno: the Miramar Resort was keeping a lot of dirty little secrets.