“Anne, is my family abnormally touchy-feely?”

“What?”

“Do you think that my brothers and sisters are too physically affectionate?”

“You make it sound like something bad.”

Meredith combed her teeth over her bottom lip but stopped when she tasted lipstick. “That’s not what I mean.”

Anne cast a sidelong glance at George—her fiancé sat a modest few inches away from her, and though his arm rested along the back of the pew behind Anne, it wasn’t as if he really had his arm around her.

“Yeah,” Anne drawled the syllable out. “You and the rest of your siblings tend to be a little more touchy-feely than what makes some people comfortable. But y’all practically lived on top of each other most of your lives. It was bound to make you extremely close and comfortable with your lack of personal space, or it could have made you hate each other and never want to be near each other once you grew up and left the house.”

“I think it’s why they have no respect for me,” Meredith murmured.

“What do you mean? Of course they respect you.”

Meredith gave her cousin her most exasperated look. “No, they don’t. Everyone takes advantage of me. And it’s because of what you said: no boundaries.” She had to raise her voice slightly as the organist began playing the prelude. “How can my parents take me seriously as an executive in the company when Rafe comes in and tackles me on the sofa in front of them? Or Jenn makes me her alarm clock and chauffeur?”

The organ’s bellowing almost drowned out the end of Meredith’s question. She leaned closer to her cousin. “None of them treat you that way. And when you were in charge, Mom and Dad would never have made decisions affecting our department without discussing it with you first.”

Anne reached over and laid her hands atop Meredith’s balled fists. “I’m sorry you feel that way. Why don’t we plan dinner early this week, and we can talk about it and figure out what you can do.”

Anne’s calm acceptance of what Meredith said reassured her, and Meredith stood to sing the first hymn with a lighter heart.

When the service ended, Meredith lagged behind the rest of her relatives, debating whether or not to skip the weekly gathering of the full extended family. But making the decision to stand up to her parents and siblings and then hiding from them seemed counterintuitive.

Aunt Maggie and Uncle Errol’s house rang with voices when Meredith entered. All of the single and young adult cousins would be out in the sunroom. Meredith detoured into the kitchen where her grandmother, aunts, Anne, and a few older cousins and cousins’ wives put final preparations on dinner. If any of them were surprised by Meredith’s offer to help, they didn’t let on.

Once seated at the enormous table, which fit everyone over college age, Meredith glanced around at her immediate family members with new eyes. Sunday dinner with the entire Guidry clan was a given—just like going to church or going to school when they were growing up. There were a few times Meredith had wished it otherwise: most especially her first few years out of college and in the singles group at church, when every week she turned down the invites to go out to lunch with them. Eventually, the invitations stopped.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d participated in a social activity that didn’t consist of mainly her relatives. Ward’s question Friday rang in her head. Do you ever get away from your family?

“Hey, earth to Meredith.”

She snapped out of her thoughts when Marci poked her shoulder. The men had already cleared the table and disappeared into the kitchen to wash the dishes.

“It’s your turn.” Marci pushed her auburn hair back with her left hand, her engagement ring catching the light.

“My—oh. I had a rather uneventful week after the New Year’s Eve gala was over. Lots of paperwork to do. Nothing exciting.”

“Yeah, except leaving people stranded when they’re counting on you for a ride.” Jenn could pout with the best—worst?—of them.

Meredith tried to laugh it off. “Don’t be so melodramatic. You have a car; you weren’t stranded.”

“The roof leaks—I told you.”

“It isn’t raining—” Frustration bubbled up in Meredith’s chest, but she did her best to squelch it. Arguing with her sister over something so stupid wouldn’t help gain her family’s respect.

She turned to face her grandmother again. “Anyway, nothing too exciting.” Should she tell them about Ward?

Marci’s glittering diamond hinted that Meredith would come across as desperately trying to one-up her younger sister if she blurted out, “I went on my first real date ever.”

Meredith refolded her napkin and set it on the table. “A friend and I went to the Savoy Friday night.”

“The new jazz club?” Across the table, Anne leaned forward, blue eyes dancing. “George and I have been talking about going. How was it?”

Perfect, until Forbes showed up. “Great. Their house band could give anyone in New Orleans a run for their money. I’d never heard of the headline act, but they were great, too.”

“Next time you go, let me know—George and I might tag along with you.”

A double date? Meredith considered the possibility but dismissed it pretty quickly. Until she knew Ward better—and her tummy tingled at the idea—it might be nice to keep at least that small part of her life private. Because once everyone found out about him, they would bombard her with questions and would want her to bring him to Thursday night supper or Sunday dinner so they all could meet him.

Before she could think of an excuse to leave the table, the male members of the family returned, signaling it was time to head home. She’d just started to push her chair back and disappear in the general melee, but the chair bumped into something and wouldn’t budge.

Hands clamped onto her shoulders in a squeeze. She hunched her shoulders and pulled away, slipping sideways from the chair to stand up.

A confused frown formed an upside-down Y between Forbes’s eyebrows. “What’s with you today?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Meredith skirted around her brother and tried to escape. She made it to the quiet of the front foyer before Forbes caught up with her.

“Meredith, stop.”

“Please don’t tell me what to do.” She hooked her arm through her purse straps and dug out her keys.

“I’m not trying to order you around. I just want to find out why you’re mad at the world today.”

She sighed. No one in the family—least of all control-freak Forbes—would easily understand her sudden need for privacy. “Just because I don’t feel like being touched doesn’t mean I’m angry. I simply need my personal space.”

Forbes folded his arms. “Personal space I can understand. But running off this morning after you told Jenn she could ride to church with you?”

“Forbes, she’s thirty-two years old! She’s not a teenager anymore. And she needs to start taking responsibility for her own life and for getting herself the places she needs to go.”

“This doesn’t sound like you, Mere.”

“Well, it is me. Or at least the me I am when I’m not trying to be the person everyone else thinks I should be.”

One of Forbes’s brows arched up. “No one has ever asked you to be something you’re not.”

Meredith matched his crossed-arm stance. “Really? Then why is Mom still mad that I bought a house that needed to be renovated—and that I chose to do it myself?” Moisture burned her eyes, but she blinked it away. “No one in this family really knows me, knows who I am—except Anne—and I’m tired of having to hide behind this veneer of the perfect daughter, the one who never stands up for herself, the one who always defers to someone else’s decision or opinion.” She caught her breath before she hyperventilated. “I’m tired of constantly trying to please everyone else. And I know that sounds selfish, and maybe I am. But that’s what’s ‘up’ with me today.”

Sadness filled her brother’s blue-gray eyes. “I wish you’d said something before you got to the point where this has hurt you so much.” He reached for her, but Meredith stepped back.

The hurt expression that replaced the sadness nearly made Meredith feel guilty. “I’m sorry, but I need space. I need time—time away from being with the family every waking minute—to figure out who I really am, to figure out what it is I truly want out of life.”

Forbes looked as if he wanted to argue, but he restrained himself at great effort. “I understand. And I’ll try to cover for you with the family while you sort things through. But I hope you know that I’m here for you—for the real you—no matter what. You can tell me anything.”

“Thanks.” She smiled, keeping her lips pressed tightly together to keep the bottom one from quivering. Not wanting to leave things between them quite so tense, she cast around for something to lighten the mood.

Of course.

“Oh, and I’d like to also thank you for not saying anything to the family about Friday night. I already know that rumors are going to get around at the office—since he picked me up there and several people saw him.” Including Major, which still wrenched Meredith’s heart. “But I’d rather not have the family know just yet that I went out on a date.”

Forbes tried his best to look offended. “I? You think that I would immediately run off and tell everyone that I caught you out on a date with someone we’ve never met before?” Humor danced around his mouth. “I’ll make you a deal. You tell me all about him, and I’ll keep it to myself until you’re ready for the family to know.”

She sighed and shook her head. Change wasn’t going to come easily. She just hoped she was up for the challenge.